Gaetano Donizetti - L'assedio di Calais
English Touring Opera, 2015
Jeremy Silver, James Conway, Craig Smith, Paula Sides, Catherine Carby, Matthew Stiff, Andrew Glover, Ronan Busfield, Matt RJ Ward, Jan Capinski, Peter Braithwaite, Nicholas Merrywether
Armel Opera Festival, ARTE Concert - 29 June 2015
One of the rarer works in the Donizetti catalogue but certainly not a lesser one, L'assedio di Calais (The Siege of Calais) was written to appeal to the Paris Opera and has certain Grand Opera characteristics that set it apart from most of the composer's other works. The opera didn't reach Paris, although Donizetti would have success there later with Les Martyrs and La Favorite, L'assedio di Calais opening instead at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1836. Despite its undoubted qualities, the work still had some problems that Donizetti himself was displeased with, but even though it was later revised down from three acts to two, L'assedio di Calais soon vanished and wasn't performed after 1840.
Reviving this rare work, the English Touring Opera then wisely opted for the two-act version of L'assedio di Calais which has some of the dropped third act elements worked in. James Conway's production was well received when it toured the UK in 2013 and it was revived in 2015 and selected as one of the productions for this year's 2015 Armel Opera Festival competition. The work was acclaimed for its music in the first two acts, and based on this performance, rightly so. Donizetti's music is characteristically melodic, but additionally concise and dramatic here, the usual jauntiness of the composer's rhythms taking on a more sober, sombre tone in accordance with its subject.
The action takes place in 1346, at the beginning of the Hundred Years War. At the beginning of the revised opera, the English soldiers led by King Edward III (Edoardo), are becoming frustrated with their siege of the city of Calais. The city however is close to breaking point. The mayor Eustachio is deeply concerned for the citizens of Calais as well as for the fate of his own son Aurelio who is believed lost in an incursion against the English. Aurelio's wife Eleonora, joins him in a lament (beautifully sung by Craig Smith and Paula Sides) that turns to joy when news comes that Aurelio is alive.
Their joy is short-lived. "Let us not get caught up in sentimentality", Aurelio tells his loved ones after a brief moment of reunion, and Donizetti doesn't indulge on that front either. Neither really has time for it, as the citizens of Calais, fearful and starving, confront the mayor, blaming him for a situation that they have been led to believe could have been peacefully resolved. Eustachio however points out that the ringleader of the protests is none other than an Englishman in disguise trying to undermine their resolve, and the town react violently against the imposter.
The opening of The Siege of Calais is incredibly intense, with fervent singing that has all the necessary drive and expression to match the dire situation of the besieged city. There is inevitably a lot of patriotic fervour, and according to the ETO one of the main themes of the work is where the duty of a citizen lies, but beneath it all is a strong humanitarian sentiment that shines through. Not only is it clearly there in the music, but as is often the case with Donizetti, the writing for the singers allows the depth of feeling to be fully expressed. Even the structure and development of the drama reflects this, the expressions of fear, anxiety and despair invariably turning into hope, strength and determination.
The humanitarian crisis is also the focus of James Conway's dark, gritty, oppressive production. The setting is not period, but non-specific modern dress of an embattled nation of people, all of them dressed in dull rags and overcoats, sporting wounds and looking beaten-down. Conway's notes that the look is referenced from imagery from the bombardment of Stalingrad in WWII, but it captures something that is recognisable to anyone who watches the news. The questions facing a suffering people, the choices they have to make are what L'assedio di Calais is all about, and the ETO's production design reaches right out to those ideas much more meaningfully than a distant middle-ages conflict.
The tone darkens even further in Act II, beginning with Aurelio dreaming of his son and family slaughtered, and it doesn't get any better from there. The English have agreed to withdraw their siege of the town, but there's a price to be paid; six hostages must be handed over for execution. In line with the sentiments, the musical scoring goes to the kind of dark places that remind one of what Verdi would do later, but it's impressive to hear it in Donizetti. There's a little bit of jingoism in the sentiments as the men step forward to save their city - "By a cruel twist of fate we are victims, but we are still French!", they may proclaim, but the fire that lights their anger comes from a deeper place.
Links: ARTE Concert, English Touring Opera
Giacomo Puccini - Il Tabarro & Gianni Schicchi
English Touring Opera
Michael
Rosewell, James Conway. Liam Steel, Simon Thorpe, Julie Unwin, Charne
Rochford, Richard Mosley-Evans, Paula Sides, Clarissa Meek, Ashley
Catling, Andrew Glover, Jacqueline Varsey
Grand Opera House, Belfast - May 26, 2011
Right up to the end of his
career, Puccini never allowed himself to be constrained by the
limitations of traditional opera subjects or indeed the limitations of
the verismo school - even though he often used literature for a source,
Puccini would also draw from popular theatre and tackle contemporary
subjects. Latter Puccini, for example, takes in the clash of tradition
and modernity in Madama Butterfly, while La Fanciulla del West,
set in the American Wild West, also sees the composer acknowledging the
influence of Wagner and a new approach to musical composition for
drama. His last completed work (Turandot was finished and produced posthumously), Il Trittico (1918), being composed of three short one-act operas – Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi
– is in many ways a summary and consolidation of his work and themes
across a range of subjects, as well as a further extension of what is
possible within the operatic medium.
While there are benefits in seeing all three parts of Il Trittico
performed one after another for the rich thematic and musical journey
that they cover as a complementary set, each of the one-act operas
stands alone, and each have very different themes and musical treatments
and they are more commonly performed either a duo or singly in
conjunction with another one-act opera by a different composer. All of
these are valid ways of performing the operas, and it’s often in such
double-bills that certain different qualities are highlighted. The
English Touring Opera’s Spring 2011 programme pairs two of the operas
from Il Trittico – Il Tabarro and Gianni Schicchi –
that present an interesting contrast in styles, but which together
demonstrate the range and ability of Puccini at the end of his career.
Il Tabarro (The Cloak) is based on a play by Didier Gold, 'La houpperlande',
that Puccini saw in Paris in 1913. Set in the docklands on the banks of
the Seine at the outskirts of Paris, there are certain similarities
with Puccini’s other wonderful Parisian opera La Bohème in the
opening scenes, where the crew of Michele and Giorgetta’s barge
celebrate the unloading of their cargo with a drink and some dancing,
disguising the fact temporarily that the times are hard and that tough
decisions need to be made about how to continue. Set against the poverty
of their situation, Frugola the wife of one of the crew Talpa who is to
be laid off, still has dreams of owning a cottage in the country, while
Giorgetta would love to just settle down in Paris. It’s a dream that is
shared by another of the crew Luigi, who has been having a secret
affair with Giorgetta. The loss of their young baby, the sense of a
family that Michele would wrap within his cloak, has created a distance
between the husband and wife, but also stirred dark passions.
Il Tabarro has all the
elements for a romantic melodrama that is to end in violence and
tragedy, but what is remarkable about the piece is that, even
compressing its story into under an hour, it never manipulates the
emotions quite in the same way as La Bohème, nor does it
overstate through sweeping strings and overwrought arias. The Wagner
influence is there in that the drama is allowed to flow without stopping
for interludes, conventional arias or extraneous detail, but it’s still
pure Puccini in terms of melody. While still adhering to the dramatic
plot, Puccini is still able to capture the colour and flavour of Paris
in the musical character, which does recall La Bohème, not least
in a cheeky reference to Mimi. Even that however – the coming of spring,
the hope of a new beginning – is pertinent to the drama. The touches
are smaller, more subtle – a lighted candle, a lover’s encounter above –
but masterfully arranged and orchestrated so that they have all the
impact of a full-scale opera without the overstatement.
The English Touring Opera’s set
design and direction by James Conway was similarly subtle but fully
effective, evoking mood, using two levels to show the world on the docks
and hints of the world above that reflects and contrasts the situation
of the barge owner and his crew. It kept the focus fixed on the
relationship between the characters within this intense and highly
concentrated drama with gripping performances from the main cast, Simon
Thorpe a dark imposing Michele, Julie Unwin a beautifully toned
Giorgetta and Charne Rocheford a passionate Luigi, although his voice
was occasionally overwhelmed by the orchestra.
Gianni Schicchi was inspired by a figure who appears in Dante’s Inferno,
whose sin was to “dress himself up as Buoso Donati” to “draw up and
sign his will”. Here, Puccini depicts him as a lawyer that the odious
Donati family, faking their tears at the deathbed of the recently
deceased old man Buoso Donati and angry that he has left all his wealth
and property to the monastery at Signa, have engaged to find a loophole
that will “correct” the mistake and give them what they believe is their
due. Since no-one else is yet aware that the old man has died, Schicchi
disguises himself as Buoso Donati and dictates a new will that does
indeed reallocate the wealth to the family, but also bequests himself
the choicest properties.
Even though there are few even
lighthearted moments to be found in any of Puccini’s work – I can’t
think of anything outside of a few moments in Act 1 and Act 2 of La Bohème – the composer takes to Gianni Schicchi
with a terrific sense of its comic potential and evident black humour.
Right from the start of the piece, Puccini puts the sobs of the Donati
family to music in a manner that indicates that they are fake and, well,
to be laughed at, and his compositions are just as inventive and
sprightly elsewhere. Again, Puccini takes full advantage of the format –
one would imagine that a comic piece of this type would soon tire very
quickly in full-length opera. Certainly, the bel canto composers show that farce can be done at greater length – Don Pasquale, The Barber of Seville and Le Comte D’Ory
come to mind as comedies that remain fizzingly entertaining throughout,
but Puccini does so within his own musical idiom, while continuing to
be ever inventive at propelling the action and the comedy forward.
The staging of the opera by the
ETO was simply dazzling in its hilarity, playing-up the full comic
potential of the short opera with additional slapstick elements that
were perfectly in keeping with the musical and comic timing of the
piece. All of characters were grotesque caricatures with pansticked
white faces and crooked eyebrows, every gesture was measured and
pronounced, but all of it serving to heighten the comedy. As a rather
large ensemble piece working within the relatively confined space of a
bedroom, everything was nonetheless choreographed to perfection under
Liam Steel’s direction. At any given time there would be something funny
going on in every corner – although the upper level, to where
Schicchi’s innocent daughter Lauretta was banished during all the
devious scheming, didn’t feel quite as appropriate here as when it was
used for Il Tabarro. It’s Lauretta who gets the most notable aria in Gianni Schicchi (“O mio babbino caro”), admirably delivered by Paula Sides, and although it’s also worth noting Richard Mosley-Evans’ fine performance as the lawyer Schicchi himself, every one of the cast acquitted themselves marvellously.
The performances of Il Tabarro and Gianni Schicchi
at the Grand Opera House in Belfast were the final shows of the English
Touring Opera Spring tour. The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden
however will be staging performances of all three operas in a new
production of Puccini’s Il Trittico from September 2011.
