Paer - Agnese (Turin, 2019)

Ferdinando Paer - Agnese

Teatro Regio Torino, 2019

Diego Fasolis, Leo Muscato, María Rey-Joly, Markus Werba, Edgardo Rocha, Filippo Morace, Andrea Giovannini, Lucia Cirillo,Giulia Della Peruta, Federico Benetti

Dynamic Blu-ray

While there have been some wonderful and worthwhile revivals of forgotten works by Donizetti, Bellini and of course Rossini, there's been less attention paid to other little-known works and neglected composers from this period who helped pave the way from the baroque and opera seria of the 18th century to the dominant form of Italian opera that the masters Verdi and Puccini would perfect. The occasional work revives interest in this period now and again with regular efforts to rehabilitate Giacomo Meyerbeer, a Saverio Mercadante here, a very rare Giovanni Simone Mayr there, Giovanni Paccini almost never, all of them nonetheless providing clues to the link and development of opera into its familiar popular mid-to-late 19th century form. Somewhere in there Ferdinando Paer has also been largely forgotten.

And if the Torino production of Agnese is anything to go by, probably unjustly neglected. A tremendous success in its day his 1809 opera Agnese hasn't been performed anywhere in earnest for a couple of hundred years. Following a critical edition of the work made in 2007, the 2019 Turin production does much to make this fascinating work accessible and entertaining. Conducted by early music specialist Diego Fasolis with sympathetic direction by Leo Muscato and a colourful stylised set design that neither makes fun of the work's strange opera semi-seria conventions nor attempts to modernise it into something unsuitable, it's a production that does much to reveal Agnese's undoubted qualities.

Perhaps even more than Meyerbeer's 5-act grand opéras, the opera semi-seria is a tricky proposition to put before a modern audience (Muscato I'm minded to note directing one of the best Meyerbeer productions I've seen, L'Africaine). Characterisation is exaggerated, situations are scarcely credible and plot developments feel contrived. These are often based around a poor innocent country maiden whose reputation has been unjustly impugned in an uneasy blend of comedy and tragedy, the sentimental mixed with buffo elements. Paer's ability to make something more of such material however is laid out impressively in the dramatic storm and chorus opening of Agnese which reminded me of the ominous opening of Bellini's La Straniera (1829). Believed lost in the woods, Agnese is not a maiden but has indeed been unjustly treated and betrayed by her husband Ernesto and has run away taking their young daughter with her.

There is of course a tragic backstory. Having run off to marry Ernesto in the first place, a man who has turned out to be unfaithful, Agnese's father Uberto has been driven out of his mind for the last seven years. Locked away in an asylum he has preferred to believe his daughter dead. On her way to beg forgiveness for her father she runs into him in the woods, the man clearly out of his wits, unable to recognise her but easily upset at talk of fathers and daughters. At the asylum the warden Don Pasquale holds Agnese responsible for the state of her father but isn't unsympathetic to her plight and reluctantly agrees to help her. Uberto however seems beyond reach, the madman obsessively drawing coffins and graves on the wall of his cell.

In terms of the hangover from late opera seria period, Paer's 1809 opera still has a number of generic arias of emotional turmoil expressing tearful laments, outbursts of anger, regret and repentance, the arias and cavatinas separated by accompanied recitative. As is common with the later bel canto style, the plot is fairly straightforward and there's not a great deal of dramatic action but nonetheless it's somewhat needlessly drawn out to close to three hours by incidental numbers that tend to be rather repetitive in their expression, are not particularly revealing and don't always hold attention. They are there more to inject some colour and diversion, but in the vocal expression at least they can go some way to develop characterisation.

The way to make it work on the stage is of course to enter wholly into the spirit of the work and respect its original intentions as much as possible without being slavish to tradition. Offenbach's opéra-comique comedies are a good measure of how to play this, Rossini's entertainments even more so, and the renewed interest in both composers is undoubtedly down to them being treated well in this respect. Leo Muscato's stylised approach works in favour of the character of the opera, using old-fashioned scuffed and rusting medicine tins, that look like classic biscuit, sweet tins or cigar boxes, each opening up storybook-like into whole rooms.

There's no particular significance in this other than other than to package the work up nicely and stylishly, with no unnecessary modernisms to distract from the old-fashioned treatment of a drama that takes place in an asylum populated by raving madmen and women. Having said that the physician in charge of the asylum Don Girolamo might appear to be a bit eccentric but he employs some innovative and humane therapy and treatments here for curing mental illness. There at least, Agnese is somewhat ahead of its time. For the sake of sanity for all involved, Don Pasquale also does his bit to reconcile Ernesto and Agnese.

That makes it sound easy as if that's all there is to it, but as Rossini's sophisticated marriage of music and drama demonstrates, there's a particular lightness of touch that is required to makes it simple and accessible on the surface but with there being a little more depth and melodic sophistication to support the drama. Paer's Agnese might sound conventional now but it's works like this that, for better or worse, set the standard for the century to follow, and that's no small matter. And no small measure of skill is required to sing and play this opera either. Ernesto's range is very much that of pure Rossini tenor and Edgardo Rocha (an experienced Rossinian) meets the challenges well. María Rey-Joly is hugely impressive, ringing out musical top notes and carrying the explosive character of Agnese from despair to hope to joy. Giulia Della Peruta brightens up the drama as the maid Vespina, a role that also has vocal challenges that she handles well.

The Dynamic Blu-ray release of Agnese is an absolute delight. The production itself is beautifully lit and coloured and all the detail is superbly rendered in the High Definition video recording, the image clear and detailed with perfect contrast balance and deep blacks. It looks magnificent. The audio tracks are similarly detailed with lossless PCM 2.0 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 High Resolution mixes. It's just amazing that we are able to enjoy such a rare work in a format - and a production - that presents it in the best possible light. The Blu-ray is all-region, subtitles are in Italian, English, French, German, Japanese and Korean. An English and Italian language booklet provides essential insights into the place of the work in the history of opera, with a full detailed track-listing and a synopsis.

Links: Teatro Regio Torino

Mozart - Die Zauberflote (Wiener Staatsoper, 2014 - Webcast)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte

Weiner Staatsoper, 2014

Adam Fischer, Moshe Leiser, Patrice Caurier, Benjamin Bruns, Markus Werba, Thomas Ebenstein, Franz-Josef Selig, Iride Martinez, Olga Bezsmertna, Jochen Schmeckenbecher, Benedikt Kobel, Regine Hangler, Ulrike Helzel, Carole Wilson, Annika Gerhards, Marian Talaba, Janusz Monarcha

Wiener Staatsoper Live at Home - 4 January 2015

There are many ways to play Die Zauberflöte and different types of emphasis you can place on each of the different aspects and rich themes of the work. It can be playful or esoteric, dark or light, grand, ritualistic and ceremonial, or an all-out comedy that delights in the absurd situations and characters. Ideally, of course, a production should incorporate all of the above, but it helps if it settles for a consistent tone or purpose. Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier's production for the Vienna State Opera does fit in a bit of everything, even if it is a little messy about it, but it's overall purpose is more difficult to determine.

In my experience, you can almost always get an idea of the tone of a production of Die Zauberflöte by looking at how the Three Ladies are dressed. (It's true, you can try this at home by looking at the production photos of any Die Zauberflöte). In this case it's a bit mix and match, an assortment of formal dress, ballroom glitter, gypsy chic and pantomime dame, with no uniformity even between the ladies themselves. The same applies to non-period specific dress the rest of the cast wear, with Tamino in Turkish pants and a hooded sweatshirt, Pamina in a prom dress, and Papageno at least looking traditionally bird-creature like. It's not that I'm trying (or likely) to get a job as a fashion writer, but by the end there does seem to be some significance to the use of costumes to the overall purpose that Leiser and Caurier have adopted here for the work.

The directors' view of Die Zauberflöte seems to be based on the notion of its childlike view of the world. There are mysterious forces at work that as a child we aren't entirely able to make sense of. The behaviours and deeper motivations at work between mother and father (Königen der Nacht and Sarastro) aren't easy to determine, there are dangers all around, rites of passage that have to be navigated and arduous tasks and seem to serve no useful purpose. At the end of the trials in this production however, Tamino and Pamina haven gained wisdom and knowledge and emerge dressed in smart business suits ready for the adult world outside. Papageno, of course, by refusing to accept the demands of  adulthood, doesn't change and retains his childhood innocence and ignorance.

That doesn't sound like it's entirely in the spirit of Mozart and Schikaneder's original intentions for this magical adventure. If Mozart was certainly aiming to show that knowledge and enlightenment is better than ignorance and superstition, it wasn't with the intention of moulding people into conformity as corporate drones in suits. I don't know for certain, but that might not entirely be the end of the story in this production. Leiser and Caurier, in their all encompassing view of the work, do seem to give due consideration and acknowledgement to one of the most important elements of the work, one reflected in the title itself. Die Zauberflöte celebrates music in all its forms, from popular melodies to grand ceremonial and sacred pieces, and through music we can perhaps still get back in touch with the mystic, with the magical, with childhood.

Or perhaps I'm being over-generous. There is a lack of consistency to the production and an absence of the sense of otherworldly wonder that you would associate with much of Die Zauberflöte. On the other hand, the familiar set-pieces are at least often given a different spin, do relate to the content and the themes and even raise a wry smile now and again. The serpent first appears as a shadow before its decapitated remains fall onto the stage; the Queen of the Night makes a suitably impressive entrance, as well as a good exit in Act II with chairs flying in her wake; Monostatos and his "Polizei" sprout tutus when they encounter Papageno and his magic bells; and there's even a fun collection of wild animals dancing to Tamino's magic flute. You'll even find glowing pyramids in profusion in Sarastro's kingdom, so the production isn't devoid of traditional symbols and imagery.

The real quality of Die Zauberflöte, and where the work really comes to life, is in the colour that Mozart injects into the music, and in the colour of the characters themselves. This is where the absurd story gains true meaning and magic - which, as I say, I think the director's acknowledge - but it's not entirely borne out by the rather rote and colourless musical and singing performances here in Vienna. Conducted by Adam Fischer, the music is beautifully played, but it's a full orchestration and not period instruments. It comes across then as rather homogeneous, lacking character and conviction for the variety of tones in this opera, never exciting, never stirring, driven or even as playful as it might be. The pace is also rather leaden, draining the energy out of pieces like Pamina and Pagageno's duet and almost dragging 'In diesen heiligen Hallen' to a grinding halt.

The performers try hard to find a way to work between the music and the stage direction, but - with the exception of Thomas Ebenstein's energetic Monostatos - they don't manage to bring any additional edge or colour to the production. The singing can hardly be faulted, Benjamin Bruns a capable Tamino, Olga Bezsmertna a lyrical Pamina and Markus Werba a bright Papageno, but the performances come across as somewhat rote, over-familiar and unengaging, with little real personality injected into the them. On the musical theme of the work, Tamino says that every note he plays on his magical flute "stems from the heart". Music from the heart is what you get from Mozart too, and that's where the magic in Die Zauberflöte lies, but there was little sense of it here.

This performance of Die Zauberflöte was streamed for live broadcast via the Wiener Staatsoper's Live at Home streaming service. The next broadcast is David McVicar's production of TRISTAN UND ISOLDE on 18th Jan, while Richard Strauss's SALOME can be seen on 23rd Jan.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming programme; Staatsoper Live at Home video