Leonard Bernstein - Trouble in Tahiti
Opera North, Leeds - 2017
Tobias
Ringborg, Matthew Eberhardt, Quirijn de Lang, Wallis Giunta, Fflur
Wyn, Joseph Shovelton, Nicolas Butterfield, Charlie Southby
OperaVision - August 2018
The
Americans are coming, we've been told. While Europe has tended to go
in one direction as far as 20th century contemporary music goes,
breaking away from conventional diatonic scale, America has largely
worked within the more familiar tonal hierarchies, telling us
that traditional classical music is not dead yet. There have been a few tentative
attempts to bring Europe back into the fold so to speak or at least
recognise that there are still areas to explore and rediscover.
Barber's Vanessa at this year's Glyndebourne, Jake Heggie's Dead Man
Walking at the Barbican and Kevin Puts' Silent Night at Wexford and
forthcoming at Opera North, have all made minor inroads but few have
been as successful as Philip Glass or, in the music theatre world (where
I think most edge closer towards), Stephen Sondheim.
Where
Leonard Bernstein fits into the landscape of modern American music and
opera is rather more complicated and varied, scoring Hollywood and
Broadway musicals, a conductor, writer who composed in a number of
styles, working in popular song, jazz and classical idioms. I'm not familiar with his opera work at all - it's taken until his
centenary this year for any real opportunity to experience any productions this side of the Atlantic -
but they keep telling us that the Americans are coming, so the
opportunity to see Bernstein's first short opera Trouble in Tahiti is
one that perhaps shouldn't be missed.
Whether Trouble in
Tahiti is typical of Bernstein I couldn't say, but it certainly conforms
to my impression of lying closer to the Broadway musical composer than
opera. On the other hand, there's clearly a certain amount of
knowingness and satire in the short opera's all-American subject and
treatment and certainly a more complex side to the music behind its
breezy swinging jazz-influenced score and melodic song arrangements.
The problem with satirising American domestic life and attitudes however
is that it ends up portraying banality and there's a danger that the
music could also be equally banal.
Opera North's
heightened all-American production however ensures that the audience is
in awe of the superficial attraction while being aware of the
observation and commentary on the attitudes promoted by consumerist
society that lie beneath it, forcing distinctions between winners and
losers, between male and female roles. The opera opens with an
all-American couple sitting at the dining table over breakfast.
Involved in a petty argument over going to see Junior in a school play,
it's obvious that after ten years of marriage the spark has gone from
Sam and Dinah's relationship and it might not be so easy to rekindle.
Neither
seem particularly interested in making the effort and, to be honest,
the consumerist lifestyle and social model doesn't encourage any deeper
engagement with each other. Sam sees himself as a little god in the
office, making deals and being praised for his sporting prowess, while a
three-piece close harmony radio-jazz chorus pay glowing tribute to his
own sense of greatness. Dinah meanwhile goes to see a 'South Pacific'
style musical called 'Trouble in Tahiti', "a terrible, awful movie" but
despite herself, she enjoys the escapism of its songs that take her out
of herself for a while, until she has to go back and make Sam's dinner
for him coming home.
It's no Von Heute auf Morgen
(although it could certainly form a contrasting view of domestic life if
the two short works are ever paired), but the swinging, upbeat jazzy
arrangements are deceptive, and there is some measure of dissonance
between the music and the situation, as well as within the music itself
that doesn't offer any optimistic outcome. At the end, Sam and Dinah
don't so much make-up or even just put their differences aside as brush
them under the carpet, going to see 'Trouble in Tahiti', where they can
live the American dream on the screen at least.
Directed
by Matthew Eberhardt, Opera North's production is itself a Hollywood
musical come to life, a stylised all-American dream whose artificial
glamour is cardboard thin, the ideal of the less than ideal sustained by
the seductive croon emanating from the voices on the radio, from the
poster on the wall, from the image on the screen. The singing is just
outstanding, from those jazz harmonies of the trio chorus (Fflur Wyn,
Joseph Shovelton and Nicolas Butterfield), to the conflicted
self-assurance needed by Sam and Dinah that is brought out in the fine
lead performances of Quirijn de Lang and Wallis Giunta. Tobias Ringborg
brings a wonderful flow to those smooth arrangements with a hint of
trouble (in Tahiti) beneath the surface.
Links: Opera North, OperaVision
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - The Snow Maiden
Opera North, 2017
Martin Pickard, John Fulljames, Aoife Miskelly, Bonaventura Bottone, Dean Robinson, Yvonne Howard, James Creswell, Joseph Shovelton, Claire Pascoe, Heather Lowe, Elin Pritchard, Phillip Rhodes
Grand Opera House, Belfast - 17th March 2017
The Snow Maiden has all the classic fairy-tale elements; folklore, dreams, love, magic and poignant tragedy. All those elements are elevated to suitably epic proportions in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera version of Aleksandr Ostrovsky's play, tying the magical qualities of the story Cunning Little Vixen-like into the every-day magic of nature and the changing of the seasons; the magical changes that are all part of the rhythm of life. John Fulljames's production for Opera North ambitiously and inventively adds another level onto the proceedings that joins up and connects those different levels. It's impressive, it's beautiful, but unfortunately it's also just a little dull.
But just a little, and disappointingly that seems to be down to the nature of the story and Rimsky-Korsakov's rather academic scoring of the work, which never seems to have either the verve or grandeur of his work in The Tsar's Bride, Sadko or The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh. What The Snow Maiden has in common with each of those works - and with the fairy-tale satire of The Golden Cockerel - is an essential Russian character, and that at least is authentically retained in Opera North's production which not only presents its themes well but meaningfully elaborates upon them.
John Fulljames with production designer Giles Cadle (who does great work also on Hansel and Gretel and La Cenerentola) attempts to anchor Rimsky-Korsakov's rather serious minded treatment of the fairy tale by finding another great way to create magic out of reality. Again, it seems to arise out of the need of someone living in less than favourable circumstances to find a way to escape from their humdrum reality and live a dream of life that has a more meaningful and hopefully romantic purpose. The 'Snow Maiden' here is a seamstress in a clothing factory.
The changing of the seasons is evoked in this setting by the winter clothes line being put aside for the new spring fashions. One girl on the production line looks like she is lost in a dream, caught up in the changing times, wondering if this year is going to be the year that someone comes and melts her heart like the story of the Snow Maiden whose heart is too frozen to love. It's a simple framing device - one that Fulljames often seems to favour - that ties legend, folklore and the power of storytelling to reality in a way that makes it come alive; and in the context of the Opera North season of fairy-tales, it's a consistent theme that gives the magical element a relatable basis.
Thereafter the production manages to place the fairy-tale as another level on top of the reality that is always present beneath. At times, the storybook imagery of The Snow Maiden takes over, at others the dreaming seamstress seems to be drawn back to the real world, where competition and jealousy takes root between the girls over the handsome supervisor Lel, and over the upcoming marriage of one of the working girls Kupova to her fiancé Mizgir. Again in this Opera North season, it's the effective use of projections that permit such rapid and subtle transitions to be made not only between different scenes, but between different levels of reality, dream and the fluid and indefinable characteristic of what constitutes magic.
In The Snow Maiden it is fairly clear that the magic lies in the miracle of the changing seasons, in the transformations nature brings not only to the land, but to the influence and change it exerts over the temperament, mood and nature people of the land as the years go by. There are powerful changes occurring within the young girl who identifies with the Snow Maiden, her thoughts turning to love, to finding the right partner, unsure whether she is ready to give her heart away and whether it will be accepted. The language of nature and the seasons used in the libretto makes the implications plain, with there being much talk of plucking flowers and scattering seeds.
Using shifting abstract patterns, the projections not only add a level of magic-world beauty to the production - and it really looks spectacular - Fulljames and Cadle's designs also emphasis the connections between magic, nature and the real world. The setting of the drama within a clothing factory certainly makes the sentiments of love, jealousy and betrayal apparent and relevant, but the fairy-tale layer subjectively heightens the feelings as they are experienced by a young and sensitive girl. It's the projections that blend them together so well, making connections between lace patterns and snowflakes, the patterns spreading like growing shoots, the sap rising as the seasons pass and the personal dilemma of the Snow Maiden reaches a critical level
Clearly it's a well thought out production, where everything blends and works together wonderfully, keeping it moving and flowing when it could otherwise be quite static; it looks spectacular and magical at the same time. The singing is also of the highest order; Aoife Miskelly's deeply heartfelt Snow Maiden contrasted to good effect with Heather Lowe's warmth and sincerity as Lel. There is greater diversity in character and voice that further enriched the production, notably in Elin Pritchard's down-to-earth, heart-on-her-sleeve Kupava, whose laughter crackled through the drama, and on the part of Phillip Rhodes as the passionate Mizgir.
Fulljames's book-ending framing also manages to help take the cold edge off the inevitable tragic conclusion that comes to a Snow Maiden in the summer. There ought to be a positive side to this outcome of the passing seasons and the production supports this, making it a little more glorious and cheerful without taking anything away from the wistful tone of sadness. Despite every effort however, the production still can't quite overcome the inherent serious-minded gravity of the proceedings. Martin Pickard's conducting of the score captured all the elegance of the arrangements and the beauty of Rimsky-Korsakov's composition, but it still never managed to provide that spark that would melt the core of ice that lies at the heart of The Snow Maiden.
Links: Opera North
Giacomo Rossini - La Cenerentola
Opera North, 2017
Wyn Davies, Aletta Collins, Wallis Giunta, Sunnyboy Dladla, Quirijn de Lang, Henry Waddington, Sky Ingram, Amy J Payne, John Savournin
Grand Opera House, Belfast - 16th March 2017
It can't be easy to put on a programme of fairy-tale operas outside of the Christmas holiday season, as Opera North are doing in their current tour, but it at least provides an opportunity to rethink what the stories tell us and whether they are really all that linked to the seasons. The Snow Maiden aside - and even that proves to extend beyond its winter setting - Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella are both operas that you associate with the Christmas period without there being any real justification other than that they also make great pantomime material.
Opera North's production of Rossini's La Cenerentola attempts to take the pantomime elements out of the more traditional performance of the work and tries to find another way to present the vital ingredient of magic in a more contemporary and relatable context. There is nothing that is actually seasonal specific in Rossini's version of Cinderella anyway, the opera further dispensing with such traditional trappings of the golden slipper lost at the stroke of midnight and much of the fairy transformations. Aletta Collins's production for Opera North prefers to rely on other worthwhile elements in an opera that is too good to be left to compete with the pantomime market.
Collins's production takes place in a dance school, where everyone has been bitten by the 'Strictly' bug and dreams of cutting a glamorous figure on the dance floor. Anxious mothers pursuing the dream through their daughters, bring them to Don Magnifico's Scuola di Danza, where Don Magnifico's haughty and arrogant daughters Clorinda and Tisbe also hope to display their talents. Angelina, the Cinderella figure of the story, would also love to be able to dance, particularly as the prince has invited every lady in the land to a ball so that he can choose a wife, but Cenerentola's stepfather and step-sisters have more menial cleaning duties for her to perform. You know how it goes...
Traditionally Cinderella relies on glamour and set-pieces, with lots of sparkle and snow, but perhaps it puts too much trust in the need for spectacle. Aletta Collins trusts more in the inherent comedy of the piece, in the bright, dazzling music and in the actual romantic drama as being all that is really needed. As I mentioned in the case of Opera North's Hansel and Gretel, magic should be another essential ingredient in the fairy tale opera, but magic can come in many forms. Sometimes that magic can be a little more down to earth, a case of rising above one's impoverished circumstances and following a dream.
If it's often presented in a mild and inoffensive way, Cinderella also has a background in an unhappy home situation that she wants to escape. The damage caused by being the neglected child in a remarriage that leaves a young girl with an uncaring father and two bullying half-sisters can nonetheless be a traumatic experience. It might be dressed up in comedy, but you can feel the hurt and rejection and sympathise with Angelina's dream of revealing her true worth, of her beauty and talent being discovered. Rather than achieving that dream through marrying a Prince, it's perhaps easier to recognise that living the dream sentiment through being discovered in a reality-TV talent show.
Aletta Collins's production with sets designed by Giles Cadle, doesn't quite transfer it wholly across to this TV dance show format, but manages to retain a kind of in-between state between the dream and the reality. Evidently Opera North resources are limited and touring necessities don't allow for elaborate sets for three operas, but this works well with the effort to keep the production modern and real. Projections allow for some magic mirror tricks however, and there's is a delightful comic absurdity in many of the situations and details. One area that you can't skimp on however is in how you match it with Rossini's bubbly musical confection and Opera North know exactly how to present that in the best possible light.
Primarily, of course, it's in the playing of the music itself. The effervescent rhythms, the clever arrangements, the 'magic' of the score are all brought in Wyn Davies' conducting of the orchestra. Instead of the usual strident galloping, Davies has a lightness of touch here that brings out the comic brightness of the underlying Mozart in the music, but it’s well measured for all its essential moods and tempi. You pay attention to Rossini's score like this and you'll also bring out the dazzling, energising writing for the vocal line and the cheeky ensemble pieces.
That's not easy to achieve without some exceptionally good singers and the singing here is first class. Rossini is always incredibly demanding in this respect and La Cenerentola is no exception, placing great virtuoso demands on the Angelina and Don Ramiro roles. When they are sung well however it's certainly noticeable and Wallis Giunta and Sunnyboy Dladla are both capable and impressive, flawless in technique but also in delivery, keeping everything bright and exuding charm as that other form of 'magic'.
What Rossini also clearly learned from Mozart is the importance of establishing strong personalities for all the individual characters, right down to the smallest role. In the case of La Cenerentola there are few minor roles, so the opportunity is there to really make something of the characters and that's exactly what the Opera North production does. Characters like Clorinda and Tisbe are too good to waste evidently and Sky Ingram and Amy J Payne live up to the larger than life harridans, and display some great singing too. The other roles are likewise wonderfully sung and played. Quirijn de Lang had the understated comedy of Dandini down perfectly and made a great impression alongside Henry Waddington's preening Don Magnifico and John Savournin'
s Alidoro. All of them contributed greatly to the colour and dynamic of a production that valued the magic of character and performance over empty gloss and spectacle.
Engelbert Humperdinck - Hansel and Gretel
Opera North, 2017
Christoph Altstaedt, Edward Dick, Katie Bray, Fflur Wyn, Susan Bullock, Stephen Gadd, Rachel J Mosley, Amy Freston
Grand Opera House, Belfast - 15th March 2017
One of the advantages of a fairy-tale is that it can operate on multiple levels, ideally with some measure of realism or a moral lying behind the magic fantasy of its telling. Opera is an artform that is particularly good at operating on multiple levels and Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel is one of the greatest examples of a fairy tale opera that strikes a near perfect balance in how it touches on all those important levels in its musical, storytelling and - most importantly - its magical qualities. It wasn't dubbed 'Wagner for Children' for nothing, but it would be a shame to over-emphasise either the Wagnerian or the children's magic fairy-tale elements of the work. Opera North's terrific production uses stage-craft to place the right kind of emphasis on the material, and the musical performance is quite impressive too.
It's perhaps more important to get that balance of tone right in Hansel and Gretel than in most other fairy tale operas, as there are some quite dark elements in it that relate to child abuse and child abduction. It's not the kind of fairy-tale however that you would think could bear a brutal reworking of those dark origins in the style of Martin Kušej's interpretation of Dvořák's Ruslaka, but Stefan Herheim's colourful deconstruction of the same work shows that it is possible to make the escapist fantasy work hand in hand with the less than pleasant reality in a way that enhances its meaning and message. Director Edward Dick and set designer Giles Cadle might not have the same kind of budget that Herheim might have at La Monnaie, but what they achieve with this Opera North production of Hansel and Gretel is no less imaginative and just as probing of the story's depths.
There's just a glimmer of suspicion however that two poor children living in a hovel with neglectful alcoholic parents probably wouldn't have a high-definition video camera to capture their play and games, but Hansel and Gretel running around with a hand-held camera is more of a device that allows the audience to see the world through a child's eyes. And my goodness do they ever go for it, the playful footage projected in real time to the back of the stage, a masterstroke that draws you into Hansel and Gretel's games and their imagination. The starving children are not going to be aware of the poverty of their situation or understand that their treatment amounts to abuse and neglect, their minds being more likely to transform it into something more relatable like a game. The brilliance of the stage craft allows us to share this, and that's real magic.
The two worlds, the imaginary play world of the children and the stark reality of the world of the adults, are brilliantly delineated in Humperdinck's score and in the libretto, with the music and the language notably harsher when their parents are speaking. The distinction is brought out to perfection in the translation, choosing the right words to make you wince a little without it being too offensive or brutal. Folk music performs the same function as the fairy tale - and it's no coincidence that Humperdinck's score like many fairy-tale operas (Rusalka, The Cunning Little Vixen) relies on folk music to similarly transform a harsher reality into something more endurable without denying the reality of the circumstances they arise from.
The transformative nature of the fairy tale is brought out superbly in many clever little touches, placing the magic firmly within the minds of the ones most capable of it - the children. Instead of running out into a dark fairy tale wood then, Hansel and Gretel create their own enchanted forest out their home using hairbrushes and twigs enlarged to extraordinary effect by the handheld camera and its harsh lighting. The horror of what lies in store for them isn't necessarily outside, it's there within the walls of their house and it can be confronted only with the power of their own instinct for survival and quick-wittedness.
Perfectly matching the tone of the approach, the most wonderful display of this magic occurs just before the interval in the guise of the dream of the Fourteen Angels. Rather than the traditional fairy tale imagery as the children fall under the spell of the Sandman, the director Edward Dick comes up with a wonderful little movie interlude that is a rather more down-to-earth childhood dream of a perfect day at the seaside. In this little dream-movie the children experience all the joy, protection and happiness that is missing from their lives; candyfloss and ice-cream, sun and sand, love and laughter, a kind grandmother to give them everything that they don't experience with their own parents. It's a joyous little moment that connects the reality with the magic of imagination and the ability of the children to endure and rise above their circumstances.
There is no less careful attention to detail in the second and usually more overtly fairy-tale half of the opera. The edible gingerbread house is again just a clever camera shot - a view of the inside of the fridge packed with cakes and sweets blown up in projection to cover the walls and ceiling. But not everything relies on the cleverness of the production design to make the content of the second half work as well as it does. It's the delightful performances and playful interaction of Katie Bray and Fflur Wyn's Hansel and Gretel with Susan Bullock's swaggering witch that manage to strike that fine balance between the reality of the horror of the abusive captivity and neglect and the means of surviving it. Opera North's production doesn't frighten the children, except maybe in a good way.
It's probably the final scene that takes the most liberty with the libretto and yet at the same time it most perfectly represents the intent or moral of the tale. The fairy-tale has become a story that the older Hansel and Gretel tell to their own children, and it's their own children - the children who come alive when the witch dies - who exist now because Hansel and Gretel have endured, grown and strengthened to overcome the adversity of their experiences. The fairy-tale story is not entirely escapism then, but it is also a means that they can communicate these important values to their own children. It's a terrific way to acknowledge that Wagnerian side of the importance of myth and storytelling as vital to the development of cultural ideals. Even Hansel and Gretel's parents are reformed characters here.
The brilliance of the production - clever and charming, an absolute delight in every way - is matched by the equally warm and sensitive musical account and outstanding singing performances. I was already aware of the beautiful brightness and lyricism of Fflur Wyn's singing and couldn't have been more delighted to see her cast as Gretel. She didn't disappoint giving a heartfelt, engaging and playful performance, as did Katie Bray's boisterous Hansel. Bray's response to the witches's command to 'show me your finger' got perhaps the loudest laugh of the night, but this was also a beautifully sung performance that was perfectly complementary in a way that truly demonstrated the Wagnerian sophistication of Humperdinck's musical composition.
Simply due to the apportioning of the roles and the way the two principal roles were sung, it's fair to say that a large measure of the success of the production rode on the performances of Katie Bray and Fflur Wyn, but there was much to enjoy in Susan Bullock's scene stealing Witch. Her Gertrud sounded a little over-stretched at first, but she really warmed to the Witch role in the second half, and utterly mesmerized/horrified the young children in the row in front of me. You really need a personality like that to carry this off, and Bullock was terrific. To have Stephen Gadd there as well as the Father is another bonus. As good as all these production and singing elements were, it was the musical performance under Christoph Altstaedt's direction that was really outstanding, capturing all the folk swing of the songs, the bright playfulness and the sinister darkness, but more importantly with a contemplative sensitivity that is essential to carry off the ending attempted in this production. Opera North have really outdone themselves here.
Links: Opera North
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - The Marriage of Figaro
Opera North, 2015
Alexander Shelley, Jo Davies, Richard Burkhard, Silvia Moi, Quirijn de Lang, Ana Maria Labin, Helen Sherman, Henry Waddington, Joseph Shovelton, Gaynor Keeble, Jeremy Peaker, Ellie Laugharne, Nicholas Watts
Grand Opera House, Belfast - 19 March 2015
Opera North's acclaimed production of The Marriage of Figaro arrived in Belfast with a string of plaudits from the earlier stages of its tour. While the praise is deserved, most of it must be attributed to the work itself, which shows Mozart at his most brilliant and still pretty much untouchable in the comic opera genre. Coming after some rather more impactful productions by NI Opera however, Opera North's Le Nozze di Figaro couldn't help but feel a little tame and unadventurous in comparison.
Whether it was a conscious decision or not, this production felt very 'English'. It was sung in English, which is never the best way to hear a work filled with arias that everyone knows in the original Italian. You feel a little cheated when you don't get to hear a 'Porgi, amor', 'Voi che sapete' or 'Sull'aria'. More than that, the characters attitudes, manners and behaviour all came over as rather more cool and restrained than their usual hot-blooded continental Spanish counterparts singing in Italian. As with the decision to sing it in English, this may well have been the intent, showing universal class issues and character traits in a manner that the audience would more readily recognise.
That is appropriate because Le Nozze di Figaro is indeed all about class, social and gender divisions. Or not so much about their divisions as, in Mozart's enlightened view, their commonalities. It's the divisions that are first marked out, right from Figaro's measurements of the small understairs room that the Count Almaviva has 'generously' given to Figaro and Susanna on the day of their marriage. The servants' place in this world doesn't extend beyond the length of a tape-measure, and Leslie Travers' set designs for Jo Davies production block out that small space on the stage through a clever device of wall panels that close down and open up the stage, depending on the location and the position of the characters.
The location however certainly doesn't feel like a country house outside Seville, and there's not too much fluster or fury in this 'day of madness'. The Count here is, happily, neither a complete buffoon nor a dangerous predator, but characterised much more as Mozart and Da Ponte perhaps intended. Aware of his power and intent on lording it, particularly over women given half a chance, he is on the other hand too proud to be seen to be begging for their favour or forgiveness. He tries to avoid the latter behaviour wherever possible, but the former attitude tends to make this more difficult. It's very much a class and changing times thing, rather like the Strauss's Baron Ochs in the Mozart-influenced plot of Der Rosenkavalier. Almaviva is not the main character, but he is central to the plot and the reaction of all the others towards him, so it's important to establish the precise tone, and between them, Jo Davies and Quirjin de Lang get it absolutely right.
None of the other characters however really seem to feel threatened by Almaviva. True, Figaro takes the fight to him ('Se vuol ballare, signor Contino' or 'I'll lead the dance' as it is here), when he hears that he has intentions on Susanna, but Susanna seems to be more than capable of batting away his wandering hands, and has some female solidarity in this from the Countess, Rosina. Even in the trickiest of situations, doing their best to bluff the Count, you never get the impression however that any of them take him at all seriously or feel that he is any real threat. You get the impression that they're secure enough to know that they can get Equal Opportunities Commission or Dignity in the Workplace onto him if he keeps this nonsense up, when the intention of Mozart was that this is precisely why we need Equal Opportunites!
Opera North's The Marriage of Figaro doesn't really have the edginess of Mozart and Da Ponte's intent, and without that edge and threat the comedy isn't quite as sharp and outrageous as it could be and ought to be. It all moves along smoothly however - a little too smoothly - everything falls into place, and you can't help but admire how well-constructed a work this opera is as a drama and a comedy, and how well characterised it is in the complementary contrasts of its characters. There's nothing out-of-place or strange in the playing out of the set-pieces, but consequently there's nothing here either that will shock or surprise an audience at just how progressive a work Le Nozze di Figaro was and remains, both as a humanist drama and in its musical advancement.
In musical terms it was very well played, conductor Alexander Shelley permitting little variations in pace and emphasis without overemphasis. A little more emphasis might actually have worked to invigorate the production in one or two places, but here the character was on the loving and benevolent nature of the work rather than its revolutionary edge. That matched the singing delivery of the cast, Richard Burkhard an unflappable Figaro, Silvia Moi an assured Susanna. There was a little more fun with the secondary characters (if you can call any of these wonderful creations 'secondary'), with Helen Sherman a vigorous Cherubino, Ana Maria Labin a touching, soulful Countess, and Henry Waddington and Dean Robinson providing great entertainment as Bartolo and Marcellina.
Giuseppe Verdi - La Traviata
Opera North, 2015
Oliver von Dohnányi, Alessandro Talevi, Anna Jeruc-Kopec, Victoria Sharp, Louise Collett, Ji-Min Park, Stephen Gadd, Daniel Norman, Peter Savidge, Nicholas Butterfield, Dean Robinson
Grand Opera House, Belfast - 18 March 2015
La Traviata might be the most performed opera in the world, but in some ways its popularity just makes it more of a challenge for an opera company to find a way of revitalising and renewing it in a new production. Aside from the musical resources and talent needed to perform it, there are also audience expectations to consider, which in my experience means that good productions of La Traviata are common, but great ones are rarer. Opera North's new production managed to strike a good balance between performance and audience expectations. It wasn't a particularly adventurous La Traviata, but it did eventually overcome the conventional mannerisms to get to the emotional heart of the work.
The opening Act however wasn't particularly auspicious. It did the decadent Belle Époque well, making Violetta's party look like an authentic out-of-control revelry/orgy that might have been more in keeping with the reputation of a courtesan than some stuffy formal dinner party. As the work can be rather circumspect about how Violetta's earns her keep, this is a good way of establishing that. Musically, it felt like we were just running through the numbers, but you can't blame Opera North for that any more than you can blame Verdi for writing such popular and memorable tunes. You have to give the audience what they expect, and Opera North did that at the outset and gave maybe a little more than that later.
At the very least, Act I made it abundantly clear that we had a stunning Violetta in Anna Jeruc-Kopec. She looked the part, sang with accomplishment and conviction, with feeling and personality. Ji-Min Park's Alfredo didn't make quite as much of an impact, but this is not his Act. That comes at both ends of Act II and there he handled all the emotional extremes of Alfredo's rapid fall from rapturous love to bitterness, anger and disappointment with a strong and emotive delivery. In between, we enjoyed Stephen Gadd's Georgio Germont, balanced between stern disapproval and some measure of sympathy for Violetta, with a warm, secure vocal delivery. His duets with Anna Jeruc-Kopec were delightful, Jeruc-Kopec demonstrating how good her performance was in those moments of intense distress.
From there on it there was less of the stop/start number playing broken up by audience applause. In La Traviata, that's usually a good sign, showing that the audience is less focussed on recognition of the arias and evaluation of the performances and has become caught up in the emotion and the drama of it all. You don't feel particularly inclined to applaud someone's life being taken apart on the stage, no matter how technically accomplished the performance and delivery. This is the magic that Verdi and Opera North manage to achieve with La Traviata, drawing the audience in with consummate skill and doing it almost imperceptibly.
While Alessandro Talevi's direction and production design didn't appear to make much of an impact then, it was actually very cleverly and carefully planned to match Verdi's musical construction. There's a musical arc to the work that opens contemplatively with (you can assume) Violetta alone in the overture, breaks into revelry at the Baron's party, builds up to rapturous love that then declines through the second half to a party that follows a similar downward trajectory, ending with Violetta again facing her mortality alone. Aside from the strong dramatic construction, Verdi's music also follows a similar coherent pattern that hits all the key points, with musical melodies/leitmotifs and phrases recurring in different guises that remind one of the earlier occasions they were played. It's masterful and highly effective.
Madeleine Boyd's set designs use a very simple means of ensuring that there's a visual symmetry that matches Verdi's musical construction. On the most basic level, there's a large bed in place in Act I that transforms into a jetty for Act II's country house scene and then into a stage and a gambling table for Act III. It's a simple device, but clever, ensuring that you don't view these Acts as random scenes, but can see the continuity between them. One scene reminds you of the other under different circumstances, much the same way that Verdi's score does. What lies behind those scenes is a little more difficult to establish here, but there is some effort to get beyond the traditional imagery and be a little more representative of the underlying emotions and sentiments.
An endoscopic image of, presumably, the tuberculosis bacteria working its way through her lungs, is visible during the overture, Violetta facing it, confronting her fate, the bright circular image transforming into a full moon outside during Act I. The blissful love scene of Act II - where wedon't actually see Alfredo and Violetta happy together - opens with Violetta contemplating the infinity of water meeting sky. In Act IV, the masked Parisian carnival revellers seated in tiers outside the window applaud Violetta's dramatic death scene.
None of this particularly adds to any great insight or understanding of the work and its message - it certainly doesn't highlight Verdi's scathing critique of social hypocrisy towards women who fall outside accepted boundaries - but it provides a distinct character for the production that doesn't stray too far away from the traditional reading. What's important is that, judging from the response of the audience, it works to draw you into the drama and the experiences of the characters. Rather more depends on how good the singers are in expressing those intentions, and if there was nothing unusual in how they were directed, the fine singing carried the full weight of the sentiments though to the devastating conclusion towards which the performance had been so imperceptibly and effectively building.
Giuseppe Verdi - Otello
Opera North, 2013
Richard Farnes, Tim Albery, Ronald Samm, Elena Kelessidi, David Kempster, Michael Wade Lee, Ann Taylor, Christopher Turner, Henry Waddington, Dean Robinson, Paul Gibson
Grand Opera House, Belfast, 9 March 2013
There are some operas that are so emotionally raw and overwhelming that they are almost too much to bear. Sometimes you wish the singers and the orchestra would just tone it down a little, purely for the sake of those poor souls of a more delicate sensibility. Verdi's Otello is one of those operas. You go into it knowing what is in store and hope you can get through it relatively unscathed. From the opening moments of Opera North's new 2013 production, seen at the Grand Opera House in Belfast, with the chorus, orchestra and thunder sound effects resounding around the theatre right from the outset, it was clear that this was not going to be one of those occasions.
Otello is of course one of Verdi's darkest operas, but I wasn't aware quite how dark it was until I heard Opera North's production. It's a late, mature Verdi work, Verdi doing Shakespeare moreover with a sophisticated libretto provided by Arrigo Boito that is composed to the highest levels of subtlety in the characterisation and in the musical arrangements. It's a piece of the utmost dramatic integrity, with no overture, no show-stopping arias or interludes for ballets. It's direct, to the point and, in as far it describes characters capable of the extremities of human feelings, Otello takes no prisoners. That much I already knew and had experienced before.
With the sheer force of the huge choral arrangements, the volume of the orchestration and the thunder and lightning effects accompanying the opening storm, it seemed like Opera North were going to play this mature Verdi like one of his early pot-boilers, full of blood and thunder. There's nothing wrong with those early works of Verdi, but should Otello not be handled with a little more delicacy than Oberto or even the composer's earlier Shakespeare adaptation Macbeth? Richard Farnes, Tim Albery and the orchestra of the Opera North show that there is a case for the score of Otello to be thunderously played, for the extreme emotional content to be sung resoundingly, for the dramatic interpretation to be played to the hilt, and every ounce of human emotion to be wrung out of the work. You would expect no less from Shakespeare's play, so why not Verdi too?
There's a reason why the delicate sensibility of the listener shouldn't be spared the ravages of Shakespeare's 'Othello' or Verdi's Otello, and that's because they are works that explore the extremes of love, hatred, jealousy, beauty, compassion and delicacy. Act I alone is a masterful expression of a whole range of human characteristics, from the fear over the fate of Otello's fleet in the storm, jubilation at the Moor's success in battle with the Turks which turns into celebration at the garrison in Cyprus where the boisterous play turns into a brawl. That's followed by a tender love-scene between Otello and Desdemona. And then Act II has Iago's famous Credo and the bitter poison of jealousy spreads into every aspect of all those joyous moments of the first act.
That's wonderfully presented in Tim Albery's meticiously pitched production for Opera North which has been updated to what looks like a WWII-era marine barracks. Act I is bustling with life with Michael Wade Lee's Cassio energetically leaping over tables to take part in a violent brawl, David Kempster's Iago delivers Act II's Credo forcefully and without histrionics, while the confrontation between Ronald Samm's imposing Otello and Elena Kelessidi's delicate Desdemona is violent and shocking. And it should be when you know what dark passions have been stirred and where they are going to lead. That's warning enough for you to steel yourself for where Act IV takes us, but the conclusion nonetheless still manages to take you unawares.
That's down to Verdi's brilliant scoring of the work, and in this case, a perfect reading of those intentions by Albery, Farnes and the Opera North team, where the perspective and the tone of Act IV is determined by Desdemona. Her beautiful nature, her kindness and generosity towards Cassio, her love for Otello is an antidote to the sentiments and nature that has been twisted in the testosterone-fuelled duelling that has taken place in the previous acts. Rather than lessen the impact of the charged atmosphere that has been created of course, this only makes it more tragic. The finale, like the rest of the performance here, was superbly balanced in this respect, maximising impact, perfectly in accord with the delicate Wagnerian leitmotifs that Verdi employs so effectively at those key moments.
The challenges of playing Otello were compounded by the effort made to perform it at this ultra-charged level of high emotion. The performance of the Opera North Orchestra was a loud and muscular one, yet it was one that was at the same time very carefully attuned to the fluid changes and subtleties of the range of musical expression. That could nonetheless potentially present problems for singers who not only have to match the powerful nature of the sentiments expressed here, but also rise above the sheer volume of sound that was coming from the orchestra pit. Otello is evidently the most challenging role, as much for singing as for making his jealous nature comprehensible if not exactly sympathetic, and Ronald Samm coped extremely well with the singing challenges, but just as importantly succeeded in creating a rounded human portrayal of the devastation a man can wreak upon himself.
A full picture of Otello however cannot be achieved without a sympathetic Desdemona to bring out those human qualities - the noble ones as well as the less admirable ones - and Elena Kelessdi was just such a Desdemona. Any minor concerns at times that she might not be able to hold her own against the forceful delivery of Samm or David Kempster's Iago were soon put to rest by her spirited performance and an Act IV that really hit the mark in its expression of her character's nature. Michael Wade Lee's Cassio was also spot-on in his wearing of his heart on his sleeve, giving an open, unguarded and enthusiastic performance. Special mention should be made of the Opera North's Chorus and the Children's Chorus which really punctuated the work with the necessary impact at the critical moments in the drama. I'm sure I'll see a few more Verdi operas before this bicentenary year is over, but I'll be surprised if anything forces a reevaluation of one of the composer's works as much as this muscular and sensitive performance of Otello by Opera North.
Francis Poulenc - La Voix Humaine
Henry Purcell - Dido and Aeneas
Opera North, 2013
Wyn Davies, Aletta Collins, Lesley Garrett, Pamela Helen Stephen, Phillip Rhodes, Amy Freston, Gillene Herbert, Heather Shipp, Louise Mott, Jake Arditti, Nicholas Watts, Rebecca Moon
Grand Opera House, Belfast, 8 March 2013
Opera North's Winter 2103 touring programme wonderfully covers four centuries of music, with Mozart's Clemenza di Tito from the 18th century, Verdi's Otello from the 19th, Francis Poulenc's La Voix Humaine from the 20th century and Purcell's Dido and Aeneas from the 17th century. It's the combination of the latter two operas on the same bill however that represent the widest dynamic in such a way that they hardly seem complementary at all. In reality however - particularly with the source of Dido and Aeneas stretching back 1,000 years to its source in Virgil's 'Aeneid' - what they demonstrate is the universality and commonality of human emotions that still have resonance in the 21st century.
The common theme that relates the two works is of course one that opera has specialised in over the years - that of the woman seduced, betrayed and abandoned. The two works given here however represent lesser-known examples of that theme and certainly approach it musically and dramatically in very different ways. As different as they are however, they each present a unique take on the subject and stand as important, powerful pieces that demonstrate the power of expression of the operatic art form.
Composed by Francis Poulenc in 1959 to a libretto by Jean Cocteau based on his own 1930 dramatic monologue, the one-act opera La Voix Humaine is unusual opera work in that it is written to be performed and sung by a single person, and sung moreover as a one-sided conversation that takes place on the telephone. The unnamed woman ('Elle') is alone in her room, waiting anxiously for a phone-call from her ex-lover. The conversation, occasionally interrupted by the unreliable service and a party-line, reveals that the man who had been her lover for five years is now about to be married to another woman and 'Elle' has been contemplating suicide.
There's an interesting ambiguity and modernity in the fact that the woman's desire for the warmth of love in the comforting sound of the human voice (la voix humaine) is brought to her electronically through a telephone line, but Poulenc and Cocteau's little drama abounds in such contradictions and ambiguities. Is it a monologue or really a one-sided dialogue? A dialogue would imply that the conversation is two-way, but it's clear that there is only one person who hopes to gain or express anything through the conversation. In many respects, the woman is speaking to herself, grasping at the meagre lifeline that is being held out, but only for as long as the call lasts, trying to fool herself that all is not lost. When that is gone all she is left with is that terrifying figure she sees reflected in the mirror before her.
Opera North's production, directed by Aletta Collins, played further on the ambiguities within the work with some clever visual references to that hateful mirror. It not only reflects the truth about her lie that she is glamorously dressed after an evening dinner date, revealing instead a tired, graying woman on the edge of breakdown contemplating a bottle of pills on the dresser, but she can also see reflected in it all the horrors of her imagination, seeing her ex-lover enjoying parties and affairs with other women. It's as vivid a visual representation of the harsh reality of the woman's situation and her mindset as it is possible to imagine.
With Lesley Garrett singing the role of 'Elle', it's also about as effective and expressive a performance of the woman's situation as you can imagine. Poulenc's composition of the music and the singing part reflects the cadences of the spoken voice in a similar way to how Janáček would write, with rhythms and pauses, the rising and falling of tones and inflections, but evidently that's particularly relevant to a work that is called La Voix Humaine. As a singer whose spoken voice alone is most musical, Lesley Garrett is the ideal kind of singer for this kind of piece, even if it is far from the more popular style of singing that she is famous for. Her every gesture and inflection - singing the work in English - was perfectly judged in a way that made her character's circumstances compelling to watch and her inevitable fate as touching as it was chilling.
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (c. 1689) is one of the earliest versions of a subject that Francesco Cavalli first covered in his opera La Didone (1641), but which became something of a standard in the Baroque opera repertoire with at least 50 works adapted to Pietro Metastasio's libretto (Didone Abbandonata) in the 18th century (including Hasse, Galuppi, Porpora, Vinci and Piccinni). It might not have been the model that Poulenc's La Voix Humaine draws from, but the essential characteristic of a woman left to face her demons alone is just as vividly depicted in the fate of Dido when her lover Aeneas, who has "stopped over" in Carthage with the fleeing Trojans and then abandoned her to fulfil the destiny that the gods have in store for him in Italy.
Although it is fully scored - innovatively without recitative at this stage in the development of opera - and has a larger cast than Poulenc's mono-opera, the strength of this version of the Dido and Aeneas story (unlike Berlioz's Les Troyens, to take the most extreme example) is that it similarly focusses all its musical and dramatic elements on the predicament of the lone figure of a woman abandoned. Dido's confidante Belinda tries to warn her and turn her away from her dark thoughts and Aeneas even appears and attempts to put his case to her, but the opera remains firmly viewed from the perspective of a woman who has suddenly become aware that her youth and happiness are slipping away.
Like the reflections in the mirror of La Voix Humaine, Dido's thoughts, fears and nightmares are vividly real, given human form in witches and visions of herself - as a younger woman? - that follow her, mimic her, torment her and drive her to her doom. This element is beautifully expressed in Aletta Collins' direction and Giles Cadle's set design of the darkened bedroom of long shadows, with spectres in the form of dancers that slip out from under and behind the bed, hovering in the background and persistently at the edge of Dido's vision until they overwhelm her.
Just as effective is the rhythmic drive of Purcell's score as performed by the Orchestra of the Opera North under conductor Wyn Davies, switching over to Baroque period instruments after the interval. Although Dido threatened to become swamped by the figures and doppelgangers of her nightmares, there was no danger of Pamela Helen Stephen losing her grip on her character. Purcell's Dido is as strongly defined as any of the many different depictions of this character in other works. It may be short, around an hour long, but the focus on Dido and her reaction to her predicament is deep and intense. Stephen gave that full expression in her singing, never more so than in those final moments of Dido's rejection of Aeneas' weak justifications.
Like the other two productions in this Opera North Winter 2013 touring programme, there was a wonderful completeness and attention to detail in the concept and the execution for both these short works. From the casting of the roles, the direction of the performances, the staging, the costumes and the musical delivery, great care has evidently been put into making sure that everything comes together as a whole to express these works in the best possible light, and that was all the more evident in the complementary approach taken towards works as diverse as La Voix Humaine and Dido and Aeneas, separated by almost 300 years, but shown here still to be vital and relevant in the 21st century.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - La Clemenza di Tito
Opera North, 2013
Douglas Boyd, John Fulljames, Paul Nilon, Annemarie Kremer, Fflur Wyn, Helen Lepalaan, Kathryn Rudge, Henry Waddington
Grand Opera House, Belfast, 7 March 2013
Mozart's final opera La Clemenza di Tito was composed in 1791 as a commission for the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia. It had a short-life span which barely lasted much beyond the death of Mozart just three months after its first unsuccessful performance. The opera's failure and subsequent disappearance into near-obscurity for centuries can be put down to the haste in which it was written (once account claims it was written in just 18 days), its old-fashioned opera seria structure that was based on an old libretto by Metastasio that had already been set more than 40 times by other composers, and the fact that its story of a benevolent and forgiving king was somewhat dated and out of touch even then with the revolutionary upheaval going on in Europe at the time.
Mozart was of course in ill-health and in financial difficulties by the time he came to write La Clemenza di Tito, requiring the assistance of his student Süssmayer and Catherino Mazzolà to adapt Metastasio's libretto into a workable form, but Mozart also completed some of his greatest works during the same late period, not least of which were The Magic Flute and the Requiem, so it's not surprising that the composer's final work has resurfaced and been subjected to a number of successful productions that have highlighted the aspects of the qualities that are to be found within it. Despite the rigidity of the opera seria form and the seemingly outdated libretto, it's also a work that can sustain modern and stylised reinterpretations. And, contrary to its unrealistically optimistic outlook on the wisdom and goodness of the monarchy, certain elements of Mozart's own enlightened views can be found in the work if a director is willing to delve deeper beneath the surface.
Opera North's fresh, unfussy, clean and modernistically classical account of La Clemenza di Tito (seen on tour in Belfast) is just such a production. Recognising that the strength of the work lies within Mozart's writing, there's nothing too radical attempted here in terms of interpretation. Douglas Boyd's conducting of the Orchestra of Opera North places emphasis on the structure and rhythm of the piece, not seeking to overstate the relative simplicity of the arrangements, yet it pays attention to how certain lyrical touches give warmth and personality to what would otherwise be stock opera seria characters. This is where the danger lies in any performance of La Clemenza di Tito. It can seem like a dry, conventional and academic work, remote and aloof, uninspired in many sections, simply going through the motions and without some real emotional investment on the part of the singers, it can come across as just the rote recital of lines.
A work like La Clemenza di Tito however needs some careful consideration if it is to bring these characters to life and make their predicament seem relevant. On the surface, it doesn't look like director John Fulljames has done much tweaking of the piece. The subject remains grave and serious, each of the characters involved seem to have their own personal predicaments and it seems that anything that the Roman Emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus (71 to 81 AD) does will only lead to unhappiness for others. As far as traditional opera seria goes, Metastasio's libretto then meets all the necessary conditions that allow a composer to express these deep feelings of anger, resentment, jealousy, betrayal and vengeance in the musical arrangements, while the work as a whole fulfils its function as a suitable piece to put on to celebrate a coronation, showing how a monarch rules for the good of his people, with wisdom, compassion, forgiveness and clemency.
Making the work feel relevant while remaining faithful to its intentions is however still something of a challenge. Setting it in the past, in its historical setting (whether from an Ancient Roman or with regard towards its 18th century relevance), will not do a great deal for this dusty opera seria, other than making it look like an ancient operatic curiosity, but it's difficult to see how it can be applied to any modern context. Fulljames doesn't attempt to impose any specific present-day parallel (an interesting essay in the programme attempts to relate it to Boris Johnson and David Cameron's present UK coalition government, but it's far from convincing), but rather sets it in a more generically timeless modern office boardroom setting of clean lines and geometric structures. While this might not seem to do much to give La Clemenza di Tito contemporary relevance, it does however provide a perfectly appropriate environment for the meticulous elegant structures of Mozart's score, and it also reflects the progression of the drama as those lines and structures break up and fragment, only to become whole again at the end.
What brings considerably more humanity out of this work however is the careful attention paid to the emotions and the predicament of the characters, and the degree of emphasis placed on their respective positions. The key to the relevance of La Clemenza di Tito in Opera North's production, and the principal reason for its success here, lies in the consideration it gives to the relatively secondary characters of Annio and Servilia. There's good reason to assume that this is not just an arbitrary tweak that distorts the balance of the work, but that it does fit in closer to Mozart's own personal views and his distinctive approach to the work. While all the others are running around striving to further their own personal and political agendas (Vitellia to become Empress, Sesto to win the love of Vitellia, the recently appointed Tito to give his people firm, stable leadership), Annio and Servilia strike a balance between these opposing positions that seemingly cannot co-exist.
Tito's clemency at the end of the opera evidently lies at the heart of the work, mending the divisions that have been stirred up to have such terrible consequences. That healing comes about however through the intervention and selfless appeals of Annio and Servilia. Although they are indeed motivated by their love for each other, they are prepared to put their own happiness aside if it is ultimately for the greater good. Tito responds to the openness and honesty in Servilia pleas. She is the only one who speaks the plain truth that other yes-men in his inner-circle, too concerned about their own position, will not. It's Annio's honest, heartfelt appeals too that touch Tito much more than Sesto's belated regrets for his betrayal, as sincere as his sentiments may be. None of this takes anything away from the opposing contrasts that are so important in the work, or the reconciliation that takes place between them, but rather it makes their resolution just that little bit more meaningful and credible, to say nothing of truly humanistic.
It's to the credit then of Fulljames and Boyd that not only does the warmth of Mozart's writing for these parts and their importance come through, but it's not to the detriment of the other figures who are traditionally given a bigger billing. That was reflected in the way that the casting was not only strong for the main roles of Tito (Paul Nilon), Vitellia (Annemarie Kremer) and Sesto (Helen Lepalaan), but that attention was paid to singers of warmth of expression in the roles of Annio (Kathryn Rudge) and Servilia (Fflur Wyn), as well as the rather serious Publio (Henry Waddington). Not one of the performances felt like routine deliveries, but rather like their characters and personalities had been carefully thought through and given expression, without mannerism, in the smallest of details and gestures.
La Clemenza di Tito can still have challenges making a staging visually interesting and meaningful, but Conor Murphy's innovative designs and geometric lines suggested classical structures in a modern context. Back-projections and a rotating dividing screen that projected images and transformed from transparency to opacity, opened up and closed down spaces with perfect precision, working wonderfully in accord with the musical content, playing to the strengths of the work and the singers.
