Offenbach - Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Brussels, 2019)

 

Jacques Offenbach - Les Contes d'Hoffmann

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2019

Alain Altinoglu, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Eric Cutler, Patricia Petibon, Michèle Losier, Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo, Gábor Bretz, François Piolino, Willard White, Loïc Félix, Yoann Dubruque, Alejandro Fonte, Byoung-Jin Lee

ARTE Concert streaming - December 2019
It's not hard to recognise that there's a darker side to the stories and the fate of the character Hoffman in The Tales of Hoffmann, but it's by no means certain in my experience that Jacques Offenbach actually manages to draw them out in his opera. The composer's only true opera aside from his delightful comic operetta entertainments, The Tales of Hoffmann is often treated the same way as his opéra-comique works and it's rare that a director will address the underlying issues of alcoholism and mental illness in any serious way. You might expect Krzysztof Warlikowski to try to do a little more with this at La Monnaie, and he does even if it feels he's trying a little too hard.

Always keen to give a classic work a contemporary treatment that addresses the issues in a way that we are more familiar with, often using references to whatever is currently hot in the movie world, Warlikowsi goes the whole hog this time and updates the drunken fantasist of ETA Hoffman's tales into a Hollywood screenwriter-director going through a personal crisis. Obsessed with his leading actress Stella, who whatever way you look at this opera is very much the muse for his creativity, he strives to find a way to overcome his own demons through the roles he develops for her.

When it comes to movie references it's well known that Warlikowsi often relies on the films of David Lynch for inspiration, and since Lynch has tackled similar subjects of Hollywood chewing up its stars in his films Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, it makes sense (some kind of sense) to employ the same sinister qualities and techniques that Lynch evokes in those movies. Warlikowski doesn't stop there however, borrowing the three pink showgirls from the casino from Twin Peaks: The Return, sets the Olympia segment in Twin Peaks's The Black Lodge, has a microphone stand from similar sequences in Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive and even has Nicklausse and Giulietta swap identities wearing black and blonde wigs in a nod to Lynch's surreal noir Lost Highway. I'm sure Wild at Heart must be in there somewhere too.

The other current hot movie reference is where the villain(s) of the piece, Lindorf/Coppélius/Doctor Miracle/Dapertutto and his crew all adopt the make-up and look of the Joker. As far as getting underneath the surface these references are definitely in the right zone for using farce and fantasy to suggest a sinister undercurrent where drawing on personal resources and responses for the sake of entertainment can take its toll on creative artists. It's most evident in the Olympia story where the automaton becomes a kind of manufactured starlette groomed for stardom, Hoffmann's "beer goggles" blinding him to the superficiality and fakeness that his assistant Nicklausse is able to see. Olympia indeed becomes a Mulholland Drive-like victim of the Hollywood system.

As far as that goes Warlikowski gets the point across effectively in Act I, but even though the concept permits Hoffmann as director to pour his auteur obsessions out on the screen in the other sections of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann, it does - as I often find with this work - tend to drag and get somewhat unwieldy. Warlikowski's references, interventions, interpolations, twisting of the narrative and adding layers doesn't really add much more to this, but tends rather to make it all even harder to follow than usual. In the Antonia section for example, Patricia Petibon breaks out of character (see Laura Dern in Inland Empire) and into another character as an actress who uses her own trauma of the death of her son to feed into her performance of Antonia, and show how it takes a lot out of her emotionally.

Essentially Krzysztof Warlikowski just wants to bring an edge of realism/surrealism to the work, showing that behind Hoffmann's fantasies are real people with real personal lives and drama that Hollywood exploits for the sake of entertainment. If you want to you can extend that another level in that this also makes you aware that the performers of the opera also have their own lives and baggage that it can be difficult to reconcile with an artistic lifestyle. Certainly the fake Oscar ceremony that Warlikowski inserts before the conclusion hits those points about home in a hugely effective and even slightly discomforting way.

Unfortunately it's just all too much, Warlikowski as he is wont to do throwing everything at the opera, much more than I feel Offenbach's writing can sustain, and as a result it feels like a bit of a mess. Which, to be frank, and accepting that Offenbach left the work unfinished at the time of his death, would be how I regard The Tales of Hoffmann as an opera anyway. Less is often more with this work in my experience, and it's telling that the only wholly successful stage productions I have seen are those that scale the whole thing down. The 2015 ETO production (which also used Hoffmann as a movie director much more effectively than Warlikowski) and the Irish National Opera's 2018 version demonstrate that despite my misgivings the work can indeed aspire to something greater.

Whatever its structural or narrative weaknesses, the one redeeming quality of The Tales of Hoffmann as far as I'm concerned is in its melodies and songs that run through the work, in the repetitive catchiness of the "Chanson de Kleinzach" and in the charm of "Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour" and it's there that the real strength of the La Monnaie production conducted by Alain Altinoglu can be found. The latter sung by Patricia Petibon and Michèle Losier is certainly worth waiting for - well, almost worth waiting for as I found my patience running out as usual with this work. Losier is superb, genuinely making something greater out of the Nicklausse role, Petibon not always able to meet the challenges of the demanding soprano roles in the opera. Eric Cutler's Hoffman is sympathetically engaging and Gábor Bretz cuts a suitably sinister figure as The Joker basically, in a production of Hoffmann that is certainly no laughing matter.

Links: La Monnaie-De Munt, ARTE Concert

Handel - Alcina (Aix-en-Provence, 2015 - Webcast)

George Frideric Handel - Alcina

Festival Aix-en-Provence, 2015

Andrea Marcon, Katie Mitchell, Patricia Petibon, Philippe Jaroussky, Anna Prohaska, Katarina Bradić, Anthony Gregory, Krzysztof Baczyk, Elias Mädler

Opera Platform - July 2015

Katie Mitchell's production of Alcina for the 2015 Aix-en-Provence Festival has more in common with the lavish Vienna State Opera production than the recent disappointing minimalist faux-period production directed by Pierre Audi at La Monnaie. Like the Vienna Alcina, it recognises that the seductive power of illusion is at the heart of the work, but Mitchell's staging is a little more adventurous and modern in how it gets that across, not allowing the same illusion to overwhelm the harsher edge of the underlying reality.

Certainly the opening Act isn't at all reticent about showing the dark nature of a sorceress who seduces men and then turns them into wild animals, trees and rocks. In the Vienna production this was a decadent parlour game play on those themes that allowed it to retain a certain distance. In Katie Mitchell's production it's still the decadence of a wealthy elite, the principal action taking place in a luxury bedroom rather than on an enchanted island, but there 's rather more of an effort to get 'behind the scenes' here.

Most evidently, there is the nature of the bedroom activities that Alcina and her sister Morgana are shown to perform on the poor addled men who fall under their spell. Alcina's writhing around on top of Ruggiero is saucy enough, but Morgana's inclinations are rather more kinky, involving her being strapped to the bed, blindfolded and whipped by 'Ricciardo' (Bradamante in disguise) in a manner that has become more prevalent on the opera stage of late. It won't be the first time '50 Shades of Gray' has been referenced here, but in a strange way there is some kind of justification for it in the stylisations of Baroque opera, or at least in this one anyway.

Chloe Lamford's set design also helps brings out something more of gap between dark desires and surface expression. The set is very similar in design to the one Katie Mitchell used for Written on Skin's world première production at Aix in 2012. To the side of the boudoir lie a couple of adjoining rooms or caverns, where Alcina and Morgana's 'glamour' drops and they take the form of older women, cleverly transforming as they sweep out of one room and into the next. It's a simple trick, but an effective one that hints at those different levels of reality that the opera works on. It's not without a humorous touch either, the upper level holding a 'transforming machine' that turns discarded conquest into stuffed animals to be housed in glass cages.

There's ample justification for this multi-scene approach in the music, which alternates delicate melodies and strident rhythms, but each of the characters - typically in a Baroque opera - operates within their own reality, and it's usually one that doesn't fit and conflicts with the reality of others. Mitchell's staging and some good direction establishes the relationships between the characters well, with the addition of silent assistants for Morgana and Alcina to carry out their magic. It works effectively not only to depict the differing realities, but by showing them simultaneously in their rooms it even helps to bring them together and co-exist in a way that Baroque opera rarely does on its own.

Which, as far as I'm concerned, is great, because notwithstanding that Alcina has some of Handel's most poignant and beautiful arias, I've never felt convinced by the overall tone of the work and how it tells its story. Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyrique's  beautiful precise rhythms captured something of the harder edge of the magic undercurrents if not the wider romantic sweep of the work at La Monnaie. Andrea Marcon's rather loose and free conducting of the Freiburger Barockorchester by contrast, elegant and refined as it remains, doesn't really capture what is a fairly horrific and unpleasant situation for all, and not just in the magic aspect of changing humans into savage beasts, but the relationships too are all fairly abusive and marked by betrayal, jealousy and vengeance.

The singing is perhaps more important in conveying those emotions than the music alone, and happily, the casting for Alcina at Aix is interesting and successful. Impressive even in the case of Patricia Petibon. The measure of an Alcina is found in its main arias and the best of them are in Act II (although ordering and positioning can vary). They are best placed in Act II however, where their conflicting emotions work so well off one another. Alcina's 'Ah! Mio cor' is the key aria of course, determining whether we sympathise with Alcina's predicament or not, and although Mitchell has already done lots of work stripping her bare in her transformations, Petibon is pretty much devastating here on her own account.

It's fantastic to have a countertenor in the role of Ruggiero, particularly one as good as Philippe Jaroussky. His 'Mi lusinga il dolce affetto' not only excuses his inadvertent betrayal of Bradamante, but succeeds in competing for one's sympathies against those that Petibon evokes so powerfully for Alcina. Mitchell even complicates the situation by deepening Bradamante's mixed feelings with a suggestion that Alcina is left pregnant by Ruggiero. A genuinely youthful and sympathetic Oberto adds another emotional dimension in his heartbreaking search for his father and it's sung wonderfully here by Elias Mädler. Big arias also proved the worth of Anna Prohaska's Morgana in her 'Tornami a vagheggiar', while the 50 Shades whipping she receives from Oronte's Gray during her 'Credete al mio dolore' is a fitting 'punishment'. It certainly seems to help her get to those high notes.

Links: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Opera Platform

Handel - Ariodante (Aix-en-Provence, 2014 - Webcast)

George Friedrich Handel - Ariodante

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2014 

Andrea Marcon, Richard Jones, Sarah Connolly, Patricia Petibon, Sandrine Piau, Sonia Prina, David Portillo, Luca Tittoto, Christopher Diffey

Culturebox - Live Streaming, July 2014

In an interview in the programme for the Aix-en-Provence production of Ariodante, conductor Andrea Marcon notes the unique character of this work as an Italian opera with French influences and adornments written by a German composer for an English audience. One would think that it would be difficult to reconcile all those different elements, but Handel of course makes it all seem perfectly fluid and natural. It only makes the challenge harder for the conductor and the stage director to make a production of Ariodante run as smoothly for a modern theatre audience.

Andrea Marcon clearly has the measure of the work, and a great love for it, making a strong case for it being the 'perfect' Handel opera in its structure, in the strength of its melodies and arias, and in the consistency of its melancholic tone. His work is made considerably easier, I would say, by the quality of the orchestra and singers he is working with here at the Aix Festival. The Freiburger Barockorchester keep that essential rhythm and tone that is in the piece, while the real musical colour is there in the range and the variety of singing voices. The musical performance is accordingly of the highest order.

For his part, stage director Richard Jones seeks to find a down-to-earth consistency of tone in a work that would appear have so many international influences, and he finds that in the Scottish setting of Ariodante. There's nothing to be gained from going right back to the 8th century period of Antonio Salvi's libretto, based on Ariosto's 'Orlando Furioso', but the Scottish character of the work is important. Jones' references would seem to come from Michael Powell's Scottish islands feature film 'The Edge of the World' (1937), with something of the flavour of 'I Know Where I'm Going' (1945). Jones also cites Lars von Trier's 'Breaking the Waves', which is in indeed much more in line with the dark, melancholic and sometimes cruel tone of Ariodante.

The production design by Ultz gives us a more familiar and essentially timeless character that is modern without being quirkily modernised, far as it is from a royal tale of knights in the age of chivalry. Jones, for better or worse, sees Ariodante as more of a community drama, and as such it has something of the appearance of his Peter Grimes for La Scala. The outdoor Théâtre de l’Archevêché in Aix-en-Provence might also have had some bearing on the choice to have a single multi-purpose set, a cross section of a humble manor with four rooms separated by invisible walls and nominal doors, the dress sense that of island fisherman, fairisle sweaters, tanktops and weatherproofs.

It doesn't quite have the magical, the historical or the regal quality that you might like for this work, but Jones is able to differentiate between the social status and class differences of the characters. The king is more of a laird, but still the most important figure in the community, commanding respect. Polinesso is a firebrand preacher, which doesn't really seem to fit with his position as the Duke of Albany, but it does give him a role where he is capable of manipulating and influencing the local island people, stirring them up and using them for his own purposes. For the most part, it works reasonably well, with there being little that detracts from the drama or its musical flavour.

The best touch is the use of puppet storytelling. Imaginatively and impressively staged, they succeed in lifting the production at precisely those right moments at the finale of each act. It's challenging enough to make the choral arrangements and French ballets fit in with the drama, but they are well choreographed here as a traditional dance-hall céilidh. The end-of act puppet shows however give us a bit more of an extension beyond the life on the stage, Act I imagining married life for Ariodante and Ginerva, Act II creating a nightmarish vision of Ginerva's downfall, Act III reinstating the hoped for return to the vision of Act I. In Jones' production however, there's a recognition that there's no going back after what has happened, that Ginerva's life lies out beyond the island and that Act II nightmare descent into pole-dancing and prostitution might still be a possibility.

Despite its short run on its London opening in 1735, which is not necessarily a reflection on the quality of the work, there is merit to the claim of Ariodante being a perfect Handel opera. There are other contenders that can claim to be Handel's best work - Giulio Cesare for example having a greater variety of moods, melodies and action. Coming just around the time that Handel was starting to switch over to oratorio writing but not quite jaded by the opera format (as can possibly be seen in Deidamia), Ariodante can certainly be said to demonstrate all of the composer's brilliance in the art of opera writing. For its perfection to be evident however it really needs the right kind of singers to do it justice, and you can't argue with the quality of the cast that have been brought together for this Aix production.

As Ariodante, you don't get much better than Sarah Connolly in this type of role. I wasn't actually sure the role best suited her voice in places during Act I, but I was totally convinced by her simply magnificent performance of 'Scherza infida' in Act II. In terms of performance and dramatic commitment, Connolly is at her best right now and hard to beat. Patricia Petibon takes on the challenging range and da capo ornamentation of the role of Ginerva, a testing role that she gets through it with verve, personality and strong technique. Her wild red hair is another advantage here in a Scottish opera, but she's also strong in terms of characterisation, her Ginerva not just a put-upon victim. There's no shortage of personality in the role of Polinesso, despite the strange firebrand preacher characterisation in this production. It needs a true contralto and Sonia Prina has everything that is required here, particularly impressive on the lower end of the tessitura and utterly convincing in the masculine role.

The other three leads were no less impressive than the main roles. Sandrine Piau in particular was just outstanding. Dalinda is an interesting character to work with - in the thrall of her passions for Polinesso, she becomes a betrayer to others and is ultimately manipulated and betrayed herself. Piau makes the most of this in her Act II aria 'Se tanto piace al cor', and in her Act III realisation of what she has done. Richard Jones is right to follow this right through to having permanent consequences, particularly when it's as powerfully drawn as it is here by Piau. Despite the opportunities afforded by Handel's writing, there's no vocal grandstanding anywhere here, just pure dramatic expression. Luca Tittoto gave a heartfelt performance as the King of Scotland, his 'Invida sorte avara' aria in particular just superb, and David Portillo's lyrical tenor voice gave Lurcanio a measure of sensitivity rather than simply hotheadedness.

Links: Culturebox, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence

Boesmans - Au Monde (La Monnaie, 2014 - Webcast)

Philippe Boesmans - Au Monde

La Monnaie - De Munt, Brussels 2014

Joël Pommerat, Patrick Davin, Frode Olsen, Werner Van Mechelen, Stéphane Degout, Charlotte Hellekant, Patricia Petibon, Fflur Wyn, Yann Beuron, Ruth Olaizola

La Monnaie, ARTE Concert - Internet Streaming, April 2014

La Monnaie's bringing together of composer Philippe Boesmans and playwright Joël Pommerat for a newly commissioned opera is an intriguing one and in many ways, for better or worse, Au Monde lives up to whatever expectations one might have of both of the Belgian creators. That's not to say that the result is entirely predictable. There's no doubt that there is a true collaboration here that manages to draw something new and unexpected out of both contributors.

Musically, Au Monde is quite different from the serialism of Reigen, my only previous encounter with Boesmans, but the Belgian composer has clearly worked in a variety of styles in opera with adaptations of Shakespeare (Wintermärchen) and Strindberg (Julie), as well as reinterpreting Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea (La Passion de Gilles). For his part Joël Pommerat previously collaborated with Oscar Bianchi on an adaptation of his play 'Grace a mes yeux' (Thanks to My Eyes), a work that shared characteristics with Maeterlinck and Debussy. There's a lot of room here then for both creators to find and share common ground in Au Monde.

It's clear that Au Monde comes from the same source as Thanks to my Eyes, the work not so much a straightforward drama or character piece as an exploration of archetypal family figures in conflict with themselves and in a state of suspended tension with one another. If Boesmans' music is more melodic and lyrical here, it's more closely related to the particular colours, sonorities of the characters and the rhythms of the dialogues and relationships between them in a way that - particularly in the intonations of the French language - can't help but remind one of Pelléas et Mélisande.

Much as it should, the music and singing voices undoubtedly contribute to filling out the characters and the relationships between them. Or, if the figures and their personalities remain rather difficult to determine, the music at least adds another dimension in place of any recognisable narrative. It's certainly easy to see however that there are tensions between them and where those tensions are coming from. Much of it centres on Ori, the son, and the only one with an actual name in Au Monde.

Ori has just quit a successful career in the military and none of the family know why. He says he needs a period of reflection and has even written a book, but no-one seems particularly interested in reading it. His father is stepping down as the head of the family's successful steel industry business and, with the agreement of the elder son, has Ori in mind to take over the running of affairs. Ori is hesitant about the matter, but there is perhaps something else on his mind...

...like murder? That's where it all gets a little stranger in Au Monde and difficult to define. Three women have recently been murdered in the town. There haven't been any such murders in a while now, but the new murders coincide with Ori's return. It might not be that simple though. Each of the three sisters of the family also have issues. The elder sister is seems to have a never-ending pregnancy and her husband has brought in a foreign woman to care for her needs; the second sister is an actress who can't bear to watch herself on the TV; the youngest sister, who is celebrating her birthday, is actually a lookalike replacement for a daughter who disappeared (called Phèdre), and she inevitably has some identity problems.

Pommerat cites Chekhov's 'Three Sisters' as a reference and notes that the name Ori comes from Orestes, but clearly the family references are a little more complex than that with Racine's 'Phaedra' mentioned and there's perhaps something of 'King Lear' in there as well. Comparisons to Debussy's and Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande are unavoidable, and a few other more modern surrealist references suggest David Lynch territory. Much of the strangeness, in this respect, seems to derive from the actress second sister, such as the foreign woman singing 'My Way' in a man's voice at certain points (these are noted in the libretto as being "perhaps a dream of the second daughter"). Whether Ori is involved in the murder is very much left open, like much else in this strange mix of genre and artiness.

The transition from theatre to opera undoubtedly involved some cutting back of Pommerat's original work, but this open air of vagueness and mystery is very much a part of the work. It's certainly heightened by Boesmans' score and by the breaking up of the work into 20 short elliptical scenes that seem to hold the characters in a permanent state of suspension or tension with one another. None of this ever seems to amount to anything meaningful than the characters walking around making ominous statements about their position, despite the attempt to insert some murder-mystery into the proceedings and despite the undoubted beauty of Boesmans' musical score.

The writing for the voice too is wonderful and there's an exceptionally strong cast here at La Monnaie to interpret it. Working from an existing play, there is a certain amount of recitative in the dialogue, but Boesmans has managed to fit the voice types well, and not just according to the traditional types for family roles. If the elder sister is an aloof and distant contralto (Charlotte Hellekant - very fine), the drama queen middle sister (Patricia Petibon) is a diva coloratura and the younger sister a high-end soprano (Fflur Wyn). The Second Sister and her character directs most of the drama and mystery, and Petibon is superb in her tecnhique, control and interpretation. Ori is also an mportant figure, albeit with less to sing, but it still needs a French baritone of personality and ability and Stéphane Degout has that.

It's probably not much of a surprise that Pommerat's stage direction tends to be rather straightforwardly theatrical. There's not a great deal of consideration given to the sets, but the long beam of light in the darkness of the rooms and the huis clos atmosphere does suggest an open door to an outside world (au monde) that the characters are fearful or unwilling to move towards. The cold, detached elegance of the characters is perfectly captured however in the lighting and the costumes. Much like Thanks to my Eyes, this all casts an appropriate atmosphere, and it's one into which Patrick Davin weaves the haunting Wagnerian emotional sweep and the intricate Debussian touches of Boesmans' score most effectively.

Links: La Monnaie, ARTE Concert

Poulenc - Dialogues des Carmélites

Francis Poulenc - Dialogues des Carmélites

Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris 2013

Jérémie Rhorer, Olivier Py, Sophie Koch, Patricia Petibon, Véronique Gens, Sandrine Piau, Rosalind Plowright, Topi Lehtipuu, Philippe Rouillon, Annie Vavrille, Sophie Pondjiclis, François Piolino, Jérémy Duffau, Yuri Kissin, Matthieu Lécroart

France TV Culturebox, ARTE Live Web Internet Streaming - 21 December 2013

Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites seems to be a work almost made for Olivier Py. The French actor and director's profile is high at the moment, featuring prominently at the Paris Opéra this season and most recently having directed Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet for La Monnaie as part of a series of productions of the major French works of the 19th century - a project that is now on hold while he takes up the running of the Avignon Festival. Based on a drama by Georges Bernanos relating the martyrdom of 16 nuns executed during the French revolution, Poulenc's 20th century masterpiece would however seem to fit more closely with Py's very public profile in France as a Catholic and as something of a controversial figure or revolutionary in the opera world.

The two elements of course don't fit all that well together, but they do provide much of the conflict of opposing ideals that lie at the heart of the work and provide fertile ground for this particular director to work with. Common to both however is the idea of 'Liberté' and it's the manner in which this freedom is explored and eventually found by Blanche de la Force that is central to the work.  The idea of 'Liberté' consequently features prominently in the production, the word scrawled on a wall by one of the revolutionaries (one of the servants of the De la Force house) who are becoming more present on the streets, and it is transformed into 'Liberté en Dieu' (Freedom in God) by the time of Poulenc's incredible musical 'Salve Regina' setting of the execution of the nuns. There is some distance that has to be covered between those two points, but Py's direction and the superb casting for the production cover those well.

One of the main motivating factors that drive Blanche to this revelation, a subject that is at the heart of many of the dialogues in the opera, is fear. Blanche is a timid creature, not made for the real world, suffering from an almost pathological fear of death. Yet death and fear seems to surround her, first through the death of her mother as a young girl, and with the upsurge of revolutionary violence on the streets of Paris that waylays her carriage at the start of the opera on her way home to her brother and father. The outside world holds too many horrors for the young woman, so Blanche decides to withdraw from it and enter a Carmelite convent. She envisages some kind of "heroic life" as a Carmelite nun, but her ideas are soon dispelled by the Mother Superior, even more so when the old woman dies an agonising, blaspheming death soon afterwards.

Olivier Py's direction of this important scene is characteristic of the simplicity suggested by the setting, but also the underlying force of the highly-charged crises of faith and personal weaknesses that each of the women overcome over the course of events that lead to their eventual martyrdom. Madame de Croissy is pinned vertically high on the wall in her bed, beyond the reach of Blanche and the nuns in attendance on her, the harsh lighting from below the stage casting long terrifying shadows mark her bitterness at the nature of her painful, agonising death. Elsewhere the stage is similarly plainly adorned, the lighting depicting a world of stark black and white, with separating walls reflecting the reality of the convent's walls, as well as being symbolic of Blanche's retreat from the world.

Significantly, the walls open, separate and rise and at one stage to create the form of a cross, and it's in such moments - and in the little tableaux scenes - that Olivier Py makes his mark in his consideration of the work's religious significance. One doesn't need to be a Christian believer to recognise that Dialogues des Carmélites deals with more fundamental issues beyond those of questions of religious faith.  The director's own personal faith does at least encourage him to follow through the essential questions of freedom, equality and brotherhood (or sisterhood in this case) that relate to the Revolutionary setting and in how they pertain to religious belief - freedom from fear, freedom of expression, freedom to practise one's faith, freedom from the tyranny of death in the promise of an afterlife.

Where one stands on such questions no doubt determines the staging of the all-important finale, as can be seen from Nikolaus Lehnhoff's starkly final extinguishing of the light in Hamburg marked by each fall of the guillotine, or indeed in Dmitri Tcherniakov's complete subversion of the message in the hugely controversial Paris production where all the nuns incredibly remain alive at the conclusion. Olivier Py's creation of the final scene for the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées is as plain and simply dressed as it the production is elsewhere, with no additional dramatic effects. At the fall of the guillotine, each Carmelite nun, dressed in a plain white robe, simply drops her head and walks towards the light of the stars at the back of the stage. This more clearly responds to the religious message of the work, and - as one of the greatest coups de théâtre in all of opera - Py's staging of it is unquestionably just as effective as the scene ought to be.

Poulenc's score for the opera is also filled with the same kind of religious fervour and conductor Jérémie Rhorer consequently takes the orchestra through a robust musical performance of the work. In contrast to Kent Nagano's interpretation, there's less of the shimmering Debussy here and more of the muscular Mussorgsky that form part of the work's musical influences. There's almost a strident romanticism about the performance here, one that also hints at film-music type composition with dramatic underscoring, but Poulenc's score isn't so easy to pin down and Rhorer also manages to bring out moments of beauty in its expressionistic touches.

More than anything however, the score to Dialogues des Carmélites is attuned to the voices, to the dialogues, to conveying the words and their underlying sentiments with maximum expression. The outstanding cast assembled here are certainly capable of achieving that. It's not so much the variety of voices - although they combine and interrelate wonderfully across the whole female range - but it's particularly fine when it's sung by such a distinguished cast of distinctive singers like Patricia Petibon (Blanche), Sophie Koch (Mère Marie), Véronique Gens (Madame Lidoine), Sandrine Piau (Sister Constance) and Rosalind Plowright (Madame de Croissy). It's a rare treat to have such singers all together in one production and they each bring considerable personality to the work. The male singers also have an important role to play and those are capably performed by Topi Lehtipuu (Chevalier de La Force), Philippe Rouillon (the Marquis) and François Piolino (the Convent Priest).

This production of Dialogues des Carmélites can be viewed on-line from the Culturebox website or on ARTE Live Web.  Subtitles on both sites are in French only.

Verdi - Rigoletto

Giuseppe Verdi - Rigoletto

Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, 2012

Marco Armiliato, Árpád Schilling, Joseph Calleja, Franco Vassallo, Patricia Petibon, Dimitry Ivashchenko, Nadia Krasteva, Tim Kuypers, Dean Power, Christian Rieger

Live Internet Streaming, 30 December 2012

Despite appearances, with a production that made use of some eccentric touches in each of the scenes, the Bayerische Staatsoper production of Verdi's Rigoletto didn't really seem to have anything new or even meaningful to add to a popular and brilliant work from the composer that will surely have more memorable outings in the year of his bicentenary.  Better sung ones too, undoubtedly, but that might have been a problem with the failure of director Árpád Schilling to give the fine singers here any meaningful characterisation and direction to work with.

There's little doubt about where the focus of interest in the opera is from Verdi's perspective.  It's not about the King's or, in this case, the Duke's amusements (the work derived from Victor Hugo's 'Le Roi s'amuse'), as much as the dilemma of the little man, Rigoletto, his court jester, who is caught up in the intrigues and less capable of dealing with the fall-out that results from the Duke of Mantua's wilder and more licentious activities.  What's intriguing about the work is how Rigoletto is not entirely a sympathetic figure (and the Duke is not entirely without some redeemable features either), and that he is in many ways the agent of his own downfall - even though he can't see that as being anything more than the curse of one courtier, Count Monterone, whose daughter has been seduced by the Duke.

That much is retained in Schilling's version for Munich, and it would be hard to present Rigoletto in any other way, such is the precision of Verdi's structuring of the work and his purposeful musical arrangements, the opera driven by a series of duets that establish the characterisation and the relationships between each of the figures.  Rigoletto is indeed shown - perhaps through no fault of his own having been born a hunchback and otherwise unable to attain love and acceptance through ordinary means - to be a lapdog to the Duke of Mantua, complicit in his schemes, believing himself secure in his favoured position.  He's not completely naive however.  He knows the true nature of the Duke and looks to protect his own little idealised existence - his daughter - from the kind of corruption that he himself is party to.  Rigoletto is "an amoral petty bourgeois man" according to Schilling, "who dreams of innocence", and who in the end is destroyed by his own attempts to defend this untenable position.

That's fine as far as it goes, and if it doesn't present any new ideas on the nature of Rigoletto, it at least adheres to Verdi's dramatic and musically astute depiction of this intriguing figure.  There's no necessity either for Rigoletto to be dressed as a court jester or bear his deformity in order to draw his character - Verdi has it so well written in his musical arrangements.  If the costume designer chooses to dress him in a shirt, chinos and a neckscarf, changing to a white bow-tie, top-hat and tails for the final scene, that's just as fine a way of distinguishing his social aspirations.  And if the Duke slums around in slacks, a chunky cardigan and vest shirt, and Gilda wears a jumper and jeans or a bathrobe, well, it doesn't look like much, but Rigoletto need not be as much about class and clothes as personality and love.  And since Gilda loves Gualtier Malde whether he is a poor student or a nobleman, there's no need here for lavish period costumes.

It still doesn't look like much.  What passes for distinctiveness in the production in the absence of any social or period context however is unfortunately rather odd.  In Act 1, the court of the Duke is represented by a stepped platform, a viewing gallery from which the courtiers watch the proceedings.  In the second scene, the assassin Sparafucile's weapon isn't a sword, but a wheelchair with oversize wheels - or more precisely, a flick-knife and a tin of black paint that he uses on his victims having lured them to sit in the strange wheeled apparatus.  A huge statue of a rearing horse is wheeled out briefly as the climax to Act 2 for no apparent reason or significance, and Act 3 brings back the steps for the inn scene.  It's all very representational - if the meaning isn't entirely clear - but it doesn't unfortunately create the necessary impression.

In such a context, neither unfortunately does the singing.  Joseph Calleja sings well enough, but his Duke lacks regal arrogance and boyish charm and there's a curious lack of feeling in his delivery.  There's a little more urgency to Franco Vassallo's Rigoletto and Patricia Petibon's rather more sympathetic Gilda, but the direction never allows them to express the roles with any sense of feeling for the drama.  One other curious touch in the casting that might have significance is the duality or contrast made by casting Dimitry Ivashchenko as both Monterone and Sparafucile and having Nadia Krasteva play Maddalena and Gilda's maidservant Giovanna - but again, what this adds exactly to the work remains elusive.  Still, despite the best efforts of the production design and direction to undermine it, the Bavarian State Opera production of Rigoletto benefitted from reasonably good singing performances, and ultimately won through by virtue alone of the wonder of Verdi's score and its performance by the Munich orchestra under Marco Armiliato.

Rigoletto was viewed via live Internet Streaming from the Bayerische Staatsoper.TV website.  The next free live broadcast will be Janáček's Jenufa starring Karita Mattila on 9th March 2012.

Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Le Nozze di Figaro

Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, 2012

Jérémie Rhorer, Richard Brunel, Paulo Szot, Malin Byström, Patricia Petibon, Kyle Ketelsen, Kate Lindsey, Anna Maria Panzarella, Mario Luperi, John Graham-Hall, Emanuele Giannino, Mari Eriksmoen, René Schirrer

ARTE Internet Streaming - 12 July 2012

In all my time watching opera I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bad production of The Marriage of Figaro. No matter how familiar the Mozart’s score is, no matter how well known all the little twists and quirks of Da Ponte’s libretto, the opera is always simply just a delight - dazzling, witty, virtuoso, it’s simply one of the greatest works of opera. That will always be the case no matter what kind of production it’s given, whether period or modern-day, traditional or experimental, and that in my experience always comes through even if the singing isn’t of the very highest standard. The production of Le Nozze di Figaro for the 2012 Aix-en-Provence festival, for example, combines a modern staging with a fresh light touch in the musical direction which finds an appropriate rhythm for the comic situations that entertains and delights even if the singing doesn’t always come up to the mark.

Richard Brunel’s production updates the action from the mansion of the libidinous Conte di Almaviva to the modern-day office of the Count’s legal practice. This changes the social and class satire context of the original work where he is attempting to seduce his wife’s maid Susanna before she is married to Figaro, making it more a case of sexual harassment in the workplace against a female employee. That at least is a situation more recognisable for a modern audience who might not have heard of ‘droit du seigneur‘ (which is actually called the ‘le droit de cuissage‘ in French), but in a work that had already stripped away most of the revolutionary class satire from Beaumarchais’ original controversial drama, it doesn’t greatly alter - or indeed add to - the situational comedy of the relationships between men and women that is the focus of the actual opera. It is interesting however to see those situations enacted in an office environment, Susanna and Figaro’s forthcoming marriage celebrated as an office romance by their colleagues amid the shredders and photocopiers, even if their employer offering them a back-office room behind the filing cabinets to set up their marital bed doesn’t quite fit into that concept quite so well.

Otherwise, Brunel’s production works quite well in this universally recognisable modern-day environment. In this office, a smart-suited Figaro is Almaviva’s junior law secretary and Cherubino is the junior office boy (looking uncannily, whether intentionally or not, like Gareth from the TV comedy series ‘The Office’). Office politics play a part in the everyday life of the employees and there is some friction between Susanna and one of the older ladies employed there, Marcellina, which descends into a cat fight where they end up throwing ladies underwear at each other - for some reason. The legal practice also works well with the judicial case taken out by Bartolo and Marcellina against Figaro, as well as providing an appropriate occupation where Almaviva has a responsibility to behave in a manner that is in accordance with his position. Chantal Thomas’ stage set moves fluidly then between each of the locations, between the office, the store room and the bedroom with its siderooms, giving you a good cross-section view of events even if the actual layout and configuration isn’t the neatest for the comedy that is enacted between them.

If the dramatic and musical qualities of Le Nozze di Figaro make it somewhat foolproof as a brilliant and dazzlingly witty entertainment, it’s not however immune to weak casting in the singing roles. The main roles here at the 2012 Aix production are mostly fine, some of them good, but it’s fortunate that Jérémie Rhorer conducts the Le Cercle de l’Harmonie with a lightness and delicacy, as most would be drowned out by the usual full orchestral arrangement. If the musical accompaniment is bright and perky, the acting and the passions aren’t fully conveyed with the necessary abandon in the relatively lightweight singing of the majority of the cast. Kyle Ketelsen’s Figaro is the best here, a strong and confident baritone who seems to fit into the modern-day office role for his character perfectly. Paulo Szot’s Almaviva also looks the part. He’s not quite the fearful an employer you would expect the Count to be, but just as the Count isn’t entirely sure of his position in the enlightened times of the original period of the work, so too the lawyer - or magistrate - Almaviva is unsure how far he can push his attentions here as an employer for fear of being brought up before a tribunal for harassment. Szot gets this across and sings well, and if he doesn’t have the necessary weight for the role, it’s the right size of voice for this particular production as a whole.

The same could be said of Kate Lindsey’s Cherubino. Her ‘Voi che sapete‘ is sung well enough, and if it isn’t the showiest display of singing nor as impassioned as it could be, you could put that down to the relatively youthful naivety of the character. Still, it lacks the kind of impact you would expect in the singing, although the role is delightfully played for its comic potential. If Patricia Petibon is also not exactly what you expect from a traditional Susanna, again rather lighter and more naturally toned without the usual operatic mannerisms, she does however in this way make the role her own. Personally, I found Anna Maria Panzarella disappointing as Marcellina. She’s a fabulous singer, powerful in her Baroque opera roles, but here the role of Marcellina didn’t seem a good fit for her talents. It’s not easy to make any such excuses for Malin Byström, who just didn’t have a voice with the range or colour necessary to convey the emotional journey of the Countess, singing without any real conviction or feeling for the role. Her ‘Porgi amor‘ and ‘Sull’aria‘ duet with Susanna are sadly thrown away, which is a real pity.

Yet, Le Nozze di Figaro still survives these weaknesses. The stage design is a little cold and, other than subverting the happy ending with the suggestion that a leopard can’t change its spots and that Almaviva has already turned to his old philandering ways, the concept doesn’t really add anything particularly new to the work.  The set is at least lovely to look at and it functions quite well.  Likewise, if the singing performances don’t deliver all the verve and energy you might like with this opera, it’s made up for by the precise tempo and delicate playing of the orchestra which brings out plenty of detail in the arrangements. The production reviewed here was viewed via Internet streaming and is currently still available for viewing on the ARTE WebLive site.

Rameau - Les Indes Galantes

Jean-Philippe Rameau - Les Indes Galantes

L’Opéra National de Paris, 2004

Les Arts Florissants, William Christie, Andrei Serban, Danielle de Niese, João Fernandes, Valérie Gabail, Nicolas Cavallier, Anna Maria Panzarella, Paul Agnew, Nathan Berg, Jaël Azzaretti, François Piolino, Richard Croft, Gaëlle Le Roi, Malin Hartelius, Nicholas Rivenq, Christoph Strehl, Christophe Fel, Patricia Petibon

Opus Arte

This splendid piece of Baroque musical theatre, one of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s earliest works from 1735, is quite different in form from what you would normally associate with familiar opera tradition. Instead of conforming to a typical classical or mythological storyline of early opera, with long arias and recitative, it operates instead within a structure of four separate but thematically linked "entrées" (with a prologue), colourful little tableaux vivants of love adventures in the exotic foreign lands of the "Amorous Indies" – Turkey, Peru, Persia and America.

The nature of those romantic adventures will certainly be the familiar opera tropes of classical figures and archetypes, with stories of love and forbidden passion enlivened by mistaken identities, cross-dressing and extraordinary coincidences. In addition however to the beautiful arias, duets and choral arrangements, once the little romantic complications are resolved, they are celebrated by grand choral arrangements and joyous ballet sections, all of it imaginatively and simply spectacularly staged like some big colourful cartoon.

The question of fidelity to the period doesn’t really come into it and is much less important than the spirit within which it is enacted. The staging certainly makes use of modern techniques, but is timeless and utterly faithful to the nature and intent of the pieces, which is simply to entertain and take pleasure in the beauty of the music, the singing and the playing of the characters. With William Christie and Les Arts Florissants at the helm for this remarkable production at the Paris Opéra in 2004, and an exceptional cast, Les Indes Galantes certainly does that. It’s an absolute marvel, a delightful entertainment on so many levels, inventive and visually dazzling, filled with wonderful rhythmic music that will take your breath away. Really, the rediscovery of this wonderful piece and the efforts put into its revival can’t be praised highly enough.

Released on a 2-DVD set by Opus Arte, the quality of the set is of an extremely high standard. Upscaled to 1080p, it often looks as good as a high-definition presentation – with only the colour saturation being slightly less defined. PCM stereo and DTS 5.1 tracks are strong. A 51 minute documentary on the production with contributions from William Christie is well worth viewing.