Janáček - Kátja Kabanová (Vienna, 2017)

Leoš Janáček - Kátja Kabanová

Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna - 2017

Tomáš Netopil, André Engel, Dan Paul Dumitrescu, Misha Didyk, Jane Henschel, Angela Denoke, Leonardo Navarro, Thomas Ebenstein, Margaret Plummer, Marcus Pelz, Ilseyar Khayrullova, Caroline Wenbourne

Staatsoper Live - 27th April 2017

In some ways the tale of Kátja Kabanová fits the opera template perfectly, not least in its story of a tragic heroine who is destroyed by the hypocrisy of the society around her. Janáček's treatment of Ostrovsky's drama 'The Storm' however is a rather more unconventional opera in terms of its dramatic structure and musical arrangements. Perhaps no more so than any of the composer's other operas, it nonetheless has a unique blend of elements that is distinctly Janáček; the music incorporating folk elements, its rhythms and vocal lines matching those of the spoken voice, creating a unique fusion between the characters and the society around them as well as giving expression to the composer's own personal life experiences.

More than simply play along a conventional line of dramatic points, Kátja Kabanová attempts to let the essence of the experience arise naturally out of a number of little episodes. It's an evocation of time and place, specifically a small provincial village on the Volga in Russia around 1860, but as the issue isn't forced, it's possible to recognise the more universal qualities that can relate to other similar situations, particularly in the context of a young woman feeling hemmed in by a loveless marriage and the pressures of social expectation that restrict free expression of her own personality.

It could easily be relocated then to other times and places. The first time I saw the opera staged was in Paris in 2004, where Christoph Marthaler's production (originating from the 1998 Salzburg Festival) depicted the drama and the social oppression as one existing in an old Soviet tenement block, the Volga a fountain in the courtyard. Robert Carsen, by way of extreme contrast made the Volga the centre of the drama, filling the whole stage with water, the romantic free flowing river reflecting Kátja inner nature while also serving as a grim and constant reminder of the stagnation of her own waterlogged life.

André Engel's production of Kátja Kabanová for the Vienna State Opera sets the drama in what looks like a poor East European immigrant community in New York sometime in the first half of the 20th century. The Volga that Vána Kudrjás admires at the start of the opera, in what is one of only a few stranger twists applied to permit the relocation to work, is actually a bottle of imported Russian vodka. Corresponding locations to the Russian village of the original are not hard to find in this city setting, with a grim tenement block the home of the small immigrant community, a rooftop location the place for her secret assignation with Boris, a yard to shelter from a thunderstorm and a back alley leading to the river all filling in adequately for the original locations.

It's not a spectacular set - it's certainly nothing like Carsen's drowned world - but it does speak of the impoverished life lived by these people. Not necessarily in monetary terms - although there is very much a distinction and class snobbery that divides the business men and the ordinary people - but in spiritual terms also. In another of similar contrasts or paradox, religion also determines behaviour in this community, but there is very little that is spiritual about it, religious morality being used hypocritically on the part of Dikój and Kabanicha to satisfy their own particular desires or ambitions and put down those who they accuse of not measuring up to expectations.

The production at least highlights these social divisions as the cause of Kátja's unrest by putting a little more emphasis in certain places. Dikój and Kabanicha's little affair is shown to be a little more sordid, Kátja's prayers are made before a priest, and the guilt and accusations that she applies to herself in Act III are emphasised by her oppressors appearing nightmare-like dressed in mourning black to haunt her. Kátja's tragedy is that she places too much faith and trust in practices employed by these hypocrites that are used to repress her true and better nature. It's not Kátja who throws herself into the Volga but her accusers who urge her on, as they would have done in with adulterers in the past. Kabanicha's disrespect for the drowned young woman in this production adds another level of shock to an already dark ending.

Tomáš Netopil also finds the darker edge that lies in the music but also recognises that Janáček's music is not so plainly descriptive of the drama or even one single underlying mood, but carries within it a number of contrasting emotions. The choral refrains of folk songs in the final scene are haunting but also beautiful, reflecting the contradictions within Kátja's mind, longing to be free as a bird, but caught in the pull of the flow of the Volga. The musical performance matches the impassive realism of the work, which is restrained and interiorised, binding those contradictory sentiments to the world and the society that gives rise to them.

Although it is effective in its own way, the slight over-emphasis of the production doesn't bind itself to the drama quite as well as the music. Neither does the singing. Interestingly for me, this production has the same Kátja and Kabanicha's as the Paris production I saw 13 years ago; too long ago to assess how Angela Denoke and Jane Henschel compare in those roles now. Certainly Henschel still cuts a formidable figure as Kátja's tormentor, but Angela Denoke on this performance alone is less than ideal. Although reaction tends to be mixed to some of her recent performances, she is still be a force to be reckoned with when dredging up deep emotional turmoil in characters like Kundry and Alceste. She characterises Kátja well, but her pitch is too wild and erratic to sustain the flow of Janáček's vocal writing and its relationship to the music. Misha Didyk's voice can also be something of an acquired taste and it doesn't always work for every role, but he is a good Boris, singing the role with all that pitiful romantic passion that is helpless against the social order and ineffectual when it comes to Kátja's dilemma.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live

Strauss - Salome (Genoa, 2016)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa - 2016

Fabio Luisi, Rosetta Cucchi, Lise Lindstrom, Jane Henschel, Herwig Pecoraro, Mark Delavan, Patrick Vogel, Marina Ogii, Marcello Nardis, Alessandro Fantoni, Naoyuki Okada, Jason Kim, Alessandro Busi, Frano Lufi, Manuel Pierattelli, Roberto Maietta, Luca Gallo, Alessandro Busi, Beate Vollack

Teatro Carlo Felice Live Streaming - 25 May 2016

Genoa's Teatro Carlo Felice production of Salome doesn't appear to offer any specific interpretation or modernisation of the work. If it seems to take a more generic approach that never strays far from the expected lines, it nonetheless captures the destructive and almost self-defeating essence of what is vital about Strauss's first great operatic masterpiece.

The source and the context of the creation of Strauss's version of Salome are highly relevant in assessing its importance, its greatness, its legacy, as in some respects it's emblematic of a time of great change in music and in modernist thinking. Strauss had seen Wilde's play in a fairly faithful German-language translation by Hedwig Lachmann and the play's ideas and sensibility clearly resonate with what was happening in turn of the century Vienna. The impact that the work made on him provided Strauss with a challenge to replicate it within the world of music.

As a source, and for what the work says, Oscar Wilde's scandalous play is far more important than the original Biblical tale. All Wilde's plays - even the drawing room comedies like 'An Ideal Husband' and 'The Importance of Being Earnest' - are subversive in one way or another, gently mocking Victorian mores and attitudes. 'Salome' however is a little more daring. Written in French, Wilde knew that the play would never be performed in England due to blasphemy laws that prevented Biblical characters appearing on the stage, and it freed him creatively to expand on the florid poetry that would twist the exotic Biblical setting into a taboo-breaking tale of forbidden lust and death. 

In some respects then, at a level above the purely textual, 'Salome' is about destroying conventional views; quite literally delving into the cistern of corruption that lies beneath the comfortable facade of respectable society. It's easy now to see what attracted Strauss to the challenge of putting this transgressive text to a new and more rigorous form of music. This was the kind of subject that would take the Liebestod philosophy of Strauss's idol Wagner one stage further in musical terms, break with convention and upset a few people. There wasn't much point in doing anything else and, up to that point, there would be nothing that pushed musical boundaries further than Salome.

So perfectly interlocked is the music with the text, the entire piece one continuous flow of intense poetry, that Salome really is a work that speaks for itself. In practical terms the set needs to be generally all-purpose for the locations of the continuous one-act opera and, like Strauss's subsequent opera Elektra, it needs to be focussed on establishing mood. The Carlo Felice production in Genoa takes a fairly generic approach then that is vaguely Biblical in look and feel, but perhaps actually looks a little more Greek tragedy. In fact, I'm sure they could use the same set just as effectively for Elektra with minimal changes, but there is at least a commonality between the treatment of the subjects in these two one-act Strauss tone-poem operas.

Salome, like Elektra, is about a corrupt or degenerate family (a nation, a way of life) that is being eaten up by its own descent into self-destruction. The facade of respectability is being stripped away to reveal decadence and dark lusts, and much of this is already there in the music and the poetry of the libretto. Tiziano Santi's sets provide a fairly conventional response to this, with a dark pit in the centre of the stage from which Jochanaan's warnings of the coming of a new way emanate. Salome dangerously flirts around this pit, the product of a corrupt union, trying to bend the promise of Jochanaan's visions to her own twisted will. Aside from the requirements of the stage direction and lighting to meet the drama, the only significant change to the set is to show the downfall of a royal line in the fracturing of the surrounding marble framework of the palace.

Fabio Luisi keeps a tight rein on proceedings from the orchestra pit, but like Rosetta Cucchi's direction, it doesn't really seem to plumb the dark depths of the work, although admittedly in a work as intense as this, that's difficult to judge from a live internet stream rather than from inside the theatre. Lise Lindstrom has that precise Turandot voice that matches Salome's requirements of meeting Wagnerian force with Puccinian high lyricism. The dynamic between her fluctuating states of reverie and fury isn't perhaps quite as pronounced as it might be but she has the voice and all the dangerous allure for this role. Herwig Pecoraro and Jane Henschel show their suitability and experience in the roles of Herod and Herodias. Mark Delavan is a fabulous deeply intoned Jochanaan.

Links: Teatro Carlo Felice Streaming

Weill - Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

Kurt Weill - Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny

Teatro Real Madrid, 2010

Pablo Heras Casado, Alex Ollé, Carlus Padrissa, La Fura dels Baus, Jane Henschel, Donald Kaasch, Willard White, Measha Brueggergosman, Michael König, John Easterlin, Otto Katzameier, Steven Humes

Bel Air Media

When it was originally composed in 1930, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht intended Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny) to be as much a satire of opera and a reaction to the state of the Weimar Republic. Now, when taken alongside such like-minded work contemporary works by Hindemith and Berg, it just sounds like great opera – but it still functions as a scathing satire on all the subjects it deals with, particularly the nature of capitalism, on which it still has very relevant points to make.

You can call it music theatre if you like, but Weill’s score for Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is considerably more sophisticated than that, working in a variety of styles to create a deliberate alienating effect, drawing on specific references, creating dissonance and unsettling arrangements, using unexpected plot points to keep the listener engaged and keep them from complacently and unquestioningly accepting operatic conventions. It does all that and it has great tunes as well, the most notable of which, Alabama Song, sung by down-and-out prostitute Jenny Smith (”Oh, show me the way to the next Whisky Bar“), is almost like the flip-side of the Libiamo sung in celebration at the party of La Traviata’s courtesan, Violetta Valéry.

If you need any convincing that Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny can aspire to great opera however, this 2010 production at the Teatro Real in Madrid, directed by La Fura dels Baus might be just the ticket. I’m not the biggest fan of La Fura – I’ve seen several of their productions fall well short of the mark – but when they get it right and are working with the right kind of material, they can succeed in a spectacular fashion. Their unconventional approach to opera staging, which could even be considered anti-theatre, certainly has a Brechtian influence, so it’s no surprise to find that that the Catalan group are absolutely perfect for this particular work.

Directed by Alex Ollé and Carlus Padrissa, there are no projections this time – other than the titles of each of the sections (in Spanish here, not translated on the screen) – no elaborate designs, no wire acrobatics or off-the-wall concepts. Everything is tailored directly towards the expression of the ideas in the work, finding the most imaginative and impactful way of putting it across, without relying on stagy conventions. The decision then to have the the trio of Widow Begbick, Fatty and Trinity Moses arrive as if dumped from a refuge collection and set about founding the City of Mahagonny on the edge of a rubbish dump is perfect for the nature of their intentions to make as much money as cheaply as possible by appealing to the lowest nature of their visitors, offering them booze, girls and boxing.

It’s important to get the basic concept in place, but the directors find the right tone for each scene, with many wonderful little touches – from Jimmy’s imagined return sea journey to Alaska with the raised legs of the hookers forming the waves, to his trial taking place in a circus ring – all of which give an additional satirical edge that not works along with the material, showing an understanding of its nature, its playfulness and its bitterness, without feeling the need to over-emphasise or add on any additional commentary. The opera is satirical of all these subjects – from the expectations of the individual to the concept of justice – all within the umbrella of the capitalist system, and it doesn’t need any specific or easy-target anti-American agenda attached for the concept to stand on its own and be applied by the listener to their own experience of the system.

I’m not sure why it was chosen to use the US revision of the original opera, singing it in English and changing Jimmy Mahoney to Jimmy MacIntyre, particularly as there are a few native German speakers in the cast here and others, like Henschel, have a strong footing in German opera. If it’s another attempt at alienation effect to keep the audience guessing, then it works here. Most importantly however, the casting and singing is superb. Jane Henschel is superbly capable in the whole range from singspiel-like dialogue to more conventional opera singing, as well as being a fine actress in the role of Widow Begbick. Jenny Smith is an important piece of casting, and Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman makes an incredible impression, oozing sensuality and absolutely electric in her scenes with Michael König’s fine Jimmy MacIntyre. The balance right across the board in the other roles seems perfect, consistently hitting the right note, as do the Chorus of the Teatro Real, who give their all in the scantiest of costumes and in the most… well… indelicate situations. One can’t fault the commitment either of the Madrid orchestra under Pablo Heras Casado.

I don’t know if it’s to do with the encoding, but Bel Air releases often look a little juddery in motion on both my Blu-ray set-ups (most evident here when the Spanish captions move across the screen), and can lack definition in the darker scenes. I haven’t heard anyone else mention any issues with previous releases, so perhaps it’s specific to one’s set-up. Generally however, the image is fine, and even if movements aren’t smooth, I didn’t find it too distracting. The audio tracks, in LPCM Stereo and DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, are both fine, but there’s not much to choose between them. I found the PCM worked better using headphones to keep the sound focussed, and it’s very impressive this way. There are no extra features on the disc, and only a synopsis in the booklet.

Strauss - Elektra

Richard Strauss - Elektra

Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, 2010

Munich Philharmonic, Christian Thielemann, Herbert Wernicke, Linda Watson, Jane Henschel, Manuela Uhl, René Kollo, Albert Dohmen

Opus Arte

The concept behind the presentation of this 2010 Baden-Baden Festspielhaus production of Elektra is immediately apparent and impactful – it’s a stark and brutal representation of Richard Strauss’ dark, brooding and bloody retelling of the Sophocles’ classic mythological drama. As if to reflect the powerful emotions of despair and sentiments of revenge that dominate the tone of the opera, the staging, the lighting, the choreography – more like a concert performance than a dramatically staged opera – all seek to emphasise the loss and isolation of the principal characters.

The Baden-Baden Festspielhaus is a huge stage, and stage director Herbert Wernicke takes full advantage of it, with stark lighting, and minimal use of backgrounds, props or movement, isolating the characters who are all entirely wrapped up in their own grief and torments. The vast stage is however amply filled by the formidable presence of Linda Watson and Jane Henschel as Electra and Clytemnestra, with their small but imposing stature and powerful singing. The charge that they bring to the complex relationship between the mythological mother and daughter – one that of course has become archetypal – is remarkable. Strauss’ chilling, sinister score is equally effective in filling the void that exists between them, not so much underscoring every jibe, cutting remark, underlying threat and menacing gesture, as much as dissecting it in a manner that the listener can physically feel every nuance of an emotional soundscape that is bristling with murderous intent.

Much like Salome that preceded it, with the imagery of doom and bloodletting even more pronounced here, Elektra is consequently a draining experience, even for its relative shortness, which is precisely how it is meant to feel. Conductor Christian Thielemann brings that out with delicacy and without any blood and thunder – or at least not too much – allowing the Munich Philharmonic to blend with the outstanding singing performances in a manner that allows the piece to resonate with almost unbearable sustained tension and menace. There Karl Böhm Elektra would appear to be the best DVD of this opera to date and the one that this attempts to better, but while I haven’t seen that version and can’t compare relative merits, this is nonetheless a strong and faithful production on its own terms.

The starkness of the staging doesn’t really allow the HD presentation on the Blu-ray to shine, finding it difficult to display the huge blocks of black backgrounds, which consequently look quite grainy. The stark white spotlights and the deep reds however are impressively rendered. The sound balance appears to have been carefully mixed in both the PCM Stereo and the DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 tracks to allow both singing and orchestration plenty of room to breathe, with deep reverberation on those lower register chords. Other than Cast information, the only extra feature on the disc is a 15-minute Making of Elektra which is an interesting and sufficiently in-depth look at the background of the production.