Leoš Janáček - Jenůfa
La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels - 2014
Ludovic Morlot, Alvis Hermanis, Sally Matthews, Charles Workman, Nicky Spence, Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, Carole Wilson, Ivan Ludlow, Alexander Vassiliev, Mireille Capelle, Hendrickje Van Kerckhove, Beata Morawska, Chloé Briot, Nathalie Van de Voorde, Marta Beretta
Culturebox, Medici.tv, La Monnaie Internet Streaming - January 2014
Jenůfa is a challenging opera to perform and stage. Musically, despite its seemingly simple rhythmic pulsations, this early 20th century opera by Janáček bridges Romanticism and Modernism, but it has the additional complication of being very much related to Moravian folk music and to the particular rhythms of spoken language that are an important aspect of Janáček's style. An indication of the challenges of performing the work is how varied interpretations of Janáček's musical scoring can be in attempting to find that precise rhythm in music and language. It doesn't help, I find, that Sir Charles Mackerras' near-definitive editions and recordings of many of Janáček's operas set an incredibly high standard for anyone else to match.
In terms of the storyline, Jenůfa also appears to be a simple folktale, a morality tale of village life, the melodrama of a local beauty who scandalously falls pregnant and is spurned by her lover, only to have her face disfigured by a jealous admirer. Not only that, but in an attempt to resolve the difficulties and the shame that lie upon the family and in an attempt to open a way to a marriage for Jenůfa, her frantic stepmother, Kostelnička, drowns the new-born baby in a frozen river. The storyline revolves around these few highly intense situations in a way that not only makes it difficult to dramatise, but to find a suitable tone that is not overwhelmingly bleak and despairing.
On the contrary, based on the lush beauty of the musical score, the director and conductor actually have to find a way to make the work beautiful and achieve a conclusion that is heart-warming and tender. Jenůfa is not a work then that benefits from a naturalistic interpretation or from any kind of harsh social realism, but at the same time it has to emphasise or make real the human qualities that arise out of their efforts to overcome the bleakness of the situation. That's no small challenge. Relatively new to opera, the Latvian theatre director Alvis Hermanis however takes an unusual approach to the stage presentation of this remarkable work for La Monnaie in Brussels. It's not quite perfect, but it's every bit as impressive and innovative as any staging of this unique and remarkable work should be.
Drawing heavily from the turn of the century Art Nouveau movement, with imagery taken directly from the works of the Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, Hermanis' production for La Monnaie is therefore a highly stylised one that is far from naturalistic. At the same time however it is authentic in terms of the roots of the work in Moravian folktale and culture, while also being entirely sympathetic to the tone adopted towards the story by Janáček in his stunningly beautiful and evocative musical scoring. There are no conventional props or sets, yet the location, the background of the characters and their nature is represented brilliantly in the puffy-sleeved, embroidered and garlanded traditional costumes as well as in the elaborate decorative designs of the set.
That goes as far as using a line of dancers almost as a decorative border and background for the drama, positioned behind the singers throughout Act I and III. The upper level is used for projections of swirling and scrolling Art Nouveau patterns with Alphonse Mucha images that reflect the Czech Moravian setting and the characters, opening up at times to present the chorus who contribute to the background dramatic action and reaction. The singers act out the drama in stylised movements and dance-like gestures, never naturalistic but expressive nonetheless, retaining the folk quality of the story even though it adapts the body-language of formalised Oriental dance theatre.
Visually, it's a sumptuous display. Words alone can't do it justice. It's simply ravishingly and almost heart-breakingly beautiful, which is something you could say also about Janáček's score, so it's clearly wholly appropriate and in tune with the musical account of the work. That's evident in the way that Act II is treated entirely differently from the formalised tableaux of the opening and closing acts. Act II presents the reality of the situation in a much more socially realistic way, depicting a poor cottage or a run-down apartment in a housing block from a 1960s' Czech New Wave film, with peeling paint, a stove, a bed and religious pictures and icons on the walls. The music written by Janáček bears out this division of styles between ritualised folktale and the human reality, so close attention has clearly been paid to the score.
The production however doesn't perhaps always come to life the way it should or respond entirely to those deeply tragic moments and emotional undercurrents, but it's hard to imagine how any staging could. Most productions of Jenůfa (and they are rare enough) tend to follow the minimalist principle of the drama being enacted by just a few characters, but this one, while it might appear to be overly busy, at least fills the stage with context. The sense of community is of vital importance in Jenůfa, and that's evident in all the cultural and costume iconography, on a stage that has dancers in constant motion, and that is enacted often before the watchful, judgemental eyes of that small community looking down from those upper levels.
Ideally, you'd like to have native Czech singers who are capable of reproducing the speech rhythms that are so vital a component of the opera. It's rare however that anyone is able to cast in this way for the roles of Jenůfa and Kostelnička, but outside of Elisabeth Söderström and Eva Randová from the definitive Charles Mackerras recording in the 1980s, this Monnaie production is as good as I've heard with Sally Matthews and Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet in those roles. Charbonnet feels the strain of the high pitch towards the end of the opera, but she has good presence and dramatic force in her delivery. Sally Matthew's dramatic performance is a little bit blank in the context of the stylised delivery, but she's stronger in Act II's realism and her singing performance is solid and consistent throughout. Nicky Spence is a fine Števa, but it's Charles Workman who stands out here, his gorgeous tone and impassioned delivery in Act III making that difficult acceptance of Laca's dreadful actions and his redemption meaningful and truly heart-warming.
The 2014 La Monnaie production of Jenůfa is available to view for free via internet streaming from the Culturebox, Medici.tv and La Monnaie sites. Subtitles are in French only, although the La Monnaie site also has optional Dutch subtitles.
Paul Dukas - Ariane et Barbe-bleue
Gran Teatre del Liceu, 2011
Stéphane Denêve, Claus Guth, Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet, José van Dam, Patricia Bardon, Gemma Coma-Alabert, Beatriz Jiménez, Elena Copons, Salomé Haller, Alba Valldaura, Pierpaolo Palloni, Xavier Martínez, Dimitar Darlev
Opus Arte
There are many meanings and cautionary messages that can be drawn from the fairytales of Charles Perrault, but 'Bluebeard' - the tale of an aristocratic serial killer who murders his wives - is surely one of the most gruesome and darkly enigmatic. Even more so in Ariane et Barbe-bleue, the version penned by the Symbolist Belgian dramatist Maurice Maeterlinck, the author of Pelléas et Mélisande, who himself adapted the work - again practically intact - as a libretto for the French composer Paul Dukas. Comparisons with Debussy's opera - written only five years previously in 1902 - are inevitable, but if the musical influences that Dukas draws from are more evident and less distinctive than Debussy, the turn of the 20th century psychological exploration of the characters through the combination of Maeterlinck's words and Dukas's music is no less endlessly fascinating and deeply compelling.
In Maeterlinck's hands, the perspective of the Bluebeard folktale is rather different from Perrault's, the dark horror and cautionary note of the serial killer storyline rather less prominent than the exploration of the psychology of the female protagonists who seem to willingly submit to the thrall of masculine power and domination through marriage. The story here does indeed touch on the dark fascination of female curiosity for the violent danger of a male sexuality that simultaneously attracts and repels. In Maeterlinck's story, Bluebeard's latest bride, Ariane, has given herself in marriage to the notorious aristocrat who is believed to have murdered his previous five wives, but she has not submitted entirely to his authority. The six silver keys he has given that open doors to wonderful treasures represent the rewards and the boundaries of what Ariane can expect by following the rules set out by the marriage - each of the doors opening to rooms containing amethysts, sapphires, pearls, emeralds, rubies and, finally, diamonds - pure and eternal. That doesn't stop Ariane however from opening the forbidden door locked by the gold key - "After diamonds, there can only be fire and death", she observes.
The final door inevitably holds the secret to the fate of Bluebeard's previous five wives, and it relates to some extent to a female curiosity based on an urge on the part of Ariane to explore the sexual history of her husband. While there is some psychological exploration of that impulse that verges on self-destructive, Maeterlinck and Dukas use that drive towards a more progressive feminist view in Ariane et Barbe-bleue. Ariane may driven by unknown impulses and working to guidelines set out by Bluebeard, but she is not in the thrall of the "enchantment" of her husband in the same way as the other wives. Their charms - the flaming hair of Mélisande, the delicate arms of Ygraine, the fair shoulders of Bellangère - have been hidden by marriage, whereas Ariane is forceful and secure in asserting her own personality and determined to help the other women achieve their own independence and expression. Like Pelléas et Mélisande however, Maeterlinck's work and symbolism defies any simple allegorical meaning and one shouldn't be strictly be applied to the exclusion of other resonances and mysteries that lie within it.
Although it is rather more emphatic in highlighting the specifics of the drama and the words than Debussy, Dukas' score also hints at those other meanings and ambiguities. The references to Debussy's impressionism may be apparent - just as Maeterlinck uses characters from his other works (like Mélisande) for Bluebeard's wives - but Dukas more obviously draws from Wagner and particularly Strauss in Salome (in the scoring of the dark undercurrents in the relationship between Salome and Jochanaan) for more explicit, direct expression. It's a fascinating and rich musical exploration by Dukas in his only opera work, powerful, beautiful and modern, possibly even more influential than Debussy's unique and inimitable opera, with the associations and female psychology explored here evidently influential on Strauss and Hofmannstahl's fairytale-like Die Frau ohne Schatten and its extraordinary use of female voices is matched only by Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites.
Considering the psychological nature of the work and the necessity of allowing its openness, ambiguity and symbolism to speak for itself, it's perhaps not surprising that director Claus Guth doesn't follow the libretto too literally. He avoids what would now be considered clichéd imagery in the opening scene of mobs of angry townspeople bearing pitchforks and firebrands, as the latest young bride seems to go willingly to her doom in Bluebeard's castle. The castle here is nothing more than a modern suburban residence, but it's what it represents that is important, and evidently the house is Bluebeard himself and it's the uncomfortable and dangerous nature of the masculinity that Ariane examines, challenges and delves into, not only opening doors, but breaking through the surface of the floor to the horrors that lie underneath. The set design works well in this respect, keeping the visuals clean, simple and symbolic, allowing the singers the necessary space to express the layers of meaning that lie within Maeterlinck's libretto and Dukas' seething score.
Much of the power of the work is indeed delivered through the scoring for powerful mezzo-soprano and contralto female voices and this cast proves to be highly effective in conveying its force. Ariane requires a strong Wagnerian soprano to express her character's inner strength of personality and purposefulness and Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet's rich tone is commanding and persuasive, yet sensitive to the shimmering suggestion of the score. She is well supported by an equally strong and wonderfully measured Patricia Bardon as the nurse, but all of the female cast here are impressive here as the other wives, although Gemma Coma-Alabert's fiery Sélysette is the only one with a significant role. As the male at the centre of the work, Bluebeard is evidently an important role in Ariane et Barbe-bleue, even if the singing is limited to only a few lines. José van Dam - who has mostly retired from big-scale stage productions - is no longer in possession of a voice as commanding as it once was, but there's consequently a vulnerability as well as a necessary strength of personality here that puts an interesting spin on his Barbe-bleue.
This is an extremely rare work but one that deserves to be better known, and - appearing for the first time on either DVD or Blu-ray - this is a marvellous production of a fascinating work, emphatically delivered with force and sensitivity by the orchestra of the Liceu under Stéphane Denêve. The quality of the Blu-ray's HD image and high resolution sound mixes ensures that the performance is given the best possible presentation. I personally found the surround DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 mix a little too open, and that it suited the more direct stereo PCM mix better, with the full detail of the orchestration clearer through headphones. Other than a Cast Gallery, there are no extra features on the disc, but the booklet contains a good essay by Gavin Plumley, whose reading of Ariane striking out towards the 20th century while the others refuse to take the freedom offered is a good one, and there's a full, detailed synopsis. The BD is all-region compatible with subtitles in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Catalan, Japanese and Korean.
