Glanert - Oceane (Berlin, 2019)

Detlev Glanert - Oceane

Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2019

Donald Runnicles, Robert Carsen, Maria Bengtsson, Nikolai Schukoff, Nicole Haslett, Christoph Pohl, Albert Pesendorfer, Stephen Brook, Doris Soffel

Deutsche Oper Berlin - 3rd May 2019

Composed for the bicentenary of the birth of celebrated German poet Theodor Fontane, the intention of composer Detlev Glanert for Oceane would seem to be principally to do justice to the original author's work. That in itself is a challenge however because the opera is based on only a fragment of a novella left by Fontane, Oceane von Parceval written in the 1880s, that was left unfinished. With a sympathetic production by Robert Carsen it has to be said that Glanert largely succeeds in meeting those intentions, but whether the opera seeks to find any wider application or breaks any new ground as far as contemporary opera is concerned, that's not immediately evident.

Whether the fragment is unfinished or only a sketch, the basic underlying plot of Oceane van Parceval is a familiar one and not greatly substantial. It's another telling of the Melusine legend that can be seen in various incarnations in Rusalka, Undine and even the movies Splash and The Little Mermaid. For Fontane the consideration of a child of nature out of step with the ways of the modern world, or indeed the modern world's detachment from its true essential nature, could have been related to political events in the imperfect foundations of the German Empire at the time of its writing (something Wagner might also have had in mind during the writing of the Der Ring des Nibelungen, a feature of the Leipzig Ring Cycle seen around this performance), but the subject is still something that we can surely still relate to today.

With only a fragment to work with, Glanert has little else to go on. As far the story goes, it's set in a seaside town hotel that has seen better days. Madame Louise welcomes her guests for the new summer season with some optimism that a wealthy benefactor might help restore the hotel's fortunes. She's counting on the landowner Martin von Dircksen, but she also has set some hopes on Oceane von Parceval, who is something of an unknown factor.

Oceane's mysterious manner and behaviour also intrigue Martin von Dircksen, the young man so bewitched by this magical creature that he is blind to the scandal she is causing among the guests. It's not just that she dances lasciviously and with no inhibitions, to the horror of the pastor staying at the hotel, but her outbursts and silences are also enigmatic. Most strangely of all, she doesn't seem to react to the discovery of a dead fisherman found on the beach. Martin however is oblivious to her failings to fit in with the expectations of the rest of the world.

It's all very straightforward and there's nothing complicated or surprising about the developments in Oceane when Martin determines that he will marry this strange creature only to find that they are not at all compatible. Glanert makes this incompatibility apparent through conventional musical means, using only high and low notes to express the wild character dynamic of Oceane, while Martin is all middle-register, safe and comfortable, unimaginative and unexciting, with no depth of character. Glanert also looks back at his previous opera Solaris for the otherworldly choruses that open the opera, communicating in a language that is beyond human understanding.

Glanert complicates matters for the listener however by mixing these character details with traditional musical forms, the little band at the hotel playing a series of dances, a polka, a waltz, a galop, which the characters sing over. Mostly however this is confined to Martin's friend, Dr Albert Felgentrau a tutor in science, and Oceane's chaperone Kristina as the two of them also pair up as a couple on the holiday. With a priest, a landowner, a businesswoman and a scientist, all of them contrary to the nature of Oceane, there's a lot of character detail and conflict to take in in the first three scenes.

In the second half of the work however, the opera takes shape and establishes its own character. The flow of the sea and the stirring up of waves in a storm becomes an important musical as well as visual reference for the power of nature and the danger of any attempts to master it, control it, or deny it. Martin's declaration to Oceane on the beach is beautiful, making it all the more tragic that he doesn't understand what he is dealing with and is completely blind to the reality of who Oceane is.

Glanert succeeds very much in fleshing out the characters with this kind of musical detail, and Robert Carsen's simple but elegant black-and-white designs with projections of the sea catch the mood of the piece well, but the period costumes and moral outlook remain confined very much to a specific time and place. If the conclusion builds up forcefully to a dramatic conclusion where society cruelly denounces Oceane, who would seem to have done little to offend anyone by today's standards, it is nonetheless a reflection of a deeper truth, and - even if it's not made explicit - we can recognise how much greater a distance we are from respecting nature today.

The world premiere performances of Oceane at the Deutsche Oper Berlin were conducted by Donald Runnicles, capturing the mood and dynamic arc of the work from conflicting tones of the first half, though the flowing romanticism of the second half to the thundering conclusion. Soprano Maria Bengtsson impressively handled the difficult challenge of expressing the inhuman or uncivilised side of Oceane, but all the roles were exceptionally well taken. Nikolai Schukoff was so good he was surely too sympathetic to be Martin, but there is actually nothing wrong with the landowner other than his shallowness and incompatibility for Oceane.

There were notable performances also from Nicole Haslett as the bubbly Kristina and Christoph Pohl as the serious Albert. Again there was perhaps more character detail than was strictly necessary for the other representatives of society that react against Oceane, but they were well sung by Albert Pesendorfer as the Pastor and Stephen Brook as George, the maitre d'. I'm not sure that Doris Soffel is still up to the demands of Wagner and Strauss, but is still a force to be reckoned with in a role like Madame Louise, and was warmly received by the Berlin audience at the curtain call.

Links: Deutsche Oper Berlin

Strauss - Salome (Amsterdam, 2017)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam - 2017

Daniele Gatti, Ivo Van Hove, Malin Byström, Evgeny Nikitin, Lance Ryan, Doris Soffel, Peter Sonn, Hanna Hipp, James Creswell, Roger Smeets

Culturebox - June 2017

It's isn't often obvious to judge what play or opera you are looking at just from a view of the sets alone in an Ivo van Hove production, but the set for the one-act drama of Salome for the Dutch National Opera is unmistakable. It might not be in the obvious Biblical setting, but the tones, contrasts and the basic functional requirements for Strauss's opera, or indeed Wilde's play, are all there. A large frigid moon hangs over the scene where an elegant room bathed in red light set to the back of the stage, and at the front is terrace like a circus arena with a hole at the centre.

Whether it's modern or Biblical, the hole is always more than just an entrance to the cistern where Jokanaan, John the Baptist is imprisoned in Herod's palace. It's a place where Herod and Heriodas want to hide the witness who speaks out about their decadence. It's also a gaping maw of desire, a dark abyss that exerts an irresistible attraction to their daughter Salome, a young woman who has grown up in this house of corruption. Those undercurrents of forbidden lusts are there in Wilde's original 1891 work, a play that still has the capacity to shock. Salome is a play dealing with a taboo subject whose importance still hasn't been fully acknowledged I feel, darker and more daring than the image of corruption and decadence in 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray', both of which now take a back seat to the image of Oscar Wilde as wit represented more often on stage by his Victorian comedies and social satires.

Richard Strauss however clearly recognised the power of the work and its underlying attack on social conformity when he first saw the controversial play in German translation in its first European performances, the original (in French and in English) having been banned in England. It's an outright attack on the hypocrisy of outward respectability covering over darker impulses, and it chimes with a climate of Viennese turn of the century Freudian analysis and exploration of repressed self-destructive impulses and bloodlust festering under a layer of surface respectability; an impulse that would soon be unleashed in the horrors of the Great War.

It was also a time when music was looking for a new expression or outlet for these new modernist views. Strauss retains the post-Wagnerian lush lyrical romanticism and exoticism that reflects the elegant surface of social respectability, but found an extraordinary new musical language to probe beneath the surface, a darker and more violent edge that lies within its unsettling dissonance, sudden shifts of tone and juddering declines and suspensions. As one of the most daring pieces of music written to that point, changing the face of music for a century, or at least pointing the way towards it, it's not only in Strauss's opera that Wilde's Salome is more frequently presented, but it's in it that it really lives.

A staging of the work then should also be radical and have the capacity to shock, or at least find a way that represents the spirit of the original. On the surface, Ivo van Hove's production isn't the most radical, but in the direction of the performers at least, he does find a way of getting to the heart of what remains compelling and shocking about the work. It need hardly be said that the central tension in the drama is between Salome and Jokanaan. How Herod, Herodias and Narraboth interact with Salome is very much contributory to the direction the work does in and its overall impact, but the focus here is very much on the pivotal confrontation between Salome's worldview and the one that Jokanaan both represents and decries.

Salome is the offspring of this corrupt society that hides its true face. In her generation's twisted view of the world, she wants to bend it to satisfy her own desires and at the same time turn her power towards exposing the true nature of this hypocritical society and completely destroy it. Speaking out against that hypocrisy and indulging those desires. This small incidental drama of a Biblical nature sets out to do achieve nothing less than complete annihilation. As Wilde prophetically recognises the fate that would befall him later, such actions and indulgence comes at a cost and ultimately prove to be self-destructive. Somehow Strauss's music carried the same seed of self-destruction in it, a darker abyss that Strauss would soon turn away from himself.

It's asking a lot of a young singer like Malin Byström, but under Ivo van Hove's direction she largely succeeds. There's a youthful innocence there at first, with a dark dirty desire from an abused corrupted childhood that is straining to get out. Jokanaan provides that foil to set herself against and test where the limits lie. She's not sure at first what she wants, but becomes dangerously capable of pushing taboo boundaries. Rejected by Evgeny Nikitin's solemn restrained Jokanaan, Byström handles Salome's transition over from pleading princess to violent murderous intent brilliantly, but it's also underscored well and delivered with jarring intensity from Daniele Gatti in the DNO orchestra pit. She's a dangerous spark waiting to ignite and Herod and her mother supply all the fuel she needs to set the world on fire.

The mechanics of the stage directions are mostly adhered to in Van Hove's production, but with a few varying points of emphasis. The moon gets larger, Narraboth kills himself in full public view looking down at the abyss, not away in some dark corner. Projections play a role, as they often do in the Belgian director's productions. They come into play mainly during the Dance of the Seven Veils, which is danced by Byström, but enhanced to show her dancing not for Herod but Jokanaan. The prophet's head is not delivered on a silver platter, but Jokanaan himself, covered head to foot in gore in a shallow basin that Salome wallows in. He's not entirely dead either, or perhaps moves only in Salome's head, crawling to an illicit and bloody union. If there's any contemporary commentary in Ivo van Hove's production it eludes me, but as an image of how Wilde and Strauss incautiously explored the direction society was going in, the DNO production is immensely powerful.

Links: DNO, Culturebox

Giordano - Andrea Chénier (Munich, 2017)

Umberto Giordano - Andrea Chénier

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2017

Omer Meir Wellber, Philipp Stölzl, Jonas Kaufmann, Luca Salsi, Anja Harteros, J'Nai Bridges, Doris Soffel, Elena Zilio, Andrea Borghini, Krešimir Stražanac, Christian Rieger, Tim Kuypers, Ulrich Reß, Kevin Conners, Anatoli Sivko, Anatoli Sivko, Kristof Klorek

Staatsoper.TV Live - 18th March 2017

What can a director possibly bring to an opera like Andrea Chénier? Not an awful lot you would think (and David McVicar's recent Royal Opera House production would seem to bear this out) other than making sure that there is fidelity paid to the historical and the personal drama that lies at the heart of it. There's not much room for personal interpretation or modern revisionism in a work that has very specific application to the French Revolution and it shouldn't need any great elaboration or in-depth examination. The situation of three people caught up in its events and trying to follow the path of their hearts provides all the drama and spectacle it needs, with music and arias to match the heightened sentiments. Andrea Chénier is at least always a spectacle and that is a good starting point for Philipp Stölzl's production, but we get much more than that at the Bavarian State Opera.

Regarding himself primarily a filmmaker, even though he has done more notable work in the opera house at Salzburg and the Deutsche Oper, Stölzl's detailed storytelling risks over-complicating a work that is already quite densely and carefully designed. It overlaps and layers contrasting situations of love, revolution and poetry on the same page and at the same level of intensity. A more cautious director might strive for a different balance or a more restrained approach on at least one of those levels, but then it probably wouldn't be entirely Giordano's Andrea Chénier. The work itself, its enduring popularity and continued success stands on its own merits in that respect.

Even then the subject of the opera never seems terribly appealing. The first Act in particular is intense, deeply serious and not a little bleak at the prospect of the social 'reforms' taking place under the law of the Third Estate. It hardly seems like the best place to set a love story, but this is verismo opera and as such it's hard-hitting and unsparing in its approach to the flame of love briefly flaring up in a cold and inhospitable environment. Philipp Stölzl seems intent on making all those layers and complications visible right up there on the stage at all times and almost simultaneously; the servants and common people down below, the aristos above in a huge cross-section of the Château de Coigny.

I recall a similar multi-level approach in Stölzl's Rienzi, but the layering of different lives and underlying realities is also evident in his Parsifal, where the overture played out to a detailed scene of the crucifixion of Christ and the laughter that seals Kundry's fate. It's not a detail that normally needs to be elaborated on in that opera, nor is the backstory described by Gurnemanz usually shown as if there are Stations of the Cross. The director takes such literalism and over-elaboration to new lengths here, but it works. The extraordinary set rolls the building along to reveal new wings, more buildings and more rooms filled with little detailed miniatures that look like scenes from period revolutionary paintings.

The handling of each little scene however is superb, adding to the bigger picture of the opera without diminishing the impact of the main drama. Act II culminates with a superbly choreographed chase through the Paris sewer system where Chénier and Maddalena are pursued by revolutionary soldiers, the intensity of the dramatic staging matched by the delivery of the singing. It does much to enliven the difficult scene-setting first act considerably and set things up for the latter half of the work which provides much more scope to explore the contrasts and contradictions of the revolution, the characters, their beliefs and their personalities.

It's a world of contradictions and Stölzl does well to highlight them. Having Gérard sing of transforming the world and embracing all men with love while we can see Chénier being tortured in a cellar below him is not just a matter of heavy-handed irony, but it actually brings nuance to the contrast between ideals and actions, something that Gérard at this stage probably already recognises. It can certainly come across as heavy-handed when you add a romantic triangle into this, but again, this is another case of ideals not matching actions. The heart is a contradictory thing and love can quickly turn to hate.

For this reason it's also possible to see Gérard as just as important a figure in the opera as Andrea Chénier or Maddalena, or perhaps that is indeed a matter of emphasis and context that can be applied to the opera. Or perhaps it is a side of the opera that can become more meaningful depending on the times we are living in, which proves that Andrea Chénier can be about far more than a tale of the French Revolution, and it doesn't need any modernisation for its more universal meaning to extend beyond the historical events of the past.

The casting in Andrea Chénier can have much to do with where that balance lies and you can hardly say that the Bayerische Staatsoper cut any corners here. Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros are the big attractions and they don't disappoint in either singing or acting performances. It's difficult to pin just how good they are down to one scene, as every moment is entirely in character with few of the traditional operatic mannerisms. It might be better if Kaufmann could hold back a little occasionally, and it might save his voice from further problems, but in the same way as Andrea Chénier wouldn't be Andrea Chénier if it was half-hearted, Kaufmann wouldn't be Kaufmann if he wasn't giving it everything. This is a character that he really believes in however, and you can't fault his commitment, performance or ability.

I haven't always felt that Anja Harteros was right for every role I've seen her in - and Verdi can definitely be a strain on her voice - but there's no question she has the voice for verismo and the acting ability to go with it. Again, it hardly serves to look at any one scene in isolation as this is a performance that grows and develops along with the drama, but you can't ignore her 'La mamma morta' scene. Her reaction to Gérard's advances are superb, the hatred, disgust and disdain mixed with passionate determination is palpable. Stölzl certainly sets up the scene well, not unexpectedly showing the actual dead mother vividly in a movie-like cutaway, but Harteros is more than capable of giving this aria all the poignancy it needs. She even seems to look directly into the camera during the live broadcast and it really feels like one of those 'moments'. She nearly brings the house down.

What most impressed me about the Bayerische Staatsoper's production - and really you have your choice of impressive qualities here - is that not content with having Kaufmann and Harteros, they matched Chénier and Maddalena with an equally impressive Gérard in Luca Salsi. It's by no means a lesser role, and may even be a more complex character than the other two, but giving equal weight to Gérard (in the same way that Stölzl gives equal weight to the smallest detail in each of the scenes) really brings out the true value of the opera. With a Gérard like this you have an impregnable, solid triangle that can support all the tensions of the drama, the politics, the romance and the tragedy.

The Bayerische Staatsoper really are operating at the highest levels of artistry at the moment. Their current live broadcast season at least shows them as one of the best houses in Europe at the moment, and this Andrea Chénier is no exception. It's not a favourite work of mine, but there is no denying its power when it is done well. My only complaint would be that Stölzl's staging is more of a 'big screen' production that would have more impact live than it would on a reduced streamed internet broadcast. I'm sure in the theatre that the orchestral performance would have matched the scale of the production, because it came across clearly even in the live stream. Omer Meir Wellber conducted another powerhouse performance from the Bavarian orchestra that was dynamic, intense and sensitive, faultless in its musical and dramatic pacing, everything flowing towards that devastating conclusion. I'd be reluctant to describe any production as 'definitive' but this is an Andrea Chénier that is as good as it gets.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV

Wagner - Die Walküre (DNO, 2014 - Webcast)

Richard Wagner - Die Walküre (DNO)

Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam - 2014

Hartmut Haenchen, Pierre Audi, Christopher Ventris, Kurt Rydl, Thomas Johannes Mayer, Catherine Naglestad, Catherine Foster, Doris Soffel, Marion Ammann, Martina Prins, Lien Haegeman, Julia Faylenbogen, Elaine McKrill, Wilke te Brummelstroete, Helena Rasker, Cécile van de Sant

The Opera Platform - March 2016

Aside from the merits of the music and the compositional qualities - which since they are among some of the most revolutionary innovations in opera history are not negligible - the modern day relevance of Wagner's cycle of Ring operas as work of literary value and human meaning is rather more debatable. There have been some impressive productions in modern times that have explored Wagner's ideas on mythology for its cultural and national significance and attempted to relate them to wider concerns, but the works seem to resist efforts to impose contemporary meaning and relevance on them.

The real strength of Der Ring des Neibelungen lies, perhaps surprisingly, in its qualities as a human drama. Prevailing thought on the works considers that there is very little human context in its recounting and reworking of the stories of the Gods of Norse mythology, but particularly in Die Walküre (and even in the earlier prologue Das Rheingold), the conflicts between family members and how they look upon other races all have very recognisable human characteristics. At the very least, the treatment of tells us a lot about Richard Wagner's ideas and his own personal views and life.

That doesn't necessarily need to be brought out in a production of the Ring, but it is important to recognise the human characteristics that lie within it, and it's also important to recognise that the work is best served not with a concept, but with adherence to its tremendous dramatic qualities. Based only on a viewing of Die Walküre (which is at least the centrepiece of the whole Ring cycle), Pierre Audi's 1999 production for the Dutch National Opera doesn't appear to be a high-concept one, but its strength is in how it plays to the sheer theatricality of the drama.

There might well be a theme followed through in the subsequent parts of the Ring cycle, but as far as this production of Die Walküre fares on its own merits the work fairly reverberates with dramatic tension in its own conflicts, domestic and celestial alike. The stage for Pierre Audi's production is semi-abstract, consisting of a wooden circle (or ring) with a cutaway section within it to accommodate the orchestra with just enough use of props and objects to cover the various locations used in the opera and retain its more familiar characteristics, such as Nothung and the Valkyrie, in a recognisable form.  The Valkyrie in particular look the part with shiny wings fitted to their arms.

The tilted wooden circular stage gives the performers sufficient room to stride across it dramatically, and stride it they do, without being strident in the singing. That could well have been the case in the second act at least with the casting of Doris Soffel as Fricke, who can sometimes come across as shrill and weak in places, but the emphasis on the dramatic delivery puts paid to that and Soffel also gives one of her better performances here. Striding across the stage with walking sticks with goats heads atop them also gives her the kind of air of menace and authority that Wotan should be unable to stand up against, and that's no mean feat when Wotan is as strong a performer as Thomas Johannes Mayer.

The curved wooden planking in a variety of wood tones that also suggest a less garish version of the rainbow bridge (of more use presumably in Das Rheingold), are also surprisingly versatile when it comes to other key moments in Die Walküre. Streams of fire appear at the appropriate points for Brünnhilde's fate at the end of the work, which when supported by changes in the lighting, prove to be just as effective as required, without going overboard. The consistent minimalist approach suits the purposes of the production and its emphasis on the drama more than the spectacle, but it also allows focus to be placed on that other effective dramatic quality of Die Walküre - the singing.

There's a fine cast capable of achieving that in this 2014 recording of this production, a production that has gone through a number of line-ups and changes in revival since its first performances in 2005. That's immediately apparent from the casting of Christopher Ventris as Siegmund and Catherine Naglestad as Sieglinde in the first act. These are solid performances with the kind of lyrical quality that you want from the brother and sister lovers (Audi detects a Tristan und Isolde moment between them in the sharing of a drink and plays well up on it here). Kurt Rydl plays against them as Hunding, with a little bit of wobble, but still wonderfully sonorous. Catherine Foster is a fine Brünnhilde who holds it together wonderfully through to the finale.

All would be to little avail if the musical performance didn't capture the sense of 'human' drama involved, and wasn't up to the task and fortunately Hartmut Haenchen manages proceedings well. Whether it's anything to do with the orchestra being up there in the stage-pit and more closely connected to the drama I couldn't say, but the reading was measured, sensitive and soulfully Romantic, mindful of the importance of the leitmotifs in this work and giving them almost physical form.

Links: The Opera Platform, Nationale Opera & Ballet

Strauss - Arabella (Bayerische Staatsoper, 2015 - Webcast)

Richard Strauss - Arabella

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2015

Philippe Jordan, Andreas Dresen, Kurt Rydl, Doris Soffel, Anja Harteros, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Thomas J. Mayer, Joseph Kaiser, Dean Power, Steven Humes, Eir Inderhaug, Heike Grötzinger

Staatsoper.tv - 11 July 2015

Despite its evident attractions, Richard Strauss's Arabella has never quite managed to outshine the opera it was meant to replace, Der Rosenkavalier. Or, if not replace, improve upon. As a second bite of the cherry of Viennese and Mozartian nostalgia, Arabella is much too self-conscious about all those references and allusions and a little too calculated, never succeeding in capturing anything like the indefinable magic of the original. Not that Der Rosenkavalier wasn't very calculated in its creation, but somehow it manages to transcend all of its cleverness to become something wonderful and beautiful in its own right.

As is Arabella in its own way, and as such, as the lesser Strauss work that is performed more often, it's always open to new ideas, reinterpretation and re-evaluation. Andreas Dresen's production for the Bayerische Staatsoper sets the work nominally closer to the time it was written, hoping perhaps to gain a little more depth, resonance and relevance from the world that Strauss and Hofmannsthal would have lived in. The 1920s also have an advantage of holding the same kind of fading glamour for a modern audience as the lovely evocation of period Vienna would have had for the composers.

I say nominally 1920s however, as it's a fairly abstract set design with not much that is recognisably realistic. And yet, it does find a way to capture the beautiful sense of melancholy of the period, the sense of uncertainty, the searching for hope and faith in what lies ahead for us all that pervades Arabella and gives it its distinctive and characteristic beauty. Possibly the death of Strauss's great friend and the librettist of the work, Hugo von Hofmannsthal feeds through to Arabella's mood of concern about a world were old certainties can no longer be counted upon. There's room in this respect for Arabella to be more in touch with real sentiments than the farce of Der Rosenkavalier, and some productions of Arabella do indeed manage to elevate the work if still never rival the indefinable and constantly shifting qualities of Der Rosenkavalier.

Mathias Fischer-Dieskau's set designs for Andreas Dresen's production enhance that sense of upheaval and change in the world through Expressionistic influences (also from the '20s), and they are also able to draw on allusions to the Great Depression, which has undoubtedly led to the financial insecurities of Graf Waldner and his family. Quite consciously, Dresen emphasises the 'in-between' places that most of the drama of Arabella takes place in by placing staircases at the centre of the set. I'm sure it's not by coincidence either that Hofmannsthal purposefully chose to set the work almost exclusively in places of transition, and staircases obviously have a very clear symbolism for fortunes that can go both up and down.

It succeeds in creating an environment in which you can feel Arabella's sense of not quite being in one place or another. She's a young woman, still the star of the ball, who could once have expected great things for her life, but now, due to the ruin of her family's fortune, she is forced to having to choose between three Counts, none of whom she is in love with. Then there's Zdenka in the 'in-between' state of a girl who has been forced to dress as a boy since her family cannot afford to marry off two daughters. Even when Mandryka fails to live up to the promise she holds for him, it's just another case of not being quite here nor there. Arabella is a fascinating role in this respect and those qualities are supported well, without overemphasis, by the stage direction, even if the sparse set doesn't really convey the full richness of the character.

It's left to Anja Harteros to convey all the uncertainty, longing and melancholy of Arabella in the singing, as well as the warmth and beauty of her personality as Strauss scored it. In terms of vocal delivery, Harteros can hardly be faulted. She has the full richness of tone and the range to do Strauss well, and it's an expressive voice too. Harteros is not a bad actor either, but I don't think she quite manages to embody the qualities of elegance and warmth of this beautiful, mistreated, forgiving soul as she graciously comes to accept the unfair reality of the world we live in, taking it as it is.

Thomas Johannes Mayer sings Mandryka wonderfully, looks the part and puts personality behind it. Kurt Rydl and Doris Soffel are old hands at the parts of Waldner and Adelaide and both in good voice here. Joseph Kaiser's is also on familiar ground and an assured Matteo, as is Hanna-Elisabeth Müller as Zdenka. Eir Inderhaug is a firecracker of a 20s' cabaret singer Die Fiakermilli. As I witnessed a few years ago in Paris, Philippe Jordan has a real feel for all the moods and complexities of this work, and the Bayerische Staatsorchester delivered a wonderful warm spirited account of the score.

Links: Staatsoper.tv

Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande

Claude Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande

Aalta-Musiktheater, Essen - 2012

Stefan Soltesz, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Jacques Imbrailo, Michaela Selinger, Vincent Le Texier, Doris Soffel, Wolfgang Schöne, Dominik Eberle, Mateusz Kabala

Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray

You don't want too much to be concrete and literal in the strange indefinable world of Allemonde that Debussy and Maeterlinck evoke so enigmatically in Pelléas et Mélisande. It should be semi-abstract, impressionistic and symbolic, light and floating, fleeting and shifting, a sequence of connected scenes where not everything is expressed or understood and nothing quite adds up. Like an iceberg - and this work can often appear cold and remote - there's considerably more to Pelléas et Mélisande than is visible above the surface.

This 2012 Essen production of Debussy's only completed opera is in the hands of a director who works well in this medium of connecting the semi-abstract to an underpinning realism. You can't have the characters float around aimlessly like ciphers (even if Robert Wilson has successfully proved otherwise), but you need to recognise that there are passions here as deep as the wells in Allemonde that the characters keep dropping precious objects into. Nikolaus Lehnhoff is particularly successful here in Pelléas et Mélisande in how he ties that altered state of reality not to the two characters who give the work its name, but to the figure whose nature and actions arguably have a more significant impact on the tone and the direction events take - Golaud.

The establishment of a suitable environment for Allemonde is critical also, and that's central to Lehnhoff's concept. The castle where one never sees the skies, the caverns and the wells all evoke a specific atmosphere of oppressiveness, of stagnancy, age and decay that is often commented on by the characters, and is certainly evoked in Debussy's haunting score. Raimund Bauer's sets bring all this together into a boxed structure that is classical and symmetrical in a way that imposes a sense of order and consistency, but is reconfigured slightly from scene to scene to reveal wells, towers and chinks of light that open and close around the characters. Most significantly, in this respect, there is a diamond-shaped panel of coloured light that changes according to the mood of the scene and the characters within it. The lighting fades enigmatically to blue in the musical interludes between the scenes to great effect.

There's considerable attention paid to those subtle changes and the emotional undercurrents that are expressed in the score. I don't think I've never seen a production of Pelléas et Mélisande that adheres to and matches the moods and rhythms so well. Much of the personalities of the characters in the work however is also conveyed in the very timbre of voice and the expression and weight given to the parlando expression of the singing. Jacques Imbrailo's Pelléas is therefore lyrical but conflicted, driven by strange urges and entranced by Mélisande's hair, passions that the world of Allemonde is unused to. As Mélisande Michaela Selinger personifies this complicated bearer of dangerous beauty, delicate and sensitive, yet confused and exasperated with her condition - the victim (or catalyst) of an unknown trauma in the past doomed to perhaps repeat them.

It's Golaud however and the tormented state of his mind filled with suspicion and fearful of betrayal, who asserts the most influence over how events are seen and is the direct agent of the tragedy that ensues. He's particularly sensitive to disturbances in the world of Allemonde - over-sensitive even. And yet in this production, as directed by Nikolaus Lehnhoff and performed superbly by Vincent Le Texier, you can also sympathise with his Golaud. He is the injured party, he is tormented and to be pitied. I've seen Vincent Le Texier sing this role before, but never so soulfully and never so sensitive to the rhythms of the music that seem to be opening up his soul every time he speaks. He's the dark heart of this Pelléas et Mélisande, the personification of the Allemonde whose sense of order and solidity is broken down by the presence of Mélisande.

There is undoubtedly an element of haunting detachment to Pelléas et Mélisande, but this production still comes across as a little bit cold. There should perhaps be a better balance between the warmth of the score and the singing and the coolness of the production, but that perhaps doesn't work as well on the screen as it might have in the theatre. A gauze screen at the front of the stage softens and diffuses the light, so the clarity you might expect to see in a High-Definition recording is reduced to indistinct softness and haziness. The musical performance under Stefan Soltesz is as beautiful as you would expect, but it doesn't have a fullness of presence in the audio mixes either.

The Blu-ray has optional subtitles in French, German, English, Spanish, Italian and Korean. These can only be selected during play through the remote or the pop-up menu. There are however fixed titles on the screen in English in the musical interludes between scenes that give a synopsis of the next scene like a strange foretelling of events. Other than a couple of trailers there are no extra features on the production, but the director provides some thoughts in the enclosed booklet, and Debussy's own description of how he came to write Pelléas et Mélisande is also included. The disc is all-region.

Wagner - Das Rheingold

Richard Wagner - Das Rheingold

Teatro alla Scala, 2010

Daniel Barenboim, Guy Cassiers, René Pape, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Doris Soffel, Kwang Chulyoun, Timo Riihouen, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Stephan Rügamer, Jan Buchwald, Marco Jentzch, Anna Samuil, Anna Larsson, Aga Mikolaj, Maria Gortsevskaya, Marina Prudenskaya

Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray

The true musical merit and the importance of Das Rheingold is often underestimated or at least overlooked on account of its designation as merely the Prologue to the three parts proper of Wagner's epic Ring saga. For the public certainly it at least sets the tone for the grandeur and the admittedly greater dramatic and musical richness that can be found in the Die Walküre that follows, but I suspect it's treated with no less musical and conceptual rigour by the conductor and the director who embark on any new Ring cycle. Perhaps even more so, since it's important to establish from the outset what distinctive approach is going to be taken, and whether it can settle on the precise balance required that will propel the audience compellingly into this unique musical journey.

The first part of the new Teatro alla Scala Ring, created in 2010, fulfils that remit well, with Daniel Barenboim managing proceedings with precision and drive from the orchestra pit and director Guy Cassiers fulfilling all the requirements to establish a suitable tone that fully supports the work. With the assistance of choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, there may even be something of a distinct vision that offers a sense of the shape the subsequent parts of the tetralogy might take. I don't know what Wagner would have made of ballet being incorporated into Das Rheingold, but the Prologue of the Ring - the ultimate expression of the Gesamtkunstwerk - can use a little bit of extra spectacle and stage innovation to draw out those deeper premonitory resonances within the work.

The combination of the music interacting with the staging is at least superb during the opening scene. In the beginning there is nothing, just darkness, then there's the sense of water and life as the Rhinemaidens drift in an out of the shadows in response to the attentions of the Alberich. The sun eventually rises to bath the stage in shimmering gold at the same time as it dawns on the Niebelung goblin that he has something greater within his grasp more covetable than the three bathing beauties. The resonances of the gold, the power that it confers on the person who wields the ring made from it (the "ring" incidentally a shimmering glove here) and the outcome that it eventually holds for the gods is all there in the music and the force of it comes through in Barenboim's meticulous account of the work and in the performance of Johannes Martin Kränzle as Alberich.

It's also there in the background projections and in the contribution of the dancers in this production. In addition to the fine performance of the work on the surface level of the stage direction and the singing, the greater significance of what is being played out here is projected in abstract shimmering colours, textures and shadows on the background and in the movements of the dancers. On a straightforward level that means that there are giant-sized shadow counterparts for the giants Fasolt and Fafner, while the dancers meld together to form the Tarnhelm and its transformations, but the use of lighting, colours and abstract shimmering projections of water, rocks and gold also manage to convey a brooding mythological quality to the locations with premonitions of the dark consequences to the epic events that are about to unfold.

In Das Rheingold the more active roles in determining the direction of the drama are in the likes of Alberich, Loge and Fasolt, and these are indeed the performances that shine here. I wasn't sure that Johannes Martin Kränzle benevolent slightly comical appearance could carry off Alberich, even with the disturbing disfigurement of a "permanent smile" scar at the edges of his mouth, but he not only sings the role well, he also manages to convey the right impression and tone for each scene, from his achieving enlightenment in his renouncing love for power, through his tyranny over Mime, his pride in his invulnerability, to the agony of his loss of the ring to Wotan and Loge. Stephan Rügamer is a sprightly Loge, clever but cautious, a spring in his step and in his voice. Even though small in stature Kwang Chul Youn is nonetheless impressively capable of sounding much larger as the giant Fasolt. The use of shadowplay helps visualise the size and actions of the giants, but it's all there already in Kwang's performance.

The capabilities of Wotan and Fricke aren't tested here to the same extent that they are in Die Walküre, so both René Pape and Doris Soffel were fine if not quite outstanding in these roles. Pape doesn't always appear to be as comfortable or authoritative in the role of Wotan as he probably ought to be, but how well he eventually manages to fulfils the role and whether that uncertainty is part of his character's make-up should become apparent in the subsequent parts of the Ring. The remaining roles were also adequately performed, Timo Riihouen's Fafner in particular working well with Kwang's Fasolt and Anna Larsson making a suitably dramatic entrance and impact as Erda.

A BD25 disc might seem a little tight to cover an opera that is close to three hours long, but I detected no issues at all with the image or the sound. The transfer is stable and clear, handling dark scenes and all the textures and colouration of the background projections without any shimmer or flickering. The audio tracks are LPCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1. There's no great benefit to the surround mix, which might even be a little bit too echoing even if it is mainly front-speaker based, but the stereo mix is strong, particularly when listened to through headphones. There are no extras on the disc, just an essay in the booklet that seems to have some rather high-flown ideas about the production. Subtitles are in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Korean.

Strauss - Arabella

Richard Strauss - Arabella

Opéra National de Paris, 2012

Philippe Jordan, Marco Arturo Marelli, Kurt Rydl, Doris Soffel, Renée Fleming, Genia Kühmeier, Michael Volle, Joseph Kaiser, Eric Huchet, Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Thomas Dear, Iride Martinez, Irene Friedli 

Opéra Bastille, Paris, 10 July 2012

You might detect a small note of annoyance in the tone of Hugo von Hofmannstahl’s letter of the 22nd December 1927 to Richard Strauss at one review of Der Rosenkavalier which criticised the failure to make the best use of the opera’s strongest character, the Marschallin. It’s tempting to think that, in this letter to Strauss discussing the composition of Arabella, Hoffmanstahl was indeed suggesting revisiting the 18th century world of old Vienna and addressing that criticism as well as improving the overall dramatic structure that was a little wayward in the earlier work. In many ways Arabella is indeed a more “perfect” version of Der Rosenkavalier, but it’s a work nonetheless that few would consider better than the earlier work, magnificent even with all its glorious imperfections. Given a sympathetic production, with the right kind of cast to draw out and linger over its elegance - such as the one assembled here for the Paris Opera - one would however have to seriously consider whether the latter isn’t worthy of comparison to its earlier incarnation.

Returning to the 18th century Viennese operetta setting, Arabella does indeed demonstrate the hand of a more experienced team capable of improving many of the elements that were slightly awkward and much too self-consciously clever in Der Rosenkavalier. The romantic Mozartian intrigue with identity problems and its cross-dressing farce fits better within the tone of the later work, the introduction of waltzes placed more naturalistically within the setting of a balls at a grand hotel. Everything runs smoothly along the narrative line laid out for the drama, with a musical continuity that effortlessly glides one right through the three acts. There’s always the danger of the music being a little too smooth with Strauss in this register, but there is an awareness of the darker side of the Vienna of Maria Theresia beneath the surface glamour.

This is one further significant difference between the conception of the two works. Der Rosenkavalier was composed in 1911 before the Great War, Arabella after it in 1933, and although both seem to wallow in a nostalgia for an idealised past, there are hints in the latter work - with its specific 1866 setting just after the war with Prussia - of a more meaningful reflection on the state of the post-war Austria of Hofmannshahl and Strauss’ time. There’s nothing too dark, just the hint that the world reflected in the monetary ruin and fall from grace of former military officer Count Waldner, is unable to sustain the illusion of living in the past much longer. What is wonderful about the work is how it manages to keep this within the spirit of what is essentially a comic melodrama, where one daughter Arabella will have to be married to a rich man, while the other daughter, Zdenka, must dress and act as a man, since the family cannot afford a marriage for two daughters, and Arabella is the better prospect.

Arabella moreover, despite the apparent light tone of the work, is indeed a more fully rounded human person that the Marschallin - who was more of a concept to embody the passing of time in the more philosophically-leaning Der Rosenkavalier, although fully and poetically developed in that respect - was never allowed to be. Arabella still has all the lush romanticism that Strauss and Hofmannstahl want to capture in this lost Viennese world for a time that, after the Great War, was ever more in need of it. Without denying that times can be difficult, that sacrifices need to be made, the opera offers up the hope that fairytales can happen, that goodness, fidelity and happiness have the chance to exist. With that kind of concept, Arabella can be played as too lushly romantic, too formally classical and over-elaborate in a manner that smothers the delicate balance that the music and the drama treads. Not so in this production at the Opéra Bastille in Paris, one of the final works of the current 2011-12 season.

The staging by Marco Arturo Marelli didn’t appear obviously special, but it worked wonderfully with the intended tone of the work. The whole purpose of Arabella is to create this world of 18th century Vienna in all its glamour - idealised though it may be - so there’s not a lot of point in changing the period or the setting. Marelli’s sets looked like the typical Opéra Bastille production, bright, with coloured lighting, filling the stage and making full use of the height of the stage, yet the luxury, smoothness and cleanness of the designs suited the tone of this particular work. The set was wonderfully designed also to match the flowing nature of the work, slipping elegantly from one scene to the next, although the actual stage direction for the characters within this was a little bit walk-on/walk-off. The cleverest touch was the fall of a blue silken curtain at the end of Act I, which managed to romantically set up the first wordless encounter between Arabella and Mandryka, to be taken up from the same position at the start of Act II.

With Philippe Jordan at the helm, there were some truly astonishing sounds coming out of the orchestra pit from the remarkable Orchestra of the Paris Opera. It seemed directed with a Wagnerian punch and heft that ought to be out of place with this light comic drama, yet it only served to underline the dramatic and romantic tone to its fullest extent. It was the intelligence of the wonderful singing performances however that really carried through the full beauty of the work and the complex depths that are suggested in Hofmannstahl’s libretto and Strauss’ music. Renée Fleming’s silken tones graced Strauss’ music with warmth, glamour and sensitivity, although her performance was certainly enhanced by Jordan’s direction and in her well-matched interaction with the other singers. Alongside Michael Volle, the pairing of Arabella and Mandryka felt every bit as perfect as it should, bringing the full romantic content out of the work, but Kurt Rydl as Waldner and Genia Kühmeier as Zdenka also impressed on every level, contributing to the overall richness of the piece and showing what it can be capable of in the hands of a strong team. It’s a long time since I’ve seen a spontaneous standing ovation for a production as a whole at the Paris Opera, but it was well-merited here.

Strauss - Salome

Richard Strauss - Salome

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, 2011

Stefan Soltesz, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Angela Denoke, Alan Held, Kim Begley, Doris Soffel, Marcel Reijans, Jurgita Adamonyte

Arthaus

It’s somewhat difficult to grasp the nature of the concept behind director Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s 2011 production of Strauss’ Salome or understand quite how it works, but it is delivered so powerfully in this Festspielhaus Baden-Baden staging that it’s not so hard to get a sense that he’s doing something absolutely right. The best thing you can do – and this ought to come naturally anyway if it’s done properly – is just focus on the singing and the music of this extraordinary, ground-breaking work of opera and the rest will fall into place, even if you don’t really understand why. There’s certainly a sense of dislocation then when you initially view this production, which has none of the superficial visual reference points that you would normally associate with its biblical Judean setting, and little even of the stylised imagery of moonlight nights and shadows of death suggested by a text derived from Oscar Wilde’s beautifully decadent overwrought imagery. Yet, as the opera itself takes shape, the surroundings fall into the background and instead simply provide an appropriate environment with space that allows Richard Strauss’ music to take centre stage.

In some respects you can see Lehnhoff’s work here as an extension of his approach to the symphonic tone poems of his Strauss and Wagner productions, most notably in Parsifal and, as a companion piece to this work, his Baden-Baden production of Elektra. Partly, those productions are representative of an interior mindset – particularly the latter – but they also are abstractly expressive of the tones and textures of the music itself and the themes that arise from the subject. The fractured, slightly titled landscape here in Salome suggests a psychological imbalance, while the contrasts that are expressed in the music and the characters are reflected in the textures of the walls and floors of the unconventional stage arrangement, with a dark glossy reflective centre-stage surrounded by crumbling plaster, broken tiles and rotting whitewashed wooden panels.

It’s far from naturalistic, but then there’s nothing naturalistic about the situation or the aggressive music that pushes the boundaries of the tonal system. Strauss’ Salome (drawn from imagery suggested by the paintings of Gustave Moreau and elaborated on by Flaubert, Mallarmé and Wilde) is far from a straightforward biblical tale, but rather an expression of dark sexual pathology, of the fulfilment of dangerous desires, of obsession and lust, a lurid study of the power that those perverse drives confer on both the object and the subject of those desires and how it differentiates men and women. That dark fascination of this Liebestod situation and conflict is there in Strauss’ orchestration, the composer scoring directly in response to the flow and the tone of Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of Wilde’s drama, and the music is accordingly intense, intimate, perverse and disturbing, but with a romantic sweep that captures the grander epic nature of the lurid melodrama.

In his notes for the production – included in the booklet with the DVD/BD – Lehnhoff refers to the idea of the setting as taking place on the edge of a volcano. Whether this is meaningful to the viewer or not, it proves to be an effective analogy that not only suits the music and the drama, but gives it the appropriate space to work within without becoming over-imposing. Initially, the characters and the action take place on the outer rim of the stage, but gradually, as the focus of the drama and the music tightens on the nature of Salome, Jochanaan and Herod, the drama moves to the centre of this cauldron towards the centre piece Dance of the Seven Veils and a conclusion that shocked the censors back in 1905 and which still has a tremendous impact today. The tone of the production is vital to support the impact of these two key scenes, which should be dark, melancholy and perversely sordid as well as erotically suggestive, and that’s certainly the case here. The head of Jochanaan is also, I have to say, one of the most frighteningly realistic I’ve ever seen in a production of Salome. Theatrical prosthetics have come a long way over the years.

The approach to the tone of the drama and the music and how it is reflected is important, but equally as important is how it is interpreted. The cast assembled here for the Baden-Baden production deliver superb performances to match the attentive detail that is brought out of the score by the orchestra under Stefan Soltesz. Angela Denoke plays Salome as if she is in thrall to the bizarre situation and the potential that it suggests, and that suits the production perfectly. There’s a rising intensity in the performance that is in line with the score and she seems to be attuned to the slightest variations of tone within it. Alan Held is a rather more animated Jochanaan than others I have seen, less mystical and more of a firebrand prophet, and that works well with the heightened aggression on display. The singing is extremely good elsewhere, from Kim Begley as Herod and Doris Soffel as Herodias, but Marcel Reijans and Jurgita Adamonyte also make an impression in the smaller parts of Narraboth and the Page.

The Blu-ray from Arthaus is of the usual exceptionally high standards. The image is crystal clear to catch the full lighting, colour and contrasts of the set. The audio tracks are PCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.0, breathtaking in High Definition clarity. This is really an amazing way to view and listen to this extraordinary work. The production, incidentally, is clearly a live performance, but there are no signs of an audience being present at the opening or close of this one-act opera – much like the Lehnhoff sister production of Elektra for Baden-Baden, already available on DVD. There are no extra features, but the booklet contains a good essay on the work, a full synopsis and notes on the production by the director. The disc is BD25, region-free, 1080i full-HD, subtitles are German, English, Italian, French, Spanish and Korean.