Meyerbeer - Les Huguenots (Paris, 2018)

Giacomo Meyerbeer - Les Huguenots

L'Opéra de Paris, 2018

Michele Mariotti, Andreas Kriegenburg, Lisette Oropesa, Yosep Kang, Ermonela Jaho, Karine Deshayes, Nicolas Testé, Paul Gay, Florian Sempey, Julie Robard-Gendre, François Rougier, Cyrille Dubois, Michal Partyka, Patrick Bolleire

Culturebox - 4 October 2018

There's a strong case for keeping Meyerbeer in his own period and, so far, less of a case has been made for updating productions of his works to appeal to the tastes of a modern audience. Giacomo Meyerbeer's grand operas seem to be doomed to be consigned to history (along with so many other forgotten opera composers) as extravagant novelties to impress critics and elaborate entertainments for the rich. At a time when opera is going through a phase of reinvention as it attempts to be more expansive and inclusive, there doesn't seem to be a place for Meyerbeer any longer.

Which, along with the expense of putting on a Meyerbeer opera production, the sheer length of a five-act grand opera and the specialised singing required to sustain it, means that one of the most influential opera composers in its history hasn't been performed much in the 20th century. In the 21st century, there have been a few more adventurous attempts to rehabilitate Meyerbeer, to seek to restore and recognise his importance, or at least explore whether his works are worth reviving. The results have been mixed but tending towards 'problematic' and that's exactly where I think you could categorise Andreas Kriegenburg's new production of Les Huguenots for the Paris Opera.

Les Huguenots is an opera that can't be ignored, but it is in itself problematic. It's Meyerbeer's most famous work, it best displays many of his undoubted skills as a composer and it has a dramatic historical event as its subject - the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572 in which thousands of French Protestants (Huguenots) gathered in Paris for the royal wedding of Marguerite de Valois to Henry of Navarre were slaughtered by Catholics opposed to the Reformation during a period of heightened tensions, but it has to be said that its grand opera mannerisms don't make the subject friendly to modern interpretation. On the other hand, we are going through an age when religious conflict and intolerance to differences is a hot subject again, and what is Les Huguenots if not that?

Andreas Kriegenburg doesn't appear to be particularly concerned with the historical context of Les Huguenots, but choosing to set the work in the future it's questionable whether he thinks the work has anything to say about today either. If not that, then what? Well, it's far from clear, as other than a random piece of text setting the scene in 2063 there is actually nothing 'futuristic' about the production, and - other than costumes and the period - it actually adheres fairly closely to the composer's original intentions for the work, which is (unfortunately) as a romantic melodrama above all else.

Harald B Thor's set designs are very much in the Paris Opera house style; a brightly lit white stage, tasteful bold pastel colouration of costumes and semi-abstract sets that fill the vertical and horizontal space of the Bastille stage. There's a box-like grid construction for the Château of Count Nevers in Act I, there are platforms and tall thin bare bark trees to give an impression of the gardens and river of Marguerite de Valois' Château de Chenonceaux in La Touraine, with pale blue lighting. It's all very tasteful, with tasteful mild nudity, clean and uncluttered and it looks wonderful, but despite the supposedly futuristic sets, it does little for Meyerbeer's rather old-fashioned operatic style.

What it does do at least is highlight the brilliance and complexity of Meyerbeer's arrangements as well perhaps as its unnecessary over-elaboration. The famous Pré aux clercs scene in Act III in particular is impressive, the stage choreography and colouration highlighting the different colouration of the musical arrangements; a sequence that the singing of the Huguenot troops, the celebrations of Catholic students at the tavern, a procession of Sunday worshippers and the dance of a gypsy contingent. Then Meyerbeer brings them all together and the de-cluttered stage arrangements allow you to appreciate the skill involved in this.

The production is just as smooth elsewhere, Act IV sliding one set across to make way for another full stage set, with no over-elaboration or unnecessary detail, just simple elegant minimalism. Unfortunately, it's also just rather bland and non-committal, having nothing to offer in its futuristic setting, giving no reason why Catholics would be murdering Protestant Huguenots in the year 2063. As far as Meyerbeer and Scribe's drama goes, it accurately represents the original intentions with its romantic melodrama at the centre between Raoul and Valentine, but does nothing more than place it in a rather more tastefully decorated and designed setting.

It's a reasonably entertaining production then, which is important, made all the more enjoyable for the strong musical performance and exceptional singing. Marguerite has most of the technical challenges and Lisette Oropesa meets them extraordinarily well. Yosep Kang's Raoul de Nangis however is also very capably handled, the diction clear and lyrical. Ermonela Jaho is pushed into an uncomfortable range as Valentine, but she delivers the high notes impressively and with great expression, and actually comes across as one of the more 'human' characters here when everyone else seems to be playing grand opera. Paris Opera regulars Nicolas Testé, Paul Gay and Karine Deshayes all perform exceptionally well here, and the chorus also delivers.

Musically ...well, it's Meyerbeer so it has its longeurs, but it sounded great under Michele Mariotti. All the big bang conclusions at the end of each act really hit home and were well stage managed for additional effect, but there was also a lightness of touch and delicacy for the variety of sentiments that one finds in Les Huguenots, 'operatic' though they might be (drinking songs, lyrical love duets and romantic confrontations, religious pleas and calls to war with dramatic interventions). I don't usually hold to the view that some operas are better without the visuals, but in this case l found the work stronger and more interesting when just listening to the performance. I don't think that's as much to do with Kriegenburg's direction as the fact that Meyerbeer and Scribe's often ludicrously over-the-top sentiments don't really hold up to being taken seriously. Which is why Meyerbeer remains problematic, but Kriegenburg's direction does nothing to address it.

Links: L'Opéra de Paris, Culturebox

Massenet - Werther

Jules Massenet - Werther

The Metropolitan Opera, New York - 2014

Alain Altinoglu, Richard Eyre, Jonas Kaufmann, Sophie Koch, David Bižić, Lisette Oropesa, Jonathan Summers, Philip Cokorinos, Tony Stevenson, Christopher Job, Maya Lahyani

The Met Live in HD - 15 March 2014

Much as I try - and I've listened to a lot of his work - Massenet is a composer I've never been able to connect with on a musical level. There are exceptions of course - and Werther is certainly one of them - particularly when the work in question is given a thoughtful stage presentation. Manon, for example, stands or falls based on whether the director is willing to draw the personalities out of the characters, and Don Quichotte can be a wonderful and tragic flight of adventure if it's directed by Laurent Pelly. Werther however, you can't really get it wrong. Surely. It's all there in the music and even the most basic illustration of Massenet's perfect setting can convey the full impact of Goethe's highly romantic work. Basic illustration is however something that you don't often get with Metropolitan Opera productions or Richard Eyre, and I'm not sure their over-elaboration of elements of this production really add anything to the work.

To be fair, Richard Eyre's production, while it does seem terribly old-fashioned and theatrical with fussy details, does have some modern touches that in some respect relates to Massenet's old-fashioned compositional style with its (I feel) uncomfortable relationship with Wagner-influenced modernism. This is particularly evident in the overture in which Eyre stages the death of Charlotte's mother as a prelude to the opera. This is undoubtedly a significant event and the music that accompanies it is similarly brooding with foreboding, with death and its impact on those left behind. In particular, it determines Charlotte's future security in a promised marriage to Albert, and that is what is going to be the great tragedy of Werther's love. This prelude then sets the tone well for what follows, but it's also an example of how literally everything will be laid out, filled in and made explicit on the stage.

While there are certainly broad sweeps in the music, Werther is, admittedly, not so easy to pin down to a consistent overall tone. Certainly there is a large fatalistic romanticism that hangs over everything, but Massenet's score also portrays various little colourful incidents - the children's Christmas carol singing at the height of summer, Charlotte's relationship with her brothers and sisters, the Bailiff's appearance and his visit to the inn with Johann and Schmidt, the ball and intimations of the beauty of nature - all of which have to fit into the overall tapestry. These are important since they represent the life that is gradually squeezed out of the picture by Werther's all-consuming dark despair. This, I would suggest, is however is something that the conductor needs to manage more than the stage director, and Alain Altinoglu responds well to the challenges presented by the varied tones of the work.

Unfortunately, Richard Eyre feels that it's his job not only to depict every colour of the musical score in the staging, but to fill in where he feels that Massenet and the libretto haven't supplied enough detail. In the opening prelude this is acceptable and it's impressively staged, with projections and scene changes that capture the passing of time, set mood and location, the machinery allowing the set to fan out into rolling hills that tilt the stage and skew the lives of the characters. Eyre's production however goes way beyond merely setting the tone. The action of Werther can be left semi-ambiguous and unstated, but Eyre has a very definite, literal view on Werther's stability and his descent into despair and takes care to emphasise them for the audience.

There are, for example, no doubts here that Albert knows all about Werther's letters to Charlotte and that he, and everyone else, knows exactly what Werther's intentions are when he asks to borrow Albert's pistols. In some respects, this can be justified as it adds to the fatalistic romanticism of Goethe's work, that there's only one way that this can end and that everyone has to submit to the natural sequence of events that tragically have been set in motion that will inevitably end in Werther's suicide. Charlotte undoubtedly knows it here too, and - in one choice that I thought worked well in this production - follows this fatalistic path to its inevitable conclusion where she also prepares to take her own life as the curtain falls. In the context of this production, this is a perfectly consistent and effective choice that plays out well.

It's not the choices that Richard Eyre makes necessarily however, as in how he makes everything overly explicit, leaving no room for ambiguity for the viewer to make their own mind up about Werther as a hopeless romantic or as a pathological case. Perhaps the most extreme example of this is in the overly graphic scene of Werther's suicide. In my experience, this is often (and best) left unseen as an off-stage event. Massenet's score and his fate leitmotifs are powerful enough for this to work more than effectively. Eyre not only shows the sequence of Werther's despair, but graphically depicts him shooting himself in one of the bloodiest scenes I've ever seen on the stage, shooting himself through the heart (of course), with blood splattering all over the walls behind the bed in his dingy room.

It certainly a highly charged scene and I would agree with Eyre (in an interview with Peter Gelb during the interval) that it (and the production as a whole) is in keeping with the contemporary references to Ibsen, Strindberg and Chekhov - both in terms of the subject and the period and in terms of darker undercurrents of the content - but there's a feeling that Act III tips over into more modern depictions of screen violence. Tellingly, Eyre compares Jonas Kaufmann's acting ability to Al Pacino, and I wouldn't disagree with him either (it's largely down to Kaufmann that this works as well as it does), but it would seem that like most dumbed-down cinema depictions, Eyre doesn't trust the viewer to be able to work out undercurrents and make connections for themselves, and needs to spell it all out for them.

With all this over-emphasis, there are times when you think that Jonas Kaufmann is also over-emoting, but in the case of a character like Werther there's probably no such thing. Although many certainly did in Goethe's time, Werther is not a figure that you can entirely relate to nor completely sympathise with from a modern sensibility. You can however recognise the depth of his feelings from Massenet's writing and from the soulful delivery that Kaufmann expresses so powerfully. It could be a little more restrained and guarded in expression, but in the context of this production, it's about right and Kaufmann's ability is as impressive as ever. And comparisons to Pacino are no hyperbole either - this is a committed, convincing dramatic performance.

If there are some concerns about the stage direction, there are however no doubts whatsoever about the quality of the singing or the suitability of the casting. I'm a great admirer of Sophie Koch, who is a versatile and committed performer of tremendous ability. She sometimes sings more from the heart than from the page, but I'll take that kind of emotional and dramatic involvement over note-perfect singing technique any day (I would put Anja Harteros in the same category). She knows the role and character of Charlotte well and her experience shows, working well with Kaufmann and often to spectacular effect. In the rather distinctive approach taken to characterisation here, Albert and Sophie also have significant roles and both David Bižić and Lisette Oropesa make a strong impression and sing well.

This is a typically solid Metropolitan Opera production, overly bold and literal perhaps when Werther would benefit from a more intimate and open approach, but Richard Eyre's production isn't without some distinctive touches.  In the end however, it's the singing that carries it through.