Giacomo Puccini - Turandot
Teatro Real Madrid, 2018
Robert Wilson, Nicola Luisotti, Iréne Theorin, Raúl Giménez, Andrea Mastroni, Yolanda Auyanet, Gregory Kunde, Joan Martín-Royo, Vicenç Esteve, Juan Antonio Sanabria, Gerardo Bullón
France TV Culturebox
Robert Wilson's very distinctive and largely homogenous approach to set design isn't suited to every opera. Looking right back to Einstein on the Beach in 1976, it's clear that his style tends to work better with abstraction and ritual movements rather than with drama and narrative, but even working with Puccini or Verdi the effect of his unique style can be simply stunning in its use of light and colour and in its sheer visual splendour.
Not relying on any real-world situation but on a fantasy fairy-tale Turandot would seem better suited to the Wilson style, the opening Act alone of Puccini's opera being itself almost an abstract expression of living in fear and terror. In Turandot, Puccini was pushing his craft as a composer, exploring a new progressive direction for Italian opera, an endeavour that was unfortunately cut short with the death of the composer, Turandot itself remaining unfinished, its promise tantaslisingly unfulfilled.
That character is described well in Wilson's direction of that remarkable Act I of Turandot, the familiar luminous gradations of cobalt blue tending to darker shades, towards purple and shadow. The light of the moon casts an eerie light over the executioner and his next victim and over the people of Peking who live in fear of the terrible reign of Princess Turandot. After that build-up, her appearance on the stage is as striking as only Wilson's visual language can achieve, gliding in high above the stage on a platform, imperious, static, a fiery or bloody red against the cool backgrounds.
Wilson's stagecraft then is at once familiar as it is expressive to meet the specific demands of this particular opera. As well as extending the palette of colours considerably, there is also an expansion of the visual language Wilson traditionally employs, using beams of light that mark out the horizontal earthly boundaries of the stage as well as vertical beams that descend from the heavens and have chaotic branch-like formations. Even Turandot arrives floating on a platform bordered with light.
Wilson continues to use a minimum of stage props - almost none - preferring to use moving block of panels to close down or open up the stage to the emotional undercurrents and dramatic actions. Movement too is reduced to minimal actions and ritualised gestures. Like his production of Madama Butterfly, there's no Orientalism other than in the costumes, which have more of a classical ceremonial aspect than anything traditional. Additional expression however is used for characters, an all-gray Calaf sings 'Nessun Dorma' to a network of tangled roots, Turandot characterised by blazing reds and a giant black moon.
Like Nicola Luisotti's musical interpretation, it places emphasis on the moody qualities and character of the work, its sinister oriental refrains adding an edge of discord to the proceedings. And in many ways, Wilson serves the score best by not competing with it or underlining it, reducing any distraction or interpretation and permitting the extraordinary qualities of that powerful music room to be revealed. There are less of the director's usual eccentricities - even Ping, Pang and Pong are rather restrained here - with the strangest twist being Liù's stylised standing death, walking off-stage to the praises of the people of Peking, making it tragic in its own way.
The singing in this Teatro Real production in Madrid is good considering how challenging a work this is for all the main performers, Turandot an opera that requires Italian lyricism with Wagnerian depth and stamina. Gregory Kunde comes out best, unfailing in his efforts and secure in his 'Nessun dorma'. Iréne Theorin's Turandot doesn't have the fullness of voice across the range, but is suitably commanding and impressive in her account. There are good performances also from Yolanda Auyanet's Liù, Andrea Mastroni's Timur and from the opera's Ping, Pang and Pong.
It may not be the greatest performances you've heard of these roles, but opera is not a singing contest and you have to take live dramatic performance into account, particularly when you're dealing with the very specific constraints of a Robert Wilson production. I don't see it as the most insightful interpretation of Turandot either (the completion of the work still never entirely satisfactory), but Wilson's unique vision certainly does justice to Puccini and Alfano's score, as does the full-blooded musical performance under the direction of Nicola Luisotti, creating a unique dialectic with Wilson extraordinary visual imagery.
Links: Teatro Real
Giuseppe Verdi - Il Trovatore
Royal Opera House, 2017
Richard
Farnes, David Bösch, Anita Rachvelishvili, Gregory Kunde, Lianna
Haroutounian, Vitaliy Bilyy, Francesca Chiejina, Samuel Sakker
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
The
principal challenge for a director approaching Il Trovatore must be to
find a way of making its notoriously implausible plot half-way
intelligible and work around its operatic template of mannerisms and
numbers. It's a tall order and the best you can do is just attempt to
tone things down and let Verdi's overheated orchestration provide all
the drama. The other approach is to just let fly, run with it, but you
need exceptional Verdi singers to make that convincing. David Bösch's
production for the Royal Opera House tries to do both, but the focus on
mood doesn't quite make up for the static direction and not all the
singing performances are quite good enough to carry it off either.
There are however some good points to the production and the
performances, certainly enough to ride on Verdi's music and bring this
work to its breathless conclusion.
The set designs for
David Bösch's production settle for the generic modern day setting of a
dark barb-wired landscape of wartime devastation that is now
unfortunately quite common at the Royal Opera House. As far as mood
goes, the dark gothic minimalism works well to downplay some of the more
extravagant drama, which is instead allowed to simmer in the recurring
presence and imagery of fire. A simple gesture in the opening scene for
example, where Ferrando having given his troops and himself the
heebie-jeebies over the curse of the evil wicked witch burnt at the
stake who still haunts the Count di Luna's family, tentatively kicks
over the remnant of the burning camp fire, expecting it looks to find
bone lying there.
There's a similar reliance on mood and
suggestion elsewhere. Azucena's caravan at the gypsy camp is decorated
with macabre looking dolls pinned to its outside, the scene eerily lit
by the orange flames of the camp flickering brazier. In terms of
direction however there's little thought or effort made to make the
characters or the drama feel real of convincing. It's all rather
static, the scenes remain a collection of disconnected dramas with no
flow or follow-through that aren't resolved in any way until the
conclusion. Like the ROH's controversial 2015 Guillaume Tell, it
unimaginatively relies on generic groups of soldiers/thugs threatening captives in bleak war-torn landscapes and subjecting them to brutal beatings, torture and execution.
What
counts here and ultimately determines the nature of the production is
the quality of the Verdian musical and singing performances. In terms
of the musical interpretation, the early indications were that Richard Farnes doesn't seem to have much to offer as far as arrangements and
interpretation, but in reality it seems it's more just an indication
of good pacing. The delivery matches the early setting of mood,
building on the drama, letting Verdi's score for the opera take on its
own momentum, and when those moments of thunderous impact are needed, it
proves to be a full-blooded account.
The singing however
is a mixed bag as far as the division between the male and female roles
goes. Although there are some impressive moments in the performances
of Lianna Haroutounian's Leonora and Vitaliy Bilyy's Conte di Luna, they
aren't totally convincing or always secure in their delivery. Both are
a little static and their characters lack personality and direction - a
fault as much with Verdi and Cammarano's writing as much as the
director's failure to bring them to life. Haroutounian is certainly
capable, her 'Tu vedrai che amore in terra' quite impressive in its own
right, if still not having a good flow or connection to character and
situation.
Anita Rachvelishvili and Gregory Kunde are
much better equipped to handle the technical and dramatic challenges of
Verdi's writing for the voice, and as Azucena and Manrico, their voices
and performances ultimately hold more sway over the outcome and
effectiveness of the production. Rachvelishvili comes out on top,
taking the role of Azucena with relish, matching Verdi's intensity but
not overselling it. Kunde is always a joy to hear, a dramatic rather
than a belcanto Rossinian, and that kind of dramatic lyricism serves him
well for Verdi. He brings real character and personality to Manrico in
his stage presence and singing. When these two are in alignment with
the thunderous performance of the Royal Opera Orchestra under Richard Farnes, it's enough to carry this Il Trovatore over the line. That's no mean feat.
The Opus Arte Blu-ray presents the
recording of the opera on its dark stage very well throughout to such an
extent that you can almost feel the heat of the conflagration in the
closing scene. The High Resolution audio stereo and surround mixes are
superb, giving clear presence to the voices, and if you can listen to it
loud (on headphones maybe) the impact of the Anvil Chorus and the more
thunderous parts of the score is just amazing. The extra features are
not plentiful, just a snappy 3-minute introduction with soundbites from
cast and the creatives and a 3-minute look at the set designs. The
booklet however contains a very interesting essay by Flora Willson on
the history of the writing of the opera and the working relationship
between Verdi and Cammarano revealed in their correspondence.
Links: Royal Opera House
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
Ferruccio Busoni - Doktor Faust
Opernhaus Zürich, 2006
Philippe Jordan, Klaus Michael Gruber, Thomas Hampson, Günther Groissböck, Gregory Kunde, Reinaldo Macias, Sandra Trattnigg, Martin Zysset, Andreas Winkler, Thilo Dahlmann, Matthew Leigh
Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray
The fact that it isn't performed very often might lead one to believe that Busoni's Doktor Faust is not quite as dramatically suited to the stage as other adaptations of Goethe's famous work. In truth, few of those other versions ever amount to either a complete or a coherent account of the Faust legend, more often picking and choosing scenes to musically illustrate it, reducing it down to a series of episodic numbers. That's true for Berlioz's La damnation de Faust, as much as it is for Bioto's Mefistofele and even Gounod's Faust, which may nonetheless be the most successful account of the work for the opera stage.
Grappling with the dramatic construction of the work is probably the greatest challenge and Busoni's opera appears to be much more complete and better structured as an opera than any of the other above named examples. And this is despite the fact the Prologue where Faust enters into his deal with Mephistopheles takes up a full third of the work. At this stage Faust is already considered a heretic and a libertine in his quest to understand men's behaviour and extend the boundaries of human knowledge. Three mystical figures appear however, three students from Cracow who drift unseen past his assistant Wagner, offering him a book and a key that will open the door to the knowledge he seeks, allowing him to call on the assistance of Lucifer and his servants.
This opening scene is an important one to establish the context for what follows and Busoni gives it due attention for its potential for stage spectacle, for the richness of the music that can be applied to it, and for the part it plays in determining how the audience regard Faust's considering a pact with the devil. He doesn't enter into the arrangement lightly (it's nothing something to dabble in, after all), dismissing all the demons who he believes will not be able to help him fulfil his ambitions. He may only be left with Mephistopheles in the end, but he recognises that this servant of Hell who can read the thoughts of men and knows the secret desires in their hearts, offers the best opportunity for the learning the forbidden knowledge he seeks.
Rather than dominating and dictating the whole tone of the work and potentially distorting the message of the legend of Faust, the doctor's misdeeds and misuse of his powers take up only the middle section of the work, but it is so well used. Like the first section, Busoni's orchestration is rich and dynamic, with recitative and declamation mixed with Romantic sensibilities, symphonic interludes and occasional forays to the edges of tonality. Even within these more episodic scenes, Busoni finds a full range of expression that covers the important aspects of Faust's actions.
His seduction of the maiden Gretchen is not as important - debatably - as him being held to account for it by her brother the soldier. His response, leaving the act of disposing of this man to Mephistopheles, in a church and blasphemously disguised as a monk, all add to the accounts in Satan's books, for which Faust will have to settle up later. Likewise, Faust's display of power for the Duke and Duchess of Parma is not just an opportunity to display arcane powers, but a way to probe relevant questions on the nature of beauty, and how to use them to bend the Duchess to his bidding. The consequences of this are even debated by students of Catholic and Protestant doctrine in a scene that further explores the pull of emotions, love and human mortality.
The final third of the work is devoted to Faust's downfall, the knight, the Duchess and a dead baby she has delivered come back to haunt him, but they also present him with a chance at some kind of redemption. Dividing the work almost equally up into Thought-Action-Reflection, the overall impression of Busoni's Faust then is of a work that focuses on the human drives and the price to be paid for them rather than the Romantic centre of Marguerite in Gounod's Faust or the huge battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell that is scaled up in Boito's Mefistofele.
So why then is Busoni's Doktor Faust not better known and given greater credit? Well, like many worthy works from the same period, history hasn't been kind to Busoni's great work. The opera remained incomplete when the composer died in 1924, the work finished by a pupil, Philipp Jarnach, for a first performance in 1925, but it was only in 1982 that the opera was completed from original sketches that the composer left for the remainder of the work. Like many 'lost' or neglected works from the 1920s however, musical fashions changed greatly around this time, and those that fell in-between the two world wars particularly have suffered the most, seeming to become irrelevant and never finding an audience as music went in another direction entirely. Even though Busoni paved the way for this kind of new music and even though Doktor Faust still sounds quite modern, it has never had the opportunity to find the place it deserves in the opera repertoire.
The Zurich production from 2006 goes a long way towards highlighting the musical qualities of the work if it doesn't quite manage to make Doktor Faust come fully to life on the stage. The staging is stylised, semi-modern and part abstract (the 'book' Faust gains forbidden knowledge from not actually a book but a small statue here, for example), but dealing with concepts, ideas and the supernatural, there's no reason why it should be 'realistic'. If anything, there isn't a sufficient sense of the human confrontation with huge concepts like eternity and the damnation of the soul, but this weakness could lie with Busoni as much as with Klaus Michael Gruber's stage production.
The singing at least is strong and impressive in its efforts to bring out and convey this deeper element within the work. Thomas Hampson gives a terrific performance of a conflicted character, the nobility of his aims undermined by ego and human failings. Alternately authoritative of purpose and thoughtful of his actions, Hampson shows Doctor Faust capable of mastery of everything but himself. Gregory Kunde gives us a Mephistopheles that is full of character and mischievousness. It's a wonderfully sung and well characterised performance. Philippe Jordan and the Zurich orchestra manage to bring all the majesty and wonder out of Busoni's score.
Links: Opernhaus Zürich
Giuseppe Verdi - Luisa Miller
Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège, 2014
Massimo Zanetti, Jean-Claude Fall, Patrizia Ciofi, Gregory Kunde, Nicola Alaimo, Bálint Szabó, Luciano Montanaro, Alexise Yerna, Cristina Melis
Culturebox, Medici.tv - 4 December 2014
The subject of Luisa Miller is a typical one for Verdi, almost prototypical in fact in the manner in which Friedrich Schiller's original story has been reduced in scope from a more political and social intrigue down into a domestic drama that best suits Verdi's requirements. Luisa Miller is almost opera semiseria in nature, with its Tyrolean setting and overprotective fathers concerned about the reputations of their daughters, but there's nothing backward looking in Verdi's musical treatment of the subject. It's not perfect, but Luisa Miller is a work that is leading the way towards some of the composer's greatest achievements.
At the heart of Verdi's opera is indeed that familiar configuration of fathers who want the best for their children, and there are two of them here. Miller wants his pure and beautiful daughter Luisa to marry a man worthy of her and hopes she has chosen well in Carlo, but he can't help but worry about the stranger's unknown origins, and wishes she'd marry a stable, ambitious man like the Count's steward Wurm instead. For his part, Count Walter wants his son Rodolfo (who is indeed the same Carlo who is engaged to Luisa) to marry well into wealth and prestige, and has even arranged a suitable match for him with the Duchess Federica.
There's a further dark secret yet to be uncovered of course, but essentially the drama of Luisa Miller centres around this unfortunate complication of romantic interests and family responsibilities. True, everyone is acting out of consideration for what they believe are the best interests for themselves and the ones they love, but it only needs a despicable figure like Wurm (Wurm by name, worm by nature), and of course the aforementioned dark secret, to stir this up into the kind of boiling melodrama that Verdi does so well. Discovering through Wurm that Carlo is really the Count's son, Miller is convinced that he is just a heartless seducer whose intentions can't possibly be honourable. He's obviously familiar with opera semiseria works set in Tyrolean locations (Linda di Chamounix, Clari), where that would usually be the case.
That's still not much of a subject for a composer like Verdi who at this stage was approaching his best mature works in Rigoletto and La Traviata. Luisa Miller in many ways resembles and could almost be seen as a dry run for Rigoletto, where the Duke is indeed a seducer in disguise. The closing scene in particular where Miller regrets his over-protectiveness while holding his dying daughter in his arms has strong echoes with the conclusion of Rigoletto, and to be honest, his setting and scoring for this scene, as well as the dark moments leading up to it, are scarcely any less stirring than Verdi's arrangements for the more famous work.
Verdi's strengths as a composer are already in place on the family and domestic drama, but what works much better here than in some of Verdi's earlier works is how he integrates or makes use of the political side of the drama. The overt political references might have been dropped from Schiller's 'Kabale und Liebe', but with censorship always a problem that Verdi had to work around, the composer was able to cleverly find other ways to put real contemporary social and revolutionary sentiments into his work in a way that sets them apart from the ancient historical subjects of earlier works like Nabucco, Attila and Joan of Arc. In Rodolfo and Luisa's situation there is a struggle against social class prejudices and the injustice of a controlling patriarchy that ends up only causing division and suffering for all. Without needing to make explicit references, Verdi is nonetheless able to convey the full strength of feeling that lies behind these sentiments.
Pouring all those sentiments into a small family drama does admittedly risk turning the work into an overblown melodrama. There's not quite the same scale or sensitivity of handling here in Luisa Miller that you will find in Verdi's mature works and particularly in later ones like Don Carlos and Aida where the characterisation is more nuanced, where the subjects of love, injustice and the abuse of authority are more fully integrated into the whole. Played right however, with an eye towards how Verdi gives voice to those small dramas writ large in the eyes of the people concerned, and bearing in mind where the composer is heading towards, Luisa Miller can be played effectively on the stage. The Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège are traditionally very strong at giving lesser-known and under-appreciated Verdi and Rossini sympathetic productions that play to the strengths in such works, and their Luisa Miller is no exception.
The key to the success of this production is in the casting. There are some notable names in the main roles - Patrizia Ciofi, Gregory Kunde and Nicola Alaimo - but the secondary roles are also marvellously played and sung. While the principals evidently have important parts to play, there's a recognition that some sympathy towards the fathers Count Walter and Miller, and a little understanding of their position, gives the drama a little more conviction. Both fathers are well-meaning, convinced that nothing good will come of their offspring's scorn for their wisdom. This is the conflict that drives Luisa Miller, and it helps if you have singers who can bring that out. You can see that Luciano Montanaro's Count is motivated by love for his son, while Nicola Alaimo's light, lyrical delivery has all the necessary warmth and feeling for his daughter, particularly in the critical closing scene.
Wurm is basically a cartoon villain and doesn't need to have the same consideration applied, but Bálint Szabó's performance is nicely understated and supportive of the overall tone of the production, never letting it slip over into caricature. Again, smaller details count as well for the Duchess and Cristina Melis gives a well-measured performance that makes Federica's transition from seductiveness to the bitterness of a woman scorned seem perfectly natural. And what a great Verdi singer Gregory Kunde proves to be as Rodolfo. It's rare to get the right mix of sheer passion balanced with perfect control of the technical requirements for such a role, but Kunde has all that and the acting ability to bring them together to really make you care about what happens. Ciofi's performance as Luisa is also heartfelt, although as I've found before, her voice is a little too light to carry the lower end weight of such an intensely dramatic role.
Musically, Massimo Zanetti's conducting pitches the work perfectly in terms of its dramatic and its emotional content. Every scene carries the necessary impact. Jean-Claude Fall's stage direction and the sets emphasise the divisions well, the bright open blue skies and Tyrolean woodland exteriors contrasted with the dark rooms of the Count's mansion (a hydraulic system very smoothly and cleverly flipping over from one scene to the next). There's no big concept here, the period aiming for modern without stretching beyond the requirements of the libretto. Guns are used instead of swords, but this doesn't present much of an issue, and with pistols brandished in those dark interiors, it even gives a tense Godfather-like feel to the work which is not out of place. It also helps deliver a powerful conclusion which recognises the importance of Verdi ending on a note of high drama.
Links: Culturebox, Medici.tv, Opéra Royal de Wallonie
Giacomo Meyerbeer - L'Africaine
Teatro La Fenice, Venice - 2013
Emmanuel Villaume, Leo Muscato, Jessica Pratt, Veronica Simeoni, Gregory Kunde, Emanuele Giannino, Angelo Veccia, Luca dall’Amico, Davide Ruberti, Mattia Denti, Ruben Amoretti, Anna Bordignon
Medici Live Internet Streaming - November 2013
Just when it looked like no-one had the resources, the singers or the sheer nerve to take on another grand Meyerbeer opera and succeed in putting it across with any measure of success, along come La Fenice with L'Africaine. First performed posthumously in 1865, a year after Meyerbeer's death, La Fenice selected L'Africaine to mark that 150th anniversary, and it proves to be a good choice. Meyerbeer's final opera is a fascinating work that is not quite as richly elaborate in melodies and set-pieces as some of his more famous grand operas (Les Huguenots, Robert le Diable), but it retains the glamour in a number of key scenes even as it shows some influence of a more modern style elsewhere. By and large, with only some minor reservations, La Fenice mirror that approach in their new production and in the process prove that a Meyerbeer opera can still work on the modern stage on its own terms.
Although it has a title that makes little sense to anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of geography - the African woman of the title actually comes from India or from an Indian island - the chief attraction of L'Africaine for audiences of the day was the foreign exoticism of its setting. For modern audiences, if the work is known at all, it's for how Meyerbeer expresses that exoticism in the opera's most famous aria, 'O Paradis', sung by Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama on his arrival at the New World of his dreams. That revelation in Act IV doesn't come as easily as it seems and there are various trials and tribulations in the first three acts that make it all worthwhile, if not unexpectedly somewhat conventionally drawn out.
Inevitably this is mainly to incorporate romantic complications. Although she has been engaged to marry Don Pédro, Inès is in love with Vasco de Gama. Awaiting his return from sea, the news arrives that her beloved has died in a shipwreck, but this proves untrue. Vasco de Gama is actually the sole survivor of the crew, and has brought news of a new world out there somewhere. If given a ship, he promises the council an empire, "new climates, rich treasures, prosperity". As proof that this new land exists, he shows the council two examples of an unknown race of copper-skinned people, Sélika and Nélusko, who have been bought as slaves in Africa. As there is nothing written of such a land and the slaves refuse to divulge where their land lies, the council reject Vasco's claims and he is rather harshly anathemised and thrown into prison.
Languishing in his cell, poor Vasco de Gama also has woman trouble to contend with. Unknown to him, Sélika, who is actually the Queen of her island kingdom, is in love with the Portuguese sailor and furious when he mentions the name Inès in his sleep. For her part, Inès is jealous of the beautiful woman that de Gama has brought back with him, even though he denies that there could possibly be anything between them and even offers her Sélika and Nélusko as slaves. That obviously doesn't go down well with Sélika either. Of more pressing concern however is rescuing her beloved from prison, and the only way Inès can do that is by agreeing to marry Don Pédro.
Strange as it might seem since they rejected Vasco de Gama's claims, the ruling council have decided to let Don Pédro lead an expedition instead. Even stranger, the released Vasco de Gama has managed to get a ship, follows them and boards Don Pédro's ship only for it to be attacked by Indian pirates, the ship burnt and all the crew killed. The only survivors are Inès, her maid and Vasco de Gama, who has been found in chains in the depths of the captured ship. A prisoner still, Vasco de Gama is nonetheless enraptured with the discovery of the land of his dreams. His delight is short-lived however, as the Brahman priest commands that a foreigner cannot be allowed to live. Now crowned Queen again, Sélika, much to Nélusko's anger, saves him by claiming that she and the explorer are married. Discovering for the first time that she loves him de Gama rejoices in their union, but only until he discovers that his beloved Inès is not dead. Rejected again, Sélika inhales the poison of the Manchineel tree and is joined in death by her ever faithful Nélusko.
Already ahead of the fashionable French love for exoticism that would be expressed later in Delibes' similarly themed Lakmé, (although it can even be seen as far back as Rameau's Les Indes Galantes), Meyerbeer's L'Africaine revels in the colour, the richness of melody and the drama suggested by the romance and the danger of the Asian setting. Surprisingly however, although it is a 5-Act grand opera, there is little of the extravagance of melody, airs and ballets in set-piece numbers that usually characterise the genre of which Meyerbeer was the master. All those elements are in place of course but to a lesser degree here, with only one Grand Air, a short ballet in Act IV and a couple of set-piece spectacles - one of the boarding of the ship and the other of splendour of the New World paradise. Showing perhaps some Wagnerian or Germanic influence, there is more through composition in this Meyerbeer work, less stop-starting for arias, and some cutting back on repetition.
Emmanuel Villaume presents a thoughtful account of the score here with the orchestra of La Fenice. Running to three-and-a-quarter hours there are evidently trims applied, but as they are mostly towards the end of the work they seem to be made out of consideration for the performers rather than really moving the drama forward. There's nothing substantial missing from the first three acts. The first ensemble of Act II is cut, but the all-important closing ensemble is there. Act III opens with the sailor's prayer, but that seems more logical than opening the act at sea with a female chorus. There are a greater number of the small trims in Act IV and there's a major cut in the removal of the confrontation between Inès and Sélika at the start of Act V, but in both cases it tightens the focus of the drama on the highlights of these acts.
Leo Muscato's stage direction and basic period setting strips the presentation for La Fenice back even further in a way that emphasises the dramatic element of the work without necessarily losing any of its musical colour. Those key scenes could certainly be a little more colourfully decorated - the New World Paradise shown for example as merely warm diffused light and some lightly floating blossom leaves, but reducing the excess works well enough in this case when you have the aria 'Pays merveilleux... O Paradis' to say all that needs to be said, particularly when it's given a fine rendition, as it is here by Gregory Kunde singing Vasco de Gama.
It's in this kind of casting then that La Fenice truly proves that it is possible to successfully stage a Meyerbeer opera. Clearly, despite weaknesses seen in this area in other productions, there actually are good Meyerbeer singers out there, and their lineage would seem to come from the more heavy dramatic Rossini operas. Gregory Kunde is certainly one of them. He handles the principal tenor role marvellously, with a strong, confident delivery and he has the stamina to maintain it right through to his Act IV Grand Aria. He makes his exit at this stage, but Sélika has to carry right through all five Acts while keeping enough in reserve to almost single-handedly deliver the whole of Act V, and Veronica Simeoni keeps the dramatic intensity there throughout. She seems to flag slightly with some pitch inconsistency at the start of Act IV, but only briefly, rallying through to a beautiful duet with Kunde and managing to bring about that essential conclusion with all the necessary feeling and impact.
The challenges of having the right type of voice to sing Meyerbeer are evident in the casting of Jessica Pratt for Inès. Pratt is a coloratura singer of immense range and ability, well-suited and even greatly impressive in those intense Rossini bel canto roles, but the dramatic force of Inès is a different challenge altogether. It's a relatively small role, cut back even further here, but the strain shows on the Australian soprano. She plays the part with considerable personality however and comes into the role well after a slightly shaky opening. The baritone roles of Nélusko and Don Pédro are handed well by Angelo Veccia and Luca dall’Amico.
La Fenice's 2013 production of Meyerbeer's L'Africaine can be viewed free for a limited period via internet streaming on the Medici web site. The work is performed in the original French without subtitles.
Gioachino Rossini - Zelmira
Rossini Opera Festival, Pesaro, 2009
Roberto Abbado, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Alex Esposito, Kate Aldrich, Juan Diego Flórez, Gregory Kunde, Marianna Pizzolato, Mirco Palazzi, Francisco Brito, Sávio Sperandio
Decca
Rossini's final opera written for Naples, Zelmira, is rather less well-known now than the greater works written for Paris that immediately follow it - Moïse et Pharaon, Le Comte Ory, Guillaume Tell. It's an opera that places exceptional demands on the singers, but perhaps no more so than those later works, so that only accounts for part of the reason why it so rarely performed. Produced for the Rossini Opera Festival in 2009, the problems with staging Zelmira would seem to derive from the nature of the work itself as an opera seria. It's a long work that follows the format of set scenes and emotions that presents challenges that even the musical invention of Rossini or strong singing performances alone can't overcome. It needs to work dramatically, and unfortunately, Giorgio Barberio Corsetti's messy and confused production for Pesaro doesn't do much to help it.
Although there are claims by Roberto Abbado and the Pesaro Festival organisers that Rossini's music here extends the constraints of opera seria, the structure remains largely intact, and Rossini in reality does little more than play around to bring the form of the da capo aria into what we associate today with bel canto ornamentation. There are some terrific arias and arrangements here in Zelmira, but there is nothing that Rossini hasn't already taken much further and with better dramatic integrity in earlier work for Naples like La Donna del Lago. The music for Zelmira for the most part - in between the showpiece arias - remains fairly rigid and lacking in variation, building from a canter to a gallop in that famous Rossinian style to create a rising emotional intensity, but its peaks are ill-served and ill-matched to an unexciting plot.
The main problem lies with the fact that the overall structure of the piece is weighed down by the unwieldy conventions of the opera seria form. The plot of Zelmira is mechanical and improbable, relying on standard situations, coincidences and actions that arise from rather one-dimensional character development. In the tradition of Baroque opera, the main dramatic drivers of the action have already taken place even before the opera even starts. Set on the isle of Lesbos, a struggle for power has erupted while Ilo, the husband of Zelmira, has gone to defend the homeland. Azor, the Lord of Mytilene, has launched an attack, burning down the temple of Ceres, where Azor has been led to believe - on the word of Zelmira - that her father, King Polidoro is hiding. Zelmira however has secured her father secretly in the royal mausoleum. Antenore takes advantage of the situation, killing Azor, laying claim to the throne himself and he accuses Zelmira of being complicit in the death of Azor and her father, the king, as well.
Now there are plenty of opportunities for Zelmira to prove her innocence during Act 1 of the actual opera, but Rossini forgoes any realistic dramatic progression to the conventions of opera seria where everyone laments the current state of affairs in arias adorned with repetition and ornamentation. The troops lament the death of Azor, Polidoro is distraught and broken alone in his hiding place, while Zelmira's protests of innocence fall on deaf ears. Amazingly, there seem to be no witnesses among the public or the troops to back up her claims, and even faced with imprisonment, Zelmira doesn't seem to be in any hurry to reveal that the king is not actually dead. She is at least able to eventually convince her confidante Emma to take her young son into hiding.
Even when her husband Ilo returns to his homeland (delivering one of Rossini's great arias - 'Terra Amica'), Zelmira's actions only seem to dig her in deeper and it's Antenore and his lieutenant Leucippo's account that Ilo is told. In one of those improbable situations that only occur in opera then, Zelmira - attempting to rescue Ilo from assassination by Leucippo, ends up with the dagger in her own hand and has another crime to answer for. Inevitably, it's going to take a few more rounds of arias to assimilate the enormity of this new heinous act and the kind of conflicted emotions it engenders in each of characters, before Zelmira eventually produces Polidoro and her son, and the villains are found out.
Ostensibly then Zelmira is very much in the tradition of the opera seria, dealing with rulers, power, corruption and lies, but in reality, as the title of the opera derived from the name of the heroine suggests, it's more about the heroine, Zelmira. Faced with injustice, false accusations, her innocence and integrity called unjustly into question, Zelmira is very much the early prototype for the bel canto heroines of Donizetti and Bellini. As such, and particularly in how it holds closely to the opera seria style and stretching as it does to three and a quarter hours in length, Zelmira can be a bit of a stretch for anyone interested in strong character development and dramatic credibility, but it does have other compensating factors in the inventiveness of Rossini's arrangements, the musical colours that he brings to the genre and the opportunities that this provides for the singers to imprint personality and character onto the work through their singing delivery.
If Kate Aldrich isn't quite able to make her Zelmira work, it's through no fault of her singing which has real power and expressiveness, but rather more of a question of this being a role that requires a singer of greater stature and personality to bring it to life and make her predicament credible and sympathetic. The same challenge faces all the singers here, but in their case, they really need better stage direction and a better production design than the one provided here. Juan Diego Flórez has plenty of personality and the range to meet the demands of this kind of Rossinian role - strong, resonant, wonderfully musical and expressive, but his high timbre is never the most pleasant and it's not helped by the acoustics of the stage (set up in Pesaro's Adriatic basketball arena) and sounds quite squeally at the high notes in a way that is hard on the ears. The sound suits the bass and bass-baritone voices much better, giving a lovely resonance to Alex Esposito's grave Polidoro and Mirco Palazzi's Leucippo, whose recitative even sounds beautifully rounded and musical. Gregory Kunde however also comes across well as Antenore, and Marianna Pizzolato almost steals the show with her luxurious mezzo-soprano in the contralto role of Emma.
With a cast this good, a stronger production might have made all the difference, but Giorgio Barberio Corsetti's concept doesn't seem to suit the character of the work. Instead of Zelmira's predicament, the focus is very much upon the nature of war and power, the director setting the production in near darkness, using overhead mirrors to reflect the darker and hidden side of all these power struggles and lies that we don't normally see, reflecting wounded, tortured and dead troops placed beneath the grilled stage. Apart from not really helping the opera where it needs the support, it actually works against it, making it seem very messy, unfocussed and often downright ugly.
It may have looked better in the theatre, but the darkness of the stage, the figures highlighted in pale yellow light, with confusing reflections in the background mirrors, doesn't come across well on the screen, even in High Definition. There appears to be some post-production adjustments to balance the contrasts, and even shadowing applied to block out the frequently visible conductor Roberto Abbado at the front of the stage, but this only proves to be even more distracting and messy. The PCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 tracks on the Blu-ray disc however are mostly fine, even if there is some harshness in the reverb of the acoustics. The Decca BD also includes a 25-minute Making Of, which contains interesting thoughts and information on the work itself and the production from the cast and the production team.
