Modest Mussorgsky - Khovanshchina
Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna - 2017
Michael Güttler, Lev Dodin, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Christopher Ventris, Herbert Lippert, Andrzej Dobber, Ain Anger, Elena Maximova
Staatsoper Live - 11 September 2017
New productions of an opera often reveal different facets and new perspectives on any given work, but you often find that you can also continue to find something new when you revisit a revival of a good production. Lev Dodin's fairly static production of Khovanshchina however, first seen at the Vienna State Opera in 2014, doesn't strike you as one that would have a great deal more to offer. Even if it doesn't bring anything new to the table - when even the cast line-up is identical to that seen in 2014 - Khovanshchina is nonetheless a work that constantly provokes new observations and a deepening appreciation for Mussorgsky's unfinished epic.
It may be quite static, the performers all contained within rising platforms that give no room to move around the stage, but the set designs for Lev Dodin's production of Khovanshchina are visually impressive and do prove to be a good way of layering and revealing the Russian historical and national complexities of the work. The various factions that are competing for power and influence in late 17th century Russia are clearly marked out in a structure of beams and platforms that not only indicates their position in relation to their ambitions, but it also charts their rise and decline, often down into the depths of the pit through a trapdoor in the stage.
Designed this way, it's easy to differentiate between the three main factions competing with each other to determine the direction that Russia will follow at this turbulent point in history. The set for Act II arranges them in a clear hierarchical position. On the upper level is the governing class represented by Galitsin who is hoping that he can open up the country to progressive western influence. Below him are the military under the control of Prince Ivan Khovansky who are suspicious of foreign interests and hold firm to the old traditions, but the soldiers are becoming undisciplined and difficult to control. Below them is Dosifei who leads the religious faction of Old Believers opposed to reforms.
It's not necessarily that these forces, beliefs and traditions are distinct as much as they represent a layering of true Russian ideals that sit uneasily alongside one another. As such all the people of Russia also have a voice in Khovanshchina and Lev Dodin's vertical production at least provides the space for all these vital components of Russian society to fill the stage, showing the complexity and incompatibility of these ideals without the stage becoming cluttered and the plot incomprehensible. It does mean that there is a lot of static exposition, but that's inherent in the work itself and it's vital to understand this in order to get to the heart of Khovanshchina.
The heart of Khovanshchina is of course the heart of Russia, and the challenge to put that up on the stage is one that Mussorgsky struggled with in this unfinished work, as did several other notable Russian composers (the Vienna production uses the Shostakovitch version) who have attempted to polish and complete this great epic. More than just conveying the history of the competing forces vying for power in Russia during the 1680s, Khovanshchina also attempts to capture something of the mystical and spiritual side of Russia in Marfa, and combined it should paint a picture of Russia on a grand scale as something that also has relevance to today. What seems to be true then is true now, the opera showing the true scale of the horror that Russia must endure and suffer when power over it falls into the wrong hands.
Its ambitions mean that Khovanshchina consequently doesn't conform to standard operatic plot development, nor indeed to a conventional musical structure. Characters don't so much grow as reveal the personal human weaknesses behind their grand ambitions and ideals. Each are taken down in their prime before they can achieve their goal, or rather their weaknesses expose them and lead them inevitably to their fate. Andrei Khovansky is largely ineffective after Act I after his encounter with the foreign girl Emma. His father Prince Ivan Khovansky seems to be weary of the struggle and is killed in Act IV while indulging in the distraction of Syrian dancing girls. Act IV also brings about the death of Galitsin.
For Dosifei, it's the conflict between his spiritual religious beliefs and his feelings for Marfa that renders him out of the running as far as uniting the people behind his vision of Russia, and the act of self-immolation that takes Marfa, Andrei and Dosifei is a kind of cleansing that clears the way for Russia to arise again out of the ashes. Russia proves to be bigger than any individual in Khovanshchina, even greater than the young Tsars Peter and Ivan who are not seen in the opera. Russia prevails, but it's at a considerable cost.
There's not a great deal more to be said about the singing performances in the 2017 revival of Khovanshchina, which retains the same cast as the 2014 premiere performances. Ferruccio Furlanetto is still a force to be reckoned with as Khovansky, Elena Maximova fulfils the vital role of Marfa impressively in terms of her singing and as far as suggesting the other spiritual dimension of this character. Herbert Lippert seemed to make a greater impression this time too as Galitsin, and Christopher Ventris and Ain Anger reliably reprise their roles of Andrei and Dosifei. Michael Güttler took over the conducting of the Vienna orchestra for this revival and brought out the dynamic with an extra punch on the big dramatic and choral pieces, but elsewhere it didn't seem to have the same coherence as a piece that Semyon Bychkov's conducting achieved in the 2014 production.
Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live
Giuseppe Verdi - Luisa Miller
Malmö Opera, 2012
Michael Güttler, Stefano Vizioli, Olesya Golovneva, Vladislav Sulimsky, Taras Shtonda, Luc Robert, Ivonne Fuchs, Lars Arvidson, Emma Lyren
Arthaus Musik - Blu-ray
It's not often that you see something new or conceptual attempted with an early Verdi opera. Partly that's because they aren't performed often enough and, on the rare occasions they are produced, it's usually safer to keep unfamiliar works in their original setting rather than confusing the audience with a high-concept production. Partly however, it's got a lot to do with the relatively straightforward subjects of the works themselves not really lending themselves to reinterpretation. The themes in Luisa Miller are based however on universal sentiments, so there's no reason why - despite some creaky plot points - that something a little more adventurous can't be attempted with the staging.
The Malmö Opera's 2012 production of Luisa Miller finds an excellent way to make Verdi's opera a little more visually interesting than this particular work might otherwise be, without having to obscure the original dramatic points in some ill-fitting modernised concept. The costumes remain period and traditional, all the drama is carried out according to the stage directions (there's no anachronistic use modern technology or appliances), but there's a little bit of stylishness applied to the set designs - and perhaps a little symbolism - that works well to give a little bit of extra emphasis to the dramatic situation.
Based on 'Kabale und Liebe' by Friedrich von Schiller, the plot of Luisa Miller is a familiar one, or at least familiar in Verdi adaptations of such material. In broad terms it's about fathers and sons, fathers and daughters, it's about family and duty, it's about love and betrayal, freedom and suppression. Luisa is planning to marry Carlo, who is in reality Rodolfo, son of a wealthy landowner. Rodolfo's father Count Walter however has other plans for a more favourable alliance that can be achieved by his son marrying the Duchess Federica. In between, there's the manipulative figure of Wurm, the Count's steward, who is in love with Luisa himself and does his best to blackmail her into renouncing her love for Rodolfo.
The plot doesn't really need any extra spelling out, and Verdi's score speaks plainly and eloquently enough for itself, but a little bit of theatrical reinvention can make some of the more melodramatic points sit a little better with a modern-day audience. Rather than merely providing backdrops, the staging at Malmö illustrates this situation well with some big gestures. Two giant hands split the platform of a grassy verge when Wurm makes his divisive entrance in Act I, boxed-in rooms close down Luisa's options in later scenes, and a huge hand puts the squeeze on the lovers in Act III. It's slightly abstract, but in keeping with the tone of the work, the colours and lighting playing just an important a role in matching the heightened reality of the drama.
Verdi traditionally scores rousingly for such material, and he does so here in Luisa Miller as well. The score doesn't perhaps quite have the mastery of characterisation that can be found in his subsequent works - not just the mature works, but the sophistication that can be found in the not-far-off La Traviata and Rigoletto - but it's perfectly attuned nonetheless to the dramatic narrative. As conducted here for Malmö Opera by Michael Güttler, the orchestra give Verdi's score a romantic sweep that is in keeping for this work, although I daresay it would be attacked more idiomatically and with a little less delicacy by an Italian orchestra. As it is, it sounds wonderful here, showing the beauty of Verdi's arrangements.
Verdi's other great achievement in Luisa Miller is in his writing for the voice. Arias are well-placed at key moments and have the necessary impact ('Quando le sere al placido' in Act II being one of the work's few famous highlights), but Verdi also drives the narrative through duets, punctuates it with some beautiful choral work and even throws in an acapella quartet to show off the beauty of the combined voices. It's wonderful if you have the right singers in the roles and the cast and chorus at Malmö show how impressive that writing is. In the main roles, that's Luc Robert as the conflicted Rodolfo and Olesya Golovneva as Luisa, but there's good support from Vladislav Sulimsky as Miller and Lars Arvidson as Wurm.
Golovneva in particular has the right temperament and timbre for this character. It should not an overpowering soprano voice but that of a delicate woman, initially bright, happy and in love who is gradually broken down by manipulative figures through fear of reprisals. The journey to her death is tricky to navigate, but Golovneva manages to sing the role without the melodramatic mannerisms that you might expect, yet still make her Luisa heartfelt and expressive. It's a style of performance that is perfectly in keeping with the intentions of the production and the staging here at Malmö, showing how effectively early-to-mid Verdi can be treated without revising or reinterpreting the work.
Malmö Opera's Luisa Miller is released on Blu-ray and DVD by Arthaus Musik. On Blu-ray, the disc is BD25, all region with subtitles in Italian, English, German, French and Korean. The filming is excellent, using lots of close-ups that show the intensity of the performances, the recording capturing the strong colour schemes that also play a part in setting the tone of the work.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Il Dissoluto Punito ossia il Don Giovanni
Opéra National de Paris, 2007
Michael Güttler, Michael Haneke, Peter Mattei, Mikhail Petrenko, Carmela Remigio, Shawn Mathey, Arpiné Rahdjian, Luca Pisaroni, David Bizic, Aleksandra Zamojska
Opéra Bastille, Paris - 2nd February 2007
There has always been a strong link between cinema and opera with several directors - Losey, Visconti, Zeffirelli, Chéreau and even Tarkovsky – working successfully in both disciplines. In recent years, the Paris Opera have been particularly experimental in their productions, exploiting this connection with cinema and commissioning work from the avant garde Catalan group La Fura dels Baus (Fausto 5.0), and a forthcoming punk opera in June directed by Emir Kusturica featuring his No Smoking Orchestra based on his film Time of the Gypsies. For their 2006 celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart, the Paris Opera invited the controversial Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke to direct one of his operas.
As Haneke’s roots are in theatre the move to opera is not such a great leap, but even so it’s difficult to see how the film director’s particular austere, minimal approach could be reconciled with the grandeur usually witnessed at the Palais Garnier and the Opéra Bastille. There could only be one Mozart opera that lies within Haneke’s range and remit. Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito, at either ends of Mozart’s mature career, are too classical in origin, their dramatic structure mired in the long-winded demands of the opera seria. While there are certainly intriguing themes in The Marriage of Figaro, Così Fan Tutte and Die Entführung aus dem Serail, they have perhaps too many farcical elements for Haneke’s seriousness of purpose. The Magic Flute is more notable for its lyricism than its themes, which are perhaps too esoteric and removed from everyday concerns for the Austrian director – not to mention that the La Fura dels Baus’ recent ludicrous ‘Mozart on Bouncy Castles’ re-conceptualisation of the opera for the Bastille is perhaps too fresh in the memory for it to undergo yet another modernisation. Don Giovanni on the other hand is certainly Mozart’s darkest opera. Tense, dramatic and bipolar, it reflects the full range of Mozart’s extraordinary personality, flipping between outrageous exuberant irreverence and bleak meditations on death, grief, guilt and revenge. It’s perfect material for a director like Haneke to work with, particularly as its story of serial seduction, murder and revenge makes its subject the one most amenable to modern-day reinterpretation.
The successful production revived in 2007 for the Paris Opera at the Bastille, Michael Haneke’s Don Giovanni - reverting back to its original title of Il Dissoluto Punito ossia il Don Giovanni ('The Dissolute Punished or Don Giovanni') – takes the world of business executives in a modern high-rise office complex as its setting, its large windows affording a view of a built-up downtown business district. Working late one night, Junior Director Donna Anna is sexually assaulted by a dark figure who enters her office. Her father, the Chief Executive, Il Commendatore, hears the commotion and tries to intervene, but is brutally murdered by the unknown assailant, who makes his escape pursued by Anna’s fiancé Ottavio. The killer is a young Junior Executive, Don Giovanni, a notorious womaniser who, with the assistance of his PA, Leporello – a personal poodle to support him in his crimes and deceits – continues his attempts at serial seduction undeterred by recent events, even trying to get off with Zerlina, a cleaning lady who is just celebrating her marriage to Masetto. With thousands of similar seductions enacted by the high-flying jet-setter across the globe (one thousand and three conquests in Spain alone!), Don Giovanni has quite a history, but his past is about to catch up with him. Donna Elvira, a Senior Executive at a firm where Don Giovanni once worked, is looking for him and when she meets Anna and Ottavio hunting for the killer of the Commendatore, she believes she recognises the modus operandi of her former husband who has deserted her. Masked, they make their appearance at one of the young executive’s orgiastic office parties, seeking retribution.
While it may still be difficult to recognise any familiar Haneke themes from what sounds like a fairly typical modern updating of an opera or drama into the world of corporate affairs, power-dressing and designer suits, the director nevertheless perceptively draws out the essence of the characters – already powerfully and lyrically expressed by Mozart and Da Ponte, but given a characteristically darker twist by Haneke. The Don Giovanni of this production is less of an adventurer and seducer than an aggressor and a rapist - a pumped-up young executive full of his own self-importance and confident in his charms, but unable to handle rejection, reacting violently to any challenges to his authority. Underlying this behaviour there is a strong sense of guilt, fuelled not so much by his avoidance of commitment as an unwillingness to accept that his actions have consequences on other people. Along with the use of masks throughout the opera, the theme of keeping one’s true nature hidden, a refusal to accept personal responsibility for violence enacted on other people, self-destructive behaviour and a generalised subtext that can be read as an oblique critique of corporate globalisation or US foreign policy, you have fairly familiar material for Michael Haneke to get his teeth into.
What is not seen so often in Haneke’s own work is the counterpart of this sickness in society and the individual – the more laudable aspects of human behaviour, their ability to deal with adversity, their capacity for forgiveness and their desire to do good. It’s an aspect that is perhaps only really notable in Haneke’s film The Time of the Wolf - which is consequently one of the director’s best films - and from the way that he handles the character of Donna Elvira, it’s a pity that this strength is not explored by him more often. Elvira sees through his mask and recognises the true darkness in Don Giovanni’s nature ("Da quel ceffo si dovria/ La ner’alma giudicar"), but is convinced that she can reach out to his better nature. It’s one of the strengths of the opera that she is of course wrong – Don Giovanni is too far gone. Consumed by guilt, ashamed of his actions and weighed down by his past, and with perhaps some sense of his own self-importance, he willingly accepts the dramatic nature of his fate.
Haneke, of course makes the most of this in his direction - the single unchanging low-lit stage set sterile and bleak, neutrally coloured and shrouded almost permanently in shadows. The modern setting and updating of the characters is fairly easy to accept, remaining open enough to allow personal identification and interpretation. By the second act, any novelty in the office setting sinks into the background and the sheer strength of Mozart and Da Ponte’s arias, the performance of the Paris orchestra and the exceptional cast regains ground. It’s to the credit of the direction that it doesn’t over-impose itself in this way, working with the dramatic, lyrical and thematic strengths of piece and the performers. That is not to say that Haneke’s hand remains invisible, but reasserts itself exactly where required and with the force you would expect from this director. The characteristic shocking flash of violence that he does so well in his films of course has its counterpart here in the first scene of the opera with the senseless killing of Il Commendatore, but Haneke even manages to shock the audience with another unexpected killing at the end. While Don Giovanni’s demise at the end of the opera is never in doubt, the manner in which Haneke brings it about is quite stunning.
I have seen many spectacular representations on the stage of Don Giovanni being dragged down to the fiery depths of Hell, but none are quite as powerfully violent as Haneke’s staging. There is no place in Haneke’s modern rationalist vision for ghosts, demons or animated statues – strapped to an office chair, the bloody corpse of the Commendatore is wheeled on by the masked figures of Elvira, Anna and Ottavio. The other masked figures of the revellers at the party (bizarrely, the masks are all Mickey Mouse faces – a symbol perhaps of the worldwide economic and cultural rape by corporate America?), also represent the other nameless, faceless victims of the Junior Executive’s lying, his rapes and his conquests. Together the victims confront the Don with the real-life consequences of his actions and enact a more immediate and earthly vengeance. Anna plunges a knife into Don Giovanni’s black heart, the exploited masses propel his screaming form from the office windows where he plunges to a violent and spectacular death. As well as being symmetrical in dramatic terms, it’s a death that moreover makes the moralising epilogue that he who lives by the sword dies by the sword just that little bit darker, more menacing and perhaps more politically pointed.
This review was first published in DVD Times/The Digital Fix in 2007
