Abrahamsen - The Snow Queen (Munich, 2019)

Hans Abrahamsen - The Snow Queen (Munich, 2019)

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2019

Cornelius Meister, Andreas Kriegenburg, Barbara Hannigan, Rachael Wilson, Katarina Dalayman, Peter Rose, Caroline Wettergreen, Dean Power, Kevin Conners, Owen Willetts, Thomas Gräßle

Staatsoper.TV - 28 December 2019
There would appear to be two significant works in Hans Abrahamsen's recent output that have led to the creation of his first opera The Snow Queen, and they also give some advance indication of how the work would sound. One is the musical meditation on the qualities, properties, texture and character of snow, Schnee, the other is the popular success of Abrahamsen's Ophelia song-cycle Let Me Tell You, with Barbara Hannigan adding her light, agile soprano to the composer's delicate compositions and arrangements.

Those two major works are interconnected within the narrative of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen. Like all fairy tales, there is a darker edge that lies beneath the surface which has been softened over time and narration and director Andreas Kriegenburg isn't wrong in detecting an undercurrent of what we would now recognise as mental illness in the story, one exacerbated by a sense of loss and loneliness. Unfortunately, the libretto for the work remains superficial and never delves into the depths that Abrahamsen and Kriegenburg attempt to explore in the music in the new Bavarian State Opera production of this English language version of the opera following Snedronningen's premiere in Denmark in October 2019.

Essentially the narrative of The Snow Queen involves Gerda (Barbara Hannigan) trying to rescue her brother Kay from the clutches of the Snow Queen. Their grandmother has related a story of a magic mirror created by the devil that makes beautiful things appear ugly. The mirror has shattered into thousands of pieces and shards have pierced the eye and heart of Kay, who now longer recognises the beauty in the world and has fallen into a deep depression or despair.

While still seeking to retain some of the qualities of this inner snow world that combines beauty with coldness and bleakness of winter, Kriegenburg also expresses the fairy-tale world in terms of mental illness, Kay not literally abducted by the Snow Queen, but seemingly institutionalised. His sister Gerda is not far off a state of mental instability herself. She wants to help Kay find himself and does so through a kind of dream fantasy, encountering an old woman in a garden where the nurses have faces of flowers (and later reappear as angels), as well as a Castle Crow and a Forest Crow who lead her to the Ice Palace of the Snow Queen.

In theory, Kriegenberg's approach should be a good way of making the nature of mental illness relatable at the same time as fulfilling what appears to be a Bayerische Staatsoper tradition of finding/creating seasonal works beyond the ever popular Hansel and Gretel. In reality it never seems to weave a magical spell of enchantment, and in large part it's because the libretto really never lives up to the mood or emotional undercurrents of chilly despair that is certainly there in Abrahamsen's delicate complex flurries of music. The libretto is mostly based around Gerda's repetitive search for Kay - 'Where is Kay? I have to find Kay', even though he is physically present in the not terribly original setting of a mental institution with nurses and patients taking the roles of fairy tale characters.

The libretto moreover is very wordy without ever saying anything meaningful, the English parlando never particularly musical or scanning well to fit with the musical arrangements. It does develop into a flow, and there are some beautiful passages notably around the end of Act II before the interval, with a combined trio of Gerda, the King and Queen backed by a chorus. Unable to draw any deeper meaning out of the libretto, or express it through the production design. Barbara Hannigan is of course as impressive as ever and bass Peter Rose an interesting choice for the voice of the Snow Queen, but it all comes across as very pretty and not much else.



Harald B. Thor's sets combine and highlight the disparity between the fantasy with the real-world well enough, using simple plastic sheet backdrops that have an icy appearance, with shredded plastic giving an impression of light, fluffy snow, creating an artificial winter world that also captures a sense of the austere cold world of the mind in isolation. The use of costumes also makes the narrative easy to follow who are doubles and younger versions of Gerda and Kay, but neither Hannigan's expression, Cornelius Meister's conducting nor Kriegenburg's conception are able to bring any real sense of drama to this beautiful but rather lifeless production.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper TV Opera Live

Verdi - Aida (Stockholm, 2018)

Giuseppe Verdi - Aida

Royal Swedish Opera - Stockholm, 2018 

Pier Giorgio Morandi, Michael Cavanagh, Christina Nilsson, Ivan Defabiani, Katarina Dalayman, Lennart Forsén, Alessio Cacciamani, Johan Edholm, Jihan Shin, Jessica Forsell

OperaVision - April 2018

If there's one Verdi opera that needs to be continually reassessed and reconsidered in terms of whether it still has any real relevance or anything to say to a modern audience it's probably La Traviata, but Aida isn't far behind. Both works might have been fuelled by real anger against social institutions, but if they ever did have anything important to say it's easy for it to get lost in the star power and glamour that the operas' settings and subjects inevitably attract. La Traviata however can be immensely powerful and hard-hitting about society's treatment of women when it's allowed to be, and condemnation of the horrors of war in Aida need not necessarily be submerged under the bombast of Verdi's score and the pomp and ceremony of grand opera spectacle.

You do have to question the effectiveness of Verdi's treatment in Aida however, in how it seems to get carried away with its exotic setting and location, in the attention that Verdi pays towards Eastern-influenced melodies, grand religious ceremonies and ceremonial triumphal marches before royalty. With the melodramatic turns of love, family and duty all becoming intertwined, it threatens to overshadow the anti-war, anti-religious sentiments that are there, but there have been some notable attempts (and failures) to move away from the glamour and address the real issues at the heart of the work - if you consider that they were ever really there.

The short overture to Aida certainly reflects a more sombre note, and in Michael Cavanagh's production for the Royal Swedish Opera, that's immediately established as being associatedwith the more intimate story of the individuals whose lives have suffered because of the demands placed on them by the 'state'. We already see Aida and Radamès buried alive in the tomb that descends to show a figure we can presume in Amneris, lying face down in a pool of blood with a knife by her side. The note of melancholy that can also be found in Radamès ode to an impossible love for a slave girl of his nation's enemy ('Celeste Aida') is soon overwhelmed by cries of 'war and death' as the news of Amonasro's advance is brought by the High Priest, Ramfis.

It's in such contrasts however that Aida does effectively present the conflict between the individual's hope and dreams and the necessity of putting them aside for something as monstrous as war. Radamès's personal conflict is mirrored in the situation of Aida later in the opera when she is torn between her love for Radamès and her love for her father, Amanasro, the King of Ethiopia whose armies have been routed and taken captive by the Egyptian commander and his forces. There's also very much a case put of there being no real victors when it comes to war. "Today we are the victims of fate, tomorrow fate may strike you", Amonasro warns Radamès, and history has shown the truth of such turns of fate in the downfalls of the great. 

This aspect is borne out and elaborated upon quite successfully in the Stockholm production even if the focus is very much on the small personal drama. It's hard to criticise the production on those grounds, as this is indeed very much how it is played by Verdi. So yes, Aida has musical and dramatic flaws, or even if you don't consider them flaws - and it's perfectly valid to enjoy the opera for the music and singing for what it is - you still adjust the emphasis at your peril. Olivier Py's scattershot Paris production demonstrated the risks inherent in that whereas the chamber approach as seen more recently in the La Monnaie production, touched much more effectively on the true nature of the work in a way that prevented it from it appearing dated and out of touch with the times.

Magdalena Åberg's set and costume designs for the Royal Swedish Opera production are unimposing, but there is a balance struck between modern military uniforms with AK47 rifles and some nods to the Egyptian heritage of the work with its robes and ceremonies. The production does well to avoid the familiar imagery and processional choreography, presenting a more minimal stage with a gold wall in the background and blue lighting that nonetheless retains an air of a royal palace with notions of strict protocol and order. So there's a fresh modern outlook on the work at the same time as the necessary contrasts between the institutions of the state and the ordinary citizen are marked out well; contrasts that focus on the intimate love story at the heart of the work, one crushed by the weight of those powers that Verdi depicts so dramatically. 

The main issue that has to be dealt in a production of Aida is in how to present it's Triumphal March; whether to make it a glorious spectacle or undercut it with realism. Cavanagh's approach wisely takes a dim view of celebrating slaughter, so while the chorus and trumpets are proclaiming victory and the greatness of their King, we are shown scenes of the reality of the war that Radamès has waged against the Ethiopian tribes. And it is very much that of a large military force, bulked out in combat gear with every precision targeting technology at their disposal, bringing horror to the lives of ordinary citizens. It's very well staged - with curtains blocking off live vignette scenes rather than using projections - and it hammers home the horror of the contrast between the ideal of duty and the reality for Radamès. 

Musically, Pier Giorgio Morandi conducts an excellent performance that plays well to the contrasts of Verdi's melodies and the variety of sentiments within it without letting it get too sentimental. The singing performances, despite some initial reservations with timing and technique, are also quite good, and backed up with a superb chorus. You have to pity any young tenor who has to launch straight into an aria like 'Celeste Aida' with barely time to warm up, but Ivan Defabiani's Radamès really comes through spectacularly later with a performance that builds in character and confidence. Christina Nilsson as Aida also takes a short while to find her feet after 'Ritorna vincitor', but likewise gives a fine performance, the two of them making a convincing young couple whose love is challenged by the scorned Amneris. Katarina Dalayman shows the right kind of imperiousness tinged with regret, although her voice is lacking some of the necessary force. It's in this small scale drama that the bigger picture is reflected, bearing out the words spoken earlier that "Today we are the victims of fate, tomorrow fate may strike you".

Links: Royal Swedish Opera, OperaVision

Wagner - Parsifal

Richard Wagner - Parsifal

The Metropolitan Opera, New York, 2013

Daniele Gatti, François Girard, Jonas Kaufmann, Katarina Dalayman, René Pape, Peter Mattei, Evgeny Nikitin, Rúni Brattaberg, Kiera Duffy, Lei Xu, Irene Roberts, Haeran Hong, Katherine Whyte, Heather Johnson, Ryan Speedo Green, Lauren McNeese, Jennifer Forni, Mark Schowalter, Andrew Stenson, Mario Chang, Maria Zifchak

The Met: Live in HD, 2nd March 2013

If it did nothing else The Met's new production of Wagner's Parsifal at least emphatically confirmed a few points.  Firstly, Parsifal is one of the most unique, beautiful and truly spiritual works ever written for the stage.  No great revelation there, but it's good to come out of a performance of this remarkable work feeling that it has been proven.  Secondly, Jonas Kaufmann, singing the title role, is one of the best tenors in the world today - if not actually the very best.  Again, although he has only sung this particular role once before, this won't come as a surprise to anyone.  A third point that many people also already know, is that Parsifal is an incredibly difficult work to stage.  Unfortunately, François Girard's production for the Met's production confirmed that point, and just as emphatically as the other two points were made.

Part of the reason why Parsifal is such a difficult work to stage of course is because it is not an opera in the strictest sense, and not even a Wagnerian music-drama.  Wagner coined a new category for the work for its presentation at Bayreuth, calling it a Bühnenweihfestspiel ("A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage"), which seems like a minor distinction (or a rather pompously Wagnerian one, take your pick), but in reality, with its religious subject matter, Parsifal is indeed closer to an oratorio than an opera.  In terms of dramatic action, there's not much that happens over the course of the three acts that take up over four and a half hours running time.  While there may be little in the way of incident, much of the dramatic action conveyed through narration in long recitatives expressing noble sentiments and grand choruses of heavenly praise, Parsifal is nonetheless a remarkably dense work, filled with Christian imagery, Buddhist philosophy and ancient mythology.  The meaning, the mystery and the ambiguity of the work, as well as its sheer beauty, is given its fullest expression however in Wagner's music, the majestic summit of his career, some forty years in the making, completed in 1882 just six months before his death.

In the Met's production however, Daniele Gatti's conducting of the score tended towards a languorous levelling of pace and dynamic towards an enveloping somnolence.  The only dimension that the viewer was likely to enter in this transcendentally spiritual work was that of unconsciousness.  It wasn't dull, it wasn't boring, it was performed and sung magnificently and often with great sensitivity by a wonderful cast - but Parsifal is a work with countless levels of meaning and interpretation and there was no particular vision in either Gatti's solemn even-handed conducting of the work or in Girard's stage production.  Set in a dark vaguely futuristic/timeless post-apocalyptic landscape, the knights dressed in modern black trousers and white shirts instead of armour, there was certainly a concerted effort to remove or at least downplay the traditional imagery and specific Christian elements in the work (in complete contrast to the recent Philipp Stölzl production that I saw at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin) in favour of a more universal spirituality.

This certainly worked for the First Act, reflecting the onerous task of the knights in their defence of the Grail, creating a sense of dark despair that weighs on Gurnemanz over the loss of the Spear, and emphasising the near overwhelming sense of pain that is felt by Amfortas in his eternal suffering from a grave wound that never heals.  The black, cracked and scorched earth is further divided by a stream that has women on one side and knights on the other.  Even Kundry cannot cross this river, which runs red with blood and widens at the end of the act, creating a powerful impression that feels in tune with the tone of the work and the wound of Amfortas, but the symbolism doesn't particular add anything to what is expressed in Wagner's score and libretto, nor does it encourage the viewer to consider the themes of the work anew.  Returning to the same set in Act III - as dark, barren and desolate as it was in Act I - doesn't give any sense of the redemptive force of Parsifal's purity of purpose and sense of healing compassion.

Act II however is at least highly striking and original in its dark imagery of Klingsor and his vampy, ghostly Flower Maidens with spears wading in blood.  Avoiding traditional interpretations of this scene, it at least contrasts with the seductiveness of Wagner's score or could be said to draw out its sinister undercurrents, but it's hard to imagine Parsifal being seduced by either the maidens or Kundry here.  As the most ambiguous figure within the work, there is certainly a case for emphasising Kundry's different roles as a woman in the work - and the symbolism certainly suggested as much - but it's difficult to establish a sense of the character being anything more than all things to all men.  She's a mother with deep reserves of love and compassion, a lover, a whore and a temptress a distraction from the man with purity of purpose.  She doesn't need to be quite so open, but like all the other concepts in this production, it seemed unable to settle for any one interpretation or even unifying concept, leaving all possibilities there to be read as desired.

If there was a lack of vision in the production's visual and conceptual interpretation of the work, it often looked marvellous and at least provided a suitable platform for the singers to bring a much needed sense of humanity and meaning to the words.  The Met's casting was the principal attraction here.  Jonas Kaufmann was a memorable Parsifal, his performance here likely to be the standard that any modern production of Parsifal in the world today is likely to be judged against.  His voice, his delivery and his interpretation made this an almost soulful performance.  We had to really wait until the third act to get the full impact - his Act II duets alongside Katarina Dalayman's Kundry were less effective than those in Act III with René Pape's Gurnemanz - but this was glorious, dreamy singing and deeply persuasive of the real character and meaning of the work that was lacking elsewhere in the production itself.

It helped that Pape was able to reach deeply into his character also with a beautiful soft Wagnerian line free of bluster.  He was strong in his long first Act narration, but unassisted by anything to work with in the production design and concept, it wasn't until the transcendental third Act that he was able to lift this to another level, presumably buoyed by Kaufmann's sensitive performance.  Katarina Dalayman's Kundry was wonderfully sung, but I failed to gain any sense of who or what her character was supposed to be from this production or from her interaction with Kaufmann's Parsifal.  Philipp Stölzl's recent Deutsche Oper production of Parsifal had its flaws certainly, but it at least put Kundry at the centre of the work and Evelyn Herlitzius explored the vocal and emotional range of the character more effectively.  Dalayman's performance was by no means weak however, and there were no weaknesses to be found elsewhere in Peter Mattei's painfully agonised and deeply moving Amfortas, while Evgeny Nikitin brought a sense of real danger and purpose to his Klingsor that avoided all the evil-villain clichés - notwithstanding his being bathed in and wading in blood throughout the second Act.

You could go down as far as Rúni Brattaberg's Titurel the individual Flower Maidens here and you'd still not find a single weak link in the singing performances.  Gatti's conducting, which I found more persuasive divorced from the images when I listened back to the performance on the radio broadcast, the beautiful playing of the work by the Met orchestra and the strong consistent singing of a fine cast, all did at least work hand-in-hand with Girard's direction and Michael Levine's set designs.  Even if it lacked a visionary edge to match Wagner's majestic final testament, this was a mesmeric Parsifal that did justice to one of the greatest works in all of opera.