Muhly - Marnie (New York, 2018)

Nico Muhly - Marnie

The Metropolitan Opera, New York - 2018

Robert Spano, Michael Mayer, Isabel Leonard, Christopher Maltman, Iestyn Davies, Denyse Graves, Janis Kelly, Marie Te Hapuku, Anthony Dean Griffey, Deanna Breiwick, Dísella Lárusdóttir, Rebecca Ringle Kamarei, Peabody Southwell, Gabriel Gurevich, Jane Bunnell, Stacey Tappan, Ian Koziara, Ashley Emerson, Will Liverman, James Courtney

The Met Live in HD - 10 November 2018

Hitchcock's 1964 film Marnie hasn't aged well, nor frankly has Hitchcock's once unassailable reputation over the last decade. A lot has changed with regards to how we view a woman's response to inappropriate advances from aggressive male bosses - particularly in the film world - but it has to be said that regardless of how he was behaving off-screen, Hitchcock was at least one of the few filmmakers willing and daring enough to explore aberrant psychology (including his own) in mainstream popular cinema. Nico Muhly's opera version, world premiered at the English National Opera earlier this year, could be seen as a timely work in that respect, but it's debatable that the source material allows it to probe any deeper or any more successfully than Hitchcock managed in 1964.

Ironically the difference between how the two works approach the subject of how Marnie's childhood trauma manifests itself in later life is where the weakness lies in both, so perhaps it's the source material of Winston Graham's novel is at fault here. Hitchcock, perhaps for his own prurient motives, dared at least to extend the psychological impact into Marnie's sexual relations with men, or rather her lack of them, rather reductively depicting it in terms of 'frigidity'. Muhly's opera perhaps wisely skates around the pseudo-science and psychoanalytical aspects and perhaps lets Marnie's actions speak for themselves without the overblown melodrama. He attempts rather to express the hidden side of Marnie's character and her inner struggles in the music, but it's not entirely successful there either.

In terms of laying out the drama, plotting and pacing, the opera version of Marnie is faultless. It develops and progresses wonderfully, in part due to Nicholas Wright's lean concise adaptation and Muhly's rhythmic musical flow, but director Michael Mayer - last seen at the Met in their visually stunning Las Vegas Rigoletto and the initiator who suggested the idea of Marnie to Muhly - also makes every scene and action count within Julian Crouch's wonderfully stylised production designs. Every effort is made not only to keep the drama moving along and engage the spectator through the visual and musical representation of the drama, but there is also an effort to extend that to the characterisation, finding ways to hint at deeper and darker impulses.

The main manifestations of Marnie's 'issues', which also works well for dramatic tension, are in her criminal behaviours and her changes of identity. Set in England in 1959 - Muhly and director Mayer retaining the period character of the source novel - Marnie (as office secretary Mary Holland) isn't long in making off with the contents of her employer Mr Strutt's office safe, soon after rejecting an awkward advance he makes towards her. She changes her appearance and name and applies for a post far away from Birmingham with a firm in Barnet in London, but is horrified to find that it is run by one of Strutt's clients, Mark Rutland.

Rutland however doesn't appear to remember or recognise her, but when she finds herself fighting off the advances of Terry. Rutland's brother and deputy at the company, Marnie decides it's time to help herself to the company safe and disappear again. She is caught however by Mark who has recognised her and known about the theft at Strutt's, but is in love with her and blackmails her into marrying him. The honeymoon consequently doesn't work out terribly well, there's an attempted rape (toned down here) and the situation leads Marnie to attempt suicide, an action that brings to the surface the truth about the family trauma that lies behind her criminal actions, her changes of identity and her inability to get close to anyone.

Michael Mayer's period stylisations appear initially to draw not so much on Hitchcock as the lushly colourful Technicolor romantic melodramas of Douglas Sirk (where arguably the film's subject matter might have fitted better) with some Saul Bass-like image projections to show Marnie in her various identities. There is some considerably effort however made to get beneath the surface glamour of the period and show the underside of Marnie's working class background, but also to show the various aspects of Marnie's identity beyond the changes of name and appearance. Four women accompany her on stage - singing roles - to reflect those different sides to Marnie, and a team of shady dancers in hats and long coats haunt and swirl around her.

The staging goes some way towards providing a more rounded and psychological portrait of Marnie and Nico Muhly also puts considerable effort into making that characterisation just as rich in musical terms. Muhly places solo instruments behind each of the voices to give them individual character and perhaps also hint at underlying psychology, but how successful this is can be difficult to determine or even audibly detect. (The sound mixing, I have to say though, didn't really give a good account of Robert Spano's conducting at the live cinema screening). Musically, Muhly's score is reminiscent of John Adams, but despite all the efforts in the solo and ensemble instrumentation, it never develops a character of its own for the purpose of the drama, accompanying rather that revealing other depths.

If the work is nonetheless successful in bringing Marnie to life, it certainly has something to do with the composer's writing for the voice. On the surface at least the voice types are carefully chosen; Marnie's mezzo-soprano, Mark's baritone, Terry's countertenor and Marnie mother's contralto all giving a particularly character that works with the music to alternately suggest surface strength and personality weakness. More than anything however it appeared that the real success lay in Isabel Leonard's superb performance. She looks stunning in Arianne Phillips's costume designs, maintaining an edge of cold detachment but one that you can clearly detect from her mannerisms and voice (not just her shadow-Marnies or the musical undercurrents) is hiding powerful emotional forces.

The singing in the other roles is also good, but determined to a large extent by how well the characters were written. It's difficult to sympathise with Mark Rutland's crude way of treating Marnie, but he's also a man of his time and he probably does love her in his own way, and despite the stiffness of character Christopher Maltman holds that balance well. Quite where this fits in with any #MeToo narrative is a connection probably best avoided, particularly considering the Met's own problems with sexual abuse scandals, but there were a few tentative attempts in the commentary to invoke it as relevant. Iestyn Davies was terrifically spiky as Terry Rutland, providing more menace than his brother despite having a lesser role, and Denyse Graves and Janis Kelly make a great impression as the domineering mothers despite the thinness of the characterisation.

Links: Metropolitan Opera

Rossini - Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Glyndebourne, 2016)

Gioachino Rossini - Il Barbiere di Siviglia 

Glyndebourne, 2016

Enrique Mazzola, Annabel Arden, Danielle de Niese, Alessandro Corbelli, Björn Bürger, Taylor Stayton, Christophoros Stamboglis, Janis Kelly

Opus Arte BD

The work of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, along with some ambitious projects in other European opera houses, have shown us that there is considerably more to Rossini than Il Barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola, and much else that is worthy of attention, revival and even deeper exploration. That doesn't mean that there aren't qualities still worth exploring in those two famous staples in the composer's catalogue, and in case you've forgotten what the unique characteristics are that keep bringing audiences back to see the Barber of Seville, Annabel Arden's 2016 Glyndebourne's production makes it perfectly clear; this is a work of unique charm.

Il Barbiere di Siviglia is a veritable 'best of' collection of many of Rossini's techniques and tricks of the trade. It's light, dazzling, invigorating and humorous. It has Beaumarchais's playful characters and situations, including many of the same characters that Mozart found so inspiring in The Marriage of Figaro, and Rossini likewise is capable of doing much with them. It's a virtuoso piece that gives opportunities for the musicians to shine as much as the singers, and it's not just all for show. There's a sense of Rossini touching quite brilliantly on the romantic and adventurous spirit of each of his characters.

The Barber of Seville is romantic, adventurous and essentially also youthful in its impetuous and irreverent nature. The great thing about Glyndebourne's 2016 production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia is that is provides a young cast who embody this spirit of youthful effervescence, who at the same time are quite capable of meeting its particular singing demands. Youth - as the recent UK election has shown us - can be a decisive factor in overturning the old, corrupt conservatism and self-interest of the likes of Dr Bartolo and Don Basilio. The world is theirs for the taking, but as we've also seen, having youth on your side isn't always enough to win an election... or indeed to carry off Il Barbiere di Siviglia.

Nor is merely being capable, and there's a sense that the Glyndebourne production seems to have settled for capability and put their trust in the charm of the work to be enough. And for the most part it is enough, but - as singers like Joyce Di Donato and Juan Diego Flórez have demonstrated - it often needs considerable personality as well as exceptional voices to truly do justice to Rossini, to really make it come alive and sparkle. And indeed, it's in the more experienced contingent of this production that Glyndebourne's production more often hits the mark.

Danielle de Niese's Rosina, Björn Bürger's Figaro and Taylor Stayton's Almaviva all have their charms, look wonderful and sing well, but they also come across as a little bland. Rosina is a tricky proposition for a lyric soprano, and only really has fire I think when it's sung by a mezzo-soprano or a contralto, but to her credit de Niese comes over well here. Mainly, it's because she puts a great deal of effort into coming across as bright and sparkling in her performance, and that makes up for any weaknesses in her voice. By way of contrast however, the old-hands of Alessandro Corbelli's Dr Bartolo and Janis Kelly's Berta seem almost effortlessly amusing and more interesting in comparison.

The production design and the direction don't really help, again relying too much on the charm of the work itself to be sufficient. It looks wonderful, the set designs are bold and colourful, the backgrounds semi-abstract with patterns that evoke an idea of Moorish Spain, but there isn't enough done with the characters. To bring Le Nozze di Figaro back into it, you really want the underdogs to overcome the odds stacked against them by the ruling establishment and Mozart makes that an attractive and desirable proposition. Rossini does it too - and there are productions of Il Barbiere di Siviglia that really play up to this - but here the situations just amble along and fall into place without there being much at stake or much doubt about the favourable outcome.

How successful that can be will be partly down to how the characters are played, and it can also be down to whether the production and direction can throw up enough amusing situations, but above all it has to be there in the music. I have no doubt that Enrique Mazzola understands Il Barbiere di Siviglia well and knows how it works - he sums up its qualities eloquently enough in the extra features on this DVD release - but it doesn't come across with sufficient fire from the London Philharmonic in the pit at Glyndebourne. It's lovely and classical sounding, but it's also smooth and unexciting, lacking an edge of fire and personality. Understatement is the order of the day here in Glyndebourne's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, but fortunately the inherent charm of the work is just about enough to carry it off.

The colourful nature of most Glyndebourne productions always comes across well in Opus Arte's High Definition Blu-ray releases, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia is no exception. In terms of image it's near perfection, beautifully lit and coloured, but neither the HD surround mix nor the uncompressed LPCM stereo track are sufficiently dynamic, which is disappointing. The extra features are good, including not only a short 7-minute making of feature, with some good thoughts on the work by Mazzola and Arden, but a full-length commentary track featuring Mazzola and Danielle de Neise. The enclosed booklet also has a short Q&A with Annabel Arden and a synopsis. The BD is all-region compatible, and there are subtitles in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

Links: Glyndebourne

Glass - The Perfect American

Philip Glass - The Perfect American

Teatro Real, Madrid, 2013

Dennis Russell Davies, Phelim McDermott, Christopher Purves, David Pittsinger, Donald Kaasch, Janis Kelly, Marie McLaughlin, Sarah Tynan, Nazan Fikret, Rosie Lomas, Zachary James, John Easterlin, Juan Noval-Moro, Beatriz de Gálvez, Noelia Buñuel

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

It's not too hard to see the point being made about in Philip Glass's new opera based on the last days of Walt Disney. The irony is hammered home repeatedly and with no great subtlety in either the libretto or the musical arrangements. Disney's animation and the safe family-friendly ideals they espouse may be revered by generations of children and their parents, but those values are derived from a rather more flawed human individual. An old-fashioned, small-town country-boy with Republican ideals, intolerant of progress, race equality or union activity, Walt Disney is depicted in The Perfect American as a megalomaniac who not only took the credit for the hard work and talent of others, but he treated them appallingly as well. So he wasn't a nice guy. Why make an opera about him?

Well, if Walt Disney and his works are held up as being the epitome of "the perfect American", even ironically, then there might be some merit in exploring prevailing bigoted attitudes and intolerance in the USA, but there's little evidence of that here.  It doesn't help that Rudy Wurlitzer's libretto is filled with repetitive, expositional and declamatory dialogue that attempts to find significance in banalities. Walt's vision for America is determined by his own small-town upbringing ("Everything that I've become has its roots in Marceline"), and that vision is defined as little more than "a magical place where dreams and miracles come true". Elsewhere, Walt's nature and achievements are summed up in snappy mottos ("Never say die!"), common clichés (Disney and his creations being "more famous than Santa" and "more recognisable than Jesus") and dull observations ("That's what he does, spares everyone the worst").

There is some attempt to find a less literal approach in the consideration of notions of immortality, but the observations are similarly trite. Walt expresses his desire to a nurse at the hospital to be cryogenically frozen so that he can be revived in the future, and hubristically compares his cartoons to Greek gods, believing that his work and his beliefs in good conservative American values will "live forever". A little more colour is added when Walt is contrasted with Andy Warhol, who was born in the same year, or in a sequence where Walt has a conversation with a reanimated robot of Abraham Lincoln, but even there, it seems like just thrown in as an opportunity to allow Disney to express some pretty distasteful views on the abolition of slavery leading to the degradation of traditional American values. The latter sequences at least allow director Phelim McDermott and designer Dan Potra a bit more freedom to experiment with the staging which, even without having recourse any actual representations of Disney characters, is impressive and colourful throughout.

The cast and performances are also exceptionally good. Despite the deficiencies of the libretto, Christopher Purves and the rest of the cast (in particular Zachary James as Abe Lincoln and Rosie Lomas as Lucy/Josh) manage to inject some personality into their characters and even some sense of melody into the singing. The musical score however is mostly lifeless orchestration of bland repetition, deadened even further by an inordinate amount of tapping percussion. It lacks any real dynamic or variety in tempo and has no sense of a distinct dramatic character or expression for the work. It's a long way from Glass at his most original and operatic best in his early Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha or Akhnaten portrait operas, but Glass has shown himself in more recent times to still be creatively inspired when the subject (Kepler) or the source (Kafka, Cocteau) are worthy. Walt Disney and The Perfect American just don't seem to fire the composer's imagination this time.

On Blu-ray and in High Definition, the recording of the opera during its world premiere run in the Teatro Real in Madrid at least looks terrific. The staging is impressive and it's well filmed, the HD image capturing the wonderful colour and lighting of the production. The audio tracks also give a clear presentation of the music and the singing both in the stereo (LPCM 2.0) and surround options (DTS HD Master Audio 5.1).  Other than a Cast Gallery, there are no extra features on the BD, but there is an essay and a synopsis in the enclosed booklet. Subtitles are in English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese and Korean.

Glass - The Perfect American

Philip Glass - The Perfect American

Teatro Real, Madrid, 2013

Dennis Russell Davies, Phelim McDermott, Christopher Purves, David Pittsinger, Donald Kaasch, Janis Kelly, Marie McLaughlin, Sarah Tynan, Nazan Fikret, Rosie Lomas, Zachary James, John Easterlin, Juan Noval-Moro, Beatriz de Gálvez, Noelia Buñuel

Medici.tv / ARTE Internet Streaming, 5th February 2013

It's not too hard to see the point being made about in Philip Glass's new opera based on the last days of Walt Disney.  The irony is hammered home repeatedly and with no great subtlety in either the libretto or the musical arrangements.  His animation and the safe family-friendly ideals they espouse may be revered by generations of children and their parents, but those values are derived from a rather more flawed human individual.  An old-fashioned, smalltown country-boy with Republican ideals, intolerant of progress and union activity, Walt Disney is depicted in The Perfect American as a megalomaniac who not only took the credit for the hard work and talent of others, but he treated them appallingly as well.  So he wasn't a nice guy.  Why make an opera about him?  Well, if Walt Disney and his works are held up as being the epitome of "The Perfect American", even ironically, then there might be some merit in exploring prevailing bigoted attitudes and intolerance.  If that's its purpose however, the opera singularly fails to make its case.

Whether Walt Disney should be accorded the stature of being the subject for opera isn't so much in question then as much as whether a study of the animation giant as the "Perfect American" really has as much to say about the society we live in today as the subjects of previous Glass biographical works - Einstein (Einstein on the Beach), Gandhi (Satyagraha) or the great reforming Egyptian pharaoh (Akhnaten).  Whatever you think of Walt Disney or his children's animation films, he's not exactly the first person who comes to mind when you look around for a representative icon of American values.  Yes, the Disney animation studio was certainly one of the earliest and biggest exports of American family values, the empire of the Mouse and the Duck expanding to conquer and achieve universal recognisability in even the most remote corners of the world.  As for whether the personal attitudes of Disney persist and hold influence, there's a case could certainly be made for that, but not laid specifically at the door of Walt Disney the man.

The idea that he may have been as important as Thomas Edison or Henry Ford may form a part of Walt Disney's self-delusion, but there is no reason given why the audience should believe it or even any suggestion that anyone takes the comparison seriously.  This is a fault that lies throughout the whole premise of the opera.  Based on a novel by Peter Stephen Jungk, a fictionalised account of Walt Disney that recounts the last few months of his life, The Perfect American seems to be attempting to suggest that the flaws and delusions of one man have some kind of wider implication, but in reality it just presents the twisted views of one small-minded individual that seem to have no place or purpose on the operatic stage.  The same could perhaps be said about Mark Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole, but the tragic story of the rise and demise of Anna Nicole Smith could arguably be said to reflect the pitfalls in following the American Dream with a broader historical scope (Marilyn Monroe) and more cutting social observation, at least on the compromised position of women within that Dream.

Like Anna Nicole, The Perfect American similarly relies heavily on a depiction of the corrupting influence of smalltown America.  But whereas Anna Nicole Smith saw it as a "shithole" that she had to escape from, Walt Disney - in the kind of obvious expositional language that is prevalent throughout Rudy Wurlitzer's libretto ("Everything that I've become has its roots in Marceline"), looks back fondly on his origins, seeing in his hometown all the good old-fashioned American values that he holds dear.  Just to emphasise his position as a reactionary and an unpleasant man, his relationship with Wilhelm Dantine - an animator on 'The Sleeping Beauty' - and their fall-out over union activities is the linking element between the three acts, but Dantine is still devastated when Walt dies.  The libretto's idea of any other kind of character development is limited to snappy mottos ("Never say die!"), common clichés (Mickey Mouse being "more famous than Santa" and "more recognisable that Jesus") and banal observations ("That's what he does, spares everyone the worst") that don't so much highlight the nature of Disney as illustrate the lack of imagination of the libretto and the treatment.

Even those areas where the work tries a less literal approach, the implications are no less obvious and at the same time no more revealing of the man other than the scale of his self-delusion.  He expresses his desire to a nurse at the hospital to be cryogenically frozen so that he can be revived in the future, and hubristically compares his cartoons to Greek gods, believing that his work and his beliefs in good conservative American values will "live forever".  A little more colour is added when Walt is contrasted with Andy Warhol, who was born in the same year, or in a sequence where Walt has a conversation with a robot Abraham Lincoln, but even there, it seems like just thrown in as an opportunity to allow Disney to express some pretty distasteful views on the abolition of slavery leading to the degradation of traditional American values.

The latter sequences allow director Phelim Mc Dermott and designer Dan Potra a bit more freedom to experiment with the staging, but to be honest, it's impressive throughout.  It's not on the same scale of brilliance of McDermott and his Improbable ensemble's work for Glass's sublime Satyagraha a few years ago, but that narrative-free work called out for a strong collaborative theatrical expression.  Here however, they still manage nonetheless to find an imaginative way to work with the rather more banal reality of The Perfect American, keeping it visually engaging and thematically relevant through projected animation sequences and supernumeraries playing the larger-than-life rabbits of Disney's mind, avoiding any Mom and Apple-Pie clichés or overly literal depictions of small-town Americana.

The performances of the cast at the Madrid world premiere run in the Teatro Real (viewed via Internet streaming) were also exceptionally good.  Christopher Purves was an outstanding Walt Disney, but all the cast managed to inject some personality into their characters and even some sense of melody into their singing.  As scored by Glass however, there wasn't much of that in the lifeless orchestration of bland repetition that lacked and real dynamic or variety in tempo and seemed to have no sense of a distinct dramatic character or expression for the work.  It's a long way from Glass at his most original and operatic best in Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha or Akhnaten, but Glass has shown himself in more recent times to still be creatively inspired when the subject (Kepler) or the source (Kafka, Cocteau) are worthy.  Walt Disney and The Perfect American doesn't seem to fire the composer's imagination this time, and it seems hardly likely to excite audiences when it comes to the English National Opera this summer.

The Perfect American is available to view via internet streaming - with some region restrictions to the UK - on Medici.tv and on ARTE Live Web.

Strauss - Intermezzo

Richard Strauss - Intermezzo

Buxton Festival, 2012

Stephen Barlow, Stephen Unwin, Janis Kelly, Stephen Gadd, Andrew Kennedy, Jonathan Best, Njabulo Madlala, Robert Poulton, Richard Roberts, Colin Brockie, Susanne Holmes, Martha McLorinan

Buxton Opera House - 13 July 2012

Intermezzo is, of course, an opera notoriously based on the real-life domestic circumstances of its composer Richard Strauss and his wife Pauline de Anha, a turbulent but happy marriage between two quite different personalities. The reason we know so much about the nature of their marriage is that Strauss depicted it in frank and some would say vulgar detail in his symphonies and in aspects of his operas. There’s no disguising the fact however that Intermezzo is unprecedented for the level of detail in which the composer’s domestic affairs, specifically two notable incidents, are exposed to the full view of the public. Whether the opera is vulgar or not is open to question and undoubtedly interpretation, but if there’s a case to be made for it, it was made here with the wonderful production at the 2012 Buxton Festival.

Coming after such important works as Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau ohne Schatten, Intermezzo can’t help but appear to be a minor work with a rather trivial subject unworthy of a composer of Strauss’s stature. A light comedy, a farce, a domestic drama of minor disputes and marriage difficulties, played out in short chapters like edited scenes from a movie (cinema an influence to some extent on the work, and reflected in the staging here), played out in music that accompanies and supports conversational arrangements rather than imposes its own expressive presence, Intermezzo hardly seems like a subject that would appeal to the lofty ambitions of Strauss’s regular librettist at this time Hugo von Hofmannstahl. Yet, in taking this unexpected direction with a new librettist, Strauss himself shows himself to be just as ambitious and willing to experiment with a subject and a style that is far from what is traditionally expected of an opera work.

Adapting to this new form, Strauss’s glorious compositions prove to be surprisingly musical and dramatic. It’s a typically detailed score from this composer, attuned to the smallest emotional gestures as well as to the broader ones called for by the farcical situations that ensue when Christine, the temperamental wife of a famous composer, Robert Storch (not much disguising of identities going on there), reads a love letter sent mistakenly to her husband and promptly, to the complete bewilderment and distress of Storch, sues for divorce. Working in another incident drawn from real-life where the lonely Christine - her husband frequently away working and conducting - is deceived about the nature of a friendship she strikes up with a young man who claims he is a baron, but is really looking for someone to pay his bills for him, Strauss balances our sympathies in his depiction of the complex and difficult personality of Christine with flashes of humour and compassion.

Despite the apparent triviality of the subject and autobiographical content that seems a little self-aggrandising - particularly in the manner in which it is richly scored here by Strauss - Intermezzo is by no means vulgar entertainment. It’s thanks to this work that we have real insight into the Strauss household, the personality, temperaments and the passions that fuel the composer’s work, but it’s not entirely self-regarding and self-important. These are fully-fleshed out characters, their personalities, whims, mannerisms and deeper natures expressed with tremendous skill by Strauss. The extraordinarily detailed score may be aligned with a very different kind of dramatic content to the classical subjects of earlier works - to humour, to flashes of wit, jealousy, rage, love and passion rather than the death lust of Salome or the revenge fantasies of Elektra, but really, the scoring is no less precisely nuanced. These are much more human emotions, glorified (perhaps more a little over-glorified) by Strauss’s perceptive, impressionistic swells and rhythms, but it’s honest, it’s witty, it’s human and it’s real.

It’s surprising then that Intermezzo is not more frequently performed on the stage, as it is undoubted much more of a theatrical work than is it musical. The fact that this theatrical conversational drama can come across with such musicality and works so well on the stage however depends entirely on the nature of the production, and in just about every respect, this Buxton Festival production was simply outstanding - fully aware of the potential of the piece and capable of putting it across. The stage design, the costumes and the direction were an absolute joy. Every single scene struck the exact right note, with simple sets that were nonetheless pinpointed with delightful period detail. There was also remarkable precision in the setting of tone and circumstance through the use of lighting, the drama able to slip between a drawing room and a brief encounter on a ski slope with barely a pause for the cinematic intertitles to indicate the scene change. Everything about Stephen Unwin’s direction was perfectly in line with Strauss’s score and the dramatic tone and intent of the work.

Even so, Intermezzo is a work that would still be rather difficult to pull off effectively were it not able to make the characters seem human and sympathetic. In this respect Janis Kelly was simply outstanding as Christine, a tremendously challenging role that despite the surface impression given is actually much warmer and human than just about any other character to be found in Strauss’s work. Utterly mesmerising, her attention to detail was evident not just in the terrific singing, but in her bearing and in the manner and timing of her delivery, which was that of a consummate actress. This was a delightful performance that drew all the potential out of the role, as well as giving something personal to it as well. Stephen Gadd was also exceptionally good as Robert Storch, similarly finding warmth and humour in the personality of the composer, singing the role well and in perfect accord with the performance of Janis Kelly. The two roles are the obviously the most vital, supported well by the reminder of the cast, all of them achieving a wonderful rapport with the fluid performance of the orchestra conducted by Stephen Barlow. Intermezzo was undoubtedly, the most accomplished achievement of this year’s Buxton Festival.

Adams - Nixon in China

John Adams - Nixon in China

The Metropolitan Opera, New York

John Adams, Peter Sellars, Kathleen Kim, Janis Kelly, Robert Brubaker, Russell Braun, James Maddalena, Richard Paul Fink

The Met: Live in HD - February 12, 2011

The Live in HD broadcast of Nixon in Chinafrom The Met in New York was a special event in a number of ways. Most notably, it was the first time the opera had been performed at the Met, and for the occasion, many of the original team involved in its original production were reunited and their involvement made even more pronounced. Not only was it opera’s debut at the Met, but it was also the debut there of the colourful, sometimes controversial, but ever intelligent Peter Sellars as stage director – and not just of the stage, Sellars directing also directing the filmed live broadcast. With composer John Adams conducting his own opera, the broadcast proved to be a good opportunity then to re-evaluate whether a work from 1987, tied very much into the political climate of the period in which it is set, had any relevance today and whether it would go on to stand the test of time.

Although the political ramifications of the visit of President Nixon to China in 1972 and his meeting with Mao Tse-tung shouldn’t be underestimated, the state visit breaking down old enmities and opening up the world stage for a different kind of global politics where there is a recognition on both sides that it’s for their mutual good to work with each other, Nixon in China is, and has to be, more than it being an opera about a specific historical incident. The realisation that the world is a smaller place through satellite broadcasts and new technology is recognised by Nixon, who is acutely aware of how his international statesman act is going to play back home on primetime news at a time when he is seeking re-election. How significant then is it that this technology is now able to broadcast a performance of this opera across the world as it is played live in New York?

The production and the broadcast were accordingly upscaled for the Met stage, and quite marvellously, not least in the additional impact of a larger chorus, particularly during the banquet scene at the end of Act 1. Mindful of the impact that can be achieved, Sellars ensured that the HD cameras were right there in the middle of the action, the camera striving for close-ups wherever possible that were most effective when projected onto a cinema screen. Again, it’s difficult on such an occasion not to see the significance and importance of presentation of events played out on a world stage through satellite broadcasts, of playing to a wider audience and the increased importance under such circumstances of stage management – one delightfully reflected in the Chian Ch’ing’s pointing out “here are some children having fun” while giving the Nixons their official guided tour. It’s not enough to show, an audience sometimes needs to be directed towards what to feel.

The only minor problem with Act 1 was that James Maddalena, reprising a role that he helped originate and has performed over 150 times, was suffering from a frog in his throat that severely restricted his ability to hold sustained notes. A few discrete coughs, put into the character of Nixon clearing his throat before speaking, didn’t dispel the problem. It’s a pity, since most of his best work is done in the first act. The impact that this might have had was lessened however by the strong singing performances of Robert Brubaker’s Mao Tse-tung and James Braun’s Chinese Premier Chou En-lai. The ageing and infirm Mao, prone to making obscure and impenetrable remarks, remains an enigma however, but James Braun brought out the sense of dignified confusion and ambivalence about the nature of the visit, mindful – as becomes more evident later – of his own mortality.

Act 2 was given over principally to the female characters, the opera dealing with the considerable contrasts between the respective First Ladies, while in the process noting the growing importance of their role in the US Presidency. Janis Kelly was simply outstanding as Pat Nixon, her voice flawlessly meeting the demands of the opening scene of the second act, while at the same time capturing the human side of her character’s charm sincerity and personal fears – an aspect that was emphasised in an equally flawless acting performance where every gesture was captured by Sellars in extreme close-up. Kathleen Kim as Chian Ch’ing, was likewise most impressive in technique and delivery.

Thereafter, the opera becomes a different beast, Alice Goodman’s libretto slipping into abstraction as it becomes more about ideas than the personalities involved. Despite their efforts to stage-manage and direct the course of world events, it’s clear that they are only weak individuals, frail and flawed human beings, with doubts about their own achievements and the legacy they will leave behind. It’s something that they can never know and that only time and history will prove. The opera likewise needs to rise above the depiction of personalities – no matter how historically important they may be – and touch on those deeper subjects that the Nixon’s visit to China gives rise to. Ultimately then, it was the fact of this performance of the opera being on the day when Hosni Mubarek was forced to step down as leader of Egypt in a revolution facilitated by advancements in modern technology that justifies the opera’s approach and suggests that Nixon in China is still relevant and may stand-up well in the years ahead.