Gounod - La Nonne sanglante (Paris, 2018)

Charles Gounod - La Nonne sanglante

L'Opéra Comique, Paris - 2018

Laurence Equilbey, David Bobée, Michael Spyres, Vannina Santoni, Marion Lebègue, Jérôme Boutillier, Jodie Devos, Jean Teitgen, Luc Bertin-Hugault, Enguerrand De Hys, Olivia Doray, Pierre-Antoine Chaumien, Julien Neyer, Vincent Eveno

Naxos - Blu-ray

Composed in 1854, Gounod's second opera La Nonne sanglante ('The Bloody Nun') is very much a numbers opera, a five-act Gothic horror in the manner of Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable featuring the expected family affairs and romantic complications, all mixed up in war, religion and high drama. Although Gounod takes full advantage of the situations and brings a particular French romantic touch of melody and dynamic to it, for various reasons La Nonne sanglante failed to make an impression or gain a foothold in the repertoire, and it has taken the centenary celebrations of Gounod's birth in 1818 to raise the bloody nun from the dead, so to speak.

The fate of the opera was sealed during its initial run, the profane subject matter of the vengeful ghost of a murdered nun regarded as being distasteful by the new director of the Paris Opéra, the style out of fashion with changing tastes in the theatre. La Nonne sanglante was immediately cancelled and it's been buried ever since. On its own terms however, La Nonne sanglante was far from a failure, Gounod taking advantage of having a much broader canvas to work with, composing marches and choruses, love arias and religious prayers, weddings and drinking songs that he would unquestionably turn into something greater in Faust a few years later.

The setting of the scene for the high drama that follows is established well in the Opéra Comique's production directed by David Bobée. A single murder - which is to have further significance later - is followed by a pitched battle that indeed has the ferocity of one long fought. A feud has been running in Bohemia between the Moldaw and Luddorf armies for many years, and played out in slow motion during the overture, there's a repetition, a constant rising and falling that makes it seem never-ending. A priest however brings the feud to a provisional halt by suggesting that Agnès, the daughter of the Baron of Moldaw marry Théobald, one of the Baron of Luddorf's sons.

Luddorf's other son, Rodolphe isn't best pleased when he hears the news. He's been in love with Agnès, intending to marry her himself. He suggests to Agnès that they meet at midnight and run away together. It won't do much for the peace settlement, but the notion holds more terror for Agnès than that, for it's at midnight that the ghost of the Bloody Nun makes her rounds of Moldow castle. Dismissive of the ghost story, Rodolphe turns up at the appointed hour and swears eternal allegiance to Agnès who he believes has come disguised as the ghost in order to escape but in reality Rodolphe has sealed his union with the Bloody Nun. To be released from her power he must avenge her death, and her killer is revealed to be Rodolphe's own father.

Up to that point, La Nonne Sanglante is tremendously entertaining, but inevitably it runs out of steam as the composer is required to fill in all the usual expected numbers and situations. There's a now unfashionable ballet which is included here, but neither Gounod nor the director really know what to do with it, so there's a lot of standing and shuffling around instead of dancing. We get a requisite love aria as Rodolphe believes his love for Agnès can be rekindled that is beautifully sung but a little bit dull, so dull that Rodolphe's page Arthur falls asleep during it. Add a raucous wedding and a drinking song, and it pads out the next two acts fairly conventionally.

The stage direction begins to run out of ideas too, although it makes the most of the first half of the work. There's not much required or presented in terms of sets, the stage dark and monochromatic, giving a fine Gothic character and more than adequate mood for the appearance of the ghost of the nun in her blood-stained white robes. It's Michael Spyres who has to carry much of the drive and conviction of the work, and his sweet tenor is well suited to the role of Rodolphe, but there are solid performances also from Vannina Santoni as Agnès and Jérôme Boutillier as Luddorf. Jodie Devos is a bright Arthur and Marion Lebègue presents a suitably scary presence as the nun, even though you think a bigger voice could have done more with this role.

If there's any reason for reviving La Nonne sanglante aside from mere curiosity value, it has to be for Gounod's score and how he skillfully and entertainingly brings all those elements together, particularly in the first two acts. Laurence Equilbey and the Insula Orchestra make the most of the drama and the melodic flow of the score, which is not as overblown or overheated as Meyerbeer. Amends are made for the injustice of the nun's fate after 150 years of neglect, but as entertaining as its return from the dead might be, the fate of La Nonne sanglante after the Gounod centenary celebrations could well be burial once again.

At the very least however, it has been given an extended life in a stunning HD presentation on Blu-ray from Naxos. This is a great time to be enjoying opera. Not only are we able to share in the brief revivals of such fascinating rare works on DVD, but the High Resolution audio presentation of works like this is just incredible. The Blu-ray of La Nonne sanglante is all-region compatible, with subtitles in English, German, Japanese and Korean. The clarity of the image and the recording of the live performance is excellent, the performance thankfully not obscured by dry ice. All the atmosphere is there in Gounod's score.

Usually there's little to choose between the stereo and surround mixes other than preference (and individual home system setups); here both are marvellous but the atmospheric surround mix has the edge. The LPCM stereo mix sounds great on headphones, with marvellous clarity to the score and a good balance between the music and the singing. In DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 however the opera really comes alive, the music beautifully distributed to the surrounds, exhibiting all the clarity and detail of the score and the performances, creating a wonderful theatrical ambience. Voices ring out - particularly Spyres lyrical tenor voice - and the big dramatic moments hit home.

Links: L'Opéra Comique

Prokofiev – The Love for Three Oranges

Sergei Prokofiev – L’Amour des Trois Oranges

Grand Théâtre de Genève

Benno Besson, Ezio Toffolutti, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Michail Jurowski, Jean Teitgen, Chad Shelton, Katherine Rohrer, Nicolas Testé, Emilio Pons, Heikki Kilpeläinen, Michail Milanov, Jeanne Piland, Clémence Tilguin

Geneva, Switzerland - 23 June 2011

One would imagine that Prokofiev’s 1921 absurdist opera The Love for Three Oranges would be somewhat difficult for anyone more used to a traditional opera format. There are no nice principal characters to sympathise with in their predicaments, there are no memorable arias – even the fact that it deliberately avoids any traditional form is a kind of in-joke dating back to 1761, the original drama by author Carlo Gozzi intentionally avoiding theatrical conventions of the comic and romantic tragedies of the commedia dell’ arte thereby setting himself into opposition against the two major proponents of this form, Pietro Chiari and Carlo Goldini. In reality however, Prokofiev’s opera version is an absolute delight throughout, remaining faithful to the anarchic, nonsensical and childish absurdism of Gozzi’s original, while setting it to some of the most beautiful theatre music that playfully matches the mood and tone of the piece, setting leitmotifs to the characters and themes in a way that adds fluency and consistency to the work as a whole.

In the hands of a sympathetic stage director – and there could hardly be a more appropriate choice for this staging at the Grand Théâtre de Genève than the renowned theatre director Benno Besson, a collaborator and friend of Bertolt Brecht, who has staged several Carlo Gozzi works and is familiar with his themes – this can be wonderful material to play with. Working in collaboration with Ezio Toffolutti, the Geneva production is a wonderful but knowing staging – one that adheres to the original themes and, surprisingly, manages to even illuminate some of their meaning, showing that it is not entirely absurd just for the sake of it. On the face of it however, the story of a hypochondriac Prince, son of the King of Clubs, who strives to overcome his debilitating weakness through laughter, only to be forced on a quest for the love of three oranges, does sound rather silly – and it is entertainingly played in this way, with all the colour, spectacle and well-rehearsed slapstick of a pantomime.

Watching all this nonsense however – presented as it is on a stage within a stage – is an audience from Venice’s La Fenice theatre, supporters of Goldini and Chiari, looking for traditional romance and drama, who interrupt the opera from time to time to clash with proponents of this new absurdist form of drama. It adds another level to the drama and the entertainment, as well as an appropriate sense of theatricality to the proceedings. It’s such turgid traditional drama fed to the Prince as Marcellian verse by Leandro, the Prime Minister, that is partly responsible for his condition, so a heavy does of absurdist nonsense is just the ticket. The planned and rehearsed antics of the jester Truffoldino however fail to rouse so much as a chuckle with the prince (although they do entertain the real audience), and it is only when Leandro’s co-consiprator, the witch Fata Morgana, accidentally falls over on her backside, legs in the air, that the prince gets an unrehearsed eyeful of reality …and, no doubt, a spark of desire. No matter that this desire can only be satisfied, having braved the dreaded ladle of the Cook, by a quest for the love of three oranges, the peeled back skin of oranges clearly indicate the female anatomical parts that are to bring the Prince happiness when he draws Ninette from one of them.

All this absurdity falls into place meaningfully partly due to the wonderful stage direction, but also if it has any coherence and meaning for a modern audience, it’s down to Prokofiev’s playful, richly brilliant scoring. It’s impossible not to be fully drawn into the proceedings with so much to enjoy from moment to moment, particularly since the score was given a superb, vivacious performance the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under the baton of Michail Jurowski. Whether you actually cared for the characters never mattered – they sang no wonderful arias to persuade you of their charm or depth of soul – but the singing and acting here were of a fine standard nonetheless to keep the audience enthralled, entertained and, in this production, educated even in the finer points of mid-eighteenth century Italian theatre.