Giuseppe Verdi - Otello
Teatro Real, Madrid - 2016
David Alden, Renato Palumbo, Ermonela Jaho, Gemma Coma-Alabert, Gregory Kunde, Alexey Dolgov, Vicenç Esteve, George Petean, Fernando Radó, Isaac Galán
Opera Platform - 27 September 2016
It doesn't matter how good a composer is and how skilled the adaptation, any opera version of a Shakespeare is necessarily going to lack the finesse and poetry of the original. Among some notable attempts however Verdi's Otello is rightly acknowledged to be among the very best, but even Verdi's musical sophistication and Boito's poetic reworking of the plot and its themes can't translate the full measure of Shakespeare's language. Not that it should have to; Verdi's Otello is a masterpiece in its own right. Any performance however - whether this story is told as an opera or as a drama - will only as good as the creative artists and the performers involved.
David Alden's production of Otello in Madrid is one such account of the work that demonstrates the musical and dramatic qualities of Verdi's opera and the challenges that exist in delivering them. Alden even attempts to bring a little bit of poetic flair to the stage and there is enough poetry in Verdi's music for there to be room for expressive gestures. It can be quite difficult however to reconcile all the variations of character between Shakespeare and Verdi without a firm sense of purpose, and almost inevitably Alden's production is a little too uneven in its application and inconsistent in what it is trying to draw out of the characters and the situation.
In terms of paying attention to what Verdi is bringing out in the music however, Alden is almost faultless in setting the tone of each scene. It's all about choosing what to illustrate or emphasise. Act I of Otello is a masterful blend of mood, drama and emotion that very quickly - without even time for a traditional overture - establishes character and the range of human emotions and interests that are to come into violent conflict - love, jealousy, ambition and revenge. What is needed to set them into confrontation is an agent of havoc, willing to exploit the weak and the gullible.
The agent in question of course is Iago, and Alden no less than Verdi or Boito recognise that defining his particular mindset and motivations is vital. Boito of course famously goes further even than Shakespeare with the introduction of Iago's 'Credo' of philosophical nihilism. Whether this approach is valid or not, it does at least represent a setting out of a position and Verdi and Boito follow through on it. Alden is less successful, but then it's by no means easy to unpick or adjust emphasis away from this key tenet of the opera.
As far as Act I goes however, everything works wonderfully in the Madrid production. Renato Palumbo drives Verdi's score marvellously with attention to the emotional detail as well as the overall dramatic force of the work. Alden's introduction of a female dancer to stir up the excitable sailors and choreograph the fight scene with shadow boxing movement does seem a little overplayed, but in many ways it captures the sense of Iago's scheming, plotting and attempting to control violent and unpredictable forces. Or at least that's how I read it, but it's not something that is really followed through in the subsequent Acts and scenes.
The mood however is quite different in the subsequent Acts, and if Alden relies more on the conventional stage and lighting techniques, it at least matches the dramatic action well. Act II is dark and sombre, and Act III with the arrival of the Venetian delegation is unexpectedly funereal, picking up on the dark undertones of the underlying tensions that have been created. It looks fabulous, with the seemingly arbitrary early 20th century period of the costumes that appears to be a favourite of the director, at least looking stylish and elegant. Even though all this and the final Act take place within a single set that looks something like a troops barracks on Cyprus, Alden does enough with the opening and closing of the doors and using light and darkness (Desdemona always bathed in light) to ensure that it's versatile enough for every situation.
The second half of Otello perhaps needs a little more direction than this, certainly in terms of who the characters are and how they react to the escalating tensions. There's more reliance on the performers to get this across and, by and large, the cast give strong individual performances that also complement the musical accompaniment. Conducting the Madrid orchestra, Renato Palumbo directs a performance that is full of sound and fury (to mix Verdi-Shakespearean references), finding the subtle nuance within each character, but also allowing the dramatic force of those emotions to assert their dominance once they have been unleashed into conflict with one another.
Much like Don Carlo, Otello can be a tremendously challenging work for singers, but one which can be highly rewarding when it has capable singers who are able to engage with it. It can also be a work that interestingly demonstrates the respective strengths and weaknesses of a singer's voice, and that's the case with the cast assembled here in Madrid. Gregory Kunde is one of the great dramatic Rossinians, capable even in the more testing arena of grand opera. Verdi is another challenge altogether, but Kunde acquits himself well. His Otello is one who is a victim of his own tormented mind, a warrior at war with himself, and Kunde takes the role with his usual commitment and personality. If certainly tested, it's nonetheless a fine performance.
That is also the case with Ermonela Jaho's Desdemona. The Albanian soprano has shown herself capable of tackling challenging roles like Suor Angelica and even Violetta Valery, and even if this exposes a little weakness in the middle range, it's a fully committed performance that again captures the anguish of an unjustly mistreated woman. Whether there should be more to Desdemona than this however, it didn't entirely come across under Alden's direction. Much hinges on the part that the scheming Iago plays in the opera and George Petean's capable performance exuded more calculating confidence than mindless malice. Alden doesn't seem to permit any over-playing of the role, but if that means that the work loses some of its bite, the tragic outcome is no less effective for it.
Links: Opera Platform, Teatro Real
Giuseppe Verdi - Un ballo in maschera
Bayerische Staatsoper, 2016
Zubin Mehta, Johannes Erath, Piotr Beczala, George Petean, Anja Harteros, Okka von der Damerau, Sofia Fomina, Andrea Borghini, Anatoly Sivko, Scott Conner, Ulrich Reß, Joshua Owen Mills
ARTE Concert - March 2016
Un ballo in maschera sits in that difficult period of Verdi works just after the composer's 'galley years' where the musical writing is more mature in characterisation and experimental in form but still not quite as fully developed as it would be in his late works. The operas of this late-middle period still lean towards bel canto convention in arias, melody and number structure and are often burdened with ludicrous melodramatic plots that sit uncomfortably with the new found sophistication and melodic invention of the musical writing. The relationship or indeed the disparity between the music and the drama can be particularly hard to establish in a production of Un ballo in maschera.
A production that takes the drama at face value and plays it straight with all the period conventions (such as the 2008 Madrid production) does the work no favours at all. Proving that the themes and composition of the work are strong enough however, La Fura dels Baus successfully adapted the opera to a futuristic science-fiction setting where arguably the melodrama sits better. Also recently, the Met in New York have made the case that an elegant middle way between these two extremes that can also be effective, particularly when you have good Verdi singers. The question of appropriate singers in fact might ultimately be the key to making the work dramatically convincing.
The Bayerische Staatsoper's production, directed by Johannes Erath, works the middle path. It finds the same sense of elegance that you can see in the David Alden production; the sophistication of the music is there in Zubin Mehta's conducting of the orchestra; and the singing - with a few worrying exceptions - largely captures the inner emotional tone of the work. The set design and look and feel also suggests a black-and-white Hollywood melodrama - also evident in Alden's production - but there is more of an emphasis here on the air of fatalism that lies at the heart of the work, a sensibility that Verdi's music captures much better than the torrid romantic complications and the overheated political plotting of the assassination.
The emphasis in the Munich production then is largely restricted to the bedroom. A bed remains at the centre of the stage for most of the performance, and there's even another one mirrored on the ceiling high above the stage. Rather than just being merely a suggestion that it is the romantic complications that dominate (the bed tends to be an overused stage prop in this respect), it also strives to evoke that air of fatalism within the work. This is hinted at very early on during the overture which shows a dream-like encounter between Riccardo (in the Boston governor version of the opera) and the fortune-teller Ulrica, that ends with Riccardo sprawled lifeless on the bed. This vision persists when the Earl visits the fortune-teller, having been informed of her impending banishment for witchcraft, but the scene is also present in the final act pinned high above on the ceiling.
Following the internal voice of the opera rather than the plot and locations does manage to rein in the overheated nature of the more familiar plot points, but it risks making not much sense either. There's no gypsy camp or gathering at Ulrica's hut but rather figures - all elegantly attired in formal evening dress - tend to wander into the bedroom and deliver their parts. Strangest of all, Amelia doesn't go outdoors to gather herbs for her potion, but it takes place in her bedroom where her husband Renato doesn't at first recognise her and is then surprised when her identity is revealed (by strange men wandering into the room), yet he's not surprised to find Riccardo there in his bedroom. It's all very strange and dreamlike. You can take for granted too that there are no masks at this "masked ball".
As much of a cliché as it might be, you could see this production as a dream sequence of a revenge fantasy brought out by Renato's suspicions and his playing out of the role assigned to him by the fortune-teller's predictions. Emotionally at least that is pretty much the level the opera operates on anyway, so it's not too much trouble to go with the flow. Visually, the idea of dream logic is also reflected in the impressive reverse mirror-like design of the stage set with its staircase elegantly winding from the room below to the upside-down one above. A Hitchcockian use of doubles comes into play on one or two occasions with Amelia and Riccardo, and even Oscar's true female identity(!) is revealed here, all of it suggesting the perspective of Renato struggling to reconcile questions of identity and personality.
The performances all fit well with this dark vision, but the singing doesn't always meet the requirements. Piotr Beczala at least, looking uncannily and fittingly like Anton Walbrook, gives a good and only occasionally faltering performance as Riccardo. He's proving to be one of the best Verdi tenors out there at the moment, with a distinctive timbre and style of his own. George Petean does well to hold the emotional drama of Renato's key role in this production. Anja Harteros seemed somewhat distracted or absent as Amelia, her singing line wavering and unconvincing, strong on the high notes but weak and unsteady in the lower register. Her performances can be variable, but either this was a particularly bad off-night or the role just isn't entirely right for her.
Zubin Metha's conducting of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester is smooth and elegant without igniting the underlying passions that are there to be exploited. In that respect at least it's in keeping with the overall tone of the production. And, in a way then, the imperfect production is also in keeping with Verdi's flawed opera which doesn't quite have fully-rounded characters who can live up to the overheated plot of suspicion, jealousy and murder that fails to make a whole lot of sense. We're not quite at Otello yet.
Links: ARTE Concert, Bayerische Staatsoper
Giuseppe Verdi - Macbeth (Vienna)
Wiener Staatsoper, 2015
Alain Altinoglu, Christian Räth, George Petean, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Tatiana Serjan, Jorge de Leon, Donna Ellen, Jinxu Xiahou, Jongmin Park
Live at Home - 13 October 2015
A new production of Verdi's Macbeth is always something to look forward to, the work now firmly established in the canon of the composer's most popular works. The opera doesn't have all of the poetry and character of the Shakespeare, but it has much of the drama with the addition of Verdi lending his developing dramatic music skills to a subject of great force, gravity and poignancy - even if it's still not quite Shakespeare. Unfortunately, the new 2015 Vienna production directed by Christian Räth isn't quite Shakespeare either.
There is of course room to place Macbeth in a modern setting, in the theatre as much as in the opera house. The themes of the work are larger than any period historical setting, but the problem is that Christian Räth doesn't really latch on to any of those themes as a means of bringing Shakespeare back into the music-drama. The Vienna Macbeth is unfortunately one of those productions that only makes a token gesture towards modernity, mixing and matching, without committing to any one look or having any new angle to place on the themes.
That means that adhering strictly to instead of a Scottish theme, Macbeth's rule is shown in terms of being a military junta, with generalissimo uniforms that you would find in the South American dictatorships of Galtieri or Pinochet. Lady Macbeth however wears a tartan outfit during the banquet scene, so you get the best of both worlds with some recognition of the nature of Macbeth's regime. That is also reflected in the set designs, the soft lighting of a modern luxury bedroom set in the greater confines of what looks like a huge concrete bunker.
There's a good contrast there that does hint at the nature of Macbeth's fear of the constant threat of being deposed, and the stage design remains consistent with this kind of imagery in the secret police that hunt down Banquo in a political purge. It's all dark and threatening and it looks great - the nightmare vision of the reality effectively spilling over in Macbeth's bedroom visitation of swarms of witches and lines of Macduff's descendants. It illustrates the drama exceptionally well, but it perhaps over-literal (even down to depicting the ghost of Banquo as a shadow), never exploring it for any insights. It's faithful to Verdi at least, if not to Shakespeare.
It's perhaps a bit much to expect the director to bring anything more to the work than Verdi did himself. It's a wonderful score, filled with all the force and darkness of the drama, but it doesn't have the depth of characterisation that Verdi would be able to apply to his later Shakespeare adaptations of Otello and Falstaff. Alain Altinoglu, at least, isn't able to find any wider dynamic or subtlety within the musical arrangements. He certainly directs a punchy performance from the Vienna Orchestra that crashes impressively in the big dramatic moments, but it flows a little too smoothly elsewhere without finding the aching Romanticism that might be a valid approach to Verdi's interpretation of the material.
What makes the production more than just serviceable is - as it often is at the Vienna State Opera - the high standard of the singing. I'm going to go right in there first with the tremendous performance by Tatiana Serjan as Lady Macbeth. Really, the opera just won't work as it should without a singer of huge ability and personality in this role, and Serjan provides plenty of that. It's a fearless performance that attacks the challenges with gusto and plenty of fireworks. George Petean's Macbeth is also good, sung well but without any real distinction in the performance or delivery. Ghostly scene-stealing aside, Banquo is not one of Verdi's major bass roles, but typically Ferruccio Furlanetto sonorous tones bring real personality to the character and sympathy for his fate. With Jorge de Leon proving to be a classic Verdi dramatic tenor as Macduff and great choral work, the Vienna State Opera again remind us where the greatness of Verdi lies, and why Macbeth is one of those operas worth maintaining in the repertoire.
Macbeth was broadcast live from the Vienna State Opera as part of their Live at Home programme. The next broadcasts are ANNA BOLENA on 23 October and DON GIOVANNI on 1 November. Details of how to view these productions live at home can be found in the links below.
Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming programme; Staatsoper Live at Home video
