Mozart - Idomeneo (Aix-en-Provence, 2022)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Idomeneo, Re di Creta

Festival Aix-en-Provence, 2022

Raphaël Pichon, Satoshi Miyagi, Michael Spyres, Sabine Devieilhe, Anna Bonitatibus, Nicole Chevalier, Linard Vrielink, Krešimir Špicer, Alexandros Stavrakakis

ARTE Concert - July 2022

There's no question that Mozart's operas are beautifully expressive of the whole range of human feelings and experience. Even at the age of 24 in his earliest masterpiece Idomeneo, Re di Creta he defies the often dry conventions and expectations of the opera seria format to create a work that imbues ancient Greek mythology with a rare humanity and authenticity. A stage director can choose to work to bring those human elements out, to interpret or reinterpret them, or they can quite reasonably rely on the music to speak for itself. That appears to be the intention of the director Satoshi Miyagi at this production for Aix-en-Provence 2022, but whether it supports Mozart's music or works against it is less certain.

There is certainly nothing wrong with updating the setting of Idomeneo or using it to express the original ideas and themes in a different context. I must admit I had my doubts about it being a neat fit for the director's proposed intention of using the Japanese wartime emperor Hirohito as a substitute for Idomeneus the King of Crete, or whether this would be in any other way meaningful or revelatory, but it has to be said that this notion never really asserts influence over the performance of the work here. What is far more significant to how the opera plays out in this production is decision to present it in a Noh drama fashion, with minimal but highly stylised sets and movements.

It certainly looks impressive, achieving the same kind of glacial quality that Robert Wilson employs in his opera and stage productions, and they are - usually but not always - none the worse off for it. Consequently, the principal performers here, dressed in stylised Japanese costumes, remain expressionless with minimal movement, often raised on their own platforms at a distance from one another. The chorus meanwhile, wearing more familiar military uniforms, merge with the sets, becoming part of them, part of the while fabric of the opera.

As far as that goes it's fine, the sets remain fluid and slowly moving and changing, ensuring that everything doesn't remain too static. If Idomeneo were a typical opera seria, it might not be enough to enliven the work and make the drama come to life, but despite the qualities of the music and the fact that it does indeed speak for itself, it seemed to me that it didn't do Mozart any favours. Not only does the intention to relate this to Hirohito and the Japanese people fail to make any impression - the opera has been staged as a modern post-war conflict much more successfully elsewhere in numerous updated productions - but it even seems to almost work against and neutralise the music, and that is not a good thing.

Fortunately it doesn't quite do that thanks to conductor Raphaël Pichon. If there are any doubts that remain about the quality of this early Mozart opera and how it stacks up against his mature works, this was certainly dispelled by the musical direction. Sure, the composition of Idomeneo can't compare to the great Mozart operas with Da Ponte, but much of what is great about those later works can already be heard developing here in a truly exciting way. It's a strong enough work on its own terms - more than strong and certainly if compared to what preceded it in opera seria, it's hugely progressive, devoid of the mannerisms and much more relatable, the characters really seeming to engage with one another and not just wrapped in their own worlds. Which, when you get right down to it, might just be what Mozart's operas are all about and what makes them great.

Unfortunately the production's stylised Noh influenced staging pushes the opera back onto those mannerisms, removing emotional connections, putting physical distance between the characters. I personally found Satoshi Miyagi's direction cold and distracting, at odds with Mozart's warm sympathetic and deeply expressive music. Worse, it simply offered no way in to relate to the plot and the drama to find a reason to care about each of the characters, much less offer an interpretation as to their motivations and behaviours as others have done, particularly into the complex nature and behaviours of Elettra and the king himself. There is no denying however that the set designs and the lighting were terrific and this was beautiful to look at, and it did suit the elegant formality of Mozart's music, if not bring out anything deeper from it.

Up until the conclusion, that is. A blood red backdrop is projected against the characters, showing them set against the horror and devastation that their decisions have caused. While mainly abstract in its human shapes and shadows cast against the horror of war, the suffering, the trauma, the eventual release and the recognition of the folly of its leaders acting like gods, it did hit home effectively, particularly with Mozart's music and with the soaring singing of the principals and chorus. It's here that Hirohito is most effectively evoked through the voice of the god Neptune, his broadcast voice coming from a record player that appears on its own raised platform. The slow and detached build-up might have been testing, but by the time the conclusion was reached, you were left in no doubt that this production did justice to Mozart, if perhaps not exactly find anything new in it.

Despite the impositions placed on the singers to remain mainly impassive and inexpressive, there was also much to enjoy in the singing. These are already challenging roles - Mozart composing this in 1781 for the best singers in Munich at the time - and the casting of the right kind of Mozartian voices is ideal for this production at Aix-en-Provence's Théâtre de l’Archevêché. If the director had little in the way of showing any nuance in the character of Idomeneo, who can be played sympathetically or as a misguided relic of the past who gets his just desserts, Michael Spyres's soft timbre brought warmth and humanity to the role. Soprano Sabine Devieilhe's singing brought more feeling and drama to the role of Ilia than the minimal direction allowed. Anna Bonitatibus as Idamante and Nicole Chevalier as Elettra were more constricted by their roles having little room for interpretation, but both sang superbly. With a cast like that and Mozart's music beautifully interpreted by Pinchon and the Pygmalion orchestra and chorus, the greatness of Idomeneo remains indisputable. 

Links: ARTE Concert, Festival Aix-en-Provence

Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (La Monnaie, 2018)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte


La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels - 2018

Antonello Manacorda, Romeo Castellucci, Ed Lyon, Sabine Devieilhe, Sophie Karthäuser, Georg Nigl, Elina Galitskaya, Gábor Bretz, Dietrich Henschel, Tineke van Ingelgem, Angélique Noldus, Esther Kuiper

ARTE Concert - 27 September 2018

As if you couldn't already guess from the fact that it's Romeo Castellucci at La Monnaie, the opening pre-musical sequence alerts you pretty quickly to the fact that this is not going to be a 'traditional' Magic Flute by any means. A man walks onto the empty stage and throws a steel bar at a glowing glass neon tube until it breaks plunging the stage into darkness. Yeah, you think, it's The Magic Flute, we get it; light/darkness, enlightenment/obscurantism, a lot of ritual and symbolism. If you think Castellucci is going to be that obvious, you quickly realise that you're going to have to think again.

But yes, certainly Castellucci tends to find the big underlying contrasts or forces in conflict within an opera and brings them to the fore to the point where they are what the opera is all about. The actual stage directions and dramatic narrative are soon left behind as Castellucci usually starts to push those ideas even further into god knows where. (See his recent Moses und Aron or Tannhäuser). You might take for granted that Die Zauberflöte is all about masonic rituals with fairy tale characters and situations, but you're not going to see any of that in a Castellucci production. Doesn't that mean you lose something of the essential character of Mozart? Unquestionably yes, but can we trust Castellucci to give back something of equal worth?

Maybe not of equal worth, but there is something here in the La Monnaie production, no matter how obscure it gets, that approaches Mozart's work in a new way and provides a commentary on it as well as interacting and highlighting less familiar aspects of the work. There are perhaps no major new revelations and it might not all fit together in any way that is entirely comprehensible, but Castellucci does relate Mozart's Magic Flute to our experiences of the world today and that is bound to be more meaningful than any play on ancient masonic rituals, magic and obscure symbolism (not that Castellucci doesn't have even more obscure symbolism of his own).

So no, there's no serpent slain by Tamino and there's no traditional depiction of the three ladies. There's actually four here in the first Act and four boys too which totally screws up the numerology which is often considered to be important in the work. But is it really? By changing the numbers, Romeo Castellucci is able to steer the work in a new direction, one where symmetry and mirroring takes its place. There is certainly this contrasting of two sides of one human nature (an important aspect that Castellucci takes pains later to ensure is not neglected) in the divisions of the Königin/Sarastro, Tamino/Pamina, Papageno/Papagena, in male/female, in lightness/darkness, in rationalism/obscurantism, in good/evil.

It's also there in the division and structure of the opera itself and Castellucci contrasts the two Acts in a way that highlights aspects of the opera quite unlike anyone else has done before. Act I is all elegance, beauty, balance and symmetry in a uniform haze of brilliant white; by no means the obvious way to reflect this half of the opera, but if you like you can see it as a visual representation of Mozart's music itself. That's emphasised by the costumes which are period 18th century frock coats and powdered wigs. Papageno is indistinguishable from Tamino in identical elaborate costumes and there isn't a single scene, action or gesture that reflects the familiar course of the opera's dramatic action. You can be damned sure that there's going to be no actual magic flute or glockenspiel.

Instead figures move around in an elaborately choreographed display of symmetrical precision, with rotating patterns of white masked dancers, some topless with feather headdresses and fans like something out of the Crazy Horse in Paris. Architect Michael Hansmeyer's set designs however continue to accumulate detail, building up into an elaborate wedding cake or the stucco interior of some impossibly grand white cathedral. It is an extraordinary display, utterly beautiful, daring to ignore adherence to any traditional depiction of the drama in favour of just highlighting the elegance and beauty and symmetry in Mozart's music. It's something that is enhanced - or works both ways - with the nimble musical performance from the orchestra pit under Antonello Manacorda emphasising the melodic brilliance and effervescence with a wonderful lightness of touch.

As extraordinarily beautiful as it all looks, it's also a very cold and sterile way to approach Mozart and The Magic Flute, but of course that's only half the story. In direct contrast to elaborate representation of the music in Act I, Castellucci brings the work down to earth in Act II with a depiction of the human reality that can also be found in Die Zauberflöte which might otherwise be lost amidst all the comedy, symbolism and ritualism. Similar to his last production at La Monnaie, Orphée et Eurydice, Castellucci brings the experiences of real ordinary people in to highlight the underlying human reality of the questions of the trials endured by Tamino and Papageno. A group of six women talk about their personal experience of blindness and living in darkness, and a group of six men talk about surviving horrific burns in a 'trial of fire'.

In contrast to Act I the second half is depicted in mundane real-world terms in a warehouse environment, the glamorous fairy-tale white period costumes swapped for identical yellow-brown factory worker overalls and yellow-blond wigs. The performances are more dramatically realistic, you can at least sometimes tell characters apart from the labels on their back and there's even an actual flute! Inevitably there's a lot more than this in the production and as is often the case with Castellucci it goes off in all kinds of weird directions. Mirroring/contrasting the opening of the first Act, for example, the second part opens with lactating mothers pumping breast milk - for real - into it bottles that are subsequently emptied into another glass tube by the Queen of the Night, the action accompanied by some obscure text that presents a different perspective on the less than flattering idea of motherhood traditionally represented by Königin der Nacht in the opera.

In this way, Castellucci actually deconstructs Die Zauberflöte entirely, separating the work down into its component parts, none of which on their own are convincing or satisfactory but which when played through to the end do nonetheless still manage to capture the totality of what is in the opera. It's highly doubtful that the work needs to be deconstructed in this manner or even benefits from it in any way when it's all there already in the genius of Mozart's blending of all its elements, but it does highlight aspects that we (or other directors) might neglect though familiarity. The 'real-people's lives' human element while looking initially like a frustrating diversion, turns out to be very moving, so there is a case to be made for it.

Evidently as far as stage direction, concept and interpretation go this is not a Magic Flute for everyone and, despite its fidelity to the themes in the work and its underlying humanity, it can't be said that it respects Mozart's intentions. In terms of musical and singing performances however it's hard to fault. The orchestra highlight that compositional and melodic brilliance in the first half and seem to find the human warm in the opera in the second half. The casting is an outstanding collection of lyrical Mozartian voices with Ed Lyon as Tamino, Sabine Devieilhe a lighter than usual but eminently capable Königin der Nacht, Gábor Bretz a fine Sarastro, Sophie Karthäuser an impressive Pamina, Georg Nigl and Elena Galitskaya fulfilling the roles of Papageno and Papagena well, each of them at least brilliantly distinguishable from their voices if not always in appearance or role-playing.

Links: La Monnaie-DeMunt, ARTE Concert

Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos (Aix, 2018)

Richard Strauss - Ariadne auf Naxos

Festival d'Aix en Provence, 2018

Marc Albrecht, Katie Mitchell, Lise Davidsen, Eric Cutler, Sabine Devieilhe, Angela Brower, Huw Montague Rendall, Jonathan Abernethy, Emilio Pons, David Shipley, Beate Mordal, Andrea Hill, Elena Galitskaya, Josef Wagner, Rupert Charlesworth, Petter Moen, Jean-Gabriel Saint Martin, Maik Solbach, Sava Vemić, Paul Herwig, Julia Wieninger

ARTE Concert - 11 July 2018

For a work that I used to consider a bit of a one-note meta-theatrical joke confected as a compromise to a failed theatrical/operatic crossover, Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos has continued to enjoy popularity and stimulate a variety of interpretations. It shouldn't be that surprising, because at its heart the work is precisely about how art as entertainment (and particularly opera) has a unique way of connecting with people to express and communicate a rich variety of life experiences.

And if that's not enough there's always the music of Richard Strauss, gorgeous and alluring in its own right, as well as forming a bridge between the words and the deeper intentions of the work; like Capriccio, making a clever self-referential commentary at the same time on its working methods and intentions. Director Katie Mitchell is also used to working with divisions between form and content and trying to find ways to bridge them in her stage productions. One other divide you will also find Mitchell tackling is the male/female divide in classic works, seeing to offer a 'corrective' to their traditional male-dominated bias. How will Ariadne auf Naxos stand up to such scrutiny?

A one-note joke or not, there is a certain boldness in how Ariadne auf Naxos turns its gaze on the process of opera and performance, in how it marries popular entertainment with high art, and it's obviously necessary for that marriage to be seen to be successful and mutually beneficial, but certain structural and ideological weaknesses remain that need to be addressed. Regardless of whether you agree with or find musical value in Strauss and Hofmannsthal's somewhat nostalgic neoclassical idealisation of opera's past, and some of the reactionary attitudes towards men and women that persist within it, there is at least the structural disjoint in Ariadne auf Naxos's division between Prologue and Opera.

Forced to adopt this as a fix after the failure to pair the operatic element with Molière's 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme' in the original 1912 version, the two parts don't sit perfectly well with one another either in the reworked 1916 version. Once the Prologue is out of the way, the dispute between the artists and the entertainers over how to simultaneously present their different perspectives because of the whim of the Richest Man in Vienna resolved by compromising artistic integrity for commerce, the meta-theatrical framing is largely forgotten about. Even though the contrasting dialectic remains at the heart of the work, it does tend to forget its original audience (the guests of the Richest Man in Vienna) and seems to start taking itself rather seriously presenting itself to the 'real' audience as a neoclassical drama/music theatre revue with a grand Wagnerian ending.

You could look at that as intentional, as the work itself taking on its own artistic life, removing itself from the framework of the craft, from the personalities and problems of its creation to become something that relates directly to an audience without any necessity of explanation or commentary, and if so, it's another level of cleverness. It does tend to make the intention of any director seeking to insert another level of remove or abstraction on the work rather more difficult, but it has been done, most successfully I believe in Katharina Thoma's 2013 Glyndebourne production. Katie Mitchell's response to the work, in collaboration with Martin Crimp, doesn't seem to have quite as much to offer.

The immediate intention of their Aix production seems to be to make that divide between creativity and creation visible again, but also to show how they are brought together through an audience. It's a worthwhile endeavour, certainly central to the premise of opera, and in the process Mitchell and Crimp also find a way to draw the Prologue back once again with the Opera. Rather than remaining invisible in this version of the opera, since they don't have any part to play in Ariadne auf Naxos (or 'Ariadne auf Naxos'), the Richest man in Vienna, his wife and guests remain seated throughout in this production to the left of the stage while the players perform for them on the right. Occasionally, they make comments on the performance (a role they performed in the first version), and in one or two places are drawn in to participate or get closer to the drama. When the opera finishes, it's indoor fireworks that are set off and the performers put on their party hats and take a bow to their on-stage audience. It brings the work full circle in a way that Strauss and Hofmannsthal neglected to do and for which they could be justifiably be criticised.

That's fine as far as it goes, but obviously Katie Mitchell will have other issues with Ariadne auf Naxos as it stands, not least of which is the pomposity that is allowed to remain in the performance of the opera seria part of 'Ariadne auf Naxos'. Whether you agree that Strauss got carried away and forgot about it supposedly being a pastiche, it's clear nonetheless that the musical composition is much more considered than clever, Strauss fully aware of the variety of musical forms and techniques employed and how they interrelate with the drama. What is harder to swallow is how men and women are depicted, where the women are waiting for a man, "a new god", who even though he may be unfaithful is better than nothing and necessary to deliver them from their loneliness and misery. It depends how you play it obviously, and with how much tongue in the cheek.

Katie Mitchell is obviously not going to have any of that, or leave any room for ambiguity. In her version, Ariadne is pregnant, and it's the delivery of the baby - which takes place on-stage - that is the birth of a new god, Bacchus. Where this leaves the real Bacchus in the opera I'm not entirely sure, he could be Theseus returned or Hermes, the messenger from the Gods who delivers her this 'gift'. It's very much one of those feminist twists that Mitchell can employ that seem unnecessary and don't always work terribly well (Miranda, Lucia di Lammermoor), but here I liked how it deflated the grand Wagnerian sweep accompanying the woman finding her man. The playing out of the drama within a dining room instead of a desert island also helps in that regard, reminding you that it all remains a theatrical construct.

Some of it works and some of it doesn't, but what works and what doesn't will obviously depend on the individual viewer. The role reversal dressing of the richest man in Vienna in a dress and his wife in a suit felt gratuitous and unnecessary to me, and I felt that Zerbinetta's role and the risk of her appearing to be a bimbo may have been underplayed, allowing the Ariadne storyline to dominate, but the "discussion" between Zerbinetta and the Composer in the Prologue is touching, all credit to Sabine Devieilhe and Angela Brower. What really makes it come alive here however is the fine musical performance of the Orchestre de Paris under Marc Albrecht, playing down the propensity for the work to seem overblown or just too damn clever, finding instead the incredible variety of expression within it.

That incredible variety also extends to the singing roles in Ariadne auf Naxos, and the cast assembled here are outstanding. Lise Davidsen is not the most natural actress, but less can be more for Strauss, particularly when you can express everything so well through the voice. Davidsen is just superb, carrying gravity and a commanding vocal presence that is just extraordinarily rich and expressive in her hold and control and swelling of a line. Sabine Devieilhe doesn't have quite the same volume but is an appropriately flighty and bird-like Zerbinetta, and always impressive. If her presence isn't given the same stature in Mitchell's production, she remains dignified and 'luminous' in her eye-catching dress. Eric Cutler's Bacchus may also be given shorter shrift here, but his singing is clear and lyrical. Angela Brower also makes a very favourable impression as the Composer.

Links: Festival d'Aix en Provence, ARTE Concert

Handel - Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (Aix-en Provence, 2016)

George Frideric Handel - Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno

Festival d' Aix-en-Provence, 2016

Emmanuelle Haïm, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Sabine Devieilhe, Franco Fagioli, Sara Mingardo, Michael Spyres

ARTE Concert - 6th July 2016

Written by the young 22 year old composer in 1707, Handel's first oratorio, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno ('The Triumph of Time and Disillusionment') is quite evidently an allegorical work. As such there can surely be no objection for a director like Krzysztof Warlikowski applying his usual (unusual) distinctive treatment in this production at Aix-en-Provence. Warlikowski's production succeeds on both those levels, and under the musical direction of Emmanuelle Haim, it's something of a musical delight as well.

The main purpose of a staging of such a work is surely to find the universal characteristics within the oratorio's contemplation of the struggle between the Beauty, Pleasure, Time and Disenchantment and present it in such a way that makes it meaningful to a modern audience. If you can dramatise a work that was never intended to be performed theatrically in a full staging, so much the better. Warlikowski makes his pitch perfectly clear, as he often does, through an opening short film.

Beauty has been indulging in rather too much Pleasure, popping pills in a nightclub, ending up looking rather the worse for wear on a trolley being wheeled through the corridors of a hospital's emergency unit. When she comes around, Beauty finds herself in a room that is a cross between a cinema and an operating theatre, a place of the mind evidently where - sprawled out, still looking somewhat wasted, mascara running and throwing up occasionally - she can contemplate the ravages of Time and the Disillusionment for the truth of what follows on from her devotion to Pleasure.

And really you need someone like Warlikowski directing a somewhat 'academic' work like this. There's nothing academic about Handel's music of course - Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno has many pieces that would later feature in some of the composer's greatest works, and the oratorio itself would be revised a number of times - but its sober reflections on mortality in the dry oratorio format don't necessarily lend themselves to great stage drama. There's is however never a dull moment here. Warlikowski brings it to life, and it is full of life, finding the human sentiments that lie behind the allegory and relating it to the tragedy of it all.

Helping fill up the stage Warlikowski inevitably employs a larger cast than the four singers and the chorus who contribute to the oratorio, but the extras are not just there to make up the numbers. Most prominently there is a young man, dancing to the rhythms on his headphones - which nonetheless fits the youthful rhythm of Handel's music perfectly - who perhaps represents Youth. His function is to illustrate how beauty, caught up in its own pleasure, is oblivious to time. Youth passes however - quite literally here, the young man ending up on an operating trolley, mourned with heart rending sadness by Beauty. But there are also many other young women who look on at the spectacle of Beauty's fall, all of it reminding you that there is nothing 'academic' about the subject.

This is by no means Warlikowski's only idea or contribution. The director includes a short film before the interval to bring the ghost of Jacques Derrida into the equation, and the division of the stage itself perhaps even resembles the two hemispheres of the brain separated by a corridor or cortex. One side is lit up while the other is in darkness but occasionally both sides spark with life, the left largely being the domain of Beauty and Pleasure, the right Time and Disillusionment. At significant points all four figures come together gathering around the table like a family; always in dispute, but dependent on each other to maintain a happy equilibrium.

There's much to admire in the staging and in how it manages to engage the spectator, but the beauty of Handel's music and the singing of the cast assembled here would be impressive enough on its own. Emmanuelle Haïm and her period instrument Concert d'Astrée ensemble give the work a wonderful edge, energy and rhythmic precision. Sabine Devieilhe is unquestionably the star that carries the show here, always impressive in technique, range and timbre, but investing the role of Beauty here with some degree of sensitivity. Her sparring and harmonising with Franco Fagioli's countertenor Pleasure is magnificent, the two making an attractive team. Michael Spyres is a wonderfully lyrical singer but his tenor voice is perhaps too 'sweet' for Time. Together with Sara Mingardo's Disillusionment however, this was a strong cast capable of finding the human depth and meaning in Benedetto Pamphili's libretto and Warlikowski's concept that is already there in Handel's music.

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

Gluck - Orphée et Eurydice (La Monnaie-De Munt, 2014 - Webcast)

Christoph Willibald Gluck - Orphée et Eurydice

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2014

Hervé Niquet, Romeo Castellucci, Stéphanie d'Oustrac, Sabine Devieilhe, Fanny Dupont

La Monnaie, Internet Streaming - June 2014

Orphée et Eurydice has the distinction not only of being one of the purest and most pared-back expressions of Gluck's reformist agenda, reducing extravagant ornamentation and bringing opera back to its strength as a dramatic artform, but it's exquisitely beautiful in its simplicity.  The intent of the work is carried principally through the expression of one singer and the music itself. And, even though it has an ancient mythological subject, Orphée et Eurydice is not some lofty expression of sentiments detached from everyday life, but it has something real and meaningful to communicate to its audience. To its credit, I've never seen a performance of the work - in any of its many forms - that was anything but deeply heartfelt and humanistic in its outlook, but Romeo Castellucci's extraordinary 2014 production for La Monnaie touches deeply on the themes in the work in a way that takes it to an entirely new level.

Dealing with gods, demigods and supernatural events, it's easy to forget that there is a real human element to grand mythological subjects. They are only myths because they speak for all of our suffering, our struggles to exist, live, find love and happiness. Using the story of Orpheus, who in his overwhelming grief for the death of his wife Eurydice travels to the Underworld to retrieve her, Gluck recognises that the Orpheus myth is all about love, loss and bereavement. Despite the beauty of the sentiment and the sincerity of his intentions, it of course proves impossible for Orpheus to bring his loved one back to life (notwithstanding the reworked happy ending in the opera version). Those sentiments can work perfectly well in the concise and expressive beauty of Gluck's score alone, but the dramatic expression on the stage is also a vital part of opera, and Castellucci finds an innovative way to reconnect the myth with the reality.

Like mythology, opera too must not be lofty and detached, but should be relatable on a human level. Having carried out extensive research into 'locked-in syndrome' Castellucci literally takes the opera beyond the stage of La Monnaie and out into the world, the production being broadcast live directly to a medical ward 14km outside Brussels where a young Belgian woman called Els lies in bed, completely paralysed. She's effectively dead to the world, beyond the reach of her husband and loved-ones, unable to move or communicate other than through the blinking of her eyes that allow her to painstakingly form words and sentences one letter at a time. At the same time as the music of Orpheus reaches out to her in her condition, Gluck's music reaches out to express Els/Eurydice's condition to the audience and give us some indication of how her family must feel about their loss.

How this is achieved in the production is, like Gluck's music, outwardly simple, but in reality very precise and sophisticated technical measures are used to present art as an expression of deeper truths. For almost the entirety of the performance, Stéphanie d'Oustrac sings the role of Orpheus on a dark bare stage with only a pseudo-microphone in front of her. To the right of the stage is what looks like a life-support system, although it has lights showing music volume-control levels, so it could represent a transmitter of sorts. While Orpheus sings of his loss, the captions on the screen behind the singer show English captions that have nothing to do with the libretto, but rather tell the story of Els, a 28 year-old woman who has been in a pseudocoma for the last 18 months, suffering complete paralysis but retaining full cognitive abilities after brainstem damage caused by a thrombosis. The audience are advised that the opera is being broadcast live to her at this moment.

There's evidently no direct correlation between the story of Els and the Orpheus myth, but the broad sense of losing a person, of them being present but beyond reach and unable to interact with the world outside is identical to how Orpheus, despite every effort to reach Eurydice, is unable to bring her back to life. The descent to the Underworld is in some respect mirrored in the blurred black-and-white footage on the screen that shows a journey towards the medical centre where this real-life Eurydice lies, arriving there as Orpheus finds Eurydice among the spirits of Elysium ("Cet asile aimable et tranquille"). As the on-stage Eurydice (Sabine Devieilhe) appears behind the mesh screen, we meet Els, lying in her bed, blinking but unmoving, a pair of headphones relaying the song of Orpheus direct from the opera house of La Monnaie.

Castellucci's direction is simple but daring and completely in touch with what the work is all about - human grief, battling against outrageous fortune - and relating it back to ordinary people who suffer terribly from everyday trials. Although there's nothing abstract about Gluck's music, it takes the drama away from mere theatricality to show how it fully explores and expresses these vital aspects of the human condition. Castellucci even takes into consideration the happy ending that Gluck was obliged to provide for the stage, showing an Eurydice revived and alive, but - reflecting Els' condition - remaining behind a veil, unable to fully return to the world. This works for the audience and for the intent of Gluck's music drama, making the story vividly real and deeply moving, but Castellucci's production goes beyond even this, telling us something about the power of music and opera to touch on aspects of our lives that other arts cannot reach.

One person who recognised the power of the work and who was instrumental in keeping this Baroque work alive through the 19th century and beyond, was Hector Berlioz. The French version is understandably more popular in French-speaking countries than Gluck's original Italian version, and if Berlioz's 1859 version is not the most "authentic" edition (Gluck wrote a "definitive" French version himself as well as the original Italian and even a German-language version), it at least brings together the best elements of Gluck's variations while retaining the purity of its expression. I have a particular fondness for the Berlioz version myself and this is a superb performance of the work conducted at La Monnaie by Hervé Niquet. It's played slightly faster than usual, the overture in particular a little rushed when it should be a more brooding, but the tone and expression of the work is all there.

It's also there in the singing, which is just as vital in a work with only three individual roles. The singing here is just outstanding, Stéphanie d'Oustrac one of the best mezzo-soprano singers I've heard singing Orpheus, and you could hardly expect to find a brighter or more colourful voice for Eurydice than Sabine Devieilhe, who continues to impress. Also worth mentioning are Fanny Dupont's sensitive and delicate Amour and the powerful work of the Chorus that also serves to establish that otherworldly character of Orphée et Eurydice. It's no coincidence that the Orpheus myth was frequently chosen as the subject for the very first works of opera almost 400 years ago, exploring as it does the power of music to take us to those kind of unreachable places. That myth found its purest expression in Gluck's opera, and Romeo Castellucci's remarkable production of it is one of the finest expressions of opera as both art and life.

Links: La Monnaie - De Munt, RTBF Musiq3

Mozart - Die Zauberflöte (Opéra Bastille - Paris 2014)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Die Zauberflöte

Opéra National de Paris, 2014

Philippe Jordan, Robert Carsen, Pavol Breslik, Julia Kleiter, Daniel Schmutzhard, Franz-Josef Selig, Sabine Devieilhe, Eleonore Marguerre, Louise Callinan, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Regula Mühlemann, François Piolino, Terje Stensvold, Eric Huchet, Wenwei Zhang

Opéra Bastille, Paris - 6 April 2014

The last production of Die Zauberflöte at the Paris Opéra was in 2005 and the themes of the opera were given a radical reworking by La Fura dels Baus. It wasn't a great success to my mind, taking far too many liberties with the meaning of the work in their concept, setting it as a war between opposing hemispheres of the brain. Consequently we had a giant inflatable brain divided in two on the stage, with singers bouncing around on it when they weren't suspended from cables. More controversially, the Catalan theatre company also removed all the recitative and spoken dialogue, replacing it with poems read by a male and a female actor seated on podiums at opposing sides of the auditorium. It got a mixed response and I don't recall it being revived at all after Gérard Mortier left the Paris Opéra.

Robert Carsen's new production - presented first at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival last year - is in many ways just as radical in how it portrays those opposing forces of light and dark, of male and female.  It might not entirely make any more sense of a work that already has its own inconsistencies and mysteries, but where Carsen's interpretation differs from that of La Fura dels Baus is that it at least settles on an aspect of the work that is entirely in line with the composer's worldview. Carsen's Die Zauberflöte is about the supremacy of love, of the inevitable triumph of light over dark, of the victory of enlightenment over obscurantism.

Focussing on this aspect, Carsen's production consequently avoids the ceremonial structure that more traditionally form the basis of presentations of the work - the masonic rituals, the mythic qualities of the battle between darkness and light. He also almost entirely glosses over the questions of misogyny in the work, contrasting what is actually said with a more enlightened view where male and female and the opposing forces of darkness and light actually work in harmony, in common accord, as two halves of a whole (with less of the bludgeoning imagery of La Fura dels Baus). Sarastro and the Queen of the Night actually walk hand-in-hand in this production, which is not something you would see anywhere else, or indeed think that it could really work.

Does such an approach indeed not go against the intentions of the work? Well, Die Zauberflöte is drawn from a number of sources, myths and legends, all of which undergo further upheaval at the hands of the librettist Emmanuel Schikenader in such a way that makes little rational sense or demonstrates any consistency. Mozart's hand and influence in the music is however on surer ground, more of a whole in its adherence to the composer's sense of order and benevolent, enlightened worldview. (The beauty of the music has a similar relationship with Da Ponte's libretto in Così Fan Tutte). The music of Die Zauberflöte is sweet and beautiful and Carsen's production responds very much to that.

That's not to say that Carsen ignores the darkness in the work. Far from it. The sense of death is greatly emphasised here in the imagery of open pits that suggest graves (even the orchestra pit is surrounded by a grass verge as if the orchestra too are in a mass grave), coffins are scattered around, and even Papagena first makes an appearance not as an old lady, but as a dead one, wearing the form of a skeleton and emerging out of a coffin. Carsen's way of integrating such imagery into the work, in the context of Mozart's music, is to see it as part of the cycle of life. This is borne out in the projections of woods that form the backdrop for the majority of the work, Johnny Maritneau's photographs depicting the same woodland scene in different seasons of the year.

The stage design is described in more detail in my review of the web streamed broadcast of the Baden-Baden production, but the full impact of the brilliance of the design, the levels that are revealed in the depths of the stage, are only really apparent when viewed live and as a whole. Carsen's production is far from how Die Zauberflöte usually looks, and it may lack the usual special effects and magic by settling for a more prosaic naturalistic approach, but it's no less impressive in its simplicity and beauty than, at the opposite extreme, the extravagant floating stage production at Bregenz in 2013. In fact, the full beauty and sweetness of Mozart's music (and nature) is only all the more apparent and Philippe Jordan delicately draws that beauty out of the Paris orchestra. This is music that could charm the birds out of the trees and in this production, it did.  

The singing was just as sweet. The only cast member here that was also in the Baden-Baden production was Pavol Breslik as Tamino. Hearing him sing live in the theatre, his lovely light tenor actually didn't appear to be strong enough for the role, not always rising above what is a relatively small orchestra. On the other hand, he stood in to sing the Shepherd and Young Seaman roles in Tristan und Isolde two nights later with tremendous force and precision, and I would never have considered him a Wagnerian singer. His voice is beautiful though and it has the perfect sweetness of timbre for this production. Daniel Schmutzhard was a solid Papageno, who never once struck a false note in either voice or performance. Franz-Josef Selig was a deeply impressive Sarastro, every word clear and resonant, with even those extremely low passages controlled and commanding.

It was the female roles who impressed the most however. Sabine Devieilhe's debut at the Opéra de Paris (having wowed Paris audiences with her Lakmé at the Opéra Comique) lived up to high expectations with a phenomenal Königen der Nacht. When Tamino ponders "Was that real or have I taken leave of my senses?" after her Act I aria, you really can sense how he might indeed be overawed. It was Julia Kleiter however who stole the show as Pamina, and it was most pleasing to see the audience respond so enthusiastically to her at the curtain call. Her voice was lush and fully rounded, perfectly controlled yet filled with emotion and feeling for Pamina's situation. This was a world class performance that perfectly complemented the sentiments drawn out by Jordan and Carsen's direction.

The Paris Opéra's new Die Zauberflöte doesn't perhaps explore the full richness of Mozart's masterpiece. It doesn't really play to the comic element, it doesn't have much time for its esoteric side, nor for the serious aspects of the work's majestic ritualistic side. This was a warm, uplifting Magic Flute that swept you along and it clearly held the audience enraptured with the beauty of its sentiments.

Mozart - La Finta Giardiniera

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - La Finta Giardiniera

Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, 2012

Andreas Spering, Vincent Boussard, Colin Balzer, Layla Claire, Julian Pregardien, Ana Maria Labin, Julie Robard-Gendre, Sabine Devieilhe, John Chest

ARTE Live Web

Internet streaming, Aix-en-Provence - 10 July 2012

Written in 1774 for performance in Munich when Mozart was just 18 years of age, La Finta Giardiniera (’The Fake Gardener‘) is never likely to be regarded as anything more than the work of an inexperienced composer who wouldn’t really find his own distinctive voice until the composition of Idomeneo (1781). Mozart had however already written seven operas by this time, and if La Finta Giardiniera doesn’t sparkle with the brilliance of those later mature masterpieces, there are nonetheless interesting parallels and prototypical characters here that would be depicted with greater detail and finesse in The Marriage of Figaro. In its own right however, La Finta Giardiniera is still an enjoyable little opera buffa of modest ambition that seems well suited to the surroundings of a summer evening in the gardens of the Théâtre du Grand Saint-Jean in Aix (even if you are viewing it via internet streaming).

As performed by the orchestra of Le Cercle de l’Harmonie, conducted by Andreas Spering, the music of La Finta Giardiniera is as sprightly, pleasant and beautifully arranged as a Haydn opera, with delicate arias and recitative to play out the comic situation, and even if the work is mostly fairly conventional, it does have some delightful Mozartian touches. Dramatically, the situation doesn’t add up to much more than the typical opera seria plot given a bit of a buffa treatment, but even then, consisting of the old standard of mismatched couples finally finding their proper arrangement, it never really takes off dramatically or extends much beyond that. The most dramatic incident has already taken place before the opera even begins, with the Marquise Violante having survived an attack on her person by her fiancé the Count Belfiore in a fit of jealous rage. He believes that he has killed the woman that he loves, but in reality, Violante, along with her servant Roberto, calling themselves Sandrina and Nardo, are working in disguise as gardeners on the estate of the Podestà.

The opera itself operates within the romantic complications that arise out of this situation where there are characters in disguise and believed dead. The Podestà is in love with Sandrina, which infuriates his maid Serpetta. The rejected Serpetta is therefore in no mood for the attentions of Nardo who is persistently pursuing her. The Podestà moreover hopes to make a marriage of his niece Arminda to a rich noble, who turns out to be none other than the Count Belfiore. Don Ramiro, who is in love with Arminda, is evidently displeased by this. When the Count arrives for the wedding, Sandrine faints and the Count recognises her. Could it really be Violante? His love reawakened and his sense of guilt, Belfiore declares that he cannot marry Arminda. Everyone evidently is deeply unhappy and they spend their time moping and decrying their woes in arias. “Oh, how terrible things are, I don’t know what to do”, kind of sums up the content of these arias that describe their feelings of indignation, betrayal, unjust treatment and their confusion.

Oh yes, there’s lots of confusion, but evidently the idea is to somehow sort out all these mismatched couples and bring everything to a happy conclusion. In contrast however to the rather more accomplished and richly characterised Marriage of Figaro, for example, there is something rather pleasantly slapdash about the approach to resolution in La Finta Giardiniera, which is brought about by not much more than endless pleading after which the Podestà finally declares “Oh just marry whoever you want” to them all. The fact that there is an odd number of characters - seven - also means that at least one going to be left out of the rearrangements. Dramatically then, it’s far from satisfactory, since there is very little that happens to sustain interest in this situation for nearly three hours.

Musically however, the work is far from slapdash, though it is conventional and shows little in the way of inspiration or imagination. There are however one or two lovely little touches. In Act I, the Podestà describes his feelings for Sandrina as a symphony in the aria “Dentro il mio petto“, evoking instruments and sounds that the orchestra play to accompany his florid declarations. Breaking away from the strict solo aria, duet, recitative and ensemble arrangements, Mozart also manages to have the characters interact in these ensembles rather than all sing together or at cross purposes. It’s far from the complex Figaro arrangements however, as is the rather less well-developed dark garden setting for the confusion of identities and declarations of true feelings that ensue at the end of La Finta Giardiniera’s second Act, where Belfiore and Violante bewilderingly believe themselves to be Greek gods.

There are then modest pleasures to be found in La Finta Giardiniera, and they are brought out well in this production at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Filmed on an outdoor stage, the sun setting during Act 1, the exterior location suits the garden setting beautifully. Accordingly, there is little need for stage props, the reflective floors, white chairs and the long-stemmed white roses that double as lamps providing the additional illumination and effects required for the limited drama. The sound recording is wonderful for an outdoor shoot, with no sign of intrusive microphones attached to the performers, the tone lovely and warm, with natural reverb coming from I don’t know where. The singers appear to be all new young artists, all very well cast for their respective roles with sweet voices well-suited to this early Mozart. There’s nothing too strenuous expected in the acting or the singing, and all sound and play this light buffo drama marvellously. If it’s slightly dull in places, lacking in any real verve or personality, that’s unfortunately down to the nature of the work itself.

La Finta Giardiniera is currently available to view via internet streaming on the ARTE Live Web site. Some region restrictions may apply.