Strauss - Salome (Paris, 2022)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Opéra National de Paris, 2022

Simone Young, Lydia Steier, Elza van den Heever, Iain Paterson, John Daszak, Karita Mattila, Tansel Akzeybek, Katharina Magiera, Matthäus Schmidlechner, Éric Huchet, Maciej Kwaśnikowski, Mathias Vidal, Sava Vemić, Luke Stoker, Yiorgo Ioannou, Dominic Barberi, Bastian Thomas Kohl, Alejandro Baliñas Vieites, Marion Grange

Paris Opera Play - 27th October 2022

There's not a lot of point in comparing one production of an opera with another, or indeed weighing one against another. There are always going to be differences of musical interpretation and evidently different people singing are going to make it sound and play out differently from one production to the next. Depending on the numerous factors involved in live performance, even the same production can differ from one revival to the next, even from one night to the next. It all comes down to personal preferences, and opinions will always vary. When you view two productions of Salome side by side however - one of the most intriguing of all opera works - it's hard not to make direct comparisons. As far as the Paris 2022 production stands against the recent Tcherniakov one at Hamburg, all it confirms is that this extraordinary work is infinitely open to radical ideas and interpretations.

When I reviewed the Hamburg production earlier this month, I suggested that if you go back to the original Oscar Wilde play, the pre-eminent theme of the work is how the darkest human lusts and behaviours can be tolerated as long as they are kept hidden and not spoken about in polite society. Wilde was of course satirising Victorian society and the underlying moral corruption more than retelling a biblical story, but you could certainly see an interpretation of hypocrisy in religion as well. That idea was largely adhered to in the Tcherniakov production, which managed to draw on the dark power of the work while remaining largely bloodless in explicitness. Not so much here in director Lydia Steier's production for the Paris Opera.

One other vital element of Salome is that it it was written with the intention of being shocking, provocative and taboo breaking, and the genius of Richard Strauss is such that he was capable of pushing the accepted conventions of musical language to similarly provide shock and outrage. This is the beauty of the work, or the ugly beauty of the work, if you like. Steier's Paris production definitely tends towards the character of the work to shock and thereby reveal more of the hidden nature of mankind's inherent selfishness and cruelty, rather than dress it up in flowery Symbolist poetry. As far as it applies to Salome in this production, she is not actively involved in the orgy of sex and violence at Herod's party but bored with it, which perhaps suggests a deeper pathology, but I'm not sure this production really gets to what it might be. 

Of course if you have shown Herod indulging in such activities, you can hardly expect him to be shocked when his stepdaughter shows the same tendencies pushed in another direction and thinking of it as 'love'. Herod's hedonistic party is viewed in a high room with wide glass window, showing a slow motion wild drunken orgy where cruel lusts and desires are freely indulged in the beating, murdering and mutilating of slaves. Semi-naked men and women prisoners are brought up from the dungeons, their bloody brutalised and mutilated bodies later carried down the stairs by men in bio-hazard suits to be dumped off into a pit at the side of the stage only to be replaced from the dungeons with a continuous supply of victims.

Very much tending towards darkness, the production uses lighting to soften and darken during Salome's poetic eulogising of the wild beauty of the tortured emaciated caged Jokanaan. It explodes into light when he rejects her advances, although here he seems to be leading her on somewhat (or maybe only in her fevered imagination) before delivering his imprecations, leading her to strike him with a cattle prod. What is critical in the depiction of this scene is capturing its extraordinary dynamic, here more so since the singing of Elza van den Heever and Iain Paterson delivers it so well. It's intense and compelling on every level. Every perversion is permitted, even as far as Salome masturbating over the cover of the cistern as Jokanaan is triumphantly lowered to the climatic music that Strauss composed for this scene.

The production manages to introduce a little lightness or further dynamic into the opera with the outrageous appearance and dress of Herod and Herodias. It does this without altering the grotesque overblown quality of the work, and crucially the quality of the singing is maintained. John Daszak's Herod enters with a feathered headdress, wearing a silk cloak over a see-through top. Sporting a blonde mullet, he looks like a New Romantic video star from the 80s. Herodias is similarly attired, with a dress supported by nipple hooks (Karita Mattila wearing a false boob set). There is something of a blend of 'Girls on Film', 'Wild Boys' and 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' about the look only taken to nightmarish lengths, with plenty of Pete Burns-like characters among the party entourage. Mattila plays up to the part of Herodias marvellously, flirting with the guard, both she and Herod making suggestive use of fruit in a way that Barrie Kosky would be proud of, but it fits with the florid metaphors used by Wilde to such great effect.

In terms of performance, this is one of the most impressive and impactful I can remember, but then it needs to be in order to rise to the challenges set by the production design, stage direction and musical direction. Simone Young's conducting of the Paris orchestra in particular is just outstanding here. It helps that the sound quality on the Paris Opera Play platform is so good. Using headphones, you can hear every little detail and sweep of dynamic orchestration. All of the cast have sufficient force matched with lyricism to deliver the decadent phrases of Lachmann's translation of Wilde's play. It feels like this play was written to be performed in the heightened state of opera, as effective here in Strauss's version as in Antoine Mariotte's Salomé using the original French text. As with Maeterlinck and Debussy in Pelléas et Mélisande, there is something about Symbolist works that seems well-suited to lyrical interpretation.

Whether or not you find the look of the production distasteful - it certainly pushes all the buttons to shock - this is a very well-directed Salome. The characters, their qualities, their flaws are all laid out to see and the singers are given space to express it. There is no confusion about what is going on, the focus is maintained where it needs to be in the marking and choreography. Whether Lydia Steier manages to probe any deeper into the dark psychology of the character of Salome could depend more on how the viewer responds to it. Having watched another Salome recently and found new elements to consider, it might not be fresh enough for me personally this time, but the singing is outstanding and under the musical direction of Simone Young this wonder of the opera repertoire remains as impressive as ever.

They key to how you might respond to the work lies, as it often does, in the depiction and outcome of the Dance of the Seven Veils. There is no oriental exoticism here whatsoever, the 'dance' shown for what it really is. Herod strips, sexually abuses and pleasures himself over a disgusted Salome, who nonetheless allows this to be taken to its brutal conclusion before she is subsequently gang-raped by the rest of the guests stirred up by the night's revelry of violence. Salome here is not gorily glorious (except in her own mind) but reduced to something pitiful, crawling across the floor, while Herod's page takes a gun to the whole rotten lot of them. It's all pretty revolting, but undeniably as dark and brutal as any conventionally staged conclusion of this magnificent opera.

External links: Opéra National de Paris, Paris Opera Play

Verdi - Don Carlo (Strasbourg, 2016)

Giuseppe Verdi - Don Carlo

L’Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg - 2016

Daniele Callegari, Robert Carsen, Stephen Milling, Andrea Carè, Tassis Christoyannis, Ante Jerkunica, Elza van den Heever, Elena Zhidkova, Patrick Bolleire, Rocío Perez, Camille Tresmontant

Culturebox - November 2016

There are some dark operas in the Verdi catalogue - Macbeth and I due Forscari are certainly there and Simon Boccanegra is no bundle of laughs - but none of them are as bleak and pitiless as Don Carlo. What makes it so is that each of the characters is offered the opportunity of love and friendship, but either happiness is snatched from them or they consciously spurn it and make other choices that they feel are for a greater good. None of those choices work out well, but the fact that it could have been so different is what gives the opera a darker edge that Verdi fills with music of overwhelming melancholy and regret.

OK, we get that Don Carlo is dark, so perhaps we don't need Robert Carsen to emphasise it so heavily in his production of the 4-Act Italian version at L’Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg. Carsen's idea is to establish the uneasy alliance between the oppressive political regime of Philip II and the merciless persecution of heretics by the Inquisition of the Catholic Church as a kind of death cult alliance. Everyone is dressed in black, wearing dark suits or soutanes, and the set is a black box. Rather more than just visually darkening the work down however, Carsen has a few other ideas and changes that take this a little further.

It's risky to tamper with individual motivations, inner conflicts and the complex inter-relationships in Don Carlo. They already sit on a delicate balance, so you really don't want to be adding additional levels onto them. Verdi's Don Carlo is based on a work by Friedrich Schiller, but Robert Carsen in his Strasbourg production finds a parallel in the work with another of Verdi's favourite writers: Shakespeare, and specifically in Hamlet. In the version without the Fontainebleau scene, Don Carlo opens with the funeral of a king - Carlo's grandfather Charles V - and we see a brooding young man dressed in black with only a skull for company on the stage, reflecting on mortality, as a ghostly voice seemingly from the dead king, calls out a warning to him.

Using Hamlet as a reference, Carsen in this way establishes the tone and the nature of the work as directly and quickly as possible. Without having recourse to the Fontainebleau scene, Carsen's evocation of Hamlet establishes that the primary reason for Carlo's despair is not the death of Charles V, but a more personal conflict and quasi-incestuous sentiments about his father marrying his new 'mother' Elisabeth, the same woman who had previously been promised to him as a bride in the excised Fontainebleau scene. It's an act of a ruler exercising power in the interest of consolidating that power rather than for the sake of the people, and Carlo's response is the only sane one in such a situation; madness. It leads to Philip having to banish Hamlet-Carlo to a foreign land after he takes up arms against him, and even consider whether he might not be justified in killing his own son.

So, all in all, whether you think all the blackness on the stage is necessary, you have to respect that it is justified by the tone of the work itself. And if Hamlet is used as a reference, it is not a framework that can be imposed on top of Don Carlo. The very idea is absurd and surely unsustainable. Rather, Carsen uses Shakespeare's imagery to draw attention to similar themes in Verdi's Don Carlo, taking it away from the historical and even the personal - the Italian version without the Fontainebleau scene facilitates this - and putting the focus instead on the social and political, on questions of state oppression, on religious fanaticism, and the not insignificant application that this has for today.

Verdi, it's true, wasn't a big fan of religious authoritarianism, so the emphasis in the Opéra National du Rhin production of the state being a theocracy that facilitates the will and the violent means of the church is a relevant one, and it's one that Verdi's dark drama is able to sustain. "Death in my hands can reap a harvest", the Grand Inquisitor tells soutane-robed Philip, and together they represent a formidable force of oppression. The crime of the Flemish delegates when they are brought to the court is not insurrection but heresy for not holding to the faith of their Holy Ruler. The auto-da-fe scene, often so difficult to stage convincingly, is effectively handled by Carson. It's the books of the heretics that are burnt in a conflagration, while the black-robed priests execute the hooded kneeling heretics with pistols.

Carsen consequently brings a strong and meaningful focus to the work. It's not only about state oppression but it's also about crushing personal sentiments for the sake of belief in something greater. It's not just Carlo and Philip who have to struggle with the dilemma of killing someone in their own close family. Elisabeth and Carlo's happiness counts for nothing in the greater scheme of things: even Elisabeth believes that her marriage to Philip as the king is more important. Eboli too belatedly recognises the mistakes she makes. There is perhaps only one beacon of light in Don Carlo where integrity remains unsullied by adversity and ambition, and that's Carlo's friendship with Rodrigo. You think so? Think again.

It's one thing to use Shakespeare's Hamlet as a working template to bring out other elements from Don Carlo, but Robert Carsen's biggest intervention is in his manipulation of the ending and its subversion of the friendship between Carlo and Posa. Posa controversially doesn't die here at the end of Act III while visiting Carlo in prison, but his assassination is faked as part of a plot of the church to overthrow Philip and assume total power with Posa as its figurehead. We're not dealing with history here in Carsen's production, and there's precious little historical accuracy in Schiller or Verdi's version anyway, so that matters little. What matters more is finding a way to making the huge flaw of the ending of Verdi's opera work in a more convincing manner, without undermining the essence of the work and the themes it considers.

At the very least Carsen delivers a shock that is greater than the disembodied voice of Charles V bringing about a deus ex machina. Here Carlo looks on aghast as the uprising falters not at the voice of a ghostly monk, but the voice of the Grand Inquisitor - the people bowing before the far more earthly might of the military arm of the church. But what of the inviolable friendship between Carlo and Posa? Well, it wouldn't be the first time that the sincerity of that friendship has been questioned, and indeed the rousing theme of the two men can sound rather hollow and false in the midst of all the through-composed darkness, so all Carsen is doing is taking this further and pushing the tone of the work towards its natural (as opposed to supernatural) conclusion. At the very least, it can't be faulted for shock impact.

Nor can it be really faulted for musical performance. Daniele Callegari strikes a suitable sombre tone that matches the tinta of the score and the minimal bleakness/blackness of the production, but it never pushes it into heavy overstatement. There's a great deal of light and shade in Verdi's score that belies the melodrama of the situations, and Callegari finds that balance well with the orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg. As is often the case with such a challenging work, the principal roles pose a few problems to Stephen Milling's Filippo II, for Andrea Carè's Don Carlo and for Elza van den Heever's Elisabetta di Valois, but they still without question get across the essence of the predicament in those confrontational moments that Verdi brilliantly creates. Tassis Christoyannis is an impressive duplicitous Posa, and Ante Jerkunica an imposing Grand Inquisitor. I was most impressed by Elena Zhidkova's Princess Eboli, who delivers a stunning "O don fatale" and manages to gather more sympathy for her predicament and actions than is more often the case.

Links: L’Opéra National du Rhin, Culturebox

Wagner - Lohengrin (Zurich, 2015 - Zurich)

Richard Wagner - Lohengrin

Opernhaus Zürich, 2015

Simone Young, Andreas Homoki, Christof Fischesser, Klaus Florian Vogt, Elza van den Heever, Martin Gantner, Petra Lang, Michael Kraus, Bastian Thomas Kohl, Iain Milne, Andri Robertsson, Spencer Lang 

Zurich - 4 July 2015

There were many peculiarities with Hans Neuenfels' most recent production of Lohengrin at Bayreuth, setting it in a laboratory where the citizens of Brabant are all rats, but the concept it explored in its society as a laboratory experiment is a relevant one. The Wagnerian ideal of society and the evils within it that must be fought might or might not be entirely out-dated, but they still need to be seen in the context of the times and with a higher view of the human traits they reveal. That is handled in a rather more approachable manner in Andreas Homoki's Zurich production.

The main theme of Lohengrin is of course 'Trust', or 'Belief' or 'Faith'. At the beginning it's principally embodied in Elsa von Brabant, in her belief that her knight in shining armour will rescue her from those accusing her of the murder of her brother, and from the evil ambition of Friedrich von Telramund and Ortrud, who have their own interests at heart more than that of the people of Brabant. Homoki's production includes a screen with two hearts emblazoned with the slogan "Es gibt ein Glück" ("There is a happiness"), the words taken from Elsa's plea to a seemingly repentant Ortrud in Act II, "Lass zu dem Glauben dich bekehren: Es gibt ein Glück, das ohne Reu!" ("Turn then to the belief that there is a happiness without regret!").

Elsa's own faith however is later tested by her protector's demand that she never ask him his name or where he comes from. It's a seemingly odd and arbitrary demand, one that her failure to keep results in dire consequences far beyond what you would expect for such a minor infraction of his rules. The question of Trust however that this represents is about more than trusting the word of your husband. Much as trust is the foundation of a relationship, it is also the foundation of a nation. For Wagner myth is fundamental in cementing the ideals of a nation through a common belief, and that essentially that is really what Lohengrin is about.

What happens when people stop believing in 'the gods', when a nation stops believing in the right and the power of those to govern and rally their people around a common cause? Lohengrin is the first of Wagner's operas to really explore this idea and find a unifying mythology for the German people from the 12th century writings of Wolfram von Eschenbach. The power of myth, trust and belief is there in Der Fliegende Höllander, but in Lohengrin the seeds are sown for that larger tapestry of Wagnerian mythology with references to Parsifal, to Wotan and Freia that would be expanded in the Ring and just about all of the composer's mature works.

The underlying premise of Lohengrin is made clear very early on. The king, Heinrich der Vogler, wants to gather an army to fight the Hungarian rising in the East and is counting on the Duchy of Brabant to join the common cause. What the people of Brabant really need however is someone to rally behind, someone who clearly has God's blessing and can provide the necessary social cohesion. The trial of Elsa von Brabant provides an opportunity to reveal just such an inspirational leader. Lohengrin, although he doesn't reveal his identity, proves to be that man, defeating and exposing the conspiratorial and self-serving ambitions of Friedrich von Telramund.

It's important then, whether it makes sense or not on a modern day level, to establish a sense of a community looking for a Holy cause to rally behind. Like his Der Fliegende Höllander, Andreas Homoki uses a picture ("Es gibt ein Glück") as the embodiment of myth as art (or art as myth). The costume design (Wolfgang Gussmann) is all Bavarian lederhosen and Tyrolean feathered hats, making that decidedly Germanic in nature. Wagner supports it with rousing choruses of nationalistic fervour, but the simple wood panelled stage set that is used throughout the three acts also helps establish a very closed-in community in an almost claustrophobic environment, ready to be manipulated. The use of the stage, the reconfiguration of the tables and chairs to suit the context, and the blocking of the performers and crowds on the stage is superb, moving masses of people around as necessary. Which is, I suppose, essentially what being part of a nation is all about.

If the stage direction provides a strong sense of purpose, the success of the production rested on some outstanding singing performances and, above all, on a most powerful and dynamic musical performance from the Zurich Philharmonic orchestra under Simone Young. Every stirring chorus made its impact, but on the smaller details too Young hit home, emphasising every point that Homoki attempts to bring out in the production, being particularly devastating in the conclusion. In the relatively close confines of the Zurich Opera House, this was all the more effective, the expanded orchestra spilling over into the lower boxes, the detail perhaps not always coming through, but all of its impact definitely there.

Klaus Florian Vogt still has just about the ideal angelic voice for Lohengrin. He was wearing a harness for an injured leg on the night of this performance, but it didn't seem to hinder him in any way. At times, his singing feels a little like he's going through the motions and not entirely involved in the proceedings, but his projection is strong and clear and came over very well. There was fabulous projection also from Christof Fischesser, who stamped his authority on King Heinrich, Elza van den Heever was a fine Elsa and Martin Gantner showed a lot of character as Telramund.

Petra Lang's Ortrud however almost stole the show. The direction here gives her more of an anarchic character that is not entirely unsympathetic. This Ortrud is less of a hissing villain than one who is ideologically inclined towards pulling down the artifices of national brotherhood and the belief that happiness can be found in it for all. It's perhaps not what Wagner intended, but it really opens up the dynamic of the work and Petra Lang ran with it in a performance brimming with passion, vigour and thrilling technique.

Links: Opernhaus Zürich

Donizetti - Maria Stuarda

Gaetano Donizetti - Maria Stuarda

Metropolitan Opera, 2013

Maurizio Benini, David McVicar, Joyce DiDonato, Elza van den Heever, Matthew Polenzani, Joshua Hopkins, Matthew Rose

The Met Live in HD - January 19th 2013

I take it all back. Well, maybe not all of it. Musically and dramatically, I think Anna Bolena - done right - is certainly still the strongest and most convincing work in Donizetti's Tudor trilogy, but David McVicar's new production of Maria Stuarda - the second opera in of the three that he is directing for the Metropolitan Opera following last season's Anna Bolena - has persuaded me that the work is more than just a romantic love-triangle bel canto piece in period costume and a historical setting, and it's more than just an opportunity for a mezzo-soprano/soprano coloratura firework display between the two duelling divas playing the Queens.

The historical relevance of the rivalry between the Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots - the Tudor descendant - and Queen Elizabeth - whose legitimacy is questionable after the execution of her mother Anne Boleyn - is an important one, but their background also determines the character of each of the women to a large extent. This is indeed as much about two women as it is about two Queens, two women who have to live up to the weight and responsibility of history and their position, but they are not precluded from normal human feelings and reactions of pride, love and jealousy.

Based on a drama by Friedrich Schiller, the human drama in Maria Stuarda then hinges on a fictitious and fractious encounter between two women who in reality may have had a tense relationship, but never actually met in real-life. The imagined meeting at Fotheringhay Castle, where Mary Stuart was imprisoned, could realistically have happened - Elizabeth once passing quite close to the place while Mary was there - but although invented, the encounter is nonetheless a valid dramatic device that provides an opportunity and a release and expression of the very real rivalry and conflict that exists between the two women and their Protestant and Catholic followers.

Dramatic licence then and an invented love-triangle situation involving Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, may provide the context for those expressions to be brought together and for the respective personalities of the women - and their enmity for each other - to be aired, but where opera excels is in the emotional heightening of that reality through the music and the singing. It's Donizetti's score - conventional though it is in places - that gives further depth and personality to the characters, and hint at other aspects that lie beyond the remit of history books. Opera is good at this and Donizetti proves to be capable of raising the situation to the necessary heights in Maria Stuarda. The opera however still needs to be convincingly staged and sung, and bel canto opera presents considerable challenges for the director and the cast in that respect.

Working with an unfamiliar style of opera that has those special demands, David McVicar again - as with the earlier Anna Bolena - didn't attempt anything too radical, keeping the work in period and refraining from introducing any concepts that aren't evident in the libretto. This has some disadvantages - the opera, like most bel canto opera, tends to be rather static and devoid of any real action - but McVicar recognises that the strength and the real dramatic content of the work lies in the historical situation and that its import is best brought out by the singing. In fact, Maria Stuarda relies principally on a couple of key pieces - the famous confrontation scene at the end of Act I where the Queens spit insults at each other ('vil bastarda'), and the Act II scenes and arias leading up to Mary's execution. McVicar's handling of these vital scenes was flawless, the staging and lighting having the necessary impact that was almost spine-tingling.

That doesn't come about by chance however, nor does the full impact come across in isolation from the rest of the work. The build-up to the scenes and the character exploration that leads up to them is just as important and that aspect wasn't neglected by McVicar, or by set and costume designer John MacFarlane either. The effort put into this was perhaps most evident in the depiction of Elizabeth, in the choice of costumes and wigs, in the almost masculine swagger and in the actual physical size of Elza ven den Heever dominating over the much smaller Joyce DiDonato, but the little details that show her weaknesses and vulnerabilities also came across in movements and subtle moments of reflection that are tied closely to the music. If the attention given towards ven den Heever's Elizabeth (and her dedication at going so far as to shave off her hair in order to make that famous bewigged look all the more convincing) was more evidently worked upon, the characterisation of Mary by McVicar, and of course by Joyce DiDonato, as one of an intense sincerity of purpose that tips over into barely controlled passion, is just as important to strike the necessary contrast in personality, background and character.

That contrast between the women is of course also explored in the blistering arias and the explosive duet that make the work famous (leading to at least one notorious real-life kicking and punching match between the two original leading ladies in the opposing roles), but in the case of this production, the match is never an equal one - at least in terms of singing. It's not left up to two leading divas of competing equal ability to determine between them who is the most fiery, but it's one predetermined by the casting and the direction choices. There's really no contest or doubt about where the sympathies lie here, and no attempt to strike a balance - although Elizabeth is, as mentioned earlier, strikingly characterised in a way that is wonderfully human and real. Elza ven den Heever plays and sings the part well, but she's no match for the power of Joyce DiDonato's portrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Bel canto leading roles often demand a singer of extraordinary ability, needing technique as well as personality and a necessary degree of acting ability, and DiDonato proved here that she is one of the best mezzo-sopranos in the world in that respect. This was a thoughtful, considered and committed performance, one that demonstrates understanding of her character and finds a manner to express Mary's inner qualities though the weight and timing of delivery, through the coloratura and through the very tone and timbre of the voice itself. If the full impact is felt at the close of the opera - like Anna Bolena ending with another flash of red, but one her that is historically documented as Mary's choice of red martyrdom dress - it's mainly due to DiDonato's ability to make it utterly and chillingly real.

It's evidence, if any further evidence is needed, that such bel canto operas can only work - and have only ever been successfully revived - when there is an artist of sufficient stature, technique and ability to carry them.  DiDonato is clearly up there.  The jewel however requires a setting to allow it to shine, and there were no elements at all here to tarnish the lustre of DiDonato in any way.  Matthew Polenzani's Leicester was adequately sung. It wasn't a role best-suited to Polenzani, and I've seen him perform much better than this - but as it is written, Leicester's part in the love-triangle never seems the most convincing aspect of the work, or the real motivation for the rivalry between the two queens, merely a pretext to draw them together.  Joshua Hopkins as Cecil and Matthew Rose as Talbot also dutifully and more than adequately filled their roles in the drama, but everything that counted in making this production come together depended on Joyce DiDonato, and more than anything else, it was her performance that made this an impressive and even unforgettable Maria Stuarda.