Korngold - Die Tote Stadt (Brussels, 2020)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold - Die Tote Stadt

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2020

Lothar Koenigs, Mariusz Treliński, Roberto Saccà, Marlis Petersen, Dietrich Henschel, Bernadetta Grabias, Martina Russomanno, Lilly Jørstad, Florian Hoffmann, Nikolay Borchev, Mateusz Zajdel

La Monnaie Streaming - November 2020

As far as the arts are concerned, the Covid pandemic has changed everything over the last year. Those productions that have managed to be performed in the brief gaps between lockdown measures have had to be rethought and reworked for safety, both for the audience and the performers. In the case of Die Tote Stadt at La Monnaie, it's been particularly challenging for a director like Mariusz Treliński, the Polish film director who likes to take a flamboyant hi-tech approach to his opera productions, using movie references and cinematic techniques. Here it's like his toys have been taken away from him, but as I've noted before, this is such a powerful work in its own right that it needs little in the way of theatrical enhancement.

The production, intended to celebrate the centenary of the work, did start out rather differently when it was first produced in Warsaw, and it did indeed originally have all of the director's familiar enhanced theatrical and cinematic visuals. By the time it came to La Monnaie in Brussels - Belgium hit particularly bad by the spread of the virus - it was necessary to have a rethink to involve less technicians and put as much social distancing between the performers, the orchestra and the audience as possible.

I have to admit, as someone who has enjoyed this director's work in the past Manon Lescault, The Fiery Angel, Iolanta, Duke Bluebeard's Castle) I would have loved to see the full-blown production aligned to Korngold's extravagant orchestrations and melodies, but there is no doubt that the Brussels version of this particular work, re-orchestrated for 57 musicians with the runtime reduced to under two hours, benefits from letting the macabre elements of the Symbolist drama and the concentration of Korngold's musical composition speak for itself.

To say nothing of how it speaks a little more directly than ever before of the nature of the times we are living in, where the idea of a dead city is very much a real thing, and where many can undoubtedly identify with the loss of loved ones. Unsurprisingly, since it relates to a living double replacing a dead woman, Treliński relies on Alfred Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' as a reference, and the correlation it has with that work is again in these times much more evident and real, the focus turned very much more inward on the mindset of someone who has been disturbed by the death of a loved one.

The revised production design makes use of three boxes that provide some social distancing, but also serve as a way of showing mental distancing from reality and, although neon-lit, may even remind you of coffins. Ghosts reach out and cling to Paul, naked bodies lie under shrouds that he tries to reanimate. Sung with fervour by Roberto Saccà and with Lothar Koenigs ramping up Korngold musical forces with the reduced orchestration scarcely noticeable, you almost think he could do it. Some enhancements in the way of projections are sparingly and effectively used as backgrounds to allude to the location of the dead city being a projection of a disturbed mind rather than specifically Bruges or any real concrete place.

It's appropriate then that much as Paul is unable to see the beauty of the living Marietta as he longs for an impossible ideal of the perfection of the past that is Maria, opera too now has to deal with a much less perfect reality. That comes through in the performances which have been adapted to the new reality, allowing flesh and blood singers to convey everything that is great about Die Tote Stadt and everything that Korngold makes of it. Marlis Petersen embodies that in her singing and in her superb acting performance. Her 'Marietta's Lied' is just phenomenal in this context, and Paul/Roberto Saccà can be seen to be visibly moved by the beauty of life being breathed into music.

The orchestra of La Monnaie also take centre stage here. Almost literally. They are on the stage behind the performers, probably masked. The orchestra pit is used to extend the boundaries of Paul's mind, the singers donning protective face masks when they venture close to the socially distanced audience at the front of the theatre. Rather than be distracting this actually adds a frisson of real world concern and meaning to the subject. There's no happy ending to Paul's grief and delusion in Mariusz Treliński's take on the story; the nightmare is the reality. Paul remains locked in, in lockdown; there's no escape from the city of death or the madness that descends.

Like in many other areas of our lives, there's clearly a need for opera to adjust to the new reality. Necessity is the mother of invention, and I have to say that La Monnaie have always been creative in their approach to opera, whether it was while holding productions in other locations during the restoration of the theatre a few years ago or in pioneering free live streamed broadcasts. Working with a director like Treliński on Korngold they prove that it might not be necessarily be a bad thing to rethink approaches to opera and music and get back to basics. The new reality imposed by the pandemic is something that we might have to live with for a much longer time, but when opera and theatre does comes back, as it surely will, there's hope that it can be stronger than before.

Links: La Monnaie-De Munt

Cavalli - La Calisto (Strasbourg, 2017)

Francesco Cavalli - La Calisto

L'Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg - 2017

Christophe Rousset, Mariame Clément, Elena Tsallagova, Vivica Genaux, Giovanni Battista Parodi, Nikolay Borchev, Filippo Mineccia, Raffaella Milanesi, Guy de Mey, Vasily Khoroshev, Jaroslaw Kitala, Lawrence Olsworth-Peter 

Culturebox - 2 May 2017

There is a distinct tone of melancholic longing pervading La Calisto (1651) that sets it apart from most other Cavalli operas that we have since been able to rediscover in more recent years. That familiar tone is certainly there is the romps of Elena and Il Giasone, but those works encompass a much greater emotional range in their adventurous blend of farce and raw humanity, while La Calisto's melancholy tread through classical myth seems rather academic by comparison. La Calisto is however by no means any lesser a work, since what seems to be a narrower focus is actually a deeper and more expansive exploration of different aspects of one of the most agonising of human sentiments; the longing to love and be loved in return.

This single unifying theme that runs throughout the opera manifests itself however in a surprising number of ways. It may have a mythological treatment in Ovid's story that plays out between immortal gods, wood nymphs and satyrs in a setting of antiquity, but the sentiments that afflicts these poor creatures in Cavalli's treatment is recognisably human. The balance of humans aspiring to the godlike immortality that love conveys on them is also rather well brought out in this 2017 production directed by Mariame Clément for L'Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg.

There's no-one left unaffected by this sense of longing in La Calisto, but some of them know better than others what to do about it. It's the chaste nature of the goddess Diana who inadvertently sows much of the confusion. She can't help that Endymion composes rapturous verses to her, but his love might not be as hopeless as you would expect, and the goddess is strangely moved by his devotion. Young and old, no-one is immune from the torments of love. Even Diana's elderly nymph assistant Lymphea isn't too old to want a bit of love in her life (much like Helen's maid, Astianassa in Elena or Delfa in Il Giasone), but she's not that desperate that she will submit to the advances of the young satyr Satirino, although she'll happily play him along for a while.

Jupiter too is no novice at this game, and it's the poor nymph Calisto who is cruelly deceived this time by his tricks. Led on by Mercury, he disguises himself as Diana in order to seduce the young maiden. And, just like the inconsiderate rulers who are determined to have their own way against the run of nature in the subsequent opera seria treatment of such subjects, Jupiter's actions cause even greater consternation and misery for the lovelorn characters of La Calisto. Believing it to be Diana acting in this manner, the satyr Pan feels emboldened to pursue his own less than noble intentions for the haughty goddess, and he's prepared to use violent means to get what he wants.

There are a lot of unhappy lovers in La Calisto then, each involved in situations that are far from ideal. Let's not forget Juno either, who is married to such as louse, and once again having to deal with the fall-out of her husband's philandering. Cavalli has beautiful laments for each of them, and since it's not opera seria, there is nothing generic about any of them. And also since it's not opera seria, there are no sudden revelations of long lost princes believed dead or sudden gaining of a conscience by a ruler to sort everything out, so there remains a more realistic bittersweet character to the music and the sentiments expressed in La Calisto, where the realisation is reached that "The dying of one kiss gives birth to another", and that as a consequence "Joy is infinite".

The character of those heart-rending laments and beautiful melodies is brought out beautifully by Christophe Rousset even though this opera doesn't adhere to the strong rhythmic pulse that characterises his interpretations of much of the other baroque work of Lully and Rameau. Here, with the period instruments of his Les Talens Lyriques ensemble, there is a rich, delicate and sympathetic treatment of the music and the sentiments behind it.

Mariame Clément's direction and Julia Hansen's set and costume designs are also wonderfully sympathetic towards the work, maintaining much of its classical antiquity in terms of dress and a traditional depiction of mythological creatures, but framing it quite nicely within the more down-to-earth setting of a bear-pit in a zoo. That might not seem the obvious setting for La Calisto, but it is one that permits a bear to be used (Calisto is transformed into a bear by Juno before being redeemed into the Great Bear constellation by Jupiter). It's the ingenious stage-craft however that allows it to work so well, the production flowing seamlessly between a variety of scenes that they are able to set within the high walls of the pit, in the bear house and around it.

Clément's direction is also responsible for establishing the right kind of tone of the work, with a lightness of touch that doesn't undermine it with too much comedy. Most of the comedy is visual, whether it's Jupiter swaggering around with a cigar trying to emulate a female walk as Diana, or the dangly bits jiggled about by the satyrs. Nor is there too much reliance on the modern-day framing device. The antiquity seems to be a parallel telling of a modern-day office romance situation, where Endymion and Pan are rivals for the affections of their ice-maiden boss Diana. None of this is forced however, the production flitting between the situations as required, the costumes not strictly one period or another, with Jupiter and Juno dressed in formal evening wear from the 1940s, Mercury wearing 90s' street gear or transforming into a circus ringmaster according to the whims of the setting and music.

Elena Tsallagova is the bright star of the show (in more ways than one obviously). She gives a bright, youthful and sparkling performance as Calisto, her singing clear and controlled, handling the requirements of the role with great facility and expression. Vivica Genaux likewise provides an enjoyable turn as Diana (and Jupiter as Diana), fully in the spirit of the piece, bright and luminous, with just the right edge of goddess coolness that reflects the uncertainty of feelings that don't become her position. Without overplaying their hand, Giovanni Battista Parodi's Jupiter, Nikolay Borchev's Mercury and Filippo Mineccia's Pan and Raffaella Milanesi's Juno all contribute to the seemingly effortless lightness that Clément and Rousset weave around Cavalli's beautiful score.

Links: L'Opéra National du Rhin, Culturebox

Glanert - Solaris (Oper Köln, 2014 - Cologne)

Detlev Glanert - Solaris

Oper Köln, 2014

Lothar Zagrosek, Patrick Kinmonth, Nikolay Borchev, Aoife Miskelly, Martin Koch, Bjarni Thor Kristinsson, Qiulin Zhang, Dalia Schaechter, Hanna Herfurtner, Peter Bermes

Oper am Dom, Cologne - 14 November 2014

Science fiction is not a common genre for opera, but it's by no means unheard of. As far back as 1777, Haydn's Il Mondo della Luna used a fabricated trip to the moon as a way to explore more earth-bound desires and behaviours. The science-fiction concept simultaneously celebrates human ingenuity and the willingness of man to look beyond themselves in the quest for knowledge and betterment, but even in this early work it finds that mankind's ability to extend the knowledge frontier is somewhat limited by those very same human impulses and desires.

Stanislaw Lem's 1961 science-fiction novel 'Solaris' is a similar example of science-fiction using outer space to explore the human inner space. The strange phenomena experienced by the crew of a space station exploring the plasma ocean of the planet Solaris reveals much about what it means to be human and the limitations of what the human psyche can endure. For Lem however the question is primarily an intellectual one that doesn't use the subject as much to examine what it tells us about human desires, but rather it asks questions about the capacity of humanity to overcome those basic physical and psychological factors that would be necessary to make the leap to comprehend and meaningfully communicate with an alien intelligence.

It's a chaotic and confusing situation that Kris Kelvin discovers when he arrives on the Solaris space-station at the very start of the Detlev Glanert's opera. Expecting to find three remaining crew members, Kelvin gets less and more than he bargained for. One of the crew, Gibarian, has killed himself, leaving only the cyberneticist Snout and the astrobiologist Sartorius, but there are other strange figures on-board the station - a baboon, a dwarf and an old lady. It soon becomes clear that the three interlopers are closely related to the crew members, living beings created by the plasma ocean of the planet Solaris in an unintentionally terrible and tormenting attempt at communication. It isn't long before Kris encounters his own personal demon drawn from his memory by the planet Solaris - his wife Harey who killed herself 14 years ago.

There's a carefully delineated symmetry in the duality of the situation in Solaris, but it's difficult to entirely separate one strand from the other. Significantly, there are eight characters in the opera, four who are human and four who are not human. Gibarian is actually dead (although there's a strange attempt at reanimation made later here), but the apparition created by him - a baboon-like creature - still exists and haunts the station of its own accord. These are figures of self-torment for their human counterparts or perhaps, conjured up by the planet from their memories and associated psychology, they are just tormenting for the difficulty that the crew have in confronting these aspects of their personality. Snaut, for example, has to deal with a domineering mother who still treats him like a baby and changes his nappies. Sartorius' 'dwarf' meanwhile is rather more overly and disturbingly tied to psycho-sexual impulses.

For his part, psychologist Kris Kelvin considers that this replica of Harey as an abomination, and he tries to resist the attractive notion that she could offer him solace and forgiveness for some residual guilt that he may feel about the suicide of his wife. Kelvin's reaction - killing a succession of Hareys only for them to reappear the next day - might seem extreme, but in a way it reflects and expresses the difficulties that humans would face in any attempt to explore and extend knowledge beyond the limitations of their human experience. The pain of killing Harey and seeing her reborn again each day, and the pain experienced by 'Harey' in her confusion over his behaviour, gives some indication of how distressing and beyond normal human endurance this would stretch any individual. I'm not sure that Lem offers any solution to this dilemma in his novel, but in the opera it appears that one of Sartorius' experiments manages to break the connection for the sake of the sanity of the remaining crew, although there's an echo left in the mind of Kris Kelvin in the closing notes of the score.

Glanert's score for Solaris recognises the duality of the metaphysical dilemma and his writing manages to be both dramatic and lyrical, even if the balance (perhaps necessarily and thus proving Lem's point) tends to lean towards the exploration of human emotions. There is a recognition however that the lines are blurred somewhat by the extraordinary experiences that the characters have to endure, and this leads to some sharp contrasts. A striking example of this occurs when Kris Kelvin's dreaming of his dead wife leads to her coming to taking a physical form on the space station, the lyrical nature of the dream overlapping with the dramatic representation of her actual presence. It's the personification of Solaris itself however - the planet, the plasma sea - that is Glanert's most successful musical creation in the opera. A chorus takes up the voice of the planet, chanting and reversing syllables, creating an otherworldly, warm presence, but one that is also dangerously alluring.

The physical evocation of the world and the planet has an important role to play in setting the right tone. In contrast to the high-tech 2012 Bregenz world premiere production, Darko Petrovic's set suggests a greater sense of mental disintegration in the crumbling concrete structure of the space station. The semi-circular curve of the station rests on a body of water, a few inches deep, that also suggests a lack of solidity. It's also of course representative of the fluid nature of the planet itself, and has an effective eeriness when the chorus swish onto the stage. Just as effective are the use of panels of stars and control panels that that sweep through the station, depositing and vanishing figures from the scene. You never quite know what to expect when one of them slides across the stage. Patrick Kinmonth's direction extended to the choreography which also had a significant role to play in the creation of mood and playing out of the drama.

Lothar Zagrosek's conducting of the Oper Köln orchestra was sympathetic to the moods and rhythms of the score, as well as being considerate of the singing voices, which were mostly all on the high side of their voice type register. Nikolay Borchev's soft baritone suited Kelvin's character and nature (a little more emotionally animated than the impassive Donatas Banionis in Andrei Tarkovsky's 1971 film version of Solaris). Harey's high intense and expressive notes were delivered with crystal clarity by Aoife Miskelly, but with warmth and a sense of feeling for her character's pain. Martin Koch's bright tenor brought out the emotional instability of Snaut, while Sartorious's scientific rigour was characterised in the wonderfully projected bass of Bjarni Thor Kristinsson.

Links: Oper Köln

Strauss - Die schweigsame Frau (Bayerische 2014 - Webcast)

Richard Strauss - Die schweigsame Frau

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2014

Pedro Halffter, Barrie Kosky, Franz Hawlata, Okka von der Damerau, Nikolay Borchev, Daniel Behle, Brenda Rae, Elsa Benoit, Tara Erraught, Christian Rieger, Christoph Stephinger, Tareq Nazmi

Staatsoper.TV - 5 October 2014

There are a few subjects or themes that appear regularly in the operas of Richard Strauss, and sometimes even within his other tone poems and orchestral works. One of them is family life, as seen in his Symphonia Domestica and in the closely autobiographical opera, Intermezzo. Another recurrent theme in Strauss' work is around opera itself and the nature of being a composer. This self-referential subject is most evident in Ein Heldenleben, Feuersnot, Aridane auf Naxos and Capriccio, but there are also self-referential elements in the music and treatments of Der Rosenkavalier and Der Liebe der Danae.

All of these familiar themes are there to one extent or another (depending how much emphasis a director wants to give them) in Die schweigsame Frau ('The Silent Woman'). Considering that Strauss was married - albeit happily - to a woman who by all reports was very difficult to live with, the idea of being married to a silent woman was perhaps one that Strauss found amusing to contemplate. It certainly makes a fine subject for an entertaining but relatively light comic opera, but the musical treatment by Strauss is typically sensitive and beautifully orchestrated in a way that draws out other qualities and characteristics from the subject. These are brought out wonderfully in the Bayerische Staatsoper's production directed by Barrie Kosky and conducted by Pedro Halffter.

The first thing a director has to recognise about Die schweigsame Frau is that in addition to the family matters that dominate the subject, the work is also very much an opera about opera. Set in England, the subject of Die schweigsame Frau resembles Verdi's Falstaff in it being about an old and somewhat past-it knight, Sir Morosus, who is encouraged by one of his servants, the barber Master Cutbeard, to get himself a wife. Morosus however can't bear to have women about him and despises their chatter. In his 46 years as a sailor travelling around the world, the only silent woman in his experience is one who is "in the churchyard and under a stone cross". His housekeeper is torment enough, but a wife in the house would have him in a coffin within three weeks.

When his son Henry returns from the dead however, bringing with him a loud wife and a noisy opera company that he has joined, Morosus considers that it would be better to marry in order to disinherit his son and the raucous company he keeps, but who would marry an old man like himself? Somewhere between The Barber of Seville and Don Pasquale (it's worth noting that alongside Falstaff, the three comic operas referenced here are perhaps the three finest comic operas ever written, barring Mozart's work, but that too is referenced elsewhere), Sir Morosus' barber hatches a plot to trick the old man into a sham marriage, rescuing the inheritance for Henry, and perhaps winning the old man over to a realistic acceptance of the idea of married life.

Well, realistically that's not going to happen, and the authors recognise this. Instead, what Strauss manages to do - the music being particularly instrumental in how successfully this is achieved - is reform Morosus' view of the world and the audience's view of Morosus. Over the course of Die schweigsame Frau, he becomes wonderfully human. Even though he is being set-up, with three members of the opera troupe being offered as potential brides in a sham marriage, Morosus is nonetheless moved that a beautiful woman would even consider marrying an old man like himself. Timidia, who is Henry's wife Aminta playing a role, is herself moved somewhat by how the old man is stirred into love and begins to understand that happiness isn't necessary something elusive.

The fact that the emotions are stirred by something "fake" isn't an issue. The role-playing is just another example in the Strauss canon, of how the "artificial" construction of art, music and opera can inspire genuine feelings and suggest possibilities that one might not otherwise be open to in "real-life". To do that successfully, of course, the opera and the music must itself be good, and with Strauss, that's something that is never in any doubt. Act II culminates in the most beautiful sextet that is typically Straussian in the soaring beauty of its orchestration, but worthy of Mozart (who is the model for this kind of scene evidently, and a model that Rossini often emulated) in how it draws together sentiments of nobility, sadness and humanity, even within a comic situation.

Despite its qualities, Die schweigsame Frau wasn't a success when it was first performed and it has rarely been revived over the years. Much of the opera's troubled history stems from the fact that it was banned by the Nazis in 1936 after only three performances. This was less to do with any controversy surrounding the subject of the work than the fact that Strauss worked with a Jewish writer, Stefan Zweig, on the libretto. Even after the war, there was little appetite for this Strauss comedy, or indeed for much the lush orchestration and frivolous subjects that seemed increasingly out of touch with developments in 20th century music, and Die schweigsame Frau is consequently one of those latter works by the composer that is rarely performed and has subsequently fallen into obscurity.

In the year of Strauss's 150th anniversary however, Munich's Bayerische Staatsoper's new production of Die schweigsame Frau gives this neglected work a welcome revival and they've done rather well by it. For much of the first two acts, and much of the third also, the set consists of nothing more than a raised platform on the stage, with a bed the only real prop. Barrie Kosky however lets the characters and the music fill out everything that is essential in the work. Or rather, the conductor Pedro Halffter ensures that the full impact of Strauss's orchestration serves the comic drama and the underlying human sentiments, while Kosky draws out the typically Strauss themes and references, most notably in how the Henry's opera troupe are all dressed as famous opera characters.

It might have been better to dress Tara Erraught as Mariandel here rather than Violetta, since her character plays the same type of plain-speaking, forward country-girl when introduced as one of Morosus' potential wives, but I can think of at least one good reason not to go in that direction (fun and appropriately opera self-referential as it might have been), but there's no reason to over-complicate the work with too much cleverness - the work is strong enough to work on its own terms. Act III opens up the stage a little more when Timidia starts transforming the house and start spending the money which drops down like rain as the platform opens up. It's a simple and effective direction that gets the essentials across.

The production is also very well served by the cast. Like most Strauss operas, the principal soprano role is exceedingly challenging, and Aminta/Timidia is no exception. Brenda Rae has to hold some very high notes indeed, and she does so impressively, her performance in the dual role moreover wonderfully engaging. The lower end of the bass tessitura for Sir Morosus is no less challenging, and in many respects, the role can be just as rewarding as Baron Ochs von Lerchenau. Perhaps that's just because Franz Hawlata sang it so well here and, just as importantly, recognised and brought out the different human facets of his character. As mentioned above, Tara Erraught's soaring mezzo-soprano made a noticeable impact, but there were equally strong performances and singing from Nikolay Borchev as the barber and Daniel Behle as Henry.

This was a wonderful start to the new season of live steamed broadcasts at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. In an anniversary year where we've been treated to plenty of Der Rosenkavaliers, Ariadnes and even an unusual amount of Die Frau ohne Schatten productions, this is an ambitious and pleasantly successful venture into lesser explored but eminently worthy Richard Strauss territory.

Links: Staatsoper.TV

Donizetti - Don Pasquale (Glyndebourne 2013 - Blu-ray)

Gaetano Donizetti - Don Pasquale

Glyndebourne, 2013

Enrique Mazzola, Mariame Clément, Alessandro Corbelli, Danielle de Niese, Nikolay Borchev, Alek Shrader, James Platt, Anna-Marie Sullivan

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

It's quite clear from the extra features of the BD release that the cast and creative team behind the 2013 Glyndebourne production of Don Pasquale are of one mind about what is the essential purpose of the work. The audience should come away from a performance of Donizetti's charming and delightful comedy feeling that they have been amused and entertained. And they are absolutely right. Don Pasquale is a very funny work, it has some amusing comedy characters and situations, some lively melodies and songs. So why then does the Glyndebourne production feel so lifeless and just plain unfunny?

Well, for a start everything feels forced. The work demands a lightness of touch from both the orchestra and from the cast. Not necessarily subtlety - you can ham-up Don Pasquale as much as you like and it can still be riotously funny - but with at least some measure of fluidity and consistency. Enrique Mazzola at least understands and projects the right tone for the work and the London Philharmonic fairly romp through the work, but the staging, the direction and a few of the the performances leave something to be desired.

Originally created as a touring production, there's at least a simplicity and practicality to the revolving stage that suits the flowing nature of the work and makes an effort to play out the proceedings on a light-hearted basis. Unfortunately, many of those elements introduced in the form of props are bewildering and just plain unfunny. Ernesto owning a rocking horse and teddy bears? Paintings that change and have trapdoors behind them? A pigeon on a string delivering a letter to Norina? Malatesta shoving the maid into the wardrobe for no apparent reason? It gets a brief chuckle or two from the audience, but none of it is clever, witty or seems to make any sense. It just seems desperate.

It's also somewhat inconsistent. The characters can be witty and entertaining in their own right, particularly when well directed and rehearsed, but this production never feels comfortable and relaxed enough to laugh at itself, modelling it to an extent on 'Dangerous Liaisons' which actually even seems to work against the humour within the characterisation. The problem mainly lies with the unnecessary change in the personality of Malatesta. He's shown during the overture tiptoeing at night through the revolving rooms of each of the sleeping characters, popping into wardrobes and out of baths. It cleverly indicates that he's going to be the arch manipulator of them all here, but it's not really that clever since this kind of characterisation ends up working against the ensemble nature of the deceits and self-delusions.

On the other hand, by making Malatesta's relationship with his 'sister' a little more in the vein of Sparafucile's in Rigoletto, it does actually place Norina more centrally as the one playing each of the foolish men. Again, this doesn't really hold up under any kind of scrutiny and instead just confuses the viewer as to what the real intentions of the story are (which should be about contriving a means to get Ernesto married to the poor Norina against his uncle's wishes), and consequently the comedy of the lengths that they go to in order to bring this about suffers.

Some good singing and comic timing can hide a multitude of sins and implausibilities in the plot, but even though they try very hard - a little too hard perhaps - none of them really seem to be able to make these characters work, at least not with the confused directorial approach employed here. You would think that the bubbly and irrepressible Danielle de Niese would at least make a sparkling and bright Norina, but she looks and sounds uncomfortable in the role, her singing a little strained and the effort showing in her exaggerated actions. It might look fine in the Glyndebourne hall, but in close-up in High Definition it seems overplayed.

By way of contrast Nikolay Borchev doesn't quite have enough personality or a voice big enough for the role, but he copes well with the singing and with the characterisation that he's been asked to play. Alek Shrader shows no signs of the illness that forced him to miss the opening night of this production at Glyndebourne, and makes things worthwhile with his lovely pure tenor voice. Any impression that he might have made however suffers from lack of direction and his role is also trivialised somewhat by the nature of Dr Malatesta's bewildering relationship with Norina. Alessandro Corbelli too is left to make what he can out of his Don Pasquale, but does so marvellously with a luxurious tone, precise enunciation and deft weighting of delivery.

These are small compensations though for the lack of real wit and humour in Mariame Clément's characterisation and direction. Comic opera in works like The Barber of Seville or Gianni Schicchi is difficult to carry off, but when it's done right it can be dazzlingly brilliant. Unfortunately once you've seen one of those works done really well it does colour your view and sets a standard that is hard for others to live up to. In this case of Don Pasquale, the Met's production with Anna Netrebko as Norina is a masterclass in comic opera performance. The attention to character, situation and comic timing in that production makes it all look so effortlessly easy, and emphasises just how forced and awkward the Glyndebourne one is by comparison.

The Blu-ray has the usual fine presentation from Opus Arte, with an impeccable HD image and strong audio tracks. Extras include a couple of featurettes totalling around 20 minutes that look behind the scenes and interview the director and all the main performers. The booklet makes much of the commedia dell' arte origins of the work and the nature of the three-four waltz time of the work, but doesn't really serve to greatly illuminate either the work or the production. The BD is region-free, with subtitles in English, French, German and Korean only.

Donizetti - Roberto Devereux

Gaetano Donizetti - Roberto Devereux

Nationaltheater, Munich 2005

Friedrich Haider, Christof Loy, Edita Gruberová, Roberto Aronica, Albert Schagidullin, Jeanne Piland, Manolito Mario Franz, Steven Humes, Nikolay Borchev, Johannes Klama

Deutsche Grammaphon

Sometimes when it comes to deciding how to stage an opera, whether in a traditional style or otherwise, it’s more than enough to just set the scene in as simple a fashion as possible and let the work speak for itself. This can be tricky in the case of a bel canto opera, particularly with Donizetti and certainly with his Tudor trilogy of operas (Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux), where there is often not a great deal going on dramatically. Many directors will try to cover up the lack of dramatic action with elaborate sets and costumes, but not Christof Loy. Even though there isn’t indeed a great deal to the sets here in this 2005 production for the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and, yes, even though it is inevitably taken out of its original historical Tudor setting, Loy nonetheless clearly recognises where the real strengths of the work lie and gives them prominence through attention to character and the acting performances, particularly in how they are expressed through the singing.

What passes for a plot in the case of Roberto Devereux is not particularly complex and not exactly faithful to historical fact in the first place, but it does deal with recognisable and timeless operatic themes like love and betrayal. There doesn’t appear to be a lot going on musically to explore these themes and the emotions they give rise to in any kind of depth or complexity, but you might be surprised at how much can be drawn from it if the work is treated respectfully and with a keenness of observation. The opera is actually quite compact, neatly structured and balanced in how it blends the political issues with the romantic ones and plays them off against each other. Devereux, Earl of Essex, faces a charge of treason for being merciful to the enemy forces he has routed in Ireland, but Queen Elizabeth I, in love with him, is of a mind to be lenient herself and save him from a sentence of death. As long as he is true to her and the ring that she has given him as a token of her protection. Devereux however is too concerned with his feelings for Sarah who has abandoned him and married Nottingham while Devereux was in Ireland. What is clever about the arrangement is the swapping of tokens (a ring and a scarf) which at the same time could save Devereux or see him condemned to death. There are worse kinds of betrayal than political failure.

While there is a neat symmetry to the construction, the strengths of the work lie not so much in the plot or the libretto as much as in how the drama is expressed musically - through exquisite melodies, arias and, of course, through the expressive ornamentation of the coloratura. which in this case is admirably much more restrained than is typical for a bel canto lyrical tragedy. The interpretation given by the singers is therefore of primary importance, and in a theatrical environment that can be enhanced further through a considered stage direction that gives the performers the necessary space for expression. It’s this sense of dramatic potential and expression that I’ve always found to be one of the strengths of Christof Loy as a director. With a terrific cast here in the four main roles to take care of the singing confidently - particularly with Edita Gruberova as Queen Elizabeth I - Loy places the emphasis on the central theme and ensures that the acting and interaction between the characters works to bring that out to the fullest. The result is a simply chillingly and powerful account of a work that - like Anna Bolena and Maria Stuarda - has far more going for it than just being a romanticised historical drama.

For director Christof Loy, his principal interest in the work is indeed the human feelings that lie beneath the surface impressions of a woman in power. It’s not surprising then, considering the English setting, that in updating the work to a modern context, Loy makes reference to a woman more recognisable than Elizabeth I and more politically powerful and dangerous than Elizabeth II. There’s unquestionably a similarity to Margaret Thatcher here in the dress sense and hair styling of Edita Gruberova’s Queen Elizabeth. With a wry sense of humour then, nearly all the action takes place indeed in Westminster, but in a modern-day government press-office that is all wood panelling and leather armchairs, where the functionaries in smart business suits gossip by the water cooler over the latest headlines in the tabloid press - “Seducer Returns”, “Off With His Head”. It’s a nice touch, one that makes the most of the chorus, showing them muttering to each other, whispering rumours and rolling eyes, creating the kind of environment of gossip and scandal played out in public that drives the intrigue throughout.

It’s remarkably effective, characteristically Christof Loy, maximising the potential of the conflict between faithless treacherous men and blazing vengeful women at the heart of the drama in the simplest way possible, giving it an air of naturalism that one isn’t accustomed to find in a production of an operatic historical drama. The same kind of detail, with particular attention to the acting, is of course evident in all the main performances. There is a fine performance from Roberto Aronica as Devereux, which includes a lovely heartfelt Act III ‘A te dirò negli ultimo singhiozzi’ and a fine ‘Dacché tomasti, ahi misera’ duet between Devereux and Jeanne Piland’s excellent Sarah. Albert Schagidullin demonstrates a fine legato line and beautifully clear diction as Nottingham, his soft dignified bass befitting the nature of his character. It’s Edita Gruberova however who delivers the truly standout performance of the evening. Given terrific motivation through the direction, her performance is committed and perfectly controlled, delivering vengeful utterances with ringing authority and conviction, drawing full expression out of the magnificent coloratura. Her crumbling self-destruction at the end of the opera is simply devastating and it brings the house down.

The DVD from Deutsche Grammaphon also includes a fine 20-minute documentary on the making of the production. Half of the featurette is on the production itself, with input from Christof Loy and Friedrich Haider, who interestingly calls Roberto Devereux the Elektra of bel canto opera, and you can see where he’s coming from. The other half of the featurette focuses on the filming of the production by Brian Large, getting behind the scenes and showing the work and planning involved in recording an opera for the screen. The quality of the DVD itself is excellent in terms of audio and video quality (in widescreen). Subtitles are in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish and Chinese.

Handel - Ariodante

Georg Friedrich Handel - Ariodante

Theater Basel, 2012

Luca Tittoto, Franziska Gottwald, Maya Boog, Nikolay Borchev, Christiane Bassek, Agata Wilewska, Noel Hernández Lopez

Basel, Switzerland, 17 May 2012

This is obviously very much a personal view, but the best approach to staging Baroque opera seems to be to avoid the traditional approach at all costs. By all means stick to the traditional in terms of singing and period instrumentation - there really isn’t any alternative that works better - but in my experience, if you want to find a way to engage a modern audience and take them through the rather static drama and the rather stiff conventions of the repetitive da capo arias of Baroque opera, it helps if there is some inventiveness and an imaginative approach to the staging. Done straight, it can be difficult to lift or support the emotions that are being expressed at length in the long arias between the few moments of dramatic content - although this obviously depends on the composer and Handel is certainly an exception - but until relatively recently, it was supposed that hardly any Baroque opera, not even Handel, could ever be presented to a modern audience.

Thankfully, through painstaking research, restoration and training in period instruments from Baroque musical experts like William Christie, Jordi Savall, René Jacobs and Christophe Rousset, have proved that these works are of much more than just interest to music historians. Staging these works however is another matter altogether, and it often requires a radical approach. I’m thinking of Doris Dörrie’s Noh-theatre inspired direction of Handel’s Admeto, the Royal Opera House’s 2010 production of Steffani’s Niobe or, as when I last visited the Theater Basel, the WWII updating of Gluck’s Telemaco, but as seen with William Kentridge’s production of Die Zauberflöte, there are also a wider range of tools that can be at service to a director of personal vision and imagination. In my experience - again this is very much a personal viewpoint - it’s surprising just how successful some of the more radical presentations can be in this respect, the more abstract conceptual stage approach tapping into the emotional content over and above the dry recounting of the narrative of the libretto. I don’t think however that I’ve ever seen anything quite as ambitious as director Stefan Pucher and the Theater Basel’s wonderful willingness to experiment with Baroque opera through modern theatrical tools in their extraordinary 2012 production of Handel’s Ariodante.

When you speak about the stage direction here however, it’s necessary to consider the input from the innovative and visually impressive set design by Barbara Ehnes and the costumes of Annabelle Witt, as Stefan Pucher’s stage direction is truly a multimedia event. It’s through these different layers - along with the lighting, the use of projected images and even filmed sequences projected onto the sets - that the different layers of the music, the interaction of the characters and the heightened emotions are fully explored, much more so than the usual static delivery of the long arias. It’s not that all the necessary qualities aren’t already there in Handel’s exquisite compositions that capture the sentiments of its characters so well, but the staging simply allows an audience to see them visualised and respond to those qualities from an older operatic tradition that would otherwise seem almost unfathomable to anyone used to a more modern or traditional approach.

There’s nothing particularly inspiring about Ariodante’s late-eighth century Scottish setting, but theatre director Stefan Pucher - in his first opera production - clearly recognises that this ancient setting and the opera seria music that accompanies it is so far removed from what we are familiar with as to be practically abstract anyway. What is still relevant is the opera’s human story of love, jealousy, deception and revenge, and that was given utmost consideration. Act I then accordingly provided a tartan overload in the most extravagant of colours and weaves that, if they might not relate to any specific clan, certainly gave each of the figures their own strong definition. The tartan stretched to the brightly lit and visually impressive set designs that seems to create an enhanced 3-D effect through the still images, gothic paintings (by 17th century artist Otto Marseus van Schrieck), slow moving projections and lighting effects on the foreground screens, while the singing platform was set back on a revolving stage within a wide inverted cross. The sets inside were rather minimal, with a few eccentric touches in keeping with the Schrieck imagery such as giant bugs and slugs in an orange room in Act 1, but the frequent refreshing of the set from scene to scene all contributed to keep attention from flagging.

Even this would eventually have become tiresome over the course of the whole opera, but the designers also managed to find a distinct visual look for each of the subsequent two acts, if it was never a look that related naturalistically to any location specified in the libretto. A kick-boxing match standing-in for the battle between Polinesso and Ariodante on the jousting grounds was perhaps the strangest sight in Act III. Showing that there was a complete understanding of the structure of the works however and the necessary impact that was written into the chorus and ballet finales of each of the acts, the director pulled out all the stops at these points, inviting the audience to sing along to ‘Sì godete al vostro amor’ from music sheets handed out to the audience when entering the theatre (a surprisingly invigorating experience), and using filmed outdoor sequences featuring the cast, which was also extremely effective in suggesting the depths of Ginevra’s madness and inner turmoil at the end of Act II. More than just being visually stunning, the whole multimedia experience encompassed the tone and the intent of the music score, as well as drawing in the viewer and involving them fully in the experience. It made the production - the finest I think I’ve seen during the 2011-12 season - absolutely riveting.

It was not so riveting however that attention wouldn’t occasionally be drawn to the wonderful playing of this magnificent opera on period instruments by the La Cetra Barockorchester Basel under the direction of Andrea Marcon. Even they were visually integrated into the spectacle, placed on a platform that would rise and sink at the start and end of each act like an old-fashioned cinema organist, allowing the music to take centre stage where appropriate. Just as importantly, there was full attention given to the direction of the performers, who were never allowed to become just singing props that fitted into the overall package, and with the kind of singing we were hearing here, there was even less likelihood of them being overwhelmed by the spectacle. 

Mezzo-soprano Franziska Gottwald demonstrated a breathtaking range and facility for the demanding arias assigned to Ariodante, and was particularly impressive in Act II’s ‘Scherza infida’. Maya Boog however was just as impressive as Ginevra, handling the arias with aplomb, but also acting with genuine emotional and dramatic conviction throughout. There were however no weak elements in the casting which also included Agata Wilewska as Dalinda, Luca Tittoto as the King, Nikolay Borchev as Lurciano and Christiane Bassek as a disturbingly moustachioed, long-haired villain Polinesso, and Noel Hernández Lopez as Odoardo.

Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos

Richard Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos

Festspielhaus, Baden-Baden, 2012

Philip Arlaud, Christian Thielemann, Eike Wilm Schulte, Sophie Koch, Renée Fleming, Robert Dean Smith, Jane Archibald, Nikolay Borchev, Kenneth Roberson, Steven Humes, Kevin Conners, Christian Baumgärtel, Roman Grübner, David Jerusalem, Michael Ventow, Christina Landshamer, Rachel Frenkel, Lenneke Ruiten, René Kollo

Medici Live Internet Steaming, 12 February 2012

Much as I love the operas of Richard Strauss, I have conflicted feelings about Ariadne auf Naxos. I’m broadly with the composer on this one, agreeing with his initial reaction to Hugo von Hofmannstahl’s proposal to basically structure the work as an opera within and opera (within an opera) as being much too confusing for an audience. And not just confusing, but worse, dramatically uninvolving. Combining an opera seria with an opera buffa sounds brilliantly clever on the page, setting the old against the new and allowing the difference of style and tone of the forms to work off each other (it worked so well in Der Rosenkavalier), with a clever construct in the Prologue (added after the original version failed) that accounts for this idea, but the work offers still little in conventional dramatic terms. How then do we account for the enduring popularity of Ariadne auf Naxos?

Ariadne auf Naxos is also a witty satire of opera patrons, opera composers, opera performers and even opera audiences, but I suspect its in-jokes appeal more to those putting on the work than those in the audience watching it, but even that doesn’t entirely account for the opera being one of Strauss’s most performed works. The musical qualities cannot be denied, even if there is a sense that it’s also one of those works which offers more to the diva who wants to demonstrate her range and sense of fun. If that were the only reason for putting on the work, drawing performers like the exceptional cast gathered for this 2012 production at Baden-Baden, then that’s perhaps justification alone for putting on the work, but there are evidently other aspects that make the work so attractive to international audiences, and that’s the fact that, as clever sounding as the concept is, the originality of Hofmannstahl’s libretto clearly inspired Strauss to write some of his most beautiful arrangements and inventive melodies that do ultimately touch on deeper truths relating to human nature and emotions.

Ariadne auf Naxos doesn’t function terrifically well then as a stage drama and it’s much too self-referential (I’d still happily dispense with the Prologue from the revised/definitive second version of the opera myself), offering little scope for a modern stage director who wants to impose his own personal vision on the concept. It’s also limiting to the performer who may find that the conventions of the opera seria and opera buffa elements are somewhat restrictive, particularly within this framework. What makes the work special however is the fact that it does come from the creative and fertile minds of Strauss and Hofmannstahl in their prime. Following on from such important works as Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier and already working on the magnum opus that would be Die Frau ohne Schatten, Ariadne auf Naxos may suffer from the same pretensions as those other works – even to a greater degree – but that doesn’t mean that it is really any less brilliant either. It may be clever-clever, but there is a complete sincerity in the musical, emotional and dramatic content of their work together as well as the belief that the unique construct and artifice of opera can raise those qualities to greater heights. The challenge for anyone putting on the work then is in actually getting this across.

Trying to be too clever with works that are already clever enough is always a potential pitfall with Strauss and Hofmannstahl. Claus Guth had a go at it, setting the Zurich production of Ariadne auf Naxos in a famous Swiss hotel without managing to bring anything particularly new or revelatory out of the work. The Baden-Baden production is more traditional in its setting. The stage is like… well… a stage – a Broadway musical arrangement, with a sweeping staircase behind on which the assembled well-off guests at the host’s party sit dressed in their finery (1920s style formal dress), watching the entertainment put on for them by “the richest man in Vienna”. If there doesn’t appear then to be a great deal that director Philip Arlaud brings to the table here – the separate buffa and seria elements are clearly divided and played out in a fairly straightforward manner according to their conventions – there is nonetheless a considerable challenge in actually making the opera’s difficult construct work as well as making it interesting and comprehensible to an audience, and that’s actually achieved exceptionally well here.

Simplicity is the key to making Strauss and Hofmannstahl work, even if that’s not as simple as it appears. Christof Loy’s 2011 Salzburg Die Frau ohne Schatten, for example, would appear to be trying to be overly clever with its concept (setting the fairytale in a post-WWII Viennese concert hall), but by stripping the work back of its trappings and allowing the music and the words to speak for themselves, the full power of the work is nonetheless made apparent. It’s the director’s job to give the work and the performers that necessary space to get that across, and that’s done here too. To a large extent then the weight of interpretation, of letting the piece speak for itself, should lie with the conductor and the singers and, as with the Salzburg Die Frau ohne Schatten, we have one of the most attentive and sympathetic of Strauss conductors here in Christian Thielemann.

In the same way that there is a magic created between Strauss and Hofmannstahl, between the composer and the music, between the conflicting elements of Ariadne auf Naxos (and yes, I have to admit, even with its Prologue), there is also the magic (acknowledged in Strauss’s final opera Capriccio) that is created between the performer and the listener. The combination of Strauss, Thielemann and Renée Fleming and their relationship with the audience is one of the great musical wonders of our age, and that magic is abundantly in evidence here. As Ariadne – surprisingly her first time singing this role – Fleming’s line is beautiful, her legato smooth, with that famous richness of tone in a role and with a composer and a conductor who shows off her qualities to their best, while also bringing out the ecstatic beauty of the music in the opera itself.

It’s a recognition of this chemistry, already seen in Baden-Baden’s successful 2009 production of Der Rosenkavalier that in some way accounts for the commission of this new production of Ariadne auf Naxos. Reunited also from that earlier Strauss production is Sophie Koch as the Composer, wearing a Leo Sayer wig, singing the role wonderfully and bringing a nice note of commitment and sincere naivety to the role that belies the parody within it. That’s the case elsewhere in this production, which never plays it as a farce for the fiasco that arises from the central idea of pushing together two different operas in time for a fireworks display. Playing it perfectly seriously – like all good commercial productions, as the Broadway musical setting suggests, the show must always go on – Robert Dean Smith brought his slightly strained heldentenor to the role of Bacchus with similar commitment, and Jane Archibald took on the coloratura fireworks role of Zerbinetta reasonably well, but without ever making much of an impression. All of this contributes to a fine production, even if nothing threatens to overshadow Fleming’s Prima Donna/Ariadne. If I remain unconvinced that Ariadne auf Naxos works conceptually or dramatically, respectively lacking the beautiful concision ofCapriccio and the musical cohesion of Der Rosenkavalier, the beauty of the piece and the inventiveness of Strauss and Hofmannstahl that accounts for its popularity was nonetheless wonderfully evident in the fine staging and singing of this production.

The opera is currently available to view in its entirety and for free on the Medici.tv web site.