Strauss - Salome (Hamburg, 2023)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Staatsoper Hamburg, 2023

Kent Nagano, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Asmik Grigorian, Kyle Ketelsen, John Daszak, Violeta Urmana, Oleksiy Palchykov, Jana Kurucová

ARTE Concert - 29th October 2023

Dimitri Tcherniakov's opera productions have tended to look very much alike in recent times, all tending towards contemporary upper middle-class settings, looking rather brown and dull. The interpretation or reinterpretation of the works in question has however never been dull. They may rarely accord accurately with the original stage directions but the director's approach at least finds new ways to consider the meaning of the works and what they say about contemporary society and the place of the individual within it, often from a psychoanalytical perspective. So while Tcherniakov's production of Strauss's Salome for Hamburg looks similar to his recent stage productions, you can imagine he will nonetheless find considerable riches in the psychology or psychopathy of this particular work.

It doesn't take too long to identify the little twists to the stage directions in this production and find them intriguing enough to see where he will take them. It's a dinner party for Herod's birthday and the assembled well-to-do guests are arranged around the table, some slightly outlandishly dressed. Narraboth observing the pale beauty of the princess Salome in the moonlight is not one of the waiters standing around the walls as you might expect, but one of the guests. The princess has made a late sullen appearance at the table in a white puffa jacket and Ren & Stimpy T-shirt, rejecting the welcome of her mother Herodias.

The initial proclamation from Jokanaan then does not come from a deep cistern but from the other end of the table, from man in a brown jacket and jeans, sporting glasses and comb-over (his hair definitely not like clusters of black grapes), smoking a cigar and intoning his grave pronouncements from a book he is reading. He seems out of place here, lost in his own world, bearing perhaps an air of disdain or self-righteousness, but possibly just oblivious to the frivolity of the dinner party. This Jokanaan is not a prisoner, but a guest, respected for his wisdom, but evidently seen as a bit eccentric.

You could also describe Tcherniakov's take on this opening scene as eccentric, but bearing in mind what we already know about how this party is going to play out, it's intriguing enough to wonder how this idea is going to be developed. Well, one aspect of Oscar Wilde's play is about social decadence and illicit lusts that are acceptable as long as they remain hidden under a mask of outward respectability, and this suggested openness of those behaviours provides a good opportunity to expose that. Not that any further enticement is needed as the work itself is still for me one of the most daring, provocative and hauntingly beautiful works of opera ever written. With Kent Nagano conducting, it enthralls from the first notes here, drawing you into a unique and very specific mood that never lets up as it progresses unbroken on a real-time path towards its shocking conclusion. Some fine singing from Oleksiy Palchykov as Narraboth certainly invites you to remain into the fascinating sound world of dark psychopathology.

As powerful as the work remains, what is still a challenge is finding a way to bring out is the shock nature of the work's subversive element of Wilde’s marriage of Symbolist poetic imagery with Biblical subject matter and a decadent high society. Removing the mystical status of Jokanaan, and presumably removing the removing of the head is going to make that harder, even if the conclusion might have lost some shock value now (but not much). One way is how the setting of this production attempts to bring what people really think about each other is brought much more into the open. When Salome complains about the lascivious looks of John Daszak's Herod and her mother's tolerance of his attentions, she does it in front of them and the guests, while they try to laugh it off as Salome just being Salome. It really heightens the sense of murderous intent.

Again however, Tcherniakov seems determined at every stage to undercut the familiar set pieces and find other means of bringing out ...well, whatever it is he is attempting to bring out. The failure of Narraboth to kill himself is neither here nor there, the Tetrarch slipping in blood only figuratively as a joke for the uproar that has developed at his party should dissipate the dark Symbolist imagery, but the tension somehow still remains. Salome's reaction and outburst at Jokanaan's rejection of her advances that plays out alongside this and the theological dispute of the Jews is however very strange. Delving through her old suitcase that her outraged mother - an excellent Violeta Urmana - throws at her feet, she dresses up with white face paint as a kind of a mime artist or Pierrot figure and sinks into shocked silence.

Similarly, Tcherniakov refuses to rely on the familiar explicit eroticism of the Dance of the Seven Veils, but tries to move past that and find another way of bringing out the uncomfortable nature of the relationship between Herod and Salome. Rather than strip off layers of clothing, Salome is almost naked already as Herod lasciviously dresses the drained, disconnected, semi-comatose Salome in a bizarre clown-like outfit. The whole scene remains static as the dance winds up to an anti-climatic conclusion. Salome remains impassive up until the moment that Herod refuses her wish, when she smashes a glass and threatens to take it to her throat. Kyle Ketelsen's Jokanaan it has to be said, also remains impassive, observing dispassionately as she calls for his head.

She may not be permitted to express anything to feed the lascivious illicit desires of Herod during her dance, but elsewhere the singing role is more than expressive enough to bring out everything that needs to be said/unsaid, and Asmik Grigorian is expressive enough in her singing and acting performance at the call for execution and the aftermath for this to remain as charged as it can possibly be. I'm not sure anyone can fully explore the madness of Salome's obsession and her corruption, but it's there in the libretto and the writing for the voice waiting to be brought to life in performance. Grigorian is lyrical and forceful in her delivery, not particularly loud or strong to carry over the massed forces of the orchestra, but it's an impressive and compelling performance nonetheless that really brings out the complexity of this character, her nature, her emotions and reactions.

Tcherniakov and Grigorian take this as far as it can go, although with this director you always have to wonder if he doesn't take it so far into absurdity that he sometimes undoes the good that has been established. There is no moon, no blood, no headless corpse, so you have to look elsewhere to find out what drives these characters. What is it that Salome wants that Jokanaan’s existence denies her? Respect? Attention? Love? Death? Self worth? Whatever you think it is, whether Jokanaan lives or dies, it's beyond a spoiled, over-indulged rich girl to understand or obtain. The seed of a sick brood, she is only capable of wreaking destruction. Much as you miss Wilde's haunting imagery, Grigorian's performance is enough to ensure that the power of this extraordinary work - still one of the finest in the whole opera repertoire - still comes through in the Hamburg production.

External links: Staatsoper Hamburg, ARTE Concert

Stephan - Die ersten Menchen (Amsterdam, 2021)

Rudi Stephan - Die ersten Menchen

Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam - 2021

François-Xavier Roth, Calixto Bieito, Kyle Ketelsen, Leigh Melrose, Annette Dasch, John Osborn

ARTE Concert

Many German and Austrian composers of the late Romantic period had their careers cut short by the wars that scarred the first half of the 20th century, but unlike the composers who fell foul of the Nazi regime, antisemitism and opposition to decadent subject matters in their opera compositions, Rudi Stephan's promising career was brought to an abrupt and tragic end at the age of 28, shot after only 16 days as a conscripted soldier on the Russian front in 1915. His only opera Die ersten Menchen (The First Humans), completed in 1914 at the start of the war and performed for the first time five years after his death, is one of the great 'lost' major works of this period, Stephan's untimely death consequently representing another great loss to the opera world suffered during these years.

It might sound like it has a Biblical subject, but subtitled 'An Erotic Mystery', Die ersten Menchen's story of Adam and Eve taps into the similarly controversial subject of taboo lusts and violent desires that Richard Strauss had recently explored in his extension of the musical language of Salome and Elektra. And since we're effectively dealing with the Garden of Eden, with references to creation and procreation of the human race, with gardens of lush fruits and rising sap, blooming flowers and forbidden fruit, we're evidently dealing with similar archetypal forces and images, likewise brought to vivid and colourful expression in Stephan's music score for the opera.

And indeed the woman, Chawa (Eve) sees the role of procreation and populating the earth as the primary purpose of her nature and being, identifying with the Spring season. Adahm (Adam) on the other hand identifies with Autumn, seeing his work as having ripened and come to fruition, at a stage in a cycle that needs nurturing and renewal. Their sons Kajin (Cain) and Chabel (Abel) each have their own urges and differing natures. It's too much for Kajin to handle, and his mind gets twisted, his head filled with tormenting desires that he is unable to control, lusting for a wild woman, for pleasure and gratification. Chabel on the other hand seeks a higher spiritual purpose in his contemplation of the universe, the infinite and the eternal God.

Adahm and Chawa are swayed by the beauty of Chabel's vision, expressed as much in the soft soaring lyricism of his voice as it is in the beauty of the imagery he evokes. His visions are persuasive, but in their own way as demented as Kajin's, whose lusts eventually drive him towards his own mother. Like any work that deals in archetypes - and they don't come much more significant than Adam and Eve - there are degrees of emphasis and interpretation. Stephan, and the original work, all suggest that there are disturbing elements to any fanaticism, to a singular vision, and that a balance is necessary - and evidently, this reflects to some extent the world in which Stephan was living at the beginning of another war that would engulf Europe and so quickly bring about his own death.

The director Calixto Bieito doesn't need to set this in the Garden of Eden to highlight or give emphasis to the Biblical association of the work or Stephan's treatment of playwright Otto Borngräber's controversial play and libretto. Some of it might seem silly, such as Chabel sacrificing a cuddly toy that spurts blood, but there is something disturbing in this and it is no less effective for its refusal to conform to hackneyed imagery that may no longer hold impact and meaning. Nor, since the strength of the work lies in archetypes, in the psychology, in the pathology, in the music - does it need elaborate set designs and high directorial concepts to make it come alive and speak directly to an audience.

The reconfiguration of the Amsterdam opera house for social distancing presents Bieito with new ways of staging the work. Since this opera calls for a large orchestra that could hardly effectively distance in an orchestra pit, the orchestra are spread out in tiers at the back of the stage behind a transparent screen. The director makes good use - not overuse - of the screen by projecting overhead camera angles and other imagery that works with and intensifies the drama, such as it is. The family unit is suggested by a house-shaped lightbox and a dining table bearing a colourful array of ripened, rotting and crushed fruit juices and seeds. If the intention - borne out by the over-ripe music - is to show an orgiastic descent into decadence and murder, the director gets the messy madness of the first family across, and it doesn't say much for the origins of the whole human race.

Whether - like Wilde's 'Salome' - the libretto actually says anything subversive and meaningful about a corrupt society with violent dangerous lusts that hides behind a facade of respectability, or whether it just strives for similar poetic colour and controversy, Stephan matches the tone of the libretto as successfully as Strauss adapts Wilde with necessary overstatement. What it does clearly get across with some measure of success is the enormity of the very first experience of death, matching that significant first death of a human, slain by his brother with the true horror of the death of so many others to come at a time when war has just broken out, a war that will very soon kill see the composer also killed by his "brother".

Alas! A great red wave is rolling this way!
Human bones float in it, doleful skulls, a quivering heart
The future blood of future humanity!
The thousands of men slain by their human brothers!

The music lives up to the grandeur of the language (exclamation marks aplenty!) as well as the indescribable horror of the setting. François-Xavier Roth conducts the orchestra through the glorious dramatic sweep of Stephan's score, which is truly ravishing. If the significance of the characters and the text of the libretto is a little obscure in places, the musical setting of the voices by Stephan is also impressive, pushing the performers to full expression. John Osborn gets a plum role as the lyrically soaring Chabel, which he delivers superbly, as always. Kyle Ketelsen's Adahm and Leigh Melrose's deeper conflicted Kajin are just as impressive in their respective roles.

Comparisons to Strauss's Elektra are most felt at the start of the second act of Die ersten Menchen, where Chawa feels the isolation of her position, the loss of a family turned inward against itself and lets out her frustrations in a howl of rage. It's consequently similarly challenging on a dramatic soprano vocal level to cut through the vast orchestral forces and Annette Dasch plays it well, certainly pushed at the higher range, but retaining that fine measure of lyrical expression that is characteristic of her voice.

Links: Dutch National Opera, ARTE Concert

Weber - Der Freischütz (Munich, 2021)

Carl Maria von Weber - Der Freischütz

Bayerische Staaatsoper, Munich 2021

Antonello Manacorda, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Golda Schultz, Anna Prohaska, Kyle Ketelsen, Pavel Černoch, Boris Prýgl, Bálint Szabó, Tareq Nazm, Milan Siljanov, Eliza Boom, Sarah Gilford, Daria Proszek, Yajie Zhang

StaatsoperTV Live - 13 February 2021

One sure thing you can count on with an opera production by Dmitri Tcherniakov is that it's never going to be short of talking points and in some cases (Dialogues des Carmélites) downright controversy. Tcherniakov is still the only opera director I know to have had one of his works actually banned by the courts on the objection of the estate of the work's original author for subverting the true intentions of the work. You will definitely question whether he is true to the spirit of Romanticism in his setting of Weber's Der Freischütz in the executive room of the owner of a large corporation.

Furthermore, rather than opening the opera with a traditional shooting contest Tcherniakov has the competitors being urged to train a gun on and take down an unsuspecting member of the public from a window vantage point high on the office block of businessman Lord Kuno. Sure, you expect a modern director to find a new way to express the intentions of an old fashioned opera (albeit one of the most important in the history of German opera) but does this really conform to the original intentions and meaning of the original? Is Tcherniakov not again just seeking to be controversial by overturning and subverting a reactionary agenda?

For Tcherniakov, evidently the idea of a work that extols any kind of nationalist sentiment, superstition, romanticism or dealings with magic can't possibly be played straight to a contemporary audience and have the same impact as it might have had for its original audience. On the other hand there are deeper human qualities brought out in Weber's opera, and likewise Tcherniakov's intention is not to subvert the work, but use a similar exaggeration and shock factor to highlight an underlying idea. How far would someone go to impress the boss and marry into an influential family?

Well one thing you don't want to do is strike up a deal with the devil, or in the case of this production, get too friendly with and take the advice of the office weirdo, Kaspar. What he really does is encourages Max to pull the trigger that will open up his future destiny. He seems powerful and in control, but has strange ideas and hears voices and seems to be possessed, conversing with a split personality that he calls Samiel. He's also a bit of a gun freak. Too late, Max worries what he has got himself into and he has good reason to be concerned when he agrees to follow Kaspar to Wolf's Glen.

It does take a little twisting of the narrative to make this work, and where some might have more of an objection is in the director constructing his own narrative to put it into a quite different context from the original. In the gaps between scenes and in instrumental passages, Tcherniakov inserts subtitles that enter into the mind of the people involved and even creates a new narrative that you would think adds little, such as Agathe having previously been in a same-sex relationship with Ännchen, who dresses in a masculine if somewhat dandyish fashion. His take on the shock conclusion of the Hermit's forgiveness being a mere delusion and Agathe indeed being a victim of the magic bullet, is like Carmélites revisionism again, but it's enormously effective and appropriate here.

The more Romantic outlook on Der Freischütz would be the question of how far you would go for love when the path of virtue is the only road to salvation from the dark forces in the world, but Dmitri Tcherniakov's take on it as ambition and social climbing corrupting the soul can sit alongside that. You can debate whether that really gets under the skin of what the opera is all about, but there's no doubt - as is always the case I find - that he fully brings dramatic power and conviction to whatever he works on. If you didn't already know what a masterpiece Der Freischütz is, you would definitely feel it from the treatment here.

It also helps that the opera is played beautifully with Antonello Manacorda conducting the Bayerisches Staastorchester and there are some excellent singing performances. Golda Schultz in particular is impressive as Agathe and Pavel Černoch perfect as the rather unfortunate Max who falls under the spell as a wonderfully deranged Kyle Ketelsen as Kaspar/Samiel. It's also a very handsome production as most of Elena Zaytseva designs are for Dmitri Tcherniakov. In his latest mode of using elegant, tasteful wooden panel lined rooms to satirise middle- and upper-class luxury homes and offices (La Traviata, Tristan und Isolde, Pelléas et Mélisande), they could be showcase exhibits for interior design. In every respect, Tcherniakov's aim is perfect and his shot unerringly finds its true target.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, StaatsoperTV

Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande (Zurich, 2016)

Claude Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande

Opernhaus Zurich, 2016

Alain Altinoglu, Dmitri Tchernaikov, Corinne Winters, Kyle Ketelsen, Jacques Imbrailo, Brindley Sherratt, Damien Göritz, Yvonne Naef, Charles Dekeyser, Reinhard Mayr

BelAir - Blu-ray

There's no excuse really for not doing something creative and original with a work as unique and enigmatic as Pelléas et Mélisande. The story is deceptively simple on the surface, but it does have complex undercurrents that don't necessarily translate easily to anything obviously contemporary, so it demands an imaginative response. You would certainly expect a director like Dmitri Tcherniakov to find a new and modern way of looking at the work and for this 2016 Zurich production he employs a similar approach in look and feel that he has employed in other recent productions - in Carmen at Aix-en-Provence, in Les Troyens at the Paris Opera - which is to say an openly psychoanalytical approach.

When I say 'openly' that means that the director doesn't just place emphasis on the overt symbolism that is there throughout Pelléas et Mélisande, but he actually has a therapist up there on the stage, and - as with Don José in Carmen, and Dido in Les Troyens - he uses that figure as a way of drawing a character out of a deep trauma through psychoanalysis. Mélisande is and has always been a fascinating character to explore, very much a damaged figure, and Tcherniakov wouldn't be the first to see Mélisande as an abused female controlled by men (see Katie Mitchell's 2016 Aix-en-Provence production), but there's always the danger of a director (or the therapist) rationalising and explaining too much of the enigmatic mystery of the opera.

So in Dmitri Tcherniakov's production, Mélisande is not found in a forest, but led into a brightly-lit modern office or stylish living room in a state of deep shock. Her therapist, Golaud tries to get her to relive or reveal the deep-rooted cause of her distress, telling her to imagine sitting by a pool of water. A man approaches. How do you feel? ("Ne me touchez-pas!"). Why are you crying? Has someone harmed you? It's a perfect fit that captures the circularity of Mélisande's condition. We don't know what trauma this young woman has experienced, but the suggestion is that it's probably something similar to what she is about to go through again in Allemonde.

Suggestion is the key word here. It doesn't need to be explicitly stated because it's already hinted at in Debussy's score, not least in its ability to almost control, halt, shift and suspend notions of time. The Mélisande we discover at the end of the work is in a similar condition to the one we see at the start. It's almost as if she has been wiped clean by Golaud, by his authoritative 'therapist-like' manner, but the trauma remains buried deep and resurfaces as she experiences what we imagine must be similar conditions of mistreatment, abuse, mistrust, possessiveness and control. Tcherniakov's way into Pelléas et Mélisande respects the enigma of the work, finding - in combination with the music under Alain Altinoglu's direction - that unique and slightly sinister character of the piece.

As a concept it's an interesting proposition, but it still remains a challenge to develop it. Initially, when the therapist marries his patient and brings her home, it looks like Golaud's family are slightly alarmed at the idea, but soon they also start to put other dubious methods of practice into the treatment of Mélisande. Even Pelléas seems to treat her more as an object of curiosity or a case study furthering Golaud's experiments by practicing hypnosis on the young woman, placing her mentally rather than physically in those dark places that Maeterlinck describes in the original work. We already assume these are metaphorical in the work anyway, so whether that is following the idea through or overly spelling it out is debatable.

While it is fascinating to approach the work this way, personally I tend towards the latter view. It's not so much a case of Tchernaikov over-explaining the work as detracting from its mystery. Tcherniakov's approach towards demystification can produce interesting results in works like Dialogues des Carmélites or Macbeth, but it does tend to take away a little from works that have what some would see as more of a spiritual dimension (Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde). While there's no doubt that at heart Pelléas et Mélisande is a domestic drama as much as Macbeth is, those works also have an extraordinary way of describing or suggesting deeper undercurrents and complex emotions, and that is something that you can't afford to lose in this work.

Some mystery and ambiguity remains inevitably, as Tcherniakov can't quite fit the remainder of the work to his psychoanalytical approach, but it does tend toward the view of Mélisande being in an abusive relationship but under a kind of enchantment that prevents her from leaving. Golaud certainly lives up to this reading to a large extent, although Tcherniakov underplays some of the situations, making it more of a game play, which makes it all a little more sinister. Pelléas isn't quite the young innocent here, but controlling also, putting images in Mélisande's head. Mélisande is reduced to a shattered woman, walking around in a horrified troubled daze for most of the opera, which takes away somewhat from a more nuanced and dynamic view of her character.

Fortunately the singing performances are all exceptional, working with this conception of the work but also finding ways to express that more nuanced aspect that is suggested in Debussy's score. I'd go even as far as to say that all the principals are perfect matches for Debussy's score, having a wonderful lyrical enchantment with a darkly sinister or troubled edge. That's always the case with Jacques Imbrailo as Pelléas, but Corinne Winters is also impressive despite having her range of dramatic expression restricted and Kyle Ketelsen is an intriguing Golaud. All of them do find interesting ways of expression that is brought out by Tcherniakov's direction.

If there's some degree of magical enchantment taken out of the work and its dark Allemonde locations, Tcherniakov nonetheless comes up with a very stylish decor for the set that has its own sense of attractive entrapment. It all looks pretty good too in HD in the BelAir Blu-ray release with High Resolution soundtracks in LPCM 2.0 and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1. There are no extras other than a booklet notes interview with Dmitri Tcherniakov, a synopsis and a full trackisting. The Blu-ray disc is all-region and has subtitles in English, French, German, Spanish, Korean and Japanese.

Links: Opernhaus Zurich

Stravinsky - The Rake's Progress (Aix, 2017)

Igor Stravinsky - The Rake's Progress

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2017

Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Simon McBurney, Julia Bullock, Paul Appleby, Kyle Ketelsen, Evan Hughes, David Pittsinger, Hilary Summers, Andrew Watts, Alan Oke

ARTE Concert - 11th July 2017

To borrow a phrase from Baba the Turk, the rationale behind Stravinsky's neoclassical account of The Rake's Progress is not only perplexing to many, but it can be vexing too. Without some imagination and purpose applied it can - to continue with Baba the Turk's own commentary - show too much devotion towards an ancient flame and end up being, in dramatic and musical terms, nothing more than a souless pastiche of Classical opera mannerisms. In that respect, the opera could even be a self-regarding commentary on it own nature.

When a work seems to be a superficial pastiche or a commentary on itself, it leaves limited scope for a director to do something new or interesting with it, but surely The Rake's Progress offers more potential than Simon McBurney brings to the new production of the opera at the Aix-en-Provence festival? Like his Magic Flute, which appeared at Aix a few years ago and at a few other European opera houses, the use of stage-craft is innovative - this time using an almost entirely computer generated boxed-in surrounding set - but it plays along with the superficiality of the work, illustrating it without finding or bringing any new depth in it.

It's true anyway of course that The Rake's Progress, based on a series of Hogarth 18th century prints, is essentially a cautionary tale warning of the dangers of being swept away by the superficial attractions of money and the dissolute lifestyle that comes with it, its superficial attractions blinding us from where true beauty lies and what life has to offer. On that level at least, as well as on a level that impressed with its open-box immersive visual extravagance, the production design matches the intent of the original. And, regardless of the fact that the Hogarth series is almost three hundred years old, its point about sinful indulgence lacking the true rewards of moral integrity still holds true, even if the times have changed.

Simon McBurney's production design is essentially then an updating of David Hockney's updating of the Hogarth prints in his designs for John Cox's celebrated Glyndebourne production, the world depicted in one of flat paintings come to life. McBurney's version of this world is a fake computer-generated equivalent, projected appropriately on a thin paper wall blank sheet. Nick Shadow is the first person to rip a whole in the wall and step into Tom Rakewell's perfect but dull world, and the fragile nature of this delusion is exposed with further rips and tears, the most damage being done with all the trivial luxury items purchased by Tom's new wife Baba poking through the walls and ceiling.

Aside from images of a stock-market crash and the towers of the City melting down, in essence there's nothing here that really puts any new spin on the dehumanising endgame of materialism, consumerism or capitalism. Rakewell's bread-making machine viewed as nothing more than a brown box hardly scales up the operation to a level where this would have any valid social commentary on the world today, and there's little in the opera anyway beyond platitutes of innocence and virtue in Trulove that suggest that there's any real-world alternative. By merely illustrating it, McBurney's production exposes the thinness of the opera's concept as much its basic morality tale, and the work needs more real engagement with its subject than this.

Musically, as sophisticated as Stravinsky's writing undoubtedly is in its own terms, never mind the cleverness of its appropriation and reworking of its neoclassical reference points, The Rake's Progress still risks coming across as little more than an early model for the West End or Broadway musical. Or worse, as an insincere West End or Broadway musical. I don't think the rather Handel oratorio-like archaic formality of expression of Auden and Kellman's dialogues helps, the libretto often giving the impression of just being clever for the sake of it without really expressing anything that has genuine feeling in it or a belief in the story it tells.

The blandness of the dialogues extends to the characters, who never come to life or show any real personality. Tom Rakewell, Anne Trulove, Nick Shadow; as their allegorical names indicate, they are all ciphers created to fit a predetermined role unenlivened by a sense of humour or irony instead of their natures arising out of their circumstances, behaviour or situations. The singing and dramatic presentation of these caricatures is well handled by Julia Bullock, Paul Appleby and Kyle Ketelsen, but inevitably superficial and mannered, lacking any human interest or purpose. Rather like the work itself, the Aix-en-Provence 2017 production of The Rake's Progress is something that it is easier to admire than truly enjoy.

Links: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, ARTE Concert

Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro

Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, 2012

Jérémie Rhorer, Richard Brunel, Paulo Szot, Malin Byström, Patricia Petibon, Kyle Ketelsen, Kate Lindsey, Anna Maria Panzarella, Mario Luperi, John Graham-Hall, Emanuele Giannino, Mari Eriksmoen, René Schirrer

ARTE Internet Streaming - 12 July 2012

In all my time watching opera I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bad production of The Marriage of Figaro. No matter how familiar the Mozart’s score is, no matter how well known all the little twists and quirks of Da Ponte’s libretto, the opera is always simply just a delight - dazzling, witty, virtuoso, it’s simply one of the greatest works of opera. That will always be the case no matter what kind of production it’s given, whether period or modern-day, traditional or experimental, and that in my experience always comes through even if the singing isn’t of the very highest standard. The production of Le Nozze di Figaro for the 2012 Aix-en-Provence festival, for example, combines a modern staging with a fresh light touch in the musical direction which finds an appropriate rhythm for the comic situations that entertains and delights even if the singing doesn’t always come up to the mark.

Richard Brunel’s production updates the action from the mansion of the libidinous Conte di Almaviva to the modern-day office of the Count’s legal practice. This changes the social and class satire context of the original work where he is attempting to seduce his wife’s maid Susanna before she is married to Figaro, making it more a case of sexual harassment in the workplace against a female employee. That at least is a situation more recognisable for a modern audience who might not have heard of ‘droit du seigneur‘ (which is actually called the ‘le droit de cuissage‘ in French), but in a work that had already stripped away most of the revolutionary class satire from Beaumarchais’ original controversial drama, it doesn’t greatly alter - or indeed add to - the situational comedy of the relationships between men and women that is the focus of the actual opera. It is interesting however to see those situations enacted in an office environment, Susanna and Figaro’s forthcoming marriage celebrated as an office romance by their colleagues amid the shredders and photocopiers, even if their employer offering them a back-office room behind the filing cabinets to set up their marital bed doesn’t quite fit into that concept quite so well.

Otherwise, Brunel’s production works quite well in this universally recognisable modern-day environment. In this office, a smart-suited Figaro is Almaviva’s junior law secretary and Cherubino is the junior office boy (looking uncannily, whether intentionally or not, like Gareth from the TV comedy series ‘The Office’). Office politics play a part in the everyday life of the employees and there is some friction between Susanna and one of the older ladies employed there, Marcellina, which descends into a cat fight where they end up throwing ladies underwear at each other - for some reason. The legal practice also works well with the judicial case taken out by Bartolo and Marcellina against Figaro, as well as providing an appropriate occupation where Almaviva has a responsibility to behave in a manner that is in accordance with his position. Chantal Thomas’ stage set moves fluidly then between each of the locations, between the office, the store room and the bedroom with its siderooms, giving you a good cross-section view of events even if the actual layout and configuration isn’t the neatest for the comedy that is enacted between them.

If the dramatic and musical qualities of Le Nozze di Figaro make it somewhat foolproof as a brilliant and dazzlingly witty entertainment, it’s not however immune to weak casting in the singing roles. The main roles here at the 2012 Aix production are mostly fine, some of them good, but it’s fortunate that Jérémie Rhorer conducts the Le Cercle de l’Harmonie with a lightness and delicacy, as most would be drowned out by the usual full orchestral arrangement. If the musical accompaniment is bright and perky, the acting and the passions aren’t fully conveyed with the necessary abandon in the relatively lightweight singing of the majority of the cast. Kyle Ketelsen’s Figaro is the best here, a strong and confident baritone who seems to fit into the modern-day office role for his character perfectly. Paulo Szot’s Almaviva also looks the part. He’s not quite the fearful an employer you would expect the Count to be, but just as the Count isn’t entirely sure of his position in the enlightened times of the original period of the work, so too the lawyer - or magistrate - Almaviva is unsure how far he can push his attentions here as an employer for fear of being brought up before a tribunal for harassment. Szot gets this across and sings well, and if he doesn’t have the necessary weight for the role, it’s the right size of voice for this particular production as a whole.

The same could be said of Kate Lindsey’s Cherubino. Her ‘Voi che sapete‘ is sung well enough, and if it isn’t the showiest display of singing nor as impassioned as it could be, you could put that down to the relatively youthful naivety of the character. Still, it lacks the kind of impact you would expect in the singing, although the role is delightfully played for its comic potential. If Patricia Petibon is also not exactly what you expect from a traditional Susanna, again rather lighter and more naturally toned without the usual operatic mannerisms, she does however in this way make the role her own. Personally, I found Anna Maria Panzarella disappointing as Marcellina. She’s a fabulous singer, powerful in her Baroque opera roles, but here the role of Marcellina didn’t seem a good fit for her talents. It’s not easy to make any such excuses for Malin Byström, who just didn’t have a voice with the range or colour necessary to convey the emotional journey of the Countess, singing without any real conviction or feeling for the role. Her ‘Porgi amor‘ and ‘Sull’aria‘ duet with Susanna are sadly thrown away, which is a real pity.

Yet, Le Nozze di Figaro still survives these weaknesses. The stage design is a little cold and, other than subverting the happy ending with the suggestion that a leopard can’t change its spots and that Almaviva has already turned to his old philandering ways, the concept doesn’t really add anything particularly new to the work.  The set is at least lovely to look at and it functions quite well.  Likewise, if the singing performances don’t deliver all the verve and energy you might like with this opera, it’s made up for by the precise tempo and delicate playing of the orchestra which brings out plenty of detail in the arrangements. The production reviewed here was viewed via Internet streaming and is currently still available for viewing on the ARTE WebLive site.