Gluck - Iphigénie en Tauride (Paris, 2021)

Christoph Willibald Gluck - Iphigénie en Tauride

Opéra National de Paris, 2021

Thomas Hengelbrock, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Tara Erraught, Jarrett Ott, Julien Behr, Jean-François Lapointe, Marianne Croux, Jeanne Ireland, Christophe Gay, Agata Buzek

Palais Garnier, Paris - 26 September 2021 

The essence of what is continually great and everlasting in the later works of Christoph Willibald Gluck is that despite the formality of the 18th century musical conventions and the poetic licence of contemporary adaptation, he manages to make the stories and predicaments of the great mythological figures of Greek drama feel completely human. Despite appearing to have a very limited idea for presenting the drama, Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski's production of Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride nonetheless similarly strives to find the underlying humanity in his production for the Paris Opera, and perhaps even delve deeper into the mindsets and troubled history of the Atreides family. The success of the production is mainly down to Gluck of course, but Warlikowski knows when to defer to genius.

Essentially, the Orestia deals with the downfall of a great family, a royal family, and assuming that they aren't really lizard people - something I'm prepared to keep an open mind about - even royal families are human too. Hmm. Anyway. Warlikowski has been here before - or rather later - with his Princess Diana influenced production of Alceste, and this production of Iphigénie en Tauride which was first produced in Paris in 2006, opens somewhat obscurely with a title 'Dedicated to Queen Marie Antoinette'. Other than it being about a royal family and it being produced for Paris, I'm not sure what the intention of that is, but it doesn't prove to have any real bearing on the rest of the production.

Warlikowski's setting for Iphigénie en Tauride is, well, it looks very much like most Warlikowski sets designed by Malgorzata Szczesniak, with glass panels, mirrored rooms, a wall of showers on one side and a wall of sinks on the other. Here Tauride is an old people's home where Iphigenia as an old woman in a gold lamé dress looks back at the defining incident in her experience of a troubled family life. Or not so much looks back on it of course as much as relives it, her mind failing, flitting between her current infirmity and mental state in old age and the incident on Tauride that may have helped reduce her to her condition.

This Tauride or old people's home is of course less a physical place than a state of mind, and it's the impact that her experience has on her mind that Warlikowski wants to explore. Within that however, the actual drama plays out much as you would expect, with Orestes and Pylades brought by the priestesses as strangers to be sacrificed at the paranoid King Thoades, who while trying his best not to fall victim to the fate an oracle has decreed for him, inevitably ends up bringing it about.

Warlikowski illustrates a few scenes behind the reflective shield of her mind, showing the now and the past, but it's fragmented and nightmarish in its visualisation and not a narrative illustration. Doubles are used, as they often are in productions of this work  which seems open to such divisions and analysis, (Lukas Hemleb, Geneva 2015), (Claus Guth, Zurich, 2001) More than just use an actor to double Iphigénie past and present, internal and external, the director also doubles or contrasts the past as a mirror of the present. What plays out simultaneously is a kind of shadow nightmare scenario of her experience in Aulide, where it's now Iphigenia the priestess who is to carry out the human sacrifice, with Thoas becoming her surrogate father.

The psychoanalytical approach is quite appropriate, the dysfunctional family issues compounded with Iphigenia's encounter with the stranger who is her brother Orestes, and in Orestes seeing in Iphigenia the image of the mother he has just murdered. It's inevitable then that the familiar influence of the films of David Lynch also plays a part in this Warlikowski production, with scenes and imagery reminiscent of Wild at Heart (another horrific family saga of murder and brutality) and Mulholland Drive (a glamorous life on the surface with hidden horrors surfacing in the moment of death). Mix in a bit of royal scandal and there's plenty to make this visually impressive and troubling while still largely leaving the drama to tell its own tale.

Here, as is often the case, the best a director can do is find a suitable setting for mood and let Gluck's music and the drama speak for itself. Warlikowski does a little more than this, finding a way to bring the audience into the human drama that is playing out in the mind of Iphigenia. There are a few other touches, having the chorus and other players in the Tauride drama placed in the boxes, isolated and pushed off to the sidelines away from the wholly personal interiorised nature of Iphigenia's relationship with the drama. Diana's appearance at the end of Act 4 is appropriately sung from the back of the Palais Garnier up in the gods, all contributing to present as immersive a presence as possible of the drama replaying out in her mind.

Evidently it's Gluck's beautiful music, his attunement to the drama and the understated emotional states that drive the drama forward and it was successfully led from the orchestra under Thomas Hengelbrock. Vocally it was impressive also in the three leading roles. As Iphigenia Tara Erraught was superb, deservedly stepping into major opera house roles like this after a successful career as a repertory singer in Munich. Her musical range is consequently wide and varied, but she can do a leading Mozart role well (The Marriage of Figaro) and is certainly impressive in her French delivery of Gluck. Jarrett Ott was an excellent Orestes and Julien Behr offered strong lyrical support as Pylades.

Links: Paris Opera

Mozart - Idomeneo (Theater an der Wien, 2015 - Webcast)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Idomeneo

Theater an der Wien, 2015

René Jacobs, Damiano Michieletto, Richard Croft, Gaëlle Arquez, Sophie Karthäuser, Marlis Petersen, Julien Behr, Mirko Guadagnini

Culturebox - 20 November 2015

Idomeneo is a problematic work in the Mozart canon, belonging to his youthful period and tied to the format and conventions of opera seria. It is unquestionably Mozart however, highly accomplished and full of melody and beauty, but with a darker edge of terror here. It's the latter aspect that is an unfamiliar quality from what we are accustomed to hearing in Mozart, and it often seems to be at odds or inadequately expressed by the beauty of the music itself. Damiano Michieletto's production of Idomeneo for the Theater an der Wien seems to get more from the work by focussing on that darker side, and is assisted in drawing those qualities from a closer period interpretation of the music by René Jacobs and the Freiburger Barockorchester.

Michelietto's production relies heavily on symbolism to emphasise the darker underlying context of Idomeneo beyond even the horror of the drama that unfolds. We are reminded of the fall of Troy and the damaging consequences of what the Greeks have brought back from the long drawn-out war on the highly-stylised stage set. Boxed-in by a set of curtains, the stage is a sand and mud pit filled with the boots of fallen warriors, the characters having to pick their way through it, sticking to the ground and stumbling over the lumps and bumps of this troubled landscape. It's here that we first see Ilia and get a sense of her predicament and state of mind. She can't escape from what has happened to her home and neither the love professed by Idamante nor his freeing of her captive people are enough to compensate for that.

There is more tension between Ilia and Idamante than you would traditionally see in this work since there is another lump or bump that is significant in this version. Ilia, the daughter of King Priam, is noticeably pregnant by the son of an enemy king, which only deepens her despair and confusion. The gift she had to offer Idomeneo when he returns back from the dead after the storm at sea is a package of baby clothes and an ultrasound scan of the baby she is carrying. Any kind of joyful news, whether its the liberation of the 'refugee' Trojans, Ilia's conflicted love for Idamante, or indeed Idamante's joy at the safe return of his father, is qualified and short-lived. Particularly the latter situation, since Idomeneo has rashly promised Neptune to sacrifice the first person he meets if he is allowed to survive and reach dry land.

The characterisation is thus somewhat more consistent here with the overall tone and it's very strongly developed and explored in this production; in appearance, in singing and in how each person reacts to one another. There's a lot of pent-up tension and no respite for anyone following the harrowing war that has just ended. The tension between Ilia and Idamante for example, should be obvious considering their backgrounds, but it is only really drawn out here by the symbolism, the direction of the performers and how they sing the roles, as well as by how Jacobs handles the musical direction. The usual bombastic emphasis of the romantic melodic line is toned down by the harder edge of the period instruments, Jacobs aiming for a simpler interpretation that seeks to find a truer expression for the dramatic content which might not be quite as developed here as in other Mozart works.

The casting and singing however are of the highest order, and it's noticeably this aspect - the lyrical qualities of the singing voice and what it is capable of expressing - that differentiates Mozart's late opera seria innovations from other works in this style. All of the singers here show how good this early Mozart can be when it has the right voices assigned to the roles, and when those roles are allowed to express the characterisation that is implicit in the situations they find themselves in. It's most evident in Richard Croft's Idomeneo. Like Kasper Holten's 2014 Vienna production, the King of Crete is visibly haunted here by the bloodshed and horror of the Trojan war, tormented by gore-covered ghosts. He's like Macbeth haunted by Banquo's ghost, driven mad, stumbling and flailing, self obsessed and full of self-pity, wallowing in the injustice of it all and hopelessly ineffectual as a consequence, often symbolically found in proximity to a bed.

Croft's voice has a softness, delicacy and lyricism that matches the requirements of this kind of Idomeneo. And even with the sweetest timbre, Sophie Karthäuser too can express the conflict and boiling anger that lies just beneath the surface of Ilia, making those beautiful da capo arias really express something fundamental about herself and her predicament. Just as impressive is Gaëlle Arquez as Idamante who proves here, if it needed to be made clear, that in the absence of a castrato, a mezzo-soprano can make much more of this role than a countertenor. There's a lovely voice there to be sure, but Arquez also demonstrates confidence in her expression, interpretation and colour.

The icing on the cake her is the luxury casting of Marlis Petersen as Electra. She fully involves herself in Michieletto's characterisation of Electra as a scheming glamour puss in blonde wig, wearing glittery dresses as she teeters through this landscape of misery in high-heels and shopping bags. She's the only person happy with the turn of events, since Idomeneo is forced to send her off with Idamante into the safety of exile, trying on a series of colourful outfits in a fashion-show rendition of 'Idol mio'. There's a little thinness creeping into the middle range, but Petersen is still capable of imbuing this role with great character, and her spirited performance is exactly what is needed to give the work that extra dimension and dynamic.

While the consistency of tone is maintained right through to the climax and is perhaps even bleaker in the ruins of Crete, I'm not sure that Act III holds together quite as strongly. As is often the case these days, Electra and Idomeneo are depicted as self-interested villains - and even lovers here - who pay the price for their actions. The singing and performances at least are just as strong and convincing, Sophie Karthäuser in particular delivering an amazing 'Zeffiretti lusinghieri', Gaëlle Arquez joining her impressively for the subsequent duet. Julien Behr also shows us the value of his Arbace here. If the direction throws everything in to try to make the final act a little more exciting - including the voice of Neptune seeming to come from Ilia's womb - it at least finds the right note to end on, Mozart's long chaccone accompanied by Ilia going into labour and giving birth on the stage. As far as establishing Idomeneo's out with the old and in with the new message, this production - as elsewhere - takes everything just that little bit further than most.


Links: Culturebox, Theater an der Wien

Hahn - Ciboulette (Opéra Comique 2013 - Webcast)

Reynaldo Hahn - Ciboulette

Opéra Comique, Paris, 2013

Laurence Equilbey, Michel Fau, Julie Fuchs, Jean-François Lapointe, Julien Behr, Eva Ganizate, Ronan Debois, Cécile Achille, Jean-Claude Sarragosse, Guillemette Laurens, Patrick Kabongo Mubenga, François Rougier, Bernadette Lafont, Michel Fau, Jérôme Deschamps

Culturebox - 20 February 2013

Laurence Equilbey and Michel Fau, the musical and theatrical directors of this production of Ciboulette for the Opéra Comique clearly understand and manage to get across essential purpose of Renaldo Hahn's 1923 opérette. Above all else, Ciboulette is a comedy that celebrates a specific period, or perhaps two periods - its own time and the period of the Belle Époque.

The settings and considerations of the time and the audience for which it was written are critical for the whole character of the work. Reynaldo Hahn was well-known for his French music-hall melodies, and in many respects Ciboulette was a home-grown response to the American musical comedy, particularly those that portrayed the Belle Époque period less authentically. Ciboulette, hardly any less idealistically, celebrates the innocent beauty of the age with its depictions of the Les Halles market in Paris, with the countryside (or at least the Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers which was the countryside back then), and the sets consequently look like period sepia-tinted monochrome photos with splashes of hand-colouration.

The music for Ciboulette, conducted with a delicate lightness by Laurence Equilbey, is also authentically music-hall in style for a plot that is as frothy as they come. It concerns the romantic complications of Ciboulette, a young market-seller at Les Halles. Her aunt and uncle in Aubervilliers are pushing the young woman to marry, but the decision is not an easy one for Ciboulette who is engaged to no less than eight suitors. Playing for time, Ciboulette announces her engagement to a young man she has discovered hiding in her market cart, Antonin de Mourmelon, a millionaire who has just been jilted by his mistress, the glamorous and flirty Zénobie.

The path to true love in a comic operetta is of course rather more complicated than that. The plot to Ciboulette involves a gypsy prediction of three signs (which are revealed in amusing ways) that will ensure that Antonin is the right man for Ciboulette, and it even goes ot the lengths of Ciboulette taking to the stage in the guise of a Spanish singer, Conchita Ciboulero. Unable to resist the strange allure of this beautiful woman to whom he confesses his love, Antonin nonetheless reveals his intention to remain true to the memory of Ciboulette. The signs fall into place - after many comic interludes and songs - and all ends well.

Ciboulette is in some ways a throwback to the golden age of the opéra-comique (with a few references to Favart, Offenbach, Meilhac and Halévy thrown into the libretto), but despite its knowing wit and cleverness, it's not really a pastiche, but clearly intended to be light, entertaining and filled with tunes for the enjoyment of the audience of its own time. There's a self-awareness then, but that was there even in Offenbach's time, and its a characteristic that gives the opera a sense of sophistication for all its lightness. Self-awareness, but not self-importance. It's not looking to art or posterity, but to present the very best kind of musical entertainment for its audience.

Ciboulette does that with a certain degree of charm, even if it's not quite as smart and funny as the best Offenbach. The music hall melodies and songs, despite Hahn's reputation, didn't strike me as being particularly memorable, while the comedy relies heavily on repetition. It seems to work to the principle that if you keep repeating phrases and words, they will eventually just become funny. On the other hand, much of the success of this type of work lies in the hands of the performers, and it must be played with the right amount of verve and comic exaggeration.

Alongside the beautiful set designs and lighting that give the work a delightful and appropriate sense of period charm and innocence, it is indeed in the performances that really bring Ciboulette to life. Julie Fuchs doesn't have a big operatic voice, but one that is pure, sweet and lyrical with just a touch of the French music hall tradition. Julien Behr is indeed a perfect match as Antonin de Mourmelon, but there is fine singing also here from Jean-François Lapointe as Duparquet. It's the secondary comic acting turns that are just as critical here as the singing roles, and those are very capably handled. Quintessentially French, Ciboulette is the kind of work that the Opéra Comique excels in producing as the home of French lyric theatre.

Links - Culturebox, Opéra Comique