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
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.
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.
