Puccini - Turandot (Paris, 2023)

Giacomo Puccini - Turandot

Opéra National de Paris, 2023

Marco Armiliato, Robert Wilson, Iréne Theorin, Brian Jagde, Ermonela Jaho, Carlo Bosi, Mika Kares, Florent Mbia, Maciej Kwaśnikowski, Nicholas Jones, Guilhem Worms, Hyun-Jong Roh, Pranvera Lehnert, Izabella Wnorowska-Pluchart

Paris Opera Play - 13th November 2023

Such is the very distinct character and experience of a Robert Wilson production that you imagine that it can't be suitable for every kind of opera, but it's not such an easy thing to fit that into clear dividing lines, and where the line does fall is of course going to be be subjective. You would think that it would be better suited to more abstract work like Einstein on the Beach, where he first made his mark in the world of opera as co-creator with Philip Glass, or Pelléas et Mélisande and the spiritual content of Arvo Pärt's Adam's Passion but his style also seems to chime with baroque very well (Gluck and Handel), except when it doesn't (Monteverdi). You couldn't see his coolness work with the beautiful warm humanity of Mozart, but who knows? I would love to see him direct a Die Zauberflöte, and could someone commission a Robert Wilson Ring Cycle please?...

I wasn't convinced either by his work on Verdi's Aida, even though it looked stunning on the stage, and I was surprisingly impressed with his take on the high drama of the French version of Il Trovatore, so it's not so clear cut. Puccini is another that it's hard to imagine Robert Wilson being suited, but we have already seen Madama Butterfly and this Turandot (seen previously in Madrid) prove otherwise. In the case of Turandot, now playing in Paris and available to view in a brief window though their Paris Opera Play service, the reasons are worth exploring again, although Puccini's opera, the cast here and the spectacle of a Wilson production are reason enough to watch this again.

Like any good opera production its success relies on how well it works with the score and the intent of the opera. That doesn't necessarily mean that the direction has to be sympathetic towards the original intentions of the work (few if any productions match to the letter or even closely adhere to stage directions nowadays), nor even in matching or working with the tone of the music score. There can be as much of interest in contrasting the heat and passion of a music score with a coolness in the direction as a means to examine the potential of a work and perhaps illustrate an hitherto unexplored aspect of a work. I'm not saying that Wilson does this in the case of Turandot, but he certainly brings an uncommon and you would think counterintuitive approach to Puccini's final unfinished masterpiece.

There actually is a cold menace at the heart of this dark fairytale with its authoritarian regime ruled with cruel laws, and that is reflected in the sinister undercurrents of Puccini's score. Calixto Bieito showed one way of bringing that aspect out in his production, but Wilson shows that there is more than one way, and it is if course in his own very distinctive way. The restricted highly controlled movements of the cast, the darkness of moving black panels blotting out the light at the back of the stage instead of thunderclouds. The situation is not natural, so Wilson doesn't resort to natural phenomena for this. When something of nature does appear, such as a bird a stork making a flight across the sky during the mourning of the latest victim to lose his pale bloodless head, it's in response to the sorrowful warmth of the score. Even the bird's movements however are Wilson stylised.

Where Wilson best serves Turandot is in the epic fantasy of the fairytale, not making it a colourful exotic drama (like Andrei Serban at the ROH), but a colourful spectacle of a different hue nonetheless, working primarily with light. It's a superb match for the huge orchestration, the limited movements providing counterpoint rather than a conventional illustrative decoration. It also has the effect of simply gluing you the visuals, really connecting with them, even if they seem occasionally jarring and disruptive to the tone at times with bizarre comedy characters (not just Ping, Pang and Pong). It's visually stunning and despite the impression of it being static there is always something happening, even if it's just the fading and brightening of the light adjusting the whole appearance of a scene.

Credit to conductor Marco Armiliato for matching the lushness of the score with the intent of stage production, rather than feeling a need to present a cold and clinical reading, which would be a disservice to Wilson and Puccini. It's majestic. There are serious singing challenges in this Puccini opera without having to adopt unnatural posture and deliver gestures in the Robert Wilson fashion. Although rightly celebrated for her Puccini roles as Madama Butterfly and Suor Angelica, Liù appears to be less comfortable range for Ermonela Jaho. Iréne Theorin is also a little bit strained here. She's an excellent powerhouse Wagnerian, somewhat inconsistent, but is gloriously imperious in the final scene confronting Liù and Calaf. Turandot is not a large role but it is a very challenging one. Brian Jagde is a fine Decent Calaf, and soars through 'Nessun dorma'. Carlo Bosi is very capable for the role of the old man Altoum.

Whether Turandot has something deeper political to say about love being the answer that will topple a totalitarian regime is debatable, although in its unfinished form without resolution Calixto Bieito certainly made a convincing case for it being a powerful critique of the crushing boot of fascism, but the inherent power of the work, whether for its depiction of a reign of terror or its belief in the healing power of love, is undeniable. His mannerisms will irritate some but the power of Robert Wilson's distinctive vision for this and for the world of opera can't be denied. His Turandot is spectacular, unlike anything else, capturing the otherworldly quality of Puccini’s fairy tale opera, its power, its majesty, and its beauty as a final unfinished testament from this composer.

External links: Opéra National de Paris, Paris Opera Play

Photo credits: Agathe Poupeney / Opéra national de Paris

Wagner - Götterdämmerung (Berlin, 2022)

Richard Wagner - Götterdämmerung

Staatsoper unter den Linden, Berlin - 2022

Christian Thielemann, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Andreas Schager, Anja Kampe, Lauri Vasar, Mandy Fredrich, Mika Kares, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Violeta Urmana, Noa Beinart, Kristina Stanek, Anna Samuil, Evelin Novak, Natalia Skrycka, Anna Lapkovskaja

ARTE Concert - October 2022

To save you time - and not everyone has the endurance to last through the fourth segment of a Ring cycle - what goes for Siegfried also holds true for Götterdämmerung. There are no sudden revelations in the last part that build on what little we have been able to make of what came before in Dmitri Tcherniakov's 2022 Ring cycle for the Berlin Staatsoper. There is little that is different in style, theme, singing and musical performances. You could say that Tcherniakov has run out of ideas, but some would dispute (and it would be hard to disagree with) that he didn't really have any new ideas in the first place. The bringing down to earth of high-flown spiritual, philosophical and mythological elements in Wagner's music dramas through psychological exploration has been a feature of his Wagner productions, and indeed many of his other recent opera productions.

Götterdämmerung's opening showing a happy home and everyday domesticity before the rot sets in, has been done numerous times, not least in the just passed 2022 Bayreuth Götterdämmerung. The three Norns are wobbly bent-over old ladies, previously seen as being present in the background in the rotating passing between rooms. Perhaps the point is that they are ancient and wise, or perhaps not so wise as they can't prevent what has happened and the course that future events will take. All in all though it's a very dull prologue, lacking on any kind of drive, purpose or meaning in the context of this production, but at least consistent within it.

Also not unlike the recent Bayreuth production, Gunther (Lauri Vasar) and Gutrune (Mandy Fredrich) in Act I are styishly dressed and think themselves sophisticated, giggling and making fun of the rather square Siegfried when he turns up in his yellow pullover with elbow patches and grey blue slacks and jacket. He presents a suitably naive figure it must be said, Tcherniakov making sure you don't mistake him for anything heroic. And let's not forget that this is supposed to be taking place within a virtual reality experiment of some kind, isn't it? Is everyone else but Siegfried in on the scheme? It would appear so, Gunther playing along with the idea that this fool's cuddly toy is his horse Grane to see where the experiment will end up. Although his delusions could be dangerous. Just look at what happened to Alberich in Das Rheingold! (Johannes Martin Kränzle's shambling semi-naked figure in the prelude to Act II reminds us of that).

There is little to enliven the scene between Brünnhilde and Waltraute (long time since I've seen Violeta Urmana), who wanders into their home in a blue trenchcoat. As with Siegfried, there is a lot of pacing up and down, but Kampe and Urmana at least get across the import of Waltraute's impassioned warning to her sister about the fate of Valhalla (are we talking about the E.S.C.H.E institute?) should she fail to renounce the ring. Christian Thielemann's equally impassioned musical direction certainly helps get this across; the swirling fire leitmotif at the end of the scene heralding the arrival and menace of Siegfried and Gunther's deceit is powerfully employed. Andreas Schager is suitably threatening also in his thuggish assault as Gunther on Brünnhilde, still Siegfried in appearance, which perhaps adds to the menace.

As elsewhere, not just in the previous scenes but throughout the whole Tchernaikov version of Das Ring des Nibelungen, the subsequent prelude to Act II between Hagen and Alberich is a mixed affair. The director fails to find any interesting way to stage the dramatic scenes of confrontation in any interesting way, or indeed connect it in any meaningful way to his testing centre experiment idea, but the performances of Mika Kares and Johannes Martin Kränzle nonetheless set up very well what is at stake and the tragedy that is to ensue in the subsequent scenes.

That at least is fully realised - or at least goes someway to redeeming Tcherniakov's staging elsewhere and deliver on Götterdämmerung as an effective conclusion - in the remaining scenes in this production. Avoiding making any real connection to the stress laboratory experiments - which let's face it, have contributed very little so far - the drama of Brünnhilde revealing Siegfried's betrayal carry the full weight of Wagner's intent. Anja Kampe is excellent here, as is Kares's Hagen and Lauri Vasar's Gunter. Andreas Schager fits the bill perfectly as Siegfried, showing that attention to the characters and their reactions to this scene are critical to the charge of the scene.

This takes place in the "assembly room" of the testing centre, which stands in here for the Gibichung Hall, and for the first time, it struck me as similar to Lohengrin's playing out of tragedy and betrayal by those who would see themselves as leaders or upholders of laws as a wider act that affects/involves the public/the nation. Whether that was intended or not, it does enhance the effectiveness of the scene. I also actually liked the baseball team locker room as a stand-in for the "hunting" scene that leads to the death of Siegfried. The gossip and toxic attitudes expressed suited the context of the scene and the death scene was genuinely touching and dramatic. Likewise the mourning gathering appearance of the old lady Norns, Erda and the Wanderer sufficed as a moving substitute for the usual theatrical conclusion of conflagration and immolation.

Overall then, this was a good Das Ring des Nibelungen at the Staatsoper unter den Linden, particularly as far as the musical performance and the majority of the singing were concerned. As far as Tcherniakov's science laboratory experiment is concerned, the only worthwhile experiment here, whose results are indisputable, is the force of Wagner's music to carry mythology, narrative and opera in service of something so powerful it resists time and fashions, something capable of renewal and reexamination of its meaning which remains a remarkable piece of art and culture, something that indeed has created its own mythology around it. It's been "stress tested" again, this time by Dmitri Tcherniakov, and The Ring still endures.

Links: Staatsoper unter den Linden, ARTE Concert

Wagner - Die Walküre (Berlin, 2022)

Richard Wagner - Die Walküre

Staatsoper unter den Linden, Berlin - 2022

Christian Thielemann, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Robert Watson, Vida Miknevičiūtė, Mika Kares, Michael Volle, Anja Kampe, Claudia Mahnke, Christiane Kohl, Clara Nadeshdin, Anna Samuil, Michal Doron, Natalia Skrycka, Karis Tucker, Anna Lapkovskaja, Alexandra Ionis

ARTE Concert - October 2022

Das Rheingold didn't offer up too many clues as to the direction it was going to take in the remaining parts of the tetralogy, other than being very much within the familiar operatic worldview and aesthetic of director Dmitri Tcherniakov. Die Walküre is a place where worlds come together, where there is a deeper delving into the past and a relationship established between the present and the future and it's more of a test of whether a director has any ideas that he wants to take forward in the remaining parts of the work. Unfortunately, it appears that if Tcherniakov has anything more to offer, he is still keeping his cards close to his chest at this stage. 

Act I doesn't offer up much in the way of interest, either visually, in concept or in singing performances. Notionally, we are still within the human behavioural experiment laid out in Das Rheingold, the director here applying more relatable imagery to the pursuit of Siegmund as an escaped prisoner. Unfortunately Siegmund has inadvertently and unfortunately sought to seek shelter in the home of Hunding, who is a prison warder. If Das Rheingold went for the familiar Tcherniakov imagery of behavioural science and therapy in an enclosed world of high wooden walls (Carmen, Pelléas et Mélisande, Les Troyens), here the spaces are more open and exposed, like his Lulu, Hunding's home a framework of doorways in a modern house, with no sign of a sword in an ash tree. That's not a security camera though, Notung is buried up to the hilt in the ceiling.

It's not so much the modern setting that is out of place, as much as it's not entirely clear what Tcherniakov is trying to show us. It doesn't seem to relate in any meaningful way with what has come before, nor does it even seem to have any consistency within itself or in relation to the composer's original intentions. The clash with Wagner's sensibilities becomes more pronounced as the act progresses, as Siegmund and Sieglinde become enraptured in their joint destiny. It's not just that it diverges from Wagner's intentions, but it doesn't even fit in with the convict/prison officer concept. Unfortunately, the singing of Robert Watson and Vida Miknevičiūtė doesn't really make this any more convincing or give it the lift it needs.

One theme that is perhaps hinted at however is the wider idea of a surveillance society, of powers reaching into and controlling our everyday lives. This becomes more apparent when we get to Act II, but it's already suggested at the start of the opera where Wotan was seen observing what is going on from his window of office in Valhalla. It also has the benefit of blending the acts together as a way of creating a closer unity between the events in the distinct acts of this opera. Siegmund and Sieglinde run off at the start of Act II, leaving Wotan and Brünnhilde to walk through Hunding's home, unseen by the prison warder, the set rotating through to a Valhalla office room for the scene between Wotan and Fricka. Rotating shows that the actions of gods are not detached or unrelated from what is to play out, but exert control and direction towards consequences that might be unintended.

The folly of Wotan's actions are summed up in his admonishment towards Fricka in this vital Second Act that "You only grasp all that has been, whereas my mind longs to encompass what has not yet come to pass". If anything makes this feel as real, vital and foolhardy as it should be, it's Michael Volle's outstanding singing performance, but he is well matched with Claudia Mahnke's Fricka. Just as convincing is Christian Thielemann's musical direction, capturing the fluctuating moods, the depth of feeling, the import and foreboding at the heart of this act. For me the key to Die Walküre is what you can do with this scene, and there is at least a sense of purpose and urgency that comes across, even in the director's contextual setting of a business deal being hammered out between two high level executives with competing briefs.

Act III unfortunately doesn't find any real way of taking this forward. Returning to the forum of chairs where the Valkyrie are seated like junior executives talking up their gains of gathering dead heroes rather than actually doing anything. But no matter, there are still compensatory touches elsewhere. Vida Miknevičiūtė raises her game, gets in touch with Sieglinde's fate and her condition here and gives a fine performance. Anja Kampe is not quite up to the demands of Brünnhilde, a little light and airy of voice in places but plays the role sympathetically. Michael Volle more than makes up for any shortcomings in the dramaturgy for his Act III finale, conveying the depth of his displeasure with and banishment of his wayward daughter. Thielemann's direction of the Staatskapelle Berlin also lets this Act simmer and soar.

Unfortunately, the direction still feels inadequate, never really nailing down any ideas or extending the experiment concept for this Ring proposed in Das Rheingold. And even for a Die Walküre, viewed as a standalone opera, this just doesn't have the necessary impact. You might miss all the traditional scenes and spectacle of the mythology, not least the mockery of Loge's conflagration at the finale (Tcherniakov has a way of turning the intention of some works upside down - especially Wagner - and I expect more of this to come), but Michael Volle's masterclass Wotan is reason enough to be impressed with this production and still retain some expectations - if not exactly high hopes - for the remaining parts.

Links: Staatsoper unter den Linden, ARTE Concert

Prokofiev - The Fiery Angel (Madrid, 2022)

Sergei Prokofiev - The Fiery Angel

Teatro Real de Madrid, 2022

Gustavo Gimeno,Calixto Bieito, Ausrine Stundyte, Leigh Melrose, Dmitry Golovnin, Agnieszka Rehlis, Mika Kares, Nino Surguladze, Dmitry Ulyanov, Josep Fadò, Gerardo Bullón, Ernst Alisch, David Lagares, Estibaliz Martyn, Anna Gomà

ARTE Concert - April 2022

Based on a Symbolist work by Valery Bryusov with autobiographical experiences that were shared to some extent by the composer, Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel is one of the most impressive and original works of opera I've come across. Musically and thematically it is quite unlike anything else in opera and each new production - although they aren't that common - always suggests new ways of looking at it. There have been some interesting perspectives taken on the work in recent years in Munich, Aix and Rome, but the idea of seeing what a director like Calixto Bieito can make of it is always going to be an intriguing proposition. It turns out that the Madrid production of The Fiery Angel doesn't seem to have a whole lot to say that is new, but the opera nonetheless remains fascinating, particularly with Ausrine Stundyte again taking on the mesmerising role of Renata. 

Sure, in some respects you can see Renata as a typical opera heroine abused and mistreated and misunderstood by the men in her life, her behaviour out of step with society around her, but in the case of Renata, there is indeed quite a bit to misunderstand. Not that her state of mind is any excuse for the abuse she endures or indeed the exploitation of her vulnerability, but fundamentally does seem to be the rationale for the irrational here. Because for whatever reason (there are hints and suggestions but nothing is made explicit), Renata is indeed not functioning on a rational level. Whether a victim of childhood abuse or suffering from schizophrenia, she has clearly been scarred by her childhood experiences, experiencing visions of a celestial being appearing in her bedroom, a fiery angel who becomes intimate with her.

This unfortunately sets her up to become a victim to be further exploited by the men she meets. She lets herself be taken in by Count Heinrich, who she believes is the angel Madiel in a corporeal form, and his eventual rejection only deepens her trauma. Even the noble knight, Ruprecht who comes to her aid in her distress, sees a vulnerable woman he can exploit sexually. His behaviours and actions are suspect, but when he is rejected he does at least try to consider his better nature and help, although it seems to be primarily because he is still fascinated by this extraordinary woman. With his assistance, Renata is exploited even further by charlatans and astrologers, as she tries to find a way to Madiel through occultism and mysticism. 

On one level then it is a familiar situation of a woman being exploited and shunned by a conformist society, leading her to seek answers elsewhere, but The Fiery Angel is also a work that seeks to explore the far reaches and complexities of human experience, Renata's journey being one to get in touch with a spiritual dimension or existence of life outside of the common experience. She has a sense of having touched on forbidden knowledge and seeks to press it further. For Ruprecht too, there is even a fascination for the mystery of a woman that Renata represents. She stirs up a riot of feelings that involve lust, compassion, fear, jealousy and possessiveness. Combined, The Fiery Angel is an exploration of human dualism, what it means to be human, a material physical being with a spiritual mind, mortal creatures with aspirations of an eternal afterlife. On an everyday level grappling with this dualism extends to male and female divisions, base instincts and a higher purpose, purity and corruption, subjective and objective realities.

In other productions by Mariusz Treliński at Aix-en-Provence and Emma Dante in Rome, the stage directors have sought ways to bring the otherworldly level of the opera expressed in the music to the fore, whereas Barrie Kosky's Munich production highlighted the comic absurdity. Calixto Bieito takes a surprisingly much more down to earth approach, seeing the opera very much as an opening into the mind of a woman rejected for not conforming to the expectations of society. It's even set (restricted I feel) in a specific period, the 1950s, before a more general liberalisation and a sexual permissive society. Initially we see Renata seeking mystery in the spinning of a bicycle wheel, creating patterns, the bicycle perhaps alluding to a childhood trauma. The set meanwhile consists of a block of compartments that, as occasional projections of Ausrine Stundyte as Renata illustrate, are representative of the idea that we are seeing into her mind.

Those rooms or compartments are mostly bare empty rooms, ready to be filled with horrors, each in their own little world, none of them connecting up to form any coherent view of reality. Significantly, perhaps rejecting any idea of a spiritual realm beyond physical reality, the few rooms that are decorated, the only lights in the darkness, are related to Agrippa von Nettesheim who in this version is less of a sorcerer than a physician, a man of science who is aware that we are still far from having all the answers. Her childhood bedroom, the source of her trauma, is also shown in all its horror. With an older man appearing, there is the suggestion of abuse by her father, who she looks up to. She sees Heinrich, an older man, as a substitute for her father, but inevitably that is a terrible mistake that only deepens her trauma. The tavern scene with Faust and Mephisopheles pushes Renata to her limits, and is quite disturbing in its own way. As she disturbs the community of nuns in Act 5, there are correspondences with Penderecki's opera Die Teufel von Loudun, which also featured Ausrine Stundyte in a recent Munich production.

Prokofiev, in a work long laboured over that he never saw performed in his own lifetime, strives to find similar expression in the music for the tangible and intangible, and it truly is a remarkable endeavour. The music is powerful and dynamic, sweeping between sensual and disorientating, evoking objective and subjective realities. I think its complexities came across better in the Rome production, but that might just be that the recording benefitted from superb High Resolution sound mix on the Blu-ray presentation. Here, conducted by Gustavo Gimeno, the detail isn't all there, nor the same dynamic shifts of tempo and volume.

Where the opera really comes to life however here in this Madrid production is in the singing performances. Once again - a revelation in the same role in Aix-en-Provence - we have a marvellous performance by Ausrine Stundyte. It's a role that has considerable vocal challenges but there are dramatic challenges too that require expression beyond the external, a requirement for Renata to be possessed of a deep and mysterious inner life. Bieito makes it physically challenging too and Stundyte is again impressive. Leigh Melrose is also excellent, his Ruprecht grappling with things beyond his comprehension and his own limited knowledge and experience. He brings that out in a similarly committed physical performance. 

The origins of the work and its Symbolist trappings leave a lot of room for analysis in The Fiery Angel, but it seems like the controversial Catalan director Calixto Bieito uncharacteristically seeks to demystify the work and restrict its possibilities. In his hands it does indeed boil down to familiar opera themes of a woman with unconventional individual behaviours being shunned by a closed society, moulded to conform and eventually destroyed by it. Prokofiev music suggests a wider context, but in that dialectic between the score and stage representation, the opera still works and weaves its fascination. Principally of course its real human level is expressed by the singers, and with prior experience of these roles, Stundyte and Melrose are thoroughly convincing.

Links: Teatro Real, ARTE Concert

Mozart - Don Giovanni (Salzburg, 2021)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Don Giovanni

Salzburger Festspiele, 2021

Teodor Currentzis, Romeo Castellucci, Davide Luciano, Mika Kares, Nadezhda Pavlova, Michael Spyres, Federica Lombardi, Vito Priante, David Steffens, Anna Lucia Richter

ARTE Concert - 8th August 2021

There are many facets to Mozart and Da Ponte's trilogy of operas, many facets of human behaviour that can be explored in them, universal traits that provide no easy answers to questions that on the surface can appear - and be played - as comedies but which underneath touch on some very disturbing subtexts. Don Giovanni can be depicted as villain or a victim of his own lusts - someone who loves too much, as someone who just isn't used to taking no for an answer, or in today's view, as a sexual predator and abuser of women. Don Giovanni is always worth a fresh perspective, but - perhaps more controversially (and it isn't often you can say that there is something more controversial in a production than the stage direction of Romeo Castellucci) - Mozart's score is also worth looking at in new ways. 

Teodor Currentzis has been upsetting those who like their Mozart played in the familiar Classical style for quite a while, but he's certainly not the only conductor finding more interesting facets to Mozart using historically informed direction on period instruments and using reduced ensemble orchestration. With Mozart's opera seria works that might be more palatable - and Salzburg have presented interesting Currentzis directed productions of La Clemenza di Tito in 2017 and Idomeneo in 2019 - but Don Giovanni is a different matter altogether. Rather than simply playing it to a way that has become rote and unadventurous over the years, Currentzis again seeks new ways to explore and express the wealth of character that is within Mozart's music. Forcing the listener to really listen to it. Making it feel fresh, shiny and new again. Like a virgin.

There's a theme that a director like Castellucci would certainly seize upon in a work like Don Giovanni, but there are less obvious ways to approach that. And there's maybe an allusion to stripping away the image of the sanctity of Mozart being forced into accepted conventional interpretations in the opening scene of Salzburg's Don Giovanni. In a white temple like setting, workmen strip away the Christian iconography of a church, leaving the elegant bare white edifice to show its basic underlying structure, ready to be built upon anew. A flame burns away any remaining holiness and indeed, the first person seen on the stage is a naked woman (well, it is Castellucci), one presumably no longer a virgin, since she has evidently been seduced/raped by Don Giovanni.

Rather than keep it simple and minimal, Castellucci then bombards the stage with all manner of effects, symbols and supernumeraries. A car crashes down on to the stage, a wheelchair, basketballs, a broken piano. Don Giovanni, Leporello and the Commendatore are dressed in white, while the avenging Donna Anna comes storming on in black with a retinue of Furies that surround and strive to bring Don Giovanni to justice for his crimes against women. It looks like Don Giovanni has juggled too many basketballs this time. The recitative as Don Giovanni and Leporello make their escape is played out with cartoon eyes on a black screen, Donna Anna mourns the crutch of Commendatore, Don Ottavio pours red powder on his arms and punctures a line of basketballs in his promise of securing revenge.

This is evidently not the Don Giovanni you might be familiar with but neither is it inappropriate to the tone of the work and its treatment by Mozart and da Ponte. It might do something different with the visuals and the pace, the use of instruments and emphasis of the music, but it still engages with the themes and the tone of the work. It's not so much Don Giovanni's debauchery and libidinous lifestyle that are condemned here as much as his failure to accept responsibility for and deal with the consequences of his actions. He leaves death and the destruction of lives behind him (something seized upon with a more political slant in Michael Haneke's version), including a suggestion that he has abandoned a pregnant Donna Elvira (Federica Lombardi doubled with a naked pregnant woman), while a child also pursues Don Giovanni on the stage.

The lightness of the treatment and the heaviness of the underlying implications is borne out in the music. Leporello's 'Madamina, il catalogo è questo' has a lovely lightness, the piano weaving in and out of the musicAeterna arrangement, the beauty of the aria contrasted with the sinister note behind the revelations of conquests. Castellucci provides plenty of contrasting imagery, mixing the absurdity with the comedy, with pointed symbolism and contemporary references that include a photocopier. Likewise he brings Michael Spyres's Don Ottavio on wearing a Danish mountaineer outfit (a familiar inscrutable symbol also used in his Moses und Aron) accompanied by a poodle. It looks ridiculous (several characters have a live animal avatar - Masetto a mouse, Don Giovanni a goat) but takes nothing away from the chilling account of Donna Anna on the recognition of her father's murderer, the scene re-enacted as a Greek tragedy.

Which is something that the legend of Don Giovanni could certainly be said to aspire to, it not being entirely out of place with the opera seria reworkings of mythology that preceded Mozart in the earlier part of the 18th century. Just as Mozart brought a contemporary edge to that genre in his progressive music and Da Ponte in the humanisation of the drama while still retaining the otherworldly elements that elevate it to grand drama - so Castellucci brings a corresponding touch of re-interpretation of an epic myth for a modern age while reflecting and respecting the underlying complexity of the work's blend of surrealism, comedy, tragedy, symbolism and instruction on the consequences of moral dissolution. In an expansive gesture that brings 150 women as extras to the stage, Don Giovanni here is held to account for his crime not by a stone statue, but by the women he has wronged. 

Teodor Currentzis seems to be doing his best to submerge as much as possible any of Mozart's familiar melodic embellishments. Whether this is for the sake of upsetting those who like their Mozart played in a conventionally acceptable way, whether it's out of sheer bloody-mindedness to stake out is reputation for being a fearless re-interpreter of Mozart, or whether he finds it appropriate to reevaluate and strip away the varnish of mannerisms that the work has accrued over the years and present a more historically informed account of the score is something the musicologists can argue over. Aligned with the drama an Castellucci's sensibility, the music however doesn't lose a fraction of its distinctive Mozartian qualities of beauty, sensitivity or dramatic flair.

Think what you might also of Romeo Castellucci's contribution, whether it adds any value or provides any new insights but - much like his stunning Die Zauberflöte for La Monnaie - it's certainly original, often spectacular and rarely dull, always surprising with some new idea that puts emphasis on different aspects of the work. It's also not without the occasional bit of flash/bang showmanship, which Mozart wasn't beyond employing himself. Castellucci has become a stylist in white haze, his productions as distinctive now as Robert Wilson's geometric minimalism in blue, and just as visually arresting in their conception, design and execution. This looks simply stunning and impressively choreographed.

It has to be said however, that it's more of an "interesting" production than a great one. Despite the efforts to bring "real people" onto the stage (see Castellucci's rather more successful Die Zauberföte again) and the impressive efforts to pull it all together into a coherent whole, it doesn't always succeed in finding the human warm within the work where it traditionally should. The idea of making Don Giovanni and Leporello look almost identical is another fine idea that makes the identity confusion more realistic, but it also loses something when the two baritones are practically indistinguishable.

Perhaps just as much at fault as the production, the singing didn't quite measure up or compensate for the lack of human warmth in the production. The singing is generally fine, and of a very high standard, as you would expect, but despite good performances from Davide Luciano as Don Giovanni (stripped fully naked at the finale) and Vito Priante as Leporello, and with perhaps the sole exception of a mighty performance from Nadezhda Pavlova as Donna Anna, the production never allowed you to engage with any of the characters of at least sympathise with their dilemma. Overall, this feels like an admirable production with good ideas and visuals, that despite its controversial trappings, plays out nonetheless in a rather run of the mill fashion.

Links: Salzburg Festival, ARTE Concert

Wagner - Tristan und Isolde (Munich, 2021)

Richard Wagner - Tristan und Isolde

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2021

Kirill Petrenko, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Jonas Kaufmann, Mika Kares, Anja Harteros, Wolfgang Koch, Sean Michael Plumb, Okka von der Damerau, Dean Power, Christian Rieger, Manuel Günther

Staatsoper TV Live Stream - 31 July 2021

The final production of Nikolaus Bachler’s exceptional tenure as General Manager of the Bavarian State Opera may not be a perfect send-off, but it's certainly one that typifies his time there. It's a style that is adventurous, takes chances and divides audiences, and putting Krzysztof Warlikowski on Tristan und Isolde is something of a gamble. It's not uncommon to be left confused about what is going on and what the point of a production is, but more often than not, Munich productions manage to find a way to connect with a work in new and interesting ways. Warlikowski production of Tristan und Isolde actually doesn't appear that adventurous or controversial, or at least no more absurd and bizarre than a work with magic love potions, over-fervent raptures and philosophical ideas wrapped up in flowery language.

This time it looks - as with his Don Carlos - as if Warlikowski has again run out of ideas when confronted with the big beasts of opera. On one level, Tristan und Isolde takes place mainly within the ordinary surroundings of a wood-panelled 1920s' hotel room, while on another level, projections show an alternate - perhaps heightened emotional or fantasy - playing out of events. On one level it's Christoph Loy and another it's Bill Viola, whose extraordinary art installation screens for the Paris Tristan und Isolde separated the physical or material with projections of the ecstatic spiritual heights that would otherwise be difficult to translate into purely human actions on the stage. And when music and visuals come together, this opera can certainly achieve that level of transcendence.

Warlikowski's lack of any new ideas to separate those states (and connect them) is most evident in Act II. There's a build-up here that is expressed as the secret lovers meet that demands a corresponding gradual increasing intensity of feeling before they almost dissolve in rapture, but where little happens on a dramatic level other than the inevitable release of tension - a false release - with their discovery by Marke. On the stage in this production, there's not a lot going on and little visual sign of such deep feeling as it is expressed in the music. Warlikowski takes it to the other level in the projections that show the lovers physically separate but tantalisingly close, as water rushes out beneath the bed they lie on and submerges them.

The director emphasises this separation of the world we see and the one we feel right from the start, using people dressed as dummies with no distinguishing features to stand in for Tristan and Isolde during the Vorspiel. Its not so much an idealised form as a negation of one, where the physical characteristics don't matter as much as the interior lives. Without wishing to 'body shame' any performers, there's nothing new about that idea, and opera viewers have had to use their imagination to see less than perfect human forms and shapes aspire to an image of sublime godlike perfection ever since opera was invented.

You can take this idea too far - and Warlikowski inevitably does - bringing the dummies back as a doubles for Tristan and Isolde in Act III, populating Kareol with baby Tristans who, for some obscure reason, sit around a table in the wood-panelled room setting that the director also seems to have settled upon for no discernible reason. It takes more than a few odd references and mannerisms however to hold Tristan und Isolde back from reaching its goal, and it does seem to be the case that there's no need to be hasty in judgements; you need to wait and see where this takes us, and if any work repays delayed gratification, it's surely this one.

Warlikowski, for all his mannerisms and lack of any imaginative response to Tristan und Isolde (compared for example to Simon Stone's recent production at the Aix-en Provence festival that I viewed just a week before this), does however bring out one element of the work that hadn't really struck me before. I'm not quite sure how he does it, since there is little that visually alludes to it, but between him and Jonas Kaufmann, it's possible to see the commonalities of themes in Tristan that are developed further in Parsifal. The pain of the wound, the enlightenment through pain to consider one's origins, birth and mother's suffering on the way to achieving an enlightened state. Kaufmann - and very much Harteros too - at least made it feel that there is something deeper behind the pathology of both characters in their conflation of love and death, and it has nothing to do with a magic love potion. Their love-death union is derived from an awareness of human existence and love as a path to attain spiritual bliss that can only be completely fulfilled in the union of death.

Anja Harteros in fact embodies this much better than Kaufmann. She is a fine singer and a superb actress; you can practically see the music and every emotion it provokes flow through her. Her embodiment and communication of a role I find is always unerringly accurate - or makes you believe it so - but her voice isn't always able to match the same heights, particularly in the Wagnerian range. She's good, a true artist, but just not fully up to the demands of Isolde here right across the board. Kaufmann is also very weak, struggling to gain volume over the surge of the orchestra, but he is also simply unconvincing in a role that demands total and utter commitment. Kaufmann and Harteros have been much more convincing as a duo in Verdi, in Otello, in La Forza del destino and in Giordano's Andea Chenier, but most assuredly not in their role debuts as Tristan and Isolde.

There's no question however that both give it their all and Kaufmann is actually quite impressive in the critical Act III. I thought he might hold back from the exceptional demands placed on Tristan in this Act, and holding back is not something you can do in this opera. As committed as his Act III is, and as well as it is delivered, it still seems to lack the underlying conviction, of someone dying and longing to die, but unwilling to do so while his soulmate is still alive and separated from him - on several planes of existence. It's a lack of connection to his character here that I've felt in some of Kaufmann's performances; in some it might not matter so much in some works, but in Don Carlos and in Tristan und Isolde - two of the pinnacles of opera - half-measures and almost-theres are not good enough. 

With neither Kaufmann, Harteros nor Warlikowski being entirely up to the admittedly huge task of Tristan und Isolde, Kirill Petrenko - another person who has a huge impact in making Munich one of the centres of exciting opera in Europe - has his work cut out for him. In the absence of any kind of real stirring of passion on the stage, he has to make the music do most of the work. He doesn't quite manage it and in fact, judging by the sound purely on the live stream performance, it feels like he is trying too hard. He pushes the orchestra to those extremes, trying to conjure up day and night, light and dark, but there is little on the stage to match the intent, and the work often sounds aggressive. He is of course aware of the dynamic and pace and is able to rein it in and slow it down for 'O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe' in Act II, before building up the rush of emotions (the preparation of lethal injections, the lovers awash in a hotel room) that is shattered by the arrival of Melot and Marke. If it's fury you want to show, this is the way to play it, but it should be disappointment and resignation, shock and disillusionment. And credit where its due, you can see it in Harteros, if nowhere else.

Think what you will of the singing and the production - and there's good support from Wolfgang Koch and Okka von der Damerau as Kurwenal and Brangäne - but there is nothing else in all opera like the Liebestod and the finale of Tristan und Isolde. It's one of the most sublime expressions of human feeling put into music or indeed any form of art, unparalleled in its capacity to reach deep inside and express something wonderfully mysterious and sublime. Despite the imperfections elsewhere, Kaufmann's final utterance of "...Isolde" and Harteros's soaring Liebestod touch on the work's extraordinary and unmatched core of emotions, the essence of life and death, of striving for a love that surpasses human boundaries and attains something spiritual and sublime. Despite the failings of the production as a whole, this moment as ever is worth waiting for. And if it still achieves its purpose, what has come before and the contributions of the performers must have succeeded on some level.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper TV

Verdi - Simon Boccanegra (Paris, 2018)

Giuseppe Verdi - Simon Boccanegra

L'Opéra National de Paris, 2018

Fabio Luisi, Calixto Bieito, Ludovic Tézier, Mika Kares, Maria Agresta, Francesco Demuro, Nicola Alaimo, Mikhail Timoshenko, Cyrille Lovighi, Virginia Leva-Poncet

Paris Opera Cinema Live - 13 December 2018

Verdi's mature period operas have always been problematic, their dramatic plot lines never quite keeping up with the growing maturity and sophistication of the composer's musical writing or compromised by Verdi attempting to rework material to suit French grand opera needs. As far as Simon Boccanegra is concerned, it's another case of rewriting, but rather than revisiting an earlier work first performed in 1857 to suit a new audience 23 years later, Verdi seems to be working to his own musical imperative, drawing deeper on his own experiences of family struggles and his observations of human nature during the upheaval of the Italian Risorgimento.

As a consequence, Simon Boccanegra is quite unlike other Verdi works, seeped in a tone of deep sombre melancholy that only the darkest passages of I due Foscari and Don Carlos can come close to matching. Recognising the failings in Piave's original libretto, Verdi enlisted the services of Arrigo Boito, with whom he would craft his late masterpieces, and Boito does bring a greater poetic touch to the work and human feeling to the sentiments, but the themes remain essentially the same as those consistent throughout Verdi's operas - love versus duty and one's responsibility towards family versus the people and the nation as a whole.

The reworking of the material however leaves the problem of Simon Boccanegra consisting of a patchwork of scenes with leaps in time periods and gaps in the drama, and when staged it just never seems to flow or hold together despite the insistent tone and musical language employed by Verdi. And it really is music on another level, separated by a vast gulf from those early works. The youthful force and drive is still there, but the difference here is that it expresses internalised drama rather than underscoring melodramatic plot developments of war, vengeance, fate, padded out with popular laments, pleas to god, and drinking songs.

It's a little unfair to characterise Verdi in those terms, but it just illustrates how far Verdi's ambitions and ability have moved on from the standard template and from the necessity of writing to meet the expectations of an audience. Some of those problematic dramatic elements remain in Simon Boccanegra of course, and it seems unlikely that a director like Calixto Bieito would really want to or be able to make anything convincing out of them. Somehow however, without denying all the colour, drama, fury and sensitivity that makes up a Verdi opera somehow Bieito lays open Simon Boccanegra in his Paris Opera production in a way that somehow gets to the heart of it. It's an absolutely stunning experience.

Once you get rid of the period accoutrements and costumes of 14th century Genoa, and once you dispense with the distractions of the plot and the near impossibility of making it seem credible, there's room to look for the deeper sentiments at the heart of Simon Boccanegra. Susanne Gschwender's set designs, the stage stripped of everything but the huge skeleton of the hull of a ship that revolves to show us what would appear to be a representation of the mind of Simon Boccanegra, the Doge of Genoa. Seen lying prone on the floor, a position he also takes having been poisoned in Act II, it's tempting to see the fractured narrative and its strange outpourings of emotion and grief as that of a fevered mind of a former corsair viewing it in a heightened state.

And that works well for a narrative as fractured as Simon Boccanegra. Bieito is then able to introduce a vital element that is usually absent from the dramatic presentation of the work but which is ever-present in Verdi's music; Maria. The association of news of the death of Maria at the very moment that he is proclaimed Doge creates a fusion that haunts Boccanegra. It doesn't just cause problems with Maria's father that lead to political plotting and family feuds, but - along with the disappearance of Simon and Maria's daughter - it's also something that has a deep personal impact on him, a melancholic yearning associated with his office that remains with him all his life.

That sentiment is what you can hear when you hear the music that Verdi has composed for the opera, and it's there from the very first note, Fabio Luisi drawing the darkness out of the detail and the silences in the score. It's appropriate then that director Calixto Bieito introduces Maria as a ghostly presence throughout the work, even showing her normally off-stage reported death by having her father drag the dying woman onto the stage to confront the husband who let her down. The image is powerful, and Boccanegra cannot shake it. She haunts the ship of Simon's mind as he himself lies dying, caught up in his own melancholic reflection, sadness and regret.

The risk is that this internalised perspective aligned with Verdi's music could push this further over into high melodrama, but by allowing nothing extraneous to distract - much as Verdi's complete stripping away of any dramatic underscoring or ornamentation does - Bieito's production is able to focus on the sheer depth of feeling a father has for his daughter, for his family, for the regrets that have allowed political events beyond his control impinge on their natural development. It's something that Verdi would very much want to express from a personal viewpoint and Bieito's production permits this much better than any version of Simon Boccanegra I've ever seen before.

There's no effort to clarify the complexity of the plot or the gaps in credibility that come with Simon being reunited with his lost daughter, but there is every ounce of emotion put into expressing such longing and such feelings. If there's one place where the value of Bieito's work as a director shows, it's in his directing of the performers to make all those sentiments come to life. There's no opera theatrics here either in the mannerisms of the delivery of the singing; all of it comes from the heart, which might mean it's not quite naturalistic, but in the context of Verdi's music that is simply perfect, unadorned, unguarded, unredacted pure emotion.

As is ever the challenge with Verdi - even in those roles that aren't created purely to show off the abilities of the lead performers - is getting singers capable of handling the considerable vocal challenges that go along with the advances of characterisation in these later operas. If Maria Agresta couldn't always carry the fullness of sound that is needed, there aren't many who can meet the demands of the extraordinarily challenging range required for Amelia/Maria, but her performance was as intense and heartfelt as it needed to be. Ludovic Tézier continues to develop into one of the best Verdi baritones around and gave a commanding performance here, equally intense, equally heartfelt. When you add in the kind of delivery given by an outstanding Francesco Demuro as Gabriele Adorno and the contrast provided by Nicola Alaimo's Paolo, the results were truly shattering.

Links: Opéra National de Paris, Culturebox

Donizetti - La Favorite (Munich, 2016)

Gaetano Donizetti - La Favorite

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2016

Karel Mark Chichon, Amélie Niermeyer, Elīna Garanča, Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecień, Mika Kares, Joshua Owen Mills, Elsa Benoit

Staatsoper.TV Live - 6th November 2016

On the surface, La Favorite has a melodramatic plot of contrivance, misfortune and happenstance that results in the inevitable tragic ending for the leading lady. It's one that is typical of bel canto opera and Donizetti (Lucia di Lammermoor, Linda di Chamounix, Anna Bolena). La Favorite in fact seems even more over the top than usual, with religion, court intrigue and war heroism all crashing together in a spectacular fashion within the remit of a tragic love triangle. Behind it all however there is the touching and tragic personal story of a woman crushed by huge forces beyond her control, and the Bayerische Staatsoper's 2016 production focuses in on this human element of Donizetti's rich work to brilliant effect.

There is certainly a risk of that human element being lost within the vast scale of the plot and the immense stature of the personalities involved. The human element is principally within the figure of Léonor de Guzman, a woman who is secretly the mistress, the 'favourite', of King Alfonse XI of Castille. Their illicit union however doesn't escape the notice of the Pope, who issues a Papal decree denouncing the king's intention to divorce the Queen and risk placing the nation under threat. The king sees a way out of the problem, agreeing to a marriage between Léonor and Fernand, a captain in his army who has distinguished himself in the nation's wars, but the king has another agenda, having just discovered that Fernand is already Léonor's lover.

Even the history of Léonor's affair with Fernand is shrouded in  romantic intrigue and secrecy; Fernand leaving the monastery of St James where he is a novice monk to follow a mysterious woman he is in love with, Léonor necessarily keeping their meetings hidden from the King. Behind all the huge religious, political and royal intrigues however is a woman who is the victim of all these forces; the mistreated and abused mistress of the king, a fallen woman reviled by the Catholic Church, scorned by the royal court who laugh at her "sordid affair", and eventually abandoned by her lover over his deep sense of "honour". These grand forces might take a literal representation in the libretto, but Donizetti's score has a way of showing how they affect women in the abstract.

Donizetti's music is often underrated and indeed in some works it is rather rudimentary in its rhythms and dramatic effects. Composed for the Paris stage, and presented in that original French version here in Munich, the work is considerably more sophisticated than Donizetti is often given credit for. On the grand scale, the collision of such vast forces looks towards Verdi's Don Carlos, but on the intimate and more personal level, Fernand's rejection of the fallen woman Léonor at the altar is equal in force of sentiment and dramatic impact to Alfredo's repudiation of Violetta in La Traviata. Perhaps even more so, since the royal court also round on Léonor in a mass chorus that proclaims "His revenge is noble indeed", in response to Fernand's act.

The key to not letting such highly charged scenes and lofty personalities overwhelm the human tragedy of Léonor's fate is, evidently, restraint. Donizetti's score suggests bombast, but it invites intimacy and a more nuanced approach. The extravagant bel canto histrionics are not there in La Favorite, nor is there is any mad scene to show off the agility and range of the soprano. Léonor is scored for a mezzo soprano, and the timbre is darker, the role more dramatic, but still lyrical and still extremely challenging. Elīna Garanča is restrained in her gestures, almost holding back too much, but a deeper response to the turns of events is there to be brought out and it can be fully felt in her singing delivery. It's an impressively and yet unshowy performance.

Highlighting Léonor's fate as the core of the opera's greatness is the main element that points to another success for the Bayerische Staatsoper following on from their live broadcast of an impressive Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg last month. It seems like many of the previous directorial excesses of the opera house have been scaled back without losing any of the freshness, modernity and inventiveness of their productions. Amélie Niermeyer's direction pays attention to the tone of the opera, to the narrative drama and to the subtext. There's an attention to detail in the characterisation that avoids the broad brushstrokes that the overly-orchestrated plot would seem to invite.

The attention to detail and to the human side of the work is not just reflected in Léonor, but there is effort made to humanise the other characters too. Most notably - even if its "humanising" on a rather more base level - the director uses the interval music between Act I and II to show us another side to King Alfonse. Sitting beside Léonor while a light display suggests they are watching a lurid TV drama, many facets of Alfonse the man are shown, his arrogance and machismo, his boyish playfulness, his sleazy possessiveness of Léonor, pawing over her, but also his romantic fervour. It's a terrific use of Donizetti's music to develop character without distorting it. It has to be said that Mariusz Kwiecień is quite brilliant in running through this range in a fantastic dumbshow display, and his singing and performance in the more conventional kingly role is equally assured and impressive.

Matthew Polenzani is doing great work on the Munich stage, and he's well cast here as a dramatic lyrical Verdi tenor instead of a more romantic bel canto singer like Juan Diego Flórez or Yijie Shi (who sang the role in Toulouse). His voice is not a big one, but it's expressive and he can do much with a role like Fernand. That said, Fernand is not a figure who comes out of the work with a clear or nuanced position, swayed between love and God, working himself up from monk to warrior, with little opportunity for any real human character to be expressed, but Polenzani does what he can with the arias and is always engaging in voice and in performance.

La Favorite shows what opera at its best can do, elevating the human experience to an epic scale, and reducing epic scale down into relatable human experience. The Munich production sees a woman's life within the context of the unforgiving forces of religion and masculine power, judged by their standards and unable to exert any control over her own life and love. Donizetti's music is masterfully up to the task and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, directed with force, vigour and sensitivity by Karel Mark Chichon show just how sophisticated Donizetti's writing can be and just how much of an impact his operas can make. This is another outstanding production in what is so far an impressive broadcast season at the Bavarian State Opera House in Munich.

The next live broadcast from Munich is Shostakovich's LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK on 4th December 2016 at 7pm (C.E.T.), conducted by Kirill Petrenko and directed by Harry Kupfer.


Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV