Catalani - La Wally (Geneva 2014 - Webcast)

Alfredo Catalani - La Wally

Grand Théâtre de Genève, 2014

Evelino Pidò, Cesare Lievi, Ainhoa Arteta, Bálint Szabó, Vitaliy Bilyy, Yonghoon Lee, Ivanna Lesyk-Sadivska, Ahlima Mhamdi, Bruno Balmelli

ARTE Concert - June 2014

Like most of Puccini's Italian contemporaries (Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Zandonai, Alfano), Alfredo Catalani's compositions are now rarely performed and all but forgotten. Some of those composers have at least one well-known work that is occasionally revived and performed, but in Catalani's case, although La Wally has some measure of recognition, it's mainly on account of one famous aria in the opera, "Ebben! Ne andrò lontana". Actual staged performances of the work however are rare indeed.

Maria Callas brought some recognition to the work, or at least its famous aria, but more recently its fame has chiefly been through the use of the aria in Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1981 French cult classic film 'Diva'. Involving the trade of a secret bootleg recording of the aria sung by a temperamental soprano who refuses to allow any recordings of her performances, the film played no small part in giving the aria from La Wally an air of mystique, glamour and prestige (and vice-versa the aria the film). 

The revival of Catalani's La Wally at the Grand Théâtre de Genève for the first time since 1962 doesn't attempt anything as ambitious as linking it with Diva - although the theatre promoted their new production with free screenings of the more recognisable Beineix movie - but settles for a traditional staging that simply gives the audience the rare opportunity of seeing the aria in its original context and evaluating whether the opera has any attraction to a modern audience. It proves to be a fine performance of Catalani's opera, even if it doesn't make a convincing case for the work having any lasting qualities.

While it's a pleasant enough work, skillfully composed and dramatised, the problem with La Wally is that it doesn't have any real distinguishing characteristics. With an Alpine setting, family rivalries and romantic entanglements involving a virginal daughter being forced into an marriage of convenience, the subject of La Wally has much in common with opera semi-seria and bel canto works like Bellini's La Sonnambula, Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix and Halévy's Clari. Catalani may not be a Bellini or a Donizetti, but La Wally does have at least one thing going for it. It has one great aria and unfortunately that is likely to remain the opera's chief claim to fame.

The problem is not so much the plot as what you do with it, and musically, La Wally is not particularly adventurous. The subject of the drama could be adapted more closely towards an Alpine version of passions and family feuds in the verismo style of Catalani's contemporaries, particularly Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana. (There is even a village religious procession written into the work that is tied to La Wally's declarations of purity). There are in any case plenty of conflicting passions to evoke and bring to the surface and, on the face of it, we also have a heroine who is not entirely an innocent but rather a proud and temperamental figure who gives full vent to her passions. There's plenty here for a soprano to get her teeth into, and you can see why a performer like Maria Callas would be attracted to the role.

The cause of all Wally's problems is her secret love for Giuseppe Hagenbach, the son of her father's long-time enemy. Made aware of this by Gellner - observant to Wally's behaviour since he himself in in love with her - her father Stromminger declares that she will marry Gellner forthwith or leave the south Tyrolean village of Hochstoff forever. Wally chooses to leave ("Ebben! Ne andrò lontana"). Her father dies soon after however and Wally inherits the Eagle Tavern. Jealous over the attentions that Giuseppe shows to the barmaid Afra, Wally responds furiously and throws a drink in the girl's face. In revenge Giuseppe bets that he can steal a kiss from Wally and bring her pride down to size.

This is not a big deal, you might think, not anything that you are going to write an opera about, but Wally has just declared how even a kiss would be a defilement of virginal purity. As she is in love with Giuseppe, she's going to find that a hard position to maintain, and the young woman is indeed made a fool of before the whole of the village. The dramatic resolution to the dilemma that has arisen in La Wally at least gives the work another distinctive feature which makes great use of its south Tyrol setting at the same time as it makes it extremely difficult to actually stage effectively. Having rescued Giuseppe from a ravine that he is thrown into by a vengeful Gellner and achieved forgiveness and reconciliation with the man she loves, Wally dies caught up in an avalanche on the mountain.

That's quite a coup de théâtre if you can carry it off. Director Cesare Lievi at least keeps the drama moving well to take us credibly to this point, and Evelino Pidò conducts the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande with loving attention for Catalani's score. Ezio Toffolutti's production design for the Grand Théâtre de Genève's La Wally is however very much a traditional period costume production with painted backdrops, basic props to represent the village and the tavern in Acts I and II, so recreating an avalanche on the stage was always going to be a bit of a challenge. Act III and IV, where the landscape plays a large part in the drama, is a little more abstract, with walls like shards of ice and a projection of a moon-like skull behind the slope that drops into a ravine. The slope is however merely a long white sheet that drags Wally into the hole at the climax, with flowing dry ice spilling over the backdrop behind her.

It's a basic representation of the scene, but it works reasonably well. Principally that's because Catalani scores practically the whole of Act IV as a lament for all Wally's troubles without stretching to bel canto ornamentation, but mainly it's because Spanish soprano Ainhoa Arteta makes this position (a precarious one) feel achingly real. She's not Maria Callas by any means, but it's a challenging role that the success of the opera rests upon, and Arteta carries it through impressively. Act IV also gives Giuseppe the chance to match himself to the soprano in a glorious duet, and it's here that Yonghoon Lee also demonstrates his worth. The other roles are less critical, but are also well performed here with Ivanna Lesyk-Sadivska's pure, clear timbre marking her out in the trouser-role of Wally's only true friend Walter.

Links: ARTE Concert, Grand Théâtre de Genève

Prokofiev – The Love for Three Oranges

Sergei Prokofiev – L’Amour des Trois Oranges

Grand Théâtre de Genève

Benno Besson, Ezio Toffolutti, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Michail Jurowski, Jean Teitgen, Chad Shelton, Katherine Rohrer, Nicolas Testé, Emilio Pons, Heikki Kilpeläinen, Michail Milanov, Jeanne Piland, Clémence Tilguin

Geneva, Switzerland - 23 June 2011

One would imagine that Prokofiev’s 1921 absurdist opera The Love for Three Oranges would be somewhat difficult for anyone more used to a traditional opera format. There are no nice principal characters to sympathise with in their predicaments, there are no memorable arias – even the fact that it deliberately avoids any traditional form is a kind of in-joke dating back to 1761, the original drama by author Carlo Gozzi intentionally avoiding theatrical conventions of the comic and romantic tragedies of the commedia dell’ arte thereby setting himself into opposition against the two major proponents of this form, Pietro Chiari and Carlo Goldini. In reality however, Prokofiev’s opera version is an absolute delight throughout, remaining faithful to the anarchic, nonsensical and childish absurdism of Gozzi’s original, while setting it to some of the most beautiful theatre music that playfully matches the mood and tone of the piece, setting leitmotifs to the characters and themes in a way that adds fluency and consistency to the work as a whole.

In the hands of a sympathetic stage director – and there could hardly be a more appropriate choice for this staging at the Grand Théâtre de Genève than the renowned theatre director Benno Besson, a collaborator and friend of Bertolt Brecht, who has staged several Carlo Gozzi works and is familiar with his themes – this can be wonderful material to play with. Working in collaboration with Ezio Toffolutti, the Geneva production is a wonderful but knowing staging – one that adheres to the original themes and, surprisingly, manages to even illuminate some of their meaning, showing that it is not entirely absurd just for the sake of it. On the face of it however, the story of a hypochondriac Prince, son of the King of Clubs, who strives to overcome his debilitating weakness through laughter, only to be forced on a quest for the love of three oranges, does sound rather silly – and it is entertainingly played in this way, with all the colour, spectacle and well-rehearsed slapstick of a pantomime.

Watching all this nonsense however – presented as it is on a stage within a stage – is an audience from Venice’s La Fenice theatre, supporters of Goldini and Chiari, looking for traditional romance and drama, who interrupt the opera from time to time to clash with proponents of this new absurdist form of drama. It adds another level to the drama and the entertainment, as well as an appropriate sense of theatricality to the proceedings. It’s such turgid traditional drama fed to the Prince as Marcellian verse by Leandro, the Prime Minister, that is partly responsible for his condition, so a heavy does of absurdist nonsense is just the ticket. The planned and rehearsed antics of the jester Truffoldino however fail to rouse so much as a chuckle with the prince (although they do entertain the real audience), and it is only when Leandro’s co-consiprator, the witch Fata Morgana, accidentally falls over on her backside, legs in the air, that the prince gets an unrehearsed eyeful of reality …and, no doubt, a spark of desire. No matter that this desire can only be satisfied, having braved the dreaded ladle of the Cook, by a quest for the love of three oranges, the peeled back skin of oranges clearly indicate the female anatomical parts that are to bring the Prince happiness when he draws Ninette from one of them.

All this absurdity falls into place meaningfully partly due to the wonderful stage direction, but also if it has any coherence and meaning for a modern audience, it’s down to Prokofiev’s playful, richly brilliant scoring. It’s impossible not to be fully drawn into the proceedings with so much to enjoy from moment to moment, particularly since the score was given a superb, vivacious performance the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under the baton of Michail Jurowski. Whether you actually cared for the characters never mattered – they sang no wonderful arias to persuade you of their charm or depth of soul – but the singing and acting here were of a fine standard nonetheless to keep the audience enthralled, entertained and, in this production, educated even in the finer points of mid-eighteenth century Italian theatre.