Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem
Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2019
Raphaël Pichon, Romeo Castellucci, Siobhan Stagg, Sara Mingardo, Martin Mitterrutzner, Luca Tittoto, Ensemble Pygmalion
ARTE Concert - 10 July 2019
Romeo Castellucci's directorial projects are becoming less interested in the traditional narrative aspect of opera direction and more concerned with exploring and representing the spiritual side of humanity within the works. Of course, the works in question have to be capable of possessing this quality, and that's certainly the case for the likes of his La Monnaie Parsifal, his Paris Moses und Aron and his Hamburg Matthew's Passion. More recently he has set about exploring this in other less obviously spiritual works, in Salome for Salzburg and Tannhäuser for Munich, but perhaps the most interesting exploration of the spiritual existing with the physical nature of humanity has been in his stunning La Monnaie production of Die Zauberflöte. Mozart is of course fully open to be explored in this area and nowhere more so than in the Requiem.
Mozart's Requiem however isn't an opera, and the idea of setting it to a manufactured narrative would evidently be presumptuous, if not actually impossible. For the purposes of this Aix-en-Provence production - an ambitious one in Pierre Audi's first season as artistic director of the festival - Castellucci associates the work with a growing awareness of the temporality of human existence as individuals and as a species, as well as the fleeting impermanence of what our relatively brief presence on the planet leaves behind. The best way of looking at this approach to Requiem is that the director is seeking a way to extend the work far beyond its own confines, showing or at least suggesting connections it makes - musical, spiritual and existential - to the condition of being human and being mortal.
To extend the scope of Requiem further for this purpose, Castellucci makes use of several other Mozart sacred pieces and Masonic hymns in including the Kyrie from the Mass in C Minor, O Gottes Lamm, and opens the theatrical presentation of this work with a Gregorian chant. Essentially, this production of Requiem becomes a ritual of song and dance, celebrating life in the face of the certainty of extinction. It's this theme that dominates as, in typical Castellucci fashion, words are projected to the back of the stage, an 'Atlas of Extinction', that enumerates the extinction of creatures that no longer exist, to extinct plants, disappeared lakes, extinct tribes and races, extinct cities, lost languages, religions, buildings and works of art.
It's a fascinating device that really has an impact in conjunction with the performance and the music, showing that as well as being something sad there's also something beautiful in the contemplation of the awareness that all things come to an end. The catalogue however doesn't restrict itself to known extinctions but gnomically reminds us in its list of "present-day extinctions", of the extinction of I, of the extinction even the of the word I, of wind, water, grass, thought, fish in the sea, time, even the extinction of this music. And ultimately of course, an extinction of this day, the 10th July 2019. Indeed, if there is anything that can testify to the glory of human existence over its relatively short presence on Earth, it's Mozart's Requiem. Eternal rest grant unto them.
On the stage meanwhile, Romeo Castellucci makes use of the Pygmalion Vocal Ensemble to enact ritual dances for Mozart's music, placing quite a different character on the work that you would typically get from a solemn concert performance. Moving ever closer towards performance art or art installations, Castellucci has extras representing all the ages of woman (from old age to birth) splatters the stage and bodies with Holi-like coloured power and honey, with soil, spray painting the backdrops, as the chorus move into formations to put on folk dances, a maypole dance and ritualistic representations of life and death, all the while that Mozart's music plays and the backscreen runs through its seemingly endless catalogue of extinction.
Seen in this context it's extraordinarily beautiful, invigorating, thought-provoking and often very moving; but even so, the question remains about whether it is worthy of Mozart's music. I return to that statement at the start of the presumption or impossibility of staging Mozart's Requiem, or believe that it can be elevated to anything greater than it already is. Given that, yes, Romeo Castellucci creates a presentation that is indeed worthy of the piece as a sincere artistic response to this great work. Like Katie Mitchell's and Raphaël Pichon's attempt to do the same for J.S. Bach at the 2014 Aix Festival (Trauernacht), or indeed like Robert Wilson's reworking of Arvo Pärt's sacred music for Adam's Passion, it is of course the music that must be the heart and soul of the production.
That relies of course principally on the musical direction of Raphaël Pichon, the Ensemble Pygmalion Orchestra and Chorus. Even in the open-air conditions of the theatre of the Théâtre de l’Archevêché in Aix in a theatrical presentation, the performances and the singing of the principals Siobhan Stagg (soprano), Sara Mingardo (alto), Martin Mitterrutzner (tenor) and Luca Tittoto (bass) - not to forget the beautiful acapella Kyrie by boy alto Chadi Lazreq - captures all the glory and solemnity of the work. It's not enhanced by the visual representation, but the busy and sometimes strange imagery of the production design doesn't detract from it either. What it does is prompt you to think about not just death but extinction, and as a mass for the death of everything, Mozart's Requiem couldn't be more fitting.
Links: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence
Leonardo Vinci - Catone in Utica
L’Opéra Royal de Versailles - 2015
Riccardo Minasi, Jakob Peters-Messer, Franco Fagioli, Juan Sancho, Max Emanuel Cencic, Ray Chenez, Martin Mitterrutzner, Vince Yi
Culturebox - 19 June 2015
On one level it's understandable that up to now, the operas of Leonardo Vinci have been largely overlooked when it comes to revivals of baroque opera from this period. While there is undoubtedly merit in the works, they are perhaps not as worthy of attention or interest as the works by Handel, Gluck, Vivaldi and Pergolesi, and there are surely other luminaries from the period like J.A. Hasse and J.C. Bach whose operas probably still haven't been given adequate attention.
On the other hand, as more of Vinci's work is being performed, it's becoming clear that it may not be the case that his operas - often alternatives of the same Pietro Metastasio librettos used by the above named composers - are in any way lesser works, but works that rather have more practical considerations for them remaining unknown and unperformed. To perform a Leonardo Vinci opera - and more importantly to do it well - you need a very high standard of countertenor to sing some of the roles.
As the extraordinary spectacle of the hugely successful 2012 Opéra National de Lorraine production of Vinci's final opera Artaserse demonstrated, that might not just mean one star countertenor, but up to five. Catone in Utica (1728) is another countertenor extravaganza, and if it isn't quite as demanding, it still needs four countertenors of great ability. Considering the rarity of singers of that quality, it's not surprising that the 2015 Versailles production of Catone in Utica shares some of the same star names as the Nancy Artaserse, (Valer Sabadus was also due to perform in this production but was unable to partipate)but it also introduces a few newer names worthy of attention in the future. With that kind of talent, Vinci's Catone in Utica is another joyful revelation.
Cato, the Roman senator of Utica in Africa, has pressing problems with the power struggles in the Capitol and Caesar's expansionist policies. The Numidian leader Arbace believes that there is an opportunity to stop Caesar in his tracks, but he has also come to see Cato on another pressing matter; he wants to marry the Senator's daughter, Marzia. Cato sees sense in the arrangement, gaining in Arbace a warrior who will be a valuable asset, so he proposes that the wedding take place immediately, that same day. Ah, if only things were that simple, but then it wouldn't be a Metastasio libretto if they were.
Marzia asks Arbace to put the wedding off for another day, putting him to the test to see if he is worthy of her. Arbace, as you might expect in an opera seria, agonises about this at length, but he has plenty of cause for such concern later when Caesar arrives. The dictator turns up in Utica claiming that he is seeking reconciliation for the sake of Rome. Cato evidently doesn't believe him, not does Emilia, Pompey's widow. Despite Cato's advice to her to remain calm, she calls for vengeance for the death of her husband.
Inevitably, it's the romantic complications that heighten the tensions even further. To Cato's horror, Caesar has the hots for Marzia (the extravagance and urgency of his arias surely permit it to be described in this way), but he is even more shocked to find that Marzia is willing to marry the Emperor, provided that Caesar draws back on his political and military ambitions. Arbace, needless to say, has a few more arias to lament over this turn of events, and just to complicate the matters even further (like I say, it's Metastasio), Caesar's captain Fulvio fancies Emilia. That doesn't go down well either.
Vinci's opera seria treatment of the familiar political and romantic material of Catone in Utica doesn't appear to be anything exceptional. The first act is at least elegant and pleasantly scored if somewhat functional and a little routine in its pacing, with long da capo arias and a fair amount of recitative. Vinci however fires up the drama and the tempo considerably in Act II, and it's the characterisation of Caesar that has much to do with injecting a bit of life and danger into the routine drama. There's a fair bit of virtuoso writing for his arias, but it's the delivery that is important, and the urgency of it seems to have a ripple effect or, indeed, more of a tidal surge in how it impacts on Cato and Marzia in particular.
The delivery is everything here really, and again with Leonardo Vinci, it's the impact of the castrato writing and how it is sung by the countertenor voice that is the defining characteristic and saving grace of this work. In its own right, Vinci's version of Catone in Utica might just be yet another routine setting of the material (Vinci's was the first setting of a libretto that has also been used by Vivaldi and J.C. Bach), but it's the nature of the countertenor voices and the exceptional quality of the singers in those roles, that elevate the opera to a higher level of interest and beauty. Franco Fagioli obviously dominates here as the devious Caesar, as you would expect from one of the world's top flight countertenors. Max Emanuel Cencic fits that description too, and he's still wonderfully lyrical in the role of Arbace if sounding rather lighter than his countertenor counterparts here.
I was particularly impressed however with the two young countertenors in the female roles, both of whom are new to me, both of them sounding incredibly natural and unforced. Fagoli is unassailable with the kind of role that has been written for Caesar, but Ray Chenez almost steals the show as the rather more complex character of Marzia, with a strong singing and dramatic performance that undoubtedly contributes to the work as a whole. Vince Yi also impresses, with a lighter but beautifully lyrical countertenor voice as the fiery Emilia. The countertenors might steal the limelight, but there are equally fine performances from Juan Sancho as Cato and Martin Mitterrutzner as Fulvio.
Jakob Peters-Messer's production design and direction for Versailles is attractive and works well with the drama. It's elegant and classical, with a predominately monochrome colour scheme, but has some futuristic stylisations with designer rather than period costumes and extravagant hairdos. The staging suits the tone of the music, suggesting the antiquity of the setting with a few projections and flat cardboard miniatures, without having to build elaborate monuments and ruins. There is also a level of abstraction in the lighting, projections and in mysterious masked figures, with skulls and rats hinting at the underlying tones of power, death and horror that it finds in the work.
Those are brought out to some extent also by the Il Pomo d’Oro orchestra led from the violin by Riccardo Minasi. If much of the music sounds fairly conventional and the accompaniment of the recitative isn't particularly imaginative, there are welcome flourishes and drive in certain passages that work wonderfully with the singing of the countertenor. The combination allows the proceedings to spin off into thrilling flights of musical drama that belies the rather dry nature of the classical subject matter.
Links: L’Opéra Royal de Versailles, Culturebox
