Wagner - Lohengrin (Vienna, 2024)

Richard Wagner - Lohengrin

Wiener Staatsoper, 2024

Christian Thielemann, Jossi Wieler, Sergio Morabito, Georg Zeppenfeld, David Butt Philip, Malin Byström, Martin Gantner, Anja Kampe, Attila Mokus, Juraj Kuchar, Daniel Lökös, Johannes Gisser, Jens Musger

Wiener Staatsoper Live Stream - 5th May 2024

Any work grounded in mythology can be used - and in the case of Richard Wagner's Lohengrin during the Hitler years abused - to have its meaning twisted. Whatever Wagner's original intentions for the work might have been, its nationalist expressions aligned to the will of god can be inherently problematic in the context of history and to present day viewpoints. Most contemporary stage directors will challenge this in some way - the most directly confrontational I've seen in recent years being the Olivier Py one - or prefer to take an abstract distanced approach. I think the latest production directed by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito for the Vienna State opera is however the first that I've seen to attempt to subvert the traditional divisions in the work between good and evil. To be fair, it's more likely that the directors might be looking for a little more nuance to that position than is usually found in productions of Lohengrin, but that can often just end up muddying the waters.

Wieler and Morabito initially approach this then as something of a crime thriller. During the Vorspiel Elsa is seen disguised in boys' clothes, skulking around in a guilty manner, unaware that she is being observed in a courtyard by Ortrud from what appears to be the rampart of a castle. When she is challenged then about the disappearance of her brother, the successor to the line of Duke of Brabant, she displays none of the usual fear or cowering before the charges of fratricide levelled against her. This Elsa is confident of her position, wholly certain that her story of a knight in shining armour will be believed by the credulous population. She is not some helpless young woman being judged by society and the king, but seems to be the instigator and in control of the events.

The proposal in this production seems to be put that Elsa did indeed murder her own brother, throwing him into the lake - or attempt to murder him, since at the conclusion here, he reappears pulled out of the water. The motive for her action is perhaps not so straightforward. There may be an element of wanting to strike back against a very clearly patriarchal society that is against her from the outset, that will overlook any claim to title in favour of her younger brother simply because she is a woman. Perhaps she also wants to pin the blame for her actions and justify them as a way of rejecting a marriage to the scheming Friedrich von Telramund and expose him as someone interested only in using her - and accusing her - for his own gain.

When the hero appears to defend her, it does seem as if he is conjured by her suggestion, appearing here - in contrast to much of the period setting - in the traditional garb of a knight, complete with chainmail, armour and sword. Not only that, but his 'divinity' is suggested also by his Jesus-like appearance, with short beard and long hair in wavy curls. Whether real or merely a fantasy image that the King and the people of Brabant are willing to believe in, Lohengin's heroism isn't really put to the test as the mere effort of lifting a sword seems to place such a strain on Telramund that he appears to have a heart attack. "Du hast wohl nie das Glück besessen, das sich uns nur durch Glauben gibt?" Have you never known the happiness that is given to us by faith alone?

Whether asking us to accept this reading of Lohengrin as credible or a bit of a stretch, you have to consider any rational explanation of the myth as having a few holes or at least an ancient kind of admiration for chivalry and mysticism that is hard to reconcile with our times. How else can we accept Lohengrin’s demand that Elsa adhere to an unreasonable order not to know or even ask who he is? What is that but keeping a woman in her place and not questioning her man? That seems at least to be the premise or the perceived flaws that the directors pit themselves against in this production, like many others, not so much challenging it as perhaps finding a way to work with a work that remains problematic for many reasons, yet is still deserving of exploration.

It seems then that the intention is not to rationalise it nor indeed resort to undermining it. The measure of that is that this is not purely taking the feminist viewpoint, since it also paints Elsa as a murderer, a fantasist and a manipulator. Nor does it subvert the view by portraying Elsa as evil and Ortrud and Telramund as in some way good. It's not as simple as that. In a discussion about the intentions for the production Sergio Morabito refers to the Lars von Trier film Dancer in the Dark, and - without the production trying in any way to replicate the techniques used in the film - it's a good reference point for an oppressed and abused young woman's imagination lifting her out of the very serious situation she faces. It also establishes a more critical modern take on a fairy tale. 

Anna Viebrock's sets and production design settles consequently for some intermediate non-specific period, the fantasy castle ramparts of Act I looking more like a overpass of a road and a underpass entrance with graffiti on the wall by the time we arrive at Act II. There is obviously a militaristic setting that is crucial to the work, the army uniforms here similar to French soldiers in the trenches of the first World War, the women mostly in nurses uniforms. This aspect can't be avoided or overlooked, as there are other implications that you can draw from this particular opera and its legacy about a nation willing to go to war under the influence of mass suggestion, and this production seems to address that. Of course that means that Friedrich and Ortrud see through the willing delusion of Elsa and the German people of Brabant, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are good and Elsa bad, just that they have their own agenda to push.

Tying this all together in a way that is coherent is a challenge that is not made any easier by trying to impose or suggest other readings or offer an alternative view of the work. The ending here does leave you with much to consider, and I'm not sure I grasped the implications of Elsa's brother, who may have been the inspiration for the mystical knight who bedazzles the people, dragging himself out of the river or canal at the conclusion to strike down Elsa, foiling in the process Ortrud's efforts to gain influence. Or something. Whatever it was it made for a powerful conclusion that matched the force and romanticism of Wagner's score.

Dramatically interesting and very well stage-choreographed, the fact that this has impact is also undoubtedly down to fine performances from Malin Byström as Elsa and David Butt Philip as Lohengrin, and another outstanding performance from Georg Zeppenfeld as Heinrich. His control, enunciation and characterisation is as close to perfect as you could hope. You'd think you might like occasionally hear someone else sing the role, but why settle for second best? The same goes for Friedrich von Telramund, where there are few better than Martin Gantner. Anja Kampe cuts a fine Ortrud even if it requires some effort on her part to hit the higher notes. She finds a good position to maintain between the opera's view of her as some kind of witch and a woman seeking to assert control within a male dominated and oriented society. Musically, as you would expect, it's a very fine performance from the Vienna orchestra under Christian Thielemann, the soaring full orchestral and choral elements utterly enrapturing.

External links: Vienna State Opera, Wiener Staatsoper live streaming

Henze - Das verratene Meer (Vienna, 2020)

Hans Werner Henze - Das verratene Meer

Wiener Staatsoper, 2020

Simone Young, Jossi Wieler, Sergio Morabito, Vera-Lotte Böcker, Josh Lovell, Bo Skovhus, Erik Van Heyningen, Kangmin Justin Kim, Stefan Astakhov, Martin Häßler, Jörg Schneider

Wiener Staatsoper Live - 14 December 2020

Yukio Mishima's novella The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea seems like an unusual work to be adapted to opera, but it's a layered work of unusual psychological complexities that must have been of interest to Hans Werner Henze. Mishima was certainly interested in exploring unusual and taboo behaviours in characters seeking to break out from social restrictions and find an inner sense of order, purpose and meaning. In order to achieve that there is a need for dedication to purity, never showing weakness, seeking to find the spiritual in the physical. That conflict can develop into disillusionment or perhaps even something darker and more dangerous.

Short but densely layered, Henze finds a way in his musical treatment of his 1989 opera Das verratene Meer (The Sea Betrayed) to illustrate and probe those lusts, passions and urges and then attempt to align them with a sense of order that topples over into disorder. There are signs of repression of urges and taboo behaviour in the household of Fusako Kuroda, a widow in the Japanese port of Yokohama, the owner of a clothes shop, who still has sexual urges and seeks out company of sailors. Her 13 year old son Noboru has incestuous thoughts about his mother and spies on her when she undresses at night.

Mrs Kuroda is invited by Ryuji Tsukazaki, the second mate on the freighter Rakuyo Maru which has just come into port, to look around the ship, bringing Noboru with her. Ryuji describes himself as a man of the sea, someone who has a close relationship with the sea that is different from those who live on the land. The sea offered him a sense of excitement exploration and adventures, the sense of something else out there, but it hasn't lived up to its promise. He finds one port very much the same as the other, yet is still drawn towards the sea. When Fusako invites him over to get to know him better however, he sees the possibility of settling down there. 

Noboru isn't sure what to make of this new man in his mother's life. He sees a man conflicted and spies on Ryuji and his mother making love. Lacking a father and fascinated by the sea and adventure he idolises the sailor, wants to ensure that he finds his purpose, a sense of fulfillment, something that proves that there is meaning and order on the world. His friends however are less impressed. Influenced by them Noboru comes to lose faith in the sailor, seeing his infatuation with his mother as a weakness, one that steers him away from his much more important 'pure' relationship with sea.

In some ways the psychology of the work is basic archetypes, a little bit Freudian, but there is definitely an ambiguity to the resulting shock outcome that Mishima and Henze perhaps have different outlooks on. For Mishima its an allegory for the Japanese nation's fall from glory whereas for Hans Werner Henze - without changing a single thing about the work - Das verratene Meer can be seen as something different. Not unlike his version of Der Prinz von Homburg, it undercuts the idealisation of a heroic death, and like Homburg,Henze is undoubtedly drawing on the same personal response to his own country, his father, his experience of the military and his homosexuality.

Henze's music is by no means purely illustrative accompaniment then but seeks to conjoin the drama with the inner forces and the nature of the world. Order is imposed by man and is not only contrary to nature - as the killing of a cat can be said to demonstrate - but it can lead to harmful and dangerous consequences. Inevitably it's tense, driven, dark music that inhabits the same sound world as Benjamin Britten's dark explorations of human conflict and lusts as The Turn of the Screw and Death in Venice, although coming a different musical tradition, that of Alban Berg with a little of the harsh dissonance of Aribert Reimann.

Henze uses a full range of orchestra resources at his disposal to achieve this, with full orchestral blasts as well as reduced instrumentation, punctuated with various percussion sounds. As with the Stuttgart Der Prinz Von Homburg, there is  terrific cast and orchestra here to do justice to the force of Henze's unsettling score, and a sympathetic conductor in Simone Young. The final cymbal claps of the execution of the sailor by the teenage boys coming across not just like killing blows, but like the crashing of waves from the vengeful sea.

Superbly directed by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito for maximum impact of the unsettling qualities of the work, the production sets the opera in the surroundings of a port of bare concrete. That and the presence of railings that signify the presence of the sea through, remain throughout the fourteen scenes that overlap and draw together the mental as well as physical locations of a bunker, a bedroom and the door of the shop. Brutalist ugliness and poetic reverie are in this way combined in the set design as they are in the music. Most impressive - as she was also in the cast for the 2018 Stuttgart Der Prinz von Homburg - is Vera-Lotte Böcker singing the challenging vocal range of Fusako, but there are excellent performances also from Josh Lovell as Noboru and Bo Skovhus as Ryuji.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper, Wiener Staatsoper Live

Jommelli - Il Vologeso (Stuttgart, 2015 - Webcast)

Niccolò Jommelli - Il Vologeso (Berenice, Queen of Armenia)

Oper Stuttgart, 2015

Gabriele Ferro, Jossi Wieler, Sergio Morabito, Sebastian Kohlhepp, Sophie Marilley, Ana Durlovski, Helene Schneiderman, Catriona Smith, Igor Durlovski

ARTE Concert - July 2015

You'd be forgiven for thinking you've seen this one before, but according to the Stuttgart Opera web site, the last performance of Jommelli's Il Vologeso was in Lisbon in 1769. Given that, you might think that it looks like it has been written from a Pietro Metastasio libretto and maybe you've heard a setting of the work by another composer, but the libretto was written by Guido Eustachio Luccarelli and other settings of the work are even more obscure than Jommelli's version. There's no question however that Il Vologeso follows a familiar opera seria structure and themes, but as seen in Stuttgart's delightful production, it is still something of a marvel and has undoubted qualities of its own.

The plot, the characters and the way they behave is however very familiar, so it almost seems superfluous to describe the plot, but it's worth it since a synopsis is hard to find elsewhere and it is instructive to note where the differences in Jommelli's treatment lie. There's always a backstory before such an opera starts and in the case of Il Vologeso, we're in Parthia just after it has been conquered by Lucius Verus, so that puts it at 166 AD, and the Parthian king Vologases (Il Vologeso) is believed to have been killed in combat. Berenice the Queen of Armenia and fiancée of Vologases is being held prisoner by Lucius Verus, who is in love with her.

As the opera opens, Berenice, believing that the King of Partha is dead, is readying herself to submit to the rule and the advances of the conqueror, Lucius. Vologases however is not dead and disguised as a servant he attempts to poison the Roman emperor. When Berenice attempts to drink the poison, Vologases has to admit to the plot and for his efforts is condemned to be thrown to the lions in the celebratory games. His true identity however is not uncovered, but Berenice sees something in his manner that gives her hope that Vologases might still be alive and gives her cause to hesitate (and sing long arias about her predicament) over whether to submit to the attentions of Lucius.

Lucius is forced to reconsider his plans as well when his financée, Lucilla arrives unexpectedly in Parthia. Lucilla is the sister of Marcus Aurelius, the joint-emperor of Rome, and Rome is suspicious of what Lucius Verus is up to in Parthia. Just to complicate matters further in the familiar love triangle scenario, Aniceto, Lucius's aide, is actually in love with Lucilla as well. As the various characters mull over their difficult positions in true opera seria fashion, the games commence and the game commences. When Berenice finds herself in danger of being mauled by one of the lions, Lucius lends his sword to the unidentified condemned man and in the process reveals his feelings for Berenice not only to Vologases, but to an aghast Lucilla as well.

If a lot of this sounds like standard Baroque opera material (there's even a 'throw him to the lions' scene in Pergolesi's La Salustia), the work is only as good as how the rough gem stone is cut and polished. In the case of Il Vologeso Jommelli proves to be a craftsman whose work here is given a sympathetic setting by the production team of Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito, and polished to near perfection by Gabriele Ferro and a fine cast. The production, despite the initially dark post-war setting, is bright, matching the light rhythms and clarity of the music. There's nothing heavy here; all the emotions are in full display - as you would expect from an opera seria - but the difference here is that all of them are motivated by love.

You could argue that this is the case with most opera seria - think of what motivates all the extreme sentiments even in the power struggles of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito (now there's a composer who knows the infinite workings and expression of the human heart). In the case of Jommelli's bright and vivid score for Il Vologeso, it's much easier to feel sympathy for the predicament of all the characters, since the music makes it clear that they are ruled by their hearts. That's not to say that Jommelli's writing lacks variety of mood or expression. It's elegant, gentle, passionate, aching, furious, pained - every expression associated with their love for another, not just some effort to assert power or gain favour.

At least, it's given that expression in the performance of the ensemble of Staatsorchester Stuttgart musicians, who play with wonderful rhythm and precision, making the beauty of the music and its complex expression in relation to the drama clearly evident. It helps that there is an orchestral flow maintained that is not broken up by long sections of recitativo secco, but credit should also be given to the directors Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito (and unfortunately their contribution is usually overlooked or dismissed) who manage to keep a work like this visually and dramatically engaging.

Anna Viebrock's stage and costume designs present a semi-classical tableau (some cardboard figures from paintings are even brought on in the second half of the work) of pillars and ruins, but the background is slightly more modern, looking like a modern war-torn city in Balkans or the Ukraine. There is a slight effort in this to connect the modern world to the ancient story, the characters initially in modern casual tracksuits, dressing up to become the figures of Lucius, Vologases and Berenice, but for the main part of the drama - right up to the final moments when the shell-shocked refugees return to reality - it's played mainly period without clever references or anachronisms.

The performers all sing and play out the intense drama with single-minded involvement for the nature and predicaments of their characters, ensuring that there is not one weak element. Dramatically little new happens in the second half of the work - there's a lot more to-and-fro wavering, appeals and rejections - to such an extent that there seems no way out of it. Their problems seem insurmountable, but their love drives them on, and love does eventually conquer all. Ana Durlovski's wonderfully rounded and intense Berenice has the most extreme anguish and rage as her beloved Vologases dies, returns, is executed, is reprieved. Unable to face yet another horror, she seems to submit to taking poison but her fate - returning to the real world - seems to be left open in this production.

Links: ARTE Concert, Oper Stuttgart

Dvořák - Rusalka

Antonín Dvořák - Rusalka

Royal Opera House, London, 2012

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jossi Wieler, Sergio Morabito, Camilla Nylund, Petra Lang, Byran Hymel, Agnes Zwierko, Alan Held, Daniel Grice, Gyula Orendt, Ilse Eerens, Anna Devin, Madeleine Pierard, Justina Gringyte

Covent Garden, 27 February 2012

It’s somewhat surprising that Dvořák’s gorgeous Lyric Fairytale opera Rusalka has never been performed before at Covent Garden. One hundred and eleven years after its composition, its February 2012 premiere at the Royal Opera House was therefore long overdue, but under conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin it was at least a fine introduction to the musical qualities of the work. The far from traditional stage production however - premiered at Salzburg in 2008 and revived here with many of the original cast - without necessarily detracting from the work, certainly confused the audience about the intentions of the piece, the directors attracting a fair share of booing on the opening night performance.

The intentions of the work and its source in European folklore - notably Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid‘ may not be easily apparent other than it being merely a fairytale, but even on that level there is a richness of imagery and some typical themes in such work on the corruption of innocence, particularly in the context of the destruction of the purity of nature by the actions of humanity. It’s also a tragic love story of a water nymph who falls in love with a prince in the woods and wants to become human. Escaping from the tyranny of the water goblin, with the help of a witch in the woods, she manages to grow legs and appears as a beautiful but mute vision before the prince hunting in the woods. Unable to cope with the complex and inconstant nature of human beings, Rusalka however finds herself banished from her sisters and home, unable to fit into the human world either, and ultimately cursed to live in a limbo state between them.

Quite how the production directed by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito came to be set in what looked like a brothel then and whatever intentions were behind this choice were unclear, but it’s not the first time that the opera has been subjected to a radical reworking. Martin Kušej’s 2010 production of Rusalka for the Bavarian State Opera managed to graft the story of young girls being held captive in a dank cellar and abused by a Josef Fritzl-like water goblin quite successfully onto the work’s theme of the corruption of innocence, finding in Rusalka’s dilemma a parallel to the profound psychological damage that abused women in captivity must endure for the rest of their lives. There would appear to be something similar attempted with this production, but its muddled intentions were far less coherent and nowhere near so successfully or powerfully seen through to the fullness of their dark intent.

The key to understanding the production’s concept comes perhaps in its treatment of the Rusalka’s three wood nymphs. Reflecting Rusalka’s innocence of the fact that she is growing up in a brothel - the set dressed with lurid colours and red curtains - in Act 1 the three semi-naked figures in transparent dresses writhe around like exotic creatures of a young girl’s imagination, but it’s only after leaving her home - losing her mermaid tail and literally learning to stand on her own two feet - and having been subjected herself to the acts and whims of men, that the young woman’s illusions are shattered. In Act 3 then, the three “nymphs” are seen more for what they really are, dressed far more conventionally (albeit still in theatrical fantasy terms in unbelievably skimpy outfits rather than with any sense of naturalism) as cheap prostitutes. The scales have fallen from Rusalka’s eyes and, no longer able to return to the world of childhood innocence, the idea of living in a world with this knowledge becomes intolerable.

That’s one interpretation - the best I can come up with - but its manner of expression in the production is far from consistent, mixing this stylised theatrical realism with pantomime-like fairytale imagery, often to bizarre effect. Rusalka quite literally has a mermaid fish tail at the start, which is removed from her by the witch Jezibaba’s giant person-in-a-big-furry-costume black cat familiar. The revolving stage set with its red curtains is asked to stand-in for a variety of locations and the fit isn’t always good, the imagery and mix of concepts proving rather confusing. I’m not sure where the religious elements and use of neon crosses come into the work, although perhaps it views religious intolerance and hypocrisy as being antithetical to Rusalka’s pure and natural paganism.

Regardless of how it’s interpreted, the progression of the storyline and the impact of Rusalka’s dilemma still comes through, expressed principally and convincing by a strong performance from the Royal Opera House orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. They captured the Wagnerian romanticism of the work rather more successfully however than the folk rhythms that Dvořák beautifully blends into the opera, coming across a little too aggressively in such places. It was the quality of the singing however that carried the work through in spite of the peculiarities of the production. Camilla Nylund’s performance and delivery were flawless, meeting not only the technical demands of the singing, but injecting the right note of wistful romanticism into Rusalka’s “Song to the Moon” aria, and a sense of distraught confusion at the harsh reality of being a human that leads to her tragic fate. Bryan Hymel was equally as emotive in his delivery of the rather more human failings of the Prince, his singing strong and resonant.

There were moreover no weak elements even in the secondary characters with Petra Lang a formidable foreign princess, Agnes Zwierko compelling as the witch Jezibaba and Alan Held a strong Water Goblin. Particularly impressive however were the Rhinemaiden-like figures of the three wood nymphs, Anna Devin, Madeleine Pierard and Justina Gringyte. This was consequently a solid performance of Rusalka, exceptionally well-sung by a strong cast, even if the production didn’t always capture the lyricism of this beautiful work in the orchestration or the stage direction.