Johann Strauss - Die Fledermaus
Northern Ireland Opera, 2019
Walter Sutcliffe, Gareth Hancock, Stephan Loges, Ben McAteer, Maria McGrann, May McFettridge, Denis Lakey, John Porter, Alexandra Lubchansky, Dawn Burns, Conor Breen, Mark Pancek,
Grand Opera House, Belfast - 17th September 2019
It was a bit concerning for any opera fan that the last Northern Ireland Opera production was a Stephen Sondheim musical, Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and with advance notice that Belfast's local pantomime dame May McFettridge has been signed up for a role in the Johann Strauss operetta Die Fledermaus, it looked like we'd skipped the opera season and Christmas had come early to the Belfast Grand Opera House this year. Still, the best way to take this this is perhaps not to look at this from a serious operatic viewpoint or as a pantomime either but just as an enjoyable piece of light entertainment, and Walter Sutcliffe's production managed to achieve that. Eventually.
It's easy to be dismissive of musicals and light operetta, but such works bring their own challenges in finding a successful blend of acting and singing, in establishing a comic situation and getting the timing and delivery right. In the hands of specialised practitioners of the opéra-comique, comedy and farce can be hugely entertaining when it is done right on the opera stage. In terms of visual presentation, NI Opera's Die Fledermaus looked the part with Andrea Kaempf's spectacular set designs and superb colourful costumes, but there was a bit of a disconnect between the visuals and the performances that - in the first half at least - failed to engage the audience.
Surprisingly even Strauss's famous overture - jam-packed with the composer's brilliant waltz melodies - failed to raise any applause from the audience, as they looked on baffled wondering what a man in a Batman suit was doing running through a kaleidoscopic visual of art deco city skyscrapers. The man is of course Falke, who has been made the butt of a practical joke, left wandering through the city in a fancy-dress costume, something he isn't ever going to live down until he gets revenge on his friend Eisenstein, but unless you had a programme to read the synopsis, the visuals alone weren't sufficient to let you know the backstory.
The use of a 60s era Adam West Batman costume was a good updating of the Bat costume that gives the opera its title, but it still the overture didn't have the necessary 'Ka-pow!' factor. The English translation maybe could have been looser and wittier, the delivery could have been sharper and it could have had more of a local connection. One reference to the maid Adele's aunt, supposedly at death's door, being seen cycling up the Cave Hill fell a little flat, as it seemed entirely at odds with the high society life of the Eisensteins with their servants and their lavish art deco mansion. I mean, I know the Antrim Road is posh but it's not exactly 19th century Viennese high society.
You can get away with a lot however if you play the comedy to the hilt, particularly when you've got Johann Strauss's melodies behind you and musically Die Fledermaus is a feast that was at least relished by the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Gareth Hancock in the pit. Unfortunately, the Belfast production seemed to lack the confidence and edge to push the boat out and really let it swing, some of the voices weren't always strong enough or had too strong an accent to lift it over the orchestra, and Act I's intermission came around quickly with an indifferent smattering of applause. Still, if we wanted to see things liven up a little more, there was always the promise of May McFettridge in the second half.
As it turned out, May McFettridge's role as the jailer Frosch wasn't really exploited either, but Walter Sutcliffe had a few other surprises that enlivened the second half considerably. We got a drag-queen Prince and his very gender-fluid entourage and servants, the racy exploits of Eisenstein trying to seduce the Hungarian Countess who was actually his wife Rosalinde carried over well, but essentially it was the party scenes - the colour, the costumes, the lighting and the choreography - that established a more unified connection with Strauss's music and its sensibility. It was suddenly much more fun.
And if an entertaining evening was all you were expecting from Die Fledermaus, NI Opera got there in the end. I heard many comments of approval from the audience as I left the theatre, so along with their music-theatre productions at the Lyric, the company are reaching an audience. The failure to produce a single genuine opera this year however is more of a concern for opera goers, and NI Opera could lose out big time to Opera Ireland's much more ambitious progamme south of the border and to the Wexford Festival Opera. Unfortunately, the temporary closure of the Grand Opera House for refurbishment doesn't bode well for next year's programme, but I'm still hoping they might surprise us yet.*
* (Edit: No, looks like I was wrong about that - Kiss Me Kate)
Links: Northern Ireland Opera
Giuseppe Verdi - Rigoletto
Northern Ireland Opera, Belfast - 2018
Gareth Hancock, Walter Sutcliffe, Sebastian Catana, Nadine Koutcher, Davide Giusti, Fleur Barron,
Taras Berezhansky, Simon Thorpe, Ben McAteer, John Porter, David
Robertson, Maria McGrann, Ann Jennings, Rebekah Coffey, Malachy Frame
Grand Opera House - 2 October 2018
How
much a production design or conceptual approach adds to a work like
Verdi's Rigoletto is questionable. Whether it's set as a Las Vegas crime caper, in a circus or in a cardboard box, Verdi is still Verdi,
and the themes of Rigoletto are writ large. In fact, large works well
in all the above cases, playing up to Verdi's thunderous tale of love
and hate, virtue and vice, sacrifice and revenge. There's not a great
deal of room for nuance or subtlety in either the music or the themes,
but it does hit on those extremes of human nature in a way that is
powerful and ever more recognisable in the nature of the world today.
Big
is what we were promised by Walter Sutcliffe in his first full-scale
opera production as the director of Northern Ireland Opera at the Grand
Opera House in Belfast, and big is what we got. The production and
Kaspar Glarner's sets were imported from the National Opera of Chile and
the commencement of their assembly at the docks over a month ago even
made the local press. It certainly proved to be a flexible if somewhat
bulky piece of stage craft, flowing from one scene to the next, rooms
and alcoves appearing and spinning off with members of the cast still on
them as they hit the final notes of their arias. Rigoletto is an opera
of momentum and you want to keep it flowing, and this impressive design
permitted that.
It was however probably a bit surplus to
requirements. I think there were three scene changes in the short
overture alone, and I mean major reconfigurations of high walls,
shifting and interlocking to establish mood and location, from a dark
moonlit alley to the palace of the Duke of Mantua. Act I of Rigoletto
is rarely satisfactory in terms of narrative presentation, it can feel
heavy handed with the rakish Duke and his wild party, threatening any
Counts who oppose his making off with their wives and daughters; the
contrast too pronounced between the court jester's cruel evisceration of
the nobility and the innocent home life he enjoys keeping his own
daughter locked away. His convenient meeting with an assassin in an
alley and his observation about Sparafucile killing with a sword while
he does it with a word also feels contrived.
Contrived is
also an apt description for what follows - all still in Act I - when we
find that Gilda is being pursued by the Duke pretending to be a poor
student, and that Rigoletto's friends/enemies at the court are planning
to abduct the 'woman' the hunchback has hidden away from them. And yet,
already Verdi is establishing connections and contrasts to set up in
opposition and clash in a hugely melodramatic fashion. He's also
capable of putting those sentiments across in an effective way, with
hooks of melody, with opportunities in the vocal writing not just for
the performers to show off, but to express the depth of those feelings,
placing human emotions up against the cruel realities of the world. Act
II and Act III confront that brilliantly.
I say that
Verdi's music lacks nuance and subtlety and that may be true, but
Rigoletto was innovative in many ways in the mid-19th century. It does
dare to go to the darker side of human nature, Verdi does tie the music
more meaningfully to actions and emotions, but he also conjures up
atmospheric effects like the approaching thunderstorm in Act III.
Despite the work also containing some of his most popular and well-known
arias and melodies ('Questa o quella', 'Caro nome', 'Cortigiani'), Verdi also
breaks away from standard number format and presents those opposing
sentiments in a series of duets that propel and drive the work forward,
culminating in Act III's famous quartet.
Somehow however,
while the energy and drive were there, the spark or frisson of danger
that should arise out of it never materialised in the Northern Ireland
Opera/Ópera Nacional de Chile production. It was through no fault of
the Gareth Hancock conducting the Ulster Orchestra, although it did
often seem to have more drive than heart. It certainly was through no
fault of the singing; Sutcliffe promised world-class singers for this
production and, my goodness, he delivered on that. I don't think I've
ever heard a live performance sung as well as this.
Making
his first UK appearance, Sebastian Catana is a true Verdi baritone,
something that is an increasingly rare commodity. The contrast between
his delivery of Rigoletto and Plácido Domingo more recently playing a
baritone in the same role is enormous. Catana's singing had power,
resonance and control, his diction clear, his presence and performance
convincing. We also has a Cardiff Singer of the World in Nadine Koutcher who could stop you in your tracks as Gilda, navigating not just
the difficult and expressive coloratura, but also finding a place where
the innocence of her character could co-exist with her developing sense
of personality and self-realisation. Davide Giusti didn't have quite
the same power of expression behind his voice, but never faltered and
has his own distinctive Italianate style.
As good as all
these performances were, there was still an emotional hollowness to the
characterisation that suggests a lack of any real direction or
interaction. That could be partly due to the set designs not really
allowing the characters to engage with each other. Sparafucile for
example smacks his hand when slapping Maddalena when she pleas for the
life of the handsome Duke, and she flinches from the other side of the
stage. Stylistically there's nothing wrong with touches like that - you
get the idea well enough - but here and elsewhere it just doesn't make
the same visceral connection with the music. Verdi's Rigoletto doesn't
need modernisation or the conceptual approaches of those above mentioned
productions and it doesn't need huge elaborate sets, but it can
sustain them if there's heart and belief in the work. Despite
production values and singing of the highest standards that just didn't
come across in this Northern Ireland Opera production.
Links: Northern Ireland Opera
