Puccini - La Bohème (London, 2018)

Giacomo Puccini - La Bohème

Royal Opera House, London - 2018

Antonio Pappano, Richard Jones, Michael Fabiano, Nicole Car, Mariusz Kwiecien, Simona Mihai, Florian Sempey, Luca Tittoto, Jeremy White, Wyn Pencarreg, Andrew Macnair, John Morrisey, Thomas Barnard

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

There's no other work of opera that hits you emotionally the way La Bohème does, and that's something you don't want to lose with an inappropriate stage production that sucks the life out of it. The challenge of finding a replacement for John Copley's long-running 40 year old production at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden then is not without considerable risk, as its production design and tone has become inextricably entwined with the opera and even seared into the consciousness of several generations of opera goers.

Of course it doesn't have to be that way. The genius of Puccini's musical composition and arrangements goes far beyond the mere tugging of heart strings. It's a model of precision that captures a variety of tones and moods, celebrating the spirit of youthful endurance through deprivation and set-backs, of young love and maturity of sentiments, of facing up to changes including the ever-present reality and inevitability of death. It is a serious work, a great work that speaks for itself.

A stage production doesn't really need to do too much to illustrate that any further, and it often seems like Copley's production captured the essence of the work and retained a freshness while Zeffirelli's similarly long-standing production, for example, now looks tired and overwrought. No matter how enduring or suitable the production, La Bohème can always do with a bit of a refresh, even if it's just to take the predictability out of it. And, essentially, that's really all Richard Jones's new production does. Whether it improves on the old production is debatable - although I can't imagine many would think so - but it does highlight new parts of the work that might be lost through over-familiarity.

The locations remain much the same and are instantly recognisable, if a little more minimally stylised in design, which is not surprising since it's a Richard Jones production. The garret in Act I is sparsely furnished, its furnishings presumably gone the same way in earlier occasions as Rodolfo's play - into the furnace to heat the place. Narrow wooden beams bear down on the limited roof-space, a small door leading into it and a skylight above. Its bohemian artist inhabitants do indeed look like scruffy artists in second-hand clothes that may once have been smart, with long hair and unkempt beards. No hipsters here, thank goodness.

Act II is also refreshing for its move away from the traditional French street cafe depiction of Cafe Momus for a rather more obviously upmarket posh restaurant. Once outside of the garret however it also becomes clear that Richard Jones's production has also done away with 1840's Paris Commune setting for a location that is a little more generalised, but certainly evokes the nearby Covent Garden market in some kind of idealised Quality Street box way. It's a little bland, but functional and it doesn't get in the way of the musical performance, which since it's Puccini under Antonio Pappano, means it's in very capable hands, and indeed, Acts I and II are everything they should be; urgently, sweepingly romantic, playful and lyrical.

That also makes up for the lack of imagination shown in the designs for Acts III and IV. Really, Act III is just a stripped-back version of the familiar cold night outside a warm lively tavern scene, with a stage bare but for falling snow and a cardboard-box looking tavern, albeit with Marcello's wall paintings displayed on the outside (which at least shows he can paint, something that the invisible canvas in Act I and his crude stick figure drawings in Act IV don't really get across). The tavern slowly sliding into the background by itself however as the Act progresses just looks weird.

If it still works reasonably well in Act III and on its return to the even more bare garret room (it must have gotten quite cold again) in Act IV it's got a lot to do with Pappano's musical direction but also the performances of the singers. And to be fair Richard Jones's direction of the performances is also good and undoubtedly an important contributing factor to the production still working effectively as a whole. It's not the most adventurous La Bohème, but even La Fura dels Baus didn't feel like they could do much with it and let's not even get into Claus Guth's bohemians in space misfire. Only Stefan Herheim has really been able to bring a completely new approach to in his Den Norske production, deconstructing the opera, exposing its workings and revealing it as the musically impressive and emotionally harrowing masterpiece that we already know it is.

Essentially however La Bohème reinvents itself every time you bring fresh new voices in to reinterpret the work and there's an impressive line-up here. Michael Fabiano's Rodolfo is a revelation. He's a great singer that brings something new and distinctive to a role every time I've seen him, even in the most familiar roles (Alfredo in La Traviata, Don José in Carmen). His Rodolfo is superb; relaxed and confident, charming in humour and persuasive in his romantic intentions towards Mimi; there's a sweetness also in his voice and impeccable delivery that is just irresistible. Nicole Car is perhaps a bit too energetic and full of life as Mimi after her cough and stumble on his doorstep, but just as the music and character develop, so too does the emotional charge between the two of them in the final two acts. The ending is of course devastating.

Links: Royal Opera House

Verdi - Il Corsaro (Valencia, 2018)

Giuseppe Verdi - Il Corsaro


Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia, 2018


Fabio Biondi, Nicola Raab, Michael Fabiano, Kristina Mkhitaryan, Oksana Dyka, Vito Priante, Evgeny Stavinsky


OperaVision - 8th April 2018


The quality of early Verdi operas is variable, even by the composers own admission, but some are certainly worth of occasional revival, even if it's just for curiosity value. A few - very few, maybe only one (Macbeth) - are worthy of being included more often as part of the familiar Verdi canon, others are crude and forgettable (Alzira, Attila), some are flawed but redeemable through a good production and an interesting interpretation (I Due Foscari, Stiffelio, Giovanna d'Arco, Luisa Miller). Il Corsaro probably belongs in the latter category, but its qualities can be enhanced with a good staging and exceptional singing and the 2018 Valencia production goes some way towards demonstrating and achieving that.


It's rare however that you can do anything redeemable with the staging of any early Verdi opera; which in the main consist of romantic melodramas in oppressive wartime situations that don't have much in the way of subtext, nuance or depth. The singing, particularly that of the lead soprano role, can also be extremely challenging far beyond the merits of the piece without really adding to the drama. That's all part of the Verdi DNA however that comes into fruition mid-career, and it can be fascinating to explore the hints already there of the greatness to come if you have a production good enough to tease them out.

The first good sign in the Valencia production is that there's a bit of imagination and style applied to the production design rather than literal slavishness to the libretto's locations. Instead of ship anchored at a Greek island where the chief corsair Corrado is languishing in exile and reduced to piracy, we find ourselves in Act I within the mind of a broken man, sitting at writing desk remembering better times or dreaming of taking part in further exploits. His wife Medora looks on in despair at his downfall and, alarmed at the flask of what may be laudanum he is imbibing, she slips it into her pocket.


Corrado however has other vices and is clearly not adverse to a pipe of opium. In his mind the Ottoman Empire still a threat, so in Act II the bold Byronic adventurer once more visits the exotic East of delights and dangers. There he visits a harem and attracts the attention of Gulnara, the favourite of the Pasha Seid. Seid and his warriors launch into a battle with the corsairs, putting the city and the harem to flame. Corrado rescues Gulnara from the conflagration and is captured while doing so, and earns the mercy of Seid. Until Seid becomes suspicious of Gulnara's feelings for this brave corsair...


There's no need to get to clever with the concept, but there's no need for literal realism either, as combined with Verdi's bombast, the Byronic hero's romantic adventures in the exotic East could seem a little bit over the top. Il Corsaro is tremendous fun, but not particularly memorable and hard for a modern audience to take seriously. Director Nicola Raab doesn't try to get too clever by imposing an unworkable concept on top of what is a fairly straightforward romantic adventure, and without betraying the original spirit of the work she finds a good way of making it a little more 'realistic' or relatable by playing it out as an opium-induced flight of imagination, which as it was originally written by Lord Byron it may well have been.


The production doesn't need a literal depiction that takes it all seriously and literally then. There's more than enough dynamic in the music and the contrasts and colours that lie between East and West, between Christian and Muslim, between men and women. Verdi of course depicts all that in grand brush strokes, all sword and flame, blood and thunder, gods and demons. There's nothing wishy-washy about early Verdi (or middle or late Verdi either, I suppose), and Fabio Biondi's conducting of the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana emphasises the sheer brio with which Verdi attacks the material, where there is also at least some measure of sophistication in the melodies and romantic sentiments.

There's a similar contrast between imagination and reality in George Souglides's production design that shows this flitting between dreams of adventure and the sudden down-to-earth shifts of reality that seep in. Projections of battles and flames are thrown onto a screen that is torn down like a sheet of paper, emphasising that it's all the projection of a troubled mind, allowing it to be taken seriously but not literally. It's a good middle-way to approach early Verdi, giving us spectacle and entertainment and permitting all the spirit of the work to come through without having to look at it ironically or indulgently. That's probably about the best you can hope for in Il Corsaro. 


Well, that and some great singing, as that can make all the difference. The Valencia production gets off to a terrific start, the clever production design and the invigorating score matched by a committed Michael Fabiano in the role of Corrado and Kristina Mkhitaryan as his wife Medora. As he showed in Dmitri Tcherniakov's radical reworking of Carmen for Aix-en-Provence 2017, Fabiano isn't thrown by contradictions between characters who are seen to be role-playing and allows a touch of bewilderment creep into the heroic sincerity of the performance. Mkhitaryan is mightily impressive as Medora, showing a fullness of voice and a deep emotional expression. Medora however is not the principal soprano role, and it's Oksana Dyka who has to struggle with that challenge as Gulnara. Inevitably she is pushed and her pitch wavers occasionally, but it's a valiant effort. Vito Priante sings well but throwing pantomime villain poses he is unable to make much of the role of Seid.


The singing performances and the full-on musical performance under Fabio Biondi carry the work though the dramatic weaknesses of Act III. There's a long scene of Corrado refusing to accept Gulnara's help of escape ("Fly from your prison to freedom, my soul") by manfully accepting his fate only to eventually agree, but as Corrado puffs on his opium pipe, the production does well to try to associate his behaviour as being captive of his addiction or the affliction of his desires and fears. Medora is also saddled with more despairing sentiments that lead up to her suicide and Corrado following, but there's no denying that Verdi provides all the thrills and spills that lead up to this heroic-romantic conclusion, and Biondi hammers it home.


Links: Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, OperaVision

Bizet - Carmen (Aix, 2017)

Georges Bizet - Carmen

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2017

Pablo Heras-Casado, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Stéphanie d'Oustrac, Michael Fabiano, Elsa Dreisig, Michael Todd Simpson, Gabrielle Philiponet, Christian Helmer, Pierre Doyen, Guillaume Andrieux, Mathias Vidal, Pierre Grammont

ARTE Concert - 6th July 2017

Obviously there's going to be a significant proportion of an opera audience that are going to want their Carmen with all its idealised exoticism, wild gypsies and romantic passions; those are surely the essential ingredients listed on the package. That percentage might be significantly lower and expectations rather different at a production of Carmen at the Aix-en-Provence festival, particularly one directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov. The challenge surely is to repackage the work, but not change the ingredients too much, but is that even possible for a dish like Carmen...?

There's some truth to the idea that Tchernaikov's method is a cool Russian response to wild Latin passions, but there is a sense that the director is genuinely trying to find another way to connect with the underlying essence of the work. Tcherniakov's Carmen has one of his distancing constructs built around it, which he tends to do when an opera's plot is too ludicrous to take seriously in this day and age. Similar to his Il Trovatore for La Monnaie - another over-heated drama - it encloses the work within a kind of dramatic version of inverted commas, where the story is played out by a group of actors in a role-playing exercise.  

The introduction shows a husband and wife whose marriage has lost its sparkle, who have gone to an unusual form of counselling that involves role-playing. The administrator has examined the questionnaire and profiles and has determined that the opera Carmen is the best fit for therapy. The husband will be Don José, his wife later participating as Micaëla in an effort to eventually draw her husband and his Carmen experiences back into the real world. Tchernaikov then ditches the conventional spoken dialogue pieces of Carmen and replaces them with various interventions from the administrative staff and actors who read out the stage directions in preparation for the next scene.

The Carmen role-play all takes place within an office-like environment with everyone donning name badges of the characters they will play. There's certainly nothing of the more familiar Sevillian imagery of seductive gypsy women and macho bullfighters, the Carmen of this production an actress who acts self-assured but who in reality is a little self-conscious, struggling awkwardly with the rose in her hair and a little embarrassed at the kind of role she has to play. Her aim however is not to seduce Don José in the traditional manner as much as encourage him to participate, to inject a little imagination and find a way to let some passion back into his life.

Such a construct proves to be a little infuriating in places, with a lot of silly fooling around that risks over-complicating and distorting the intent of the original work. Arguably, the romanticism of Carmen is already implicit in the idealised exoticism of its imagery and rhythms and in the artificial construct of the opera drama. Surely no-one thinks that Carmen is a work of social realism and everyone is aware of opera as heightened drama and passions? On the other hand, stepping back a little further does provide a way of looking at the themes and the passions of the work in a more (post-)modern context.

Whether it needs this kind of reconstruction and updating is debatable then, but there is a case to be made that Dmitri Tcherniakov is just turning the focus of the opera back onto the dramatic content of Bizet's musical arrangements to see if it still stands up and achieves its aims when removed from all the lazy mannerisms that have become attached to the work. It could be argued that by cutting most of Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy's dialogues and plotting, liberating it from the opera-comiqué conventions that would have been similarly restrictive to the composer, Tcherniakov is even reducing the work down to its purest essence.

Even if you have to indulge Tcherniakov's twisting of the plot, it does turn the focus back to the power of the music to tell its own story and to touch on the underlying reality. Conductor Pablo Heras-Casado works with Tcherniakov on this with arrangements that might not always be "authentic" to the intentions of the original, but which through their ringing rhythms and popular melodies nonetheless touch on the passions at the heart of the work. Like this production's "Don José", the music similarly has to find its own inner truth and connect with it afresh to put some real excitement back in there, rather than just relying on lazy mannerisms and faked emotions.

It's important to find your way into Carmen, but you can't run into it blindly, Tcherniakov's production seems to say, and it's important to find your way out again refreshed by the experience and not ready to murder someone. I think. With this director, you never know quite where that will lead, whether to take it entirely seriously or even if it all will make sense. This is after all a director who completely reversed the ending to Dialogues des Carmélites (a controversial move that led to a legal challenge and the DVD of the Paris production being removed from sale), so there is always the potential for it to be as if you were seeing a work for the first time. And if you can do that with Carmen, that's really something.

If Carmen felt fresh and held one's attention once again at the 2017 Aix-en-Provence festival, a lot of it was also to do with the casting. The singing might have been slightly compromised by the need to act in and out of character, but only slightly. Interpretation counted for more in this production and Stéphanie d'Oustrac's Carmen and Michael Fabiano as Don José were never anything less than committed and passionate in their performances, delving deep into the complex personalities that Tcherniakov has created for them here. Elsa Dreisig's Micaëla was also excellent and made a great impression.

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

Donizetti - Poliuto (Glyndebourne, 2015)

Gaetano Donizetti - Poliuto

Glyndebourne, 2015

Enrique Mazzola, Mariame Clément, Michael Fabiano, Ana María Martínez, Igor Golovatenko, Matthew Rose, Timothy Robinson, Emanuele D’Aguanno

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

Donizetti's rarely performed Poliuto takes place in ancient times, in Armenia in 259 AD, but Mariame Clément's production establishes the context and what is at stake immediately in the first scene, without having to explain the background. In a more modern setting a group of Christians who could be any oppressed group of people are skulking around trying to hide their activities from the watchful authorities. One, scarred on his chest, shows that they are prepared to suffer for their beliefs, even to martyrdom, which would be the case if they were caught.

The setting and the tone is established in a manner that is admirably concise and direct for a work that is lean and to the point also. A few subsequent scenes build on this. Nearco, the leader of the Christian 'cult' prohibited by the law on pain of death, wields a blade and seems to initiate a baptism of blood with a new convert, Poliuto. Adding to the tension at this early stage with some typically operatic romantic complications, Poliuto confesses to Nearco that his nervousness is not entirely due to taking part in a forbidden ritual, but that he's also concerned that his wife might be unfaithful.

Although the situations are familiar and conventional, Poliuto is not the familiar Donizetti of racing rhythms and flowing bel canto melodies. The tone from the outset is more sombre, or at least played as such here, the music more closely aligned and matched to the subject with all the variety of situations that this entails. There seems to be justification for this, the conductor Enrique Mazzola bringing out the delicacy of the arrangements in the beauty of the melodic line, but also finding the dramatic undercurrents within it that connect and bring about sharp changes of tone.

It's the kind of flow that should enable Paolina, Poliuto's wife, to move away from dark suspicions about her husband's involvement with this dangerous sect to accepting the message of love they preach in the aria 'Di quai soave lagrime'. The tone switches immediately again with the news that the Roman general Severo has not been killed in battle as she believed. Severo is indeed Paolina's lover, or was previously before she married Poliuto. Her emotions then are mixed and conflicted, relief and joy that the man she once loved has not died turning quickly to concern about facing up to those feelings.

Donizetti similarly runs through the emotional gamut as it affects Severo, returning in glory to a triumphal chorus (that anticipates the one in Verdi's Aida) and then stepping outside it to consider his own feelings at this moment. The handling of these mixed and conflicted sensations is masterful, but the opera of course is devised to incorporate such a wide range of dramatic colour, one that would be developed further in the grand opéra tradition when Poliuto, after being rejected by Naples for depicting religious martyrdom on the stage, was rewritten and expanded as Les Martyrs for Paris.

It's not a bad idea then to play down the excesses of the melodrama in the staging, and Mariame Clément keeps the Glyndebourne production uncluttered and uncomplicated. Tall, stone pillars move to hide and conceal, as well as giving a sense of cold, immovable determination that could be applied to each of the conflicting forces and beliefs within the work. A few necessary props are used and there are some projections; a forest, clouds crossing over and closing down moods, even opening out to show, for example a processional cavalcade of official cars marking Severo's return.

The settings and projections are mostly well-judged, complementing the music as well as the manner in which Donizetti - in his usual fashion - tightens the screws, darkening the mood and quickening the pace. If occasionally tensions seem to be slightly released, it's only to provide enough slack to ramp them up even further, ending each of the acts with rousing finales and culminating in a position where the eventual martyrdom becomes as agonising as it is inevitable. The direction keeps all of this under control without unnecessary overemphasis, or at least thankfully with nothing that matches or surpasses having the Romans dressed in pseudo-Nazi uniforms.

That feels like something of a misstep, and I'm not sure the analogy is a helpful one, but it isn't taken much further than that. It's not that the work can't support such interpretation. The use of religion as a tool to control the masses and satisfy their bloodlust in order to further political interests is touched upon here in the libretto, but it's not developed any further than this. Despite some attempt at modernisation and universal application, the martyrdom of its adherents at the conclusion ensures that the Christian sacrificial outlook dominates and scarcely leaves room for any other interpretation. Donizetti's writing here is powerful enough that you can even hear strains of Violetta's lament 'Ah! Gran Dio! morir si giovane' from La Traviata at the conclusion. Verdi evidently learned much from this work.

The strength of Poliuto's musical and dramatic content and the force that it asserts is backed up by a strong cast of singers. Michael Fabiano - seen at Glyndebourne last year as Alfredo in La Traviata - is particularly good as Poliuto, the American demonstrating a robust tenor voice that is also capable of finer expression. Ana María Martínez is a little bit stretched on occasion by the high note demands of Paolina, but handles a challenging role well. The baritone role of Severo could probably use a little more depth and gravity, but it's sung with a lyrical character by Igor Golovatenko that emphasises the romantic nature of the role a little more. Matthew Rose however puts plenty of weight and gravity behind Callistene the High Priest to balance the range and tone of voices in the work, as does Emanuele D’Aguanno's Nearco for the tenor voice.

The accompanying documentation on the Blu-ray disc and in the booklet give more detail on the work and its presentation at Glyndebourne. There's a short interview with Mariame Clément in the booklet and a longer filmed interview where she talks about the political and personal drama in Poliuto and the inspiration for the production design. It's clear that the decisions for presentation of this work were all based around making an unfamiliar work easy to follow as well as remaining faithful to its intent. Enrique Mazzola also gives his perspective on this in a behind the scenes feature leading up to the premiere. The booklet also contains a synopsis and a fascinating essay by Roger Parker on the genesis and composition of Poliuto as well as its part in Donizetti's flirtation with French opera.

The presentation on the Blu-ray disc itself is of the usual high standard, the transfer coping well with the dark on-stage lighting and colouration. High Definition uncompressed LPCM stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 surround tracks are included. The surround track sounding a little more echoing, while the stereo track is a little more direct and clear. There is a wonderful depth and roundness of tone that allows scenes such as the Act II finale to come across with tremendous impact. Subtitles are in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

Links: Glyndebourne

Verdi - La Traviata (Glyndebourne, 2014 - Blu-ray)

Giuseppe Verdi - La Traviata

Glyndebourne, 2014

Mark Elder, Tom Cairns, Venera Gimadieva, Michael Fabiano, Tassis Christoyannis, Olivier Dunn, Eddie Wade, Hanna Hipp, Emanuele d’Aguanno, Graeme Broadbent

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

While there has been no lessening whatsoever of the high production values at Glyndebourne in its 80th year, I'm detecting a little more of a back to basics approach in the new productions for 2014. Der Rosenkavalier was anything but traditional in its impressive and beautiful set designs, but Richard Jones didn't take any real liberties with the actual concept or characterisation, or provide any new insights either. Despite the controversy in the casting, it was actually a fairly safe production. You could say the same about the new Glyndebourne production of La Traviata.

Even just putting on Verdi's La Traviata can be seen as a safe choice, but that's only the case if it's smothered in conventional stuffy Parisian Belle Epoque décor. Hildegard Bechtler's set designs do well to avoid such trappings without losing any of the glamour and sophistication that we associate with the work's location and settings. The set and costume designs are smart, elegant and eye-catching, the stage immaculately lit and coloured. It has the virtue of being ever so tastefully modern and stylish without being tied to any specific period. It's updated, but not in any way that is going to frighten anyone with a more traditional taste in opera productions. As a production designed moreover to be toured after its Glyndebourne début, all these considerations are important.

Safe is also how you would describe Tom Cairns' direction. There's nothing in the least bit radical attempted here. There's none of Andrea Breth's Salò references, none of Willy Decker's elegant modernisms, none of the stripped back to the bone minimalism of Peter Konwitschny, and none of the nudity that is fashionable to apply even to this work nowadays. The fading glamour of the courtesan is maintained in Glyndebourne's production, without highlighting or emphasising any of the harsh realities of prostitution, the social attitudes towards sexually liberated women, and without dwelling on the grim reality of Violetta Valéry's decline, illness and death. There are a few swoons and falls, but all within the romanticism of operatic heroines dying from consumption. None of the characterisation deviates from the well-established depiction we have of these characters.

And why should it? Arguably, Verdi's remarkable music - the composer in the full-flower of his genius here - carries everything that is necessary, expresses everything that he couldn't explicitly place on the stage. Mark Elder, conducting the London Philharmonic, matches the elegance of the production and it's delicately and sensitively performed with true dramatic drive, but there's just not enough of the Verdian passion in this supreme example of the composer's craft. This is a hugely dynamic work that is all about passion and death, from the first stirrings of love to full-blown ecstasy, running through fear, betrayal and jealousy in Violetta's rapid decline into delirium and death. It's a beautiful production, consistent of purpose and design, and it's wonderfully played, but there's very little sense of the full sweep of Verdi on the stage or from the pit.

If there's one aspect where Glyndebourne play less safe and take something of a chance, it's in the casting. Like their Der Rosenkavalier, the names are not the obvious ones or even familiar ones, but the performance of the principals was nonetheless exceptionally good. First and foremost is Venera Gimadieva's Violetta. A star at the Bolshoi, this is an impressive introduction for the young soprano at Glyndebourne. She doesn't have a big soprano voice and it's not a showy star performance, but Gimadieva sings the role beautifully and looks wonderful. It's not a nuanced performance by any means, her presence is a little cold and she lacks the kind of complete absorption in the role that a more experienced soprano can bring to it, but that could be down to the fact that the solidly traditional characterisation gives her nothing new to bring out of the role either.

The same can be said for Michael Fabiano. His Alfredo is beautifully sung in a distinctive and modern tenor voice, and competently performed in a way that makes his character's behaviour totally credible. But it is also totally familiar, with no real insight or exploration of the character at all. Tassis Christoyannis similarly gives a good performance as an otherwise bland Giorgio Germont - a character who can be used much more creatively and explosively than he is here. The other roles all contribute well to the ensemble, although Hanna Hipp doesn't seem quite right for the role of Flora. As an ensemble piece however, this production, safe and consistent as it is, serves as a solid, reliable and enjoyable reminder that, no matter how often you hear it, La Traviata is one of opera's greatest works. In comparison to some rather more adventurous recent productions that have explored its passions with rather more vigour, the Glyndebourne is however just a little bit dull.

Glyndebourne's colourful productions always look fantastic in High Definition and La Traviata is no exception.  The detail is all there in the richly detailed and dark bold colouration of the filmed performance, and the musical tracks are well defined. There are a few informative extra features including an interview with Mark Elder and the cast that considers the attraction of La Traviata and what makes it great.  Another feature looks at the costume, set designs and choreography for this production.  The BD is region-free, with subtitles in English, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

Verdi - Otello

Giuseppe Verdi - Otello

Opéra National de Paris | Marco Armiliato, Andrei Serban, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Sergei Murzaev, Michael Fabiano, Francisco Almanza, Carlo Cigni, Roberto Tagliavini, Renée Fleming, Nona Javakhidze, Chae Wook Lim | Opéra Bastille, Paris, France - 28 June 2011

The relative restraint and respect for the source that Verdi and his librettist Arrigo Boito afford Shakespeare’s drama is all the more apparent to me for having a few nights previously watched a production of Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet (and also relatively recently, a Blu-ray recording of Verdi’s Macbeth). While Shakespearean drama suits the familiar big Verdi subjects of romance, jealousy and revenge, Otello (1887) however marks a change in Verdi’s approach to opera composition, moving away from the bel canto tradition in Italian opera that has been influential in his composition of great arias to express the blood-and-thunder nature of the subjects, towards a more dramatic focus with emphasis on psychologically realistic characterisation and a musical integrity that doesn’t stop at intervals to let the diva show off her vocal talents.

The amount of effort that went into consideration of the nature of the drama and the make-up of the characters is clearly evident in the way the drama plays out and in the respectful reading in the performance by the Opéra National de Paris at the Bastille that adhered to these intentions with a relatively low-key approach to a highly emotive subject – jealousy. The programme however revealed detailed notes made by the librettist Arrigo Boito on each of the characters and on how they out should be played. In the case of Desdemona, for example, he notes that “the serene and chaste figure of Desdemona must present a profound experience of love, purity, nobility, goodness, innocence and devotion… the more natural and measured her playing, the better she will arouse the sympathy of the spectator”. There could hardly be a better description than that of the performance of Desdemona in this production by Renée Fleming, although I would also add that her honey-inflected voice brought out another level to the nature of her character that was thrilling to see played-out to its inevitable and moving conclusion. Unfortunately, while Fleming came out of it better than most, I don’t feel that the direction or the dramatic staging in the revival of this 2004 production by Andrei Serban helped her or any of the other performers.

There’s a need to remain controlled and restrained, but there’s also a need to let go in Otello, even if it’s just a flash of emotional torment, rage, desire, jealousy or cruelty. It’s certainly there in the musical composition, which is measured and calculated both within the score and the libretto to achieve the maximum impact of the necessary condensation of the original drama, we saw it also in some of the performances, but it wasn’t brought out or enhanced by the sets or the stage direction. Visually, the sets looked fine during each of the three acts, in a typically tasteful Paris Opera fashion, making good use of the full width and height of the stage through a mixture of uncluttered props, organised choreography, strong colours and lighting and a considered amount of projections. It was however, too brightly lit, too colourful, too clean-cut and smooth-edged to be appropriate for the sombre tone of the opera itself, and there consequently remained a disparity between the content of the opera and how it actually looked.

It’s hard not to identify that the principal theme of Otello is jealousy, but what is marvellous is the subtle way that Verdi and Boito handle the potentially melodramatic situation that develops between Othello and Desdemona. The composer takes time to establish all the courage of the Moorish governor of Cyprus, all the charm, beauty and innocence of Desdemona and the love and devotion that they share, but he shows the utter devastation that jealousy can wreak on even the most stable of personalities and relationships, and this slow-acting poison is introduced brilliantly in the form of Iago. We were perhaps fortunate that on the performance I attended we had Sergei Murzaev in the role of Iago, since on alternate nights, Lucio Gallo took over the role and, by most accounts, played the part in his usual baritone baddie manner that was ill-suited to this particular role. Murzaev was a much more subtle and insidious presence, which is really how it should be, because, regardless of the order of billing or the actual amount of singing, it’s Iago who has the most important role in determining the course of events.

In an opera that doesn’t have any particularly big moments – apart obviously from Desdemona’s death scene, which was indeed extraordinarily moving here – one of the most famous arias in the opera (one not directly drawn from Shakespeare, it must be noted) is Iago’s Credo, where he lays out the nature of his cynicism in a powerful manner that the subverts Christian belief system. Wonderfully, and clearly thought through by Verdi and Boito, even if it does adhere to familiar stereotyping of the tenor, soprano and baritone types, the declamatory nature of the baritone villain in this section is balanced by the lyrical beauty of the soprano and the noble tenor elsewhere. They too each have their moments, but they are far from the usual playing of such roles. It’s Iago who runs this show, and his presence, his very existence, removes any trace of romantic idealism. If there is necessarily less ambiguity in the characterisation within the compressed libretto, Verdi makes these colourations in the score and in the very structure of the opera that refuses to play according to type.

All of this came through marvellously in this Paris Opera production, the orchestra finding those subtleties of shading, and the singers by and large finding and expressing the nature of their characters, particularly Sergei Murzaev and Renée Fleming. Aleksandrs Antonenko sang well and was a strong presence, but I would have liked to see him let his mask slip on occasion, as he appeared to suffer from the operatic version of the some Shakespearean actors’ gravitas and solemnity, intoning the scared words and going through the motions on cue, without ever hinting at any deeper understanding of his character. True, Othello is manipulated throughout by Iago like a puppet, but there should always remain the deeper resolve within Othello that the character exhibits earlier in the drama, which is not so much broken down as twisted into a perversion of its original nature in a way that reflects Iago’s Credo. The stage direction was somewhat lacking in this respect, failing to suit the drama or find a unifying theme or concept that would support the wonderful coherency and intelligence within Verdi’s opera, but the performance alone, aligned with the strong themes of the original work, was strong enough nonetheless to carry this through.

Donizetti - Lucrezia Borgia

Gaetano Donizetti - Lucrezia Borgia

English National Opera, London

Paul Daniel, Mike Figgis, Claire Rutter, Michael Fabiano, Elizabeth DeShong, Alastair Miles 

The Coliseum, London - February 18th, 2011

Even without reading the programme notes for Mike Figgis’ production of Lucrezia Borgia for the English National Opera, it’s clear from very early on that the medium isn't an environment that the film director feels entirely comfortable with. Even before the opera proper starts, some flashback scenes written and filmed in Rome by Figgis as a background to what takes place in the opera, are projected onto a white screen hanging over the stage, making it clear that he has approached the opera in much the same way that he would make a film.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing – opera is open to incorporating many disciplines and giving them varying weight, as well as being open to the kind of reinvention that new technology and modern ideas can bring to it – and there has accordingly been a healthy cross-over of film directors between the cinema and opera. While the short films that accompany the opera then are not at all needed, they are nevertheless a valid response to what the director sees as a need to give psychological, real-world depth to a character who is larger than life and, in Donizetti’s opera, played larger than life. There are, one could say, inconsistencies in the characterisation and gaps in credibility that arise out of its novelistic source in the work of Victor Hugo and its attempts to provide redemption for a complex and really quite notorious historical figure whose vile nature and her murderous inclinations towards anyone who criticises her family name is scarcely tempered by her love for her lost son, Gennaro.

In this case however, the impression is given that not only does Figgis not know his audience – an opera audience does not need the same kind of literal, realist approach as cinema, with the psychological background of the characters laid-out in this way – but it seems that he doesn’t understand opera, and the fact that, in a strong well-written opera (and Lucrezia Borgia certainly falls into that category), all the explanations that are needed, all the expressions of personality and the motivational factors – the guilt and the passion that lies at the heart of the characters – are all contained within the music and within the singing itself, even more so than in the narrative of the libretto, which can otherwise seem contrived and scarcely credible.

This failure to understand and get to grips with the medium he is working in or the audience he is working for, results in a rather over-literal, static and reductive approach for a director who can otherwise be quite avant-garde and experimental when it comes to filmmaking (Timecode, Hotel, COMA). A measure of his mistrust of opera, his audience and his own reaction towards it is in his choice to play Orsini (a female playing the role of a male), as a female, as if an opera audience couldn’t possibly grasp this convention that is so far removed from the rather more literal approach of cinematic realism. On his approach to the actual staging, there is also some merit to reducing the amount of clutter and glitz that usually accompanies a period, bel canto opera, and just letting the music and singing stand on its own. For the most part, the performances are certainly up to that task, particularly from Claire Rutter in the role of Lucrezia, but there is also a strong performance (particularly in the brindisi scene) from Elizabeth DeShong as Orsini, and the bond of love and friendship that lies between them actually does take on an interesting dimension and create other resonances with Orsini played as a female.

There is however an additional constraint that Figgis finds himself struggling with, and that is the policy of the English National Opera to perform opera in English wherever possible, regardless of the suitability of the opera. Admittedly, some opera can work surprisingly well in English – Wagner’s Parsifal, seen at the same opera house the following night – worked no less effectively in English than it does in German, but bel canto opera, for me at least, is entirely associated with the qualities and sounds of the Italian language. Conductor Paul Daniel worked on the translation himself, and really, he failed to do justice to the work, with some of the choices made provoking chuckles from the audience at inappropriate points, not at all helping to establish the desired tone, and making Figgis’ attempt at psychological depth and realism all the more difficult. Significantly, the short film segments made by Figgis himself were in Italian with English subtitles.

The reduction of the staging and the simplification of movements does have some impact then in reducing the over-the-top propensities of the opera that Figgis evidently feels need to be constrained, and while it restricts the dynamic and results in what is not the most eye-catching of productions, it does at least focus the attention on the singing. One gets the impression however that the reduction of the staging into smaller areas is an attempt by Figgis to scale down the canvas, as per the framing in his film work, and break it down into discreet, static, sections that can be brought together when reworked for the cinema or television screen. As such, it would seem that Mike Figgis has been brought in more with the first ever 3-D Live opera broadcast in mind (tomorrow 23rd February 2011 for Sky Arts 2 HD and for cinema). Here one can imagine the director being more at home, progressively experimenting in a filmed medium, using simultaneous action and multiple angles. As such however, unfair though it might be for the theatrical audience, his stage production of Lucrezia Borgia feels like an unfinished product that will only come to fruition when it is brought to the screen.