Foccroulle - Cassandra (Brussels, 2023)

Bernard Foccroulle - Cassandra

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2023

Kazushi Ono, Marie-Ève Signeyrole, Katarina Bradić, Jessica Niles, Susan Bickley, Sarah Defrise, Paul Appleby, Joshua Hopkins, Gidon Saks, Sandrine Mairesse, Lisa Willems

OperaVision - 14th September 2023

There are any number of Greek dramas and myths that remain applicable to today, with themes that are still capable of inspiring contemporary operas. Matthew Aucoin's Eurydice adapts Sarah Ruhl's original play and libretto to explore deeper feminist and human themes explored by the Orpheus myth, while Aribert Reimann's Medea casts a shadow over a society intolerant of outsiders, its rulers obsessed with wealth and prestige, blind to the danger of failing to respond appropriately to the needs of those seeking asylum and the price that is paid by our children. Cassandra in as far as Bernard Foccroulle's opera presents it, clearly speaks to perhaps the most immediate global crisis facing modern society, one that is being warned about daily and becoming ever more urgent, but it's apparent that again, no one is listening. Climate change is the pre-warned disaster facing us all.

Cursed by Apollo so that her premonitions for the future will fall on deaf ears, the words "Ototoi popoi da” that Cassandra struggles to express at the start of Foccroulle's opera are unintelligible and unheeded until disaster strikes. She emerges here as a ghost of the past brought into the present, the two time periods combined and overlapping through a wall of literature written on the subject. The collapse of Troy with all its classical implications - traditionally well-served in opera as well as in Greek drama - is echoed in a modern disaster, as the wall collapses leaving devastation in its wake. People buried by the disaster emerge cut and bruised and crying over the dead in the rubble, as a camera operator zooms in showing the devastation in all its horror.

It's a familiar scene that we have seen repeatedly on our own screens over the last couple of years. There's really no beating around the bush here. The opening is direct and devastating, a classical style Cassandra in full outburst, carrying a dead bleeding child plucked from the ruins of Troy as a Greek chorus ominously intones the consequences of the failure to listen and the orchestra delivers jagged blocks of chords. It's a powerful opening, the impact heightened by Foccroulle's music, not to mention the reaction of Cassandra, and yet, despite all the power of classical-inspired opera, it's a message that is still likely one to go unheeded. It needs something more to bring that message up to date, and Foccroulle and librettist Matthew Jocelyn choose to find another way to get the message across.

There is an intentionally jarring change of tone as the setting abruptly changes to the present day, where a modern day Cassandra, PhD student and published climatologist Sandra Seymour, conscious that all other attempts to express the imminency of the danger have fallen on deaf ears, chooses to deliver her warning as a comedy routine. Running models and algorithms from her studies, Sandra knows danger is real, but chooses to approach the subject with the audience by blaming 'sex fiends' going under the names of Donald, Jeff and Vladimir raping the earth, as she shatters a block of ice. There's not really any beating around the here bush either (not much comedy either), but there is disagreement about her approach from an environmental activist, Blake, who who takes her message more seriously that she does. They share the same concerns however and end up in a relationship together.

Using such means, Fouccrolle's opera seeks to provide a wider context and every means at his disposal to draw together the classical warnings and the present crisis. There are plenty of 'sex fiends' in history bringing damage to humanity and mythology is full of them, not least Apollo, so the parallels are well-established and the musical language used for each of the scenes is appropriate and effective. The subject is not exactly a new concern expressed in modern opera - Sivan Eldar's Like Flesh, Tom Coult's Violet, Perocco's Aquagranda - but these are a little more allusive towards the subject and Foucrolle's opera strives to be more direct. It's important but difficult to do that without descending into preachiness. Cassandra does do a lot of telling, quoting statistics and figures on the melting of ice caps, but it tries to present these in an accessible way, looking at classical mythology for additional substance, using a modern couple debating with each other as a way of putting fire into their relationship and the best way of putting the message out there. This might work for some observers, not for others.

The classical story however does add another element, or at least it does in the way it is presented here as overlapping with the modern-day story. Priam and Hecuba are also brought back from the books, now able to reflect on what the plays written about the fall of Troy tell us, now fully aware of the consequences of failing to listen to the warnings of Cassandra. These scenes - which flow seamlessly from a dinner party scene with Sandra's well-to do parents who are more focussed on causes that boost their image and profits doubling up the roles of Priam and Hecuba - is as charged and anguished as you would expect, equally if not as much as a classical retelling, such as in Berlioz's Les Troyens for example. We already have the benefit of hindsight to act as foresight, the opera seems to be telling us, and we don't want future generations to look back on our society incredulous that we failed to heed the obvious present warnings of the fall of civilisation.

Belgian composer Bernard Foccroulle is a former director of La Monnaie in Brussels and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. This is his first opera composition and it's an ambitious full-scale work, attempting to encompass a number of styles, each effective for the requirements of the libretto and the message. There's Cassandra past blending into Sandra's present, the drama and music serious on one hand, seeming blithe on the other, reflecting two ways of viewing the subject. If we truly knew what is ahead we wouldn't treat it as a joke, but at the same time, most aren't taking it seriously. Foccroulle tries every means, style and views of these conflicting worlds and tries to replicate it in the music, not least in the strong writing for female voices and the short musical interludes, Scene Four and the final scene for example consisting only of a musical depiction of a swarm of bees.

There is inevitably some banality in the modern sections in the domestic relationships, the language, the swearing, the so-called comedy and in the family crises. There is a point to be made about preserving the world for future generations, but whether the opera and its approach hits the mark or is "bullshit" as is loudly heckled by an "audience member", the point isn't convincingly made. Opera has the power to raise a subject to a higher level, elevate the mere words and drama of a libretto, achieve impact through the music and singing, but it's by no means clear that Jocelyn and Foucroulle's approach to Cassandra will be heeded any more than those unheeded warnings of its title character.

Conducted by Kazushi Ono for the premiere of this new opera at La Monnaie, the music and its effectiveness to the subject and libretto can't be faulted, the fascinating and varied score inviting the audience to listen closer to what is being presented. There is much that is equally impressive in the singing and the stage production, so every effort has been made. A new opera, the singers cast are obviously chosen as perfect for the roles. There are singing and performing challenges here but each is outstanding, Katarina Bradić in particular in a gift of a role as Cassandra, but Sandra is also a large role and is impressively sung by Jessica Niles. I also thought the performances of her mother and father, sung by Susan Bickley and Gidon Saks, doubling as Hecuba and Priam were both terrific, contributing superbly to both sides of the work.

The stage production directed by Marie-Ève Signeyrole with sets by Fabien Teigné also plays an important part in maintaining an connection and fluidity between the 'classical' sections and the modern-day sections, as well as bringing out the underlying context of the climate change debate that is drawn between them. Projections and live filming are used, every means that can enhance the central key imagery of nature and devastation. There are blocks of ice, screens of hexagonal blocks, computer-generated swarms of bees, showing life and nature interwoven and in crisis. It's an impressive looking production, serving the subject, the music and the drama well, or as well as it is possible to do considering the limitations of what the arts can really be expected to contribute to the discussion.

Externa links: La Monnaie streaming, La Monnaie, OperaVision

Wagner - Die Walküre (London, 2021)

Richard Wagner - The Valkyrie (London, 2021)

English National Opera, 2021

Martyn Brabbins, Richard Jones, Matthew Rose, Rachel Nicholls, Nicky Spence, Emma Bell, Brindley Sherratt, Susan Bickley, Nadine Benjamin, Mari Wyn Williams, Kamilla Dunstan, Fleur Barron, Jennifer Davis, Idunnu Münch, Claire Barnett-Jones, Katie Stevenson

The Coliseum, London - 19th November 2021

The announcement of a new Ring Cycle at the Coliseum was welcome news for many opera goers and followers of the English National Opera. It was a sign that new Artistic Director Annilese Miskimmon had some creative ideas to revive the fortunes of a company that has recently been going through some difficult times. The news was also greeted however with a certain amount of caution and indeed even trepidation by those who had been to see director Richard Jones's previous Ring for Covent Garden, or indeed any of his productions. There was little here to suggest that Jones would be a natural fit for Wagner.

Still, that doesn't have to be an essential quality and sometimes it's useful to get another perspective where the Der Ring des Nibelungen is concerned. While it's perhaps a little too early to look for any distinctive ideas or themes emerging, some of those concerns do appear to be well-founded in this opening opera of the tetralogy; not least the fact that it's opening with Die Walküre - and following the ENO's dated ideals about English language performances it's of course The Valkerie - commercial imperatives perhaps necessarily superceding artistic considerations.

Those are the least of this production's concerns, although commercial considerations may have also been a factor in the set designs looking a little sparse and the ideas at this stage looking a little thin. One would think that being a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera in New York might have provided a few more resources, but considering the expense poured into the Met's last Ring Cycle - and continuing pandemic related problems -  caution may also have been the watchword there. Whether the concept is fully developed or not, and whether it is expanded on at all before it gets to the Met (it is surely too small scale for the Met), Jones's The Valkyrie looks like a work in progress.

There is always going to be something of a feeling of lack of completeness in any production of Die Walküre, and this Ring cycle hasn't even given us a Das Rheingold (or The Rhinegold) yet, but the problems here go deeper than that. Many of the great set pieces of this opera fell flat, with Act III suffering most in this respect. The horses ridden by the green raincoat wearing Valkyrie looked like the front half of a pantomime horse, the scene only saved by the combined singing strengths of the Valkyrie. Brünnhilde's fate to go out in a blaze of disgrace at the finale was scuppered by the Westminster council's refusal to allow naked flames to be lit on the stage of the Coliseum, but even with it I'm not sure that Jones would have pulled off the kind of spectacle needed.

For Richard Jones however it seems the limitations imposed, or self-imposed, is a chance to focus on the nuts and bolts of the drama, on the characters and the relationships between them. The idea of the cast wearing jeans and T-shirt type casuals is otherwise baffling other than it simply being an attempt not to distract or distance through traditional costumes of heroic mythology. With Wagner's music played for all its dramatic and emotional potential and some fine singing, the attention to character more than concept can pay dividends, and to an extent Jones succeeded in bringing in some tweaks to characterisation, but not on any level that would be considered insightful or revelatory.

The sets can best be described as functional and minimal, aligned to mood. A twisted ash breaking through the roof of Hunding's abode - a surprisingly small cabin rather than any kind of manor - was all that sat on the largely empty stage in Act I, with some shadowy figures hovering around to rotate the set now and again. The second scene of Act II consisted of a row of distorted trees and a few troughs of soil for the performers to run through. Each Act however concluded on a mostly bare stage with the concluding drama of the scene enacted in a circle of light. The dead heroes of the start of Act III were borne up to Valhalla on wires, to allow the Valkyrie their moment and clear the stage for the final non-conflagration.

It all played out fairly conventionally then with just little twists of emphasis on characterisation. Not even twists, just minor tweaks or injections of character and personality. Hunding was shown clearly to be an abusive brute to his wife, which enhanced the dangerous and distasteful side of his character and made his comeuppance feel truly merited. We also got excellent singing and performance to go along with this from Brindley Sherratt. Nicky Spence was labouring under a cold but showed little sign of it in another strong and consistent performance as Siegmund. His refusal to be transported to Valhalla without Sieglinde was heartfelt and absolutely heartbreaking. Emma Bell's also sang wonderfully, even if Jones failed to really get across the bond between her Sieglinde and Spence's Siegmund.

A Ring Cycle wouldn't be a Ring Cycle without some serious mishaps and problems and this one looks like having more than its fair share. Susan Bickley, cast as Fricke, was unable to sing at all, and had to walk through her role while it was sung from the wings by Claire Barnett-Jones, who took this on in addition to her role as the Valkyrie Rossweisse. This worked just fine. Matthew Rose was a capable and very demonstrative Wotan, striding onto the stage in Act II punching the air at the success of his plans in Act I, only to see them dashed soon after. This kind of dynamic set Wotan out as somewhat petulant, but a petulant god is still a fearsome thing, even one dressed as a lumberjack with his log cabin Valhalla.

It will be interesting to see why Giants are needed in the construction of a log cabin when it comes to producing Das Rheingold, but there were at least some promising hints of what could be done in the highly effective use of some eerily lifelike projections of Alberich during Wotan's recounting of the fateful incidents that set this downfall of the Gods into motion. It's an indication that much more could surely have been done to make this production more menacing and visually interesting.

Sung in English, the translation tried to strike a balance between colloquial and rendering of Wagner's old German poetics, so the delivery was inevitably a little awkward in places, although sung passages were such more successful at sounding closer to the familiar German. The perceived and forced limitations of the production and stage design aside - functional but with little in the way of this director's usual flair - this was however an otherwise enjoyable production of Die Walküre at least as far as musical and singing performances go. Martyn Brabbins's conducting drove the drama along purposefully with impact and emotional charge where required. Far from feeling like a complete opera in itself, the ENO's The Valkyrie at least offers hope that there is room for improvement and development by the time we get to performances of a full cycle.

Links: English National Opera

Strauss - Salome (London, 2018)

Richard Strauss - Salome

English National Opera, London - 2018

Martyn Brabbins, Adena Jacobs, Allison Cook, David Soar, Michael Colvin, Susan Bickley, Stuart Jackson, Clare Presland, Trevor Eliot Bowes, Ceferina Penny, Simon Shibambu, Ronald Nairne, Daniel Norman, Christopher Turner, Amar Muchhala, Alun Rhys-Jenkins, Jonathan Lemalu, Robert Winslade Anderson, Adam Sullivan

The Coliseum, London - 12 October 2018

The English National Opera has been struggling to establish an identity in recent years (amongst other financial, artistic and personnel problems), so it was interesting to see that the current new season would have a strong female perspective with works that would "explore and examine some of the patriarchal structures, relationships and roles of masculinity within our society." The first production of the season, Richard Strauss's Salome directed by Adena Jacobs, an Australian theatre director working in opera for the first time, might not entirely fulfil the remit, but offers some new outlooks on a surprisingly adaptable text and score.

Oscar Wilde's original play can hardly be seen as a feminist work and hardly presents its female characters in the most flattering light, but it is very much a work that explores sexual desire and power, challenges social attitudes and gives it a very strong female focus. Wilde's concerns would be very much personal ones of course, to do with unspoken and unspeakable lusts and the danger of exposing them to a hypocritical society that is fascinated by but represses such urges, or at least the public expression of them. Coming from a woman, as it does in Salome, is even more challenging and daring.

Given voice through Wilde's decadent poetic reverie and imagery through a woman, Salome can still shock and make an impact 100 years after it was composed and still challenge conventional morality, social inequalities and gender issues, not least in Richard Strauss's extraordinary tone poem score for the work, a score that also pushed the boundaries of musical expression. While Salome's actions are hardly flattering towards the female sex, they have been twisted on one side by exposure to the corruption and vice of the court of Herod, the Tetrarch, and struggle on the other with the condemnation of religious authorities represented by Jokanaan. It's in highlighting how female expression is crushed between such "patriarchal structures" that Jacobs' production is at least partially successful.

Considering that Salome is a one-act opera that takes place in a single location, the production design at least manages to be varied and expressive of more than just the physical location, attempting rather to illustrate the very intense interior drama that takes place in the mind of Salome. Taken on those terms - and Wilde's use of symbolism in his text would certainly tend to lead it in that direction - it might excuse some of the more random and expressionistic touches applied. Herod in particular is rather grotesquely presented in a bathrobe, glittery vest and undershorts and wallows around in the disturbingly large amount of blood spilled by the suicide of Salome's guard and silent admirer Narraboth. As an expression of the corruption and hypocrisy of the court of the Tetrarch, it makes its point.

That's one side of the oppressive force in the society that Salome has been brought up in. The other is the religious moralising of the prophet Jokanaan, whose mystical imagery and phrasing presents an authoritative and attractive alternative, but Salome comes to find it also prohibitive. Disdainful of the earthly treasures promised by Herod, attracted to the condemnation of her despised step-father and his corrupt, vice-ridden world, and aroused by the alluring promises of Jokanaan (something that is very much brought out in the resonant bass register of the role), Salome reacts violently when neither of these patriarchal structures offer her any personal expression or freedom, but rather seek to further enslave her and any like-minded women with their own strong sense of identity and desires.

The imagery that Adena Jacobs uses in the ENO production can be somewhat obvious, but it least it doesn't need to rely on the sometimes obvious symbolism and imagery that Wilde has provided (the moon, blood, ripe fruit). Some of it is more successful than others; the moon inverted into a black hole surrounded by flowers for the concluding scene of Salome with the head of Jokanaan is striking as a visual representation of Salome's dark desire. The backdrop of a woman with a blindfold not so meaningful - blind desire, abused woman kept in the dark or something else, take your choice. Elsewhere the use of live cameras didn't offer anything more to the intensity of the work, one camera affixed to a muzzle over the mouth of Jokanaan, another seemed to be carried by Narraboth watching Salome, but since nothing was shown of the latter, I presume the camera malfunctioned at the performance I attended.

Much, but probably not as much as you think, can rest on the centrepiece of the Dance of the Seven Veils. Here, to be frank, it was a bit of a mess. Salome was presented as a joggers-wearing teenager, the dance performed mostly around the decapitated and spilled guts of a giant pink My Little Pony by a team of twerking backing dancers that you would see for an artist like Beyoncé. Beyoncé may be seen in some circles as the representation of female empowerment, but by others she is nothing more than a money-making product and business woman in a (patriarchal) music industry. If there was any female empowerment done it wasn't here but perhaps more in Salome getting dirty with herself in her earlier encounter with Jokanaan.

Whether Jacobs' production and direction brings anything new out of the work, whether it succeeds in tapping into female desire any more than Wilde and Strauss is debatable, but it was at least someway successful in harnessing the unquestionable power of the work. Far more was done on that front however by Martyn Brabbins conducting of the English National Opera Orchestra, sensitive to the light and shade of the work and its fluid dynamic, a little muddy in places, but breathtakingly thunderous in the impact and punctuation of the thematic motifs that accompany the action.

The musical pleasures were supplemented by some good singing and dramatic performances. Allison Cook wasn't strong all the way across the formidable range of Salome, but her delivery of the high end was chilling and precision powered, particularly in the calling for the head of Jokanaan. David Soar's bass had a persuasive warmth and authoritative allure as Jokanaan (supplemented of course by Strauss's majestic brass fanfares). Michael Colvin has the right kind of fragile seediness as Herod and was perfectly accompanied by Susan Bickley's Herodias. There were fine performances also from Stuart Jackson as Narraboth and Clare Presland's Page. The quality of the singing and the delivery of Strauss's remarkable score went some way to salvaging a rather messy production that nonetheless had some interesting points of character and distinction.

Links: English National Opera

Shostakovich - The Nose (Royal Opera House, 2016)

Dmitri Shostakovich - The Nose

Royal Opera House, London - 2016

Barrie Kosky, Ingo Metzmacher, Martin Winkler, John Tomlinson, Rosie Aldridge, Alexander Kravets, Alexander Lewis, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Peter Bronder,Helene Schneiderman, Susan Bickley, Ailish Tynan, Jeremy White

Opera Platform - 9th November 2016

Outrageous. I think that's the key word to aim for in a production of Shostakovich's The Nose. Gogol's wonderfully absurd and satirical comedy is given a musically extravagant treatment by Dmitri Shostakovich and it calls out for an outrageously surreal comic response on the stage. I'm surprised that Terry Gilliam hasn't been ear-marked for this one at some stage, but The Met's recent production at least found an appropriate illustrator's flourish in William Kentridge. If it's outrageous you're looking for however, Barrie Kosky is your man. 

In Gogol's story and Shostakovich's opera, the nose of interest is that of the Collegiate Assessor Platon Kuzmitch Kovalev. Somehow it disappears from his face, is found in the bread mix of the barber's wife and then goes off to have an independent life of its own, much to the consternation of Kovalev. Even worse, it seems to be having a better life than him, being seen in all the important places around the city and even making the rank of State Councillor. Kovalev meanwhile finds that the absence of a nose don't confer much credibility on him with anyone, not with the police or the newspapers when he tries to report it missing, and it pretty much kills any prospects of marriage he might have had.

Kosky delivers an energetic staging that matches Shostakovich's musically eclectic score for The Nose, even adding a tap dancing routine to a score folk and jazzy rhythms, oomph-pah trombones and tuba and even a balalaika ballad, the music alternating between moments of dark reflection, comic verve and symphonic interludes. It's a technical challenge to find the right mood for each scene, particularly as the work is played straight through without an interval and with minimal time for scene changes, but Kosky and his design team come up with some inventive solutions that don't compromise on the director's individual sense of style and his tableau arrangements.

Barrie Kosky doesn't do obvious, but he has some familiar tics and tricks that are starting to become quite predictable. There is some of the director's trademark campness thrown into the Royal Opera House's all-singing all-dancing production, with gratuitous male dancers in corsets and suspenders, but primarily what you get in a Barrie Kosky production of the Nose is an appropriate sense of irreverence. And noses evidently. Lots of noses. It's not just Kovalov's nose that is prominent here, there are noses everywhere you look - which is kind of obvious. As obvious as... well, you know what.

Well, maybe not so obvious, since there is a rather large dose of comic absurdity and satire in The Nose, and any attempt to look for deep meaning in it is doomed to appear rather silly. Kosky gets the comic absurdity, but doesn't really do the satire. But then, Gogol's satire was very much to do with certain peculiarities of Russian society, with its system of rank and position, with power and authority, with corruption and bribery. There is a pre-Kafkaesque edge to it, but that's not what Shostakovich goes for, and neither does Barrie Kosky.

So what does Kosky find in this Royal Opera House production of The Nose? You might not be surprised to find that Kosky picks up on the undercurrents of a castration complex that Kovalev undergoes in his emasculation. Without his nose, Kovalov no longer feels like a man, he is unable to pursue women, and marriage to the daughter of Pelageya Podtotschina Grigorievna is out of the question (although he was always ambivalent about this match in the first place). Evidently you would expect Kosky to make a big deal of this, and literally at one stage he does indeed make a 'big thing' out of the nose.

So it's typically Kosky, a little bit camp, a little bit vulgar (David Poutney's funny English translation keeping it nice and sweary as well), but it's also clever, entertaining and fun. There's some inventive use of tables and desks driven on wheels to keep things moving along. The production is funny in some places and kind of laboured dead air in others, but it's that kind of a hit and miss opera. Summing up the whole enterprise however, an observer comes on to the stage and gets the audience laughing at the idea that anyone would make an opera out of this "sorry little tale"; "It's of no use to any of us". So there's no point in, ahem, looking down your nose at it.

Singing The Nose in English is perhaps a necessity unless you have a large cast of Russian singers ready to take on the 78 singing and speaking parts (outside of Russia, I would think that only the Bayerische Staatsoper have that kind of resource to draw on). English works just fine, particularly in Poutney's good translation, and we get good singing and speak-singing performances from Martin Winkler as Kovalev and John Tomlinson in a variety of colourful roles that he assumes brilliantly. Alexander Kravets's District Inspector is terrific, and Susan Bickley and Ailish Tynan enter into the spirit of the whole thing wonderfully. I'm not at all familiar with the music, but Ingo Metzmacher's conducting of the orchestra certainly holds together all the varied rhythms, moods and peculiarities of the piece.

Links: Royal Opera House, Opera Platform

Monteverdi - Orfeo (Royal Opera House, 2015 - Webcast)

Claudio Monteverdi - Orfeo

Royal Opera House at The Roundhouse, 2015

Christopher Moulds, Michael Boyd, Gyula Orendt, Mary Bevan, Susanna Hurrell, Rachel Kelly, Callum Thorpe, James Platt, Susan Bickley, Anthony Gregory, Alexander Sprague, Christopher Lowrey

Royal Opera House Youtube - 21 January 2015

Monteverdi and the early Baroque composers believed that there were ancient precedents for setting drama to music, and their subjects were accordingly almost invariably those of Greek drama. If those views proved to be unfounded, the earliest proponents of this new art form at least discovered a highly expressive means of presenting the dramatic action, the personalities and the underlying themes. They invented opera.

Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1609) is one of the first works that developed the music-drama into the form that is closest to what we are familiar with in the opera tradition of today, a fact that accounts for it still being performed regularly over 400 years later. Even long sections of accompanied recitative in L'Orfeo are melodic and wholly musical, flowing, expressive of the dramatic situations, sentiments and emotions of the characters involved. As a subject too, the musicianship of L'Orfeo is one worthy to act as a standard bearer for the artform, for the ingenuity and creativity of humans, for their ability to not only endure outrageous fortune, but emerge stronger from it and to create art from it.

Monteverdi was just the composer to exploit all the possibilities of the Orpheus myth. When Gluck set to work on a reformist agenda for opera some 150 years later, he too chose to work with the same myth, but stripped the work back to an exploration of human sentiments around grief, bereavement and coming through it in its forced happy ending. Monteverdi's version, benefitting from a beautifully poetic and incisive libretto, has a much wider range of human sentiments to work with. Where Gluck opens with a funeral, Monteverdi opens with a celebration of love, of nature, of marriage and community. It's more too than just working with mythology, or just a cautionary tale about the powers of the gods and the limitations of man. Monteverdi makes much of Orpheus as a musician, celebrating the power of music to elevate humanity and through it express their aspiration to approach divinity.

That's part of what Monteverdi's L'Orfeo is about, and it's part of what opera itself is all about. Monteverdi's work also recognises and takes advantage of the dramatic nature of this new artform and the possibilities this offers. L'Orfeo has a number of highly dramatic scenes that push human sentiments and endurance to its limits, and the staging needs to match and support the lengths to which these themes are developed. What greater way, and what more visually splendid way, than showing a man descend to the depths of Hades, negotiate with the god of the Underworld himself, and then later transcend to Heaven itself? That still needs to be exploited on the stage as much as in the music in any modern production and that's the challenge that Michael Boyd would have had to address for this Royal Opera House production at the Roundhouse.

The Roundhouse is an interesting venue for a Baroque opera, much more appropriate one feels than a large opera house. Or at least that's the impression given even when viewed via a web broadcast. Simplicity and intimacy is however also clearly the intent of the production design, in the smart modern-classical costumes and in the performances themselves. Avoiding the danger of being stiff and static in playing and delivery, it never feels like a stuffy Baroque work, but one that is in the here and now, dealing with real emotions and sentiments. It's achieved with a minimum of stage effects, Michael Boyd's direction allowing dancers to give a further sense of flow and momentum, as well as being representative of scenes in the Underworld. Some 'circus' acrobatic effects are used well however in those critical scenes that needs an extra bit of a 'lift'.

Performed in the round, the musicians also are not hidden in a pit, but are there in the background. If not a actual part of the production, it nonetheless contributes to the connection between the musicians and the drama, where some degree of improvisation and elaboration are a vital component. There is a more evident interaction between the voices and the individual in Baroque opera, with distinct instruments often being used to define and colour character. The arrangement here allows the tone and the quality of the period instruments to be fully expressed and heard, plucking harsh notes or beautiful string accompaniments that comes across well at least in the streamed broadcast, and I'm sure even more effectively live in the theatre.

As ever much in this work depends on the quality of the voices used, particularly for how Orpheus uses his voice to sway even the dark heart of Pluto with his music and singing. Casting of Orpheus can vary from the deeper Georg Nigl tenor to the light and lyrical John Mark Ainsley, but here we have baritone Gyula Orendt with a wonderful clarity and power in his expression that is undoubtedly enhanced by the venue and the arrangements. The key scene where Orfeo tries to persuade Pluto is one of the greatest moments in all opera - is practically the definition of opera, the power of human expression enveloped in music and the singing voice - and it's sung and staged spectacularly well here. Orfeo is well-matched with the clear enunciation and flowing ornamentation of Mary Bevan's Eurydice.

It's incredible that Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, four-hundred years old, and one of the earliest if not the very first opera, still stands as one of the greatest works and showcases for the artform. The Roundhouse production, testifying to the power of the work on just about every level of musicianship and stage craft, reminds you exactly why that is.

Links: YouTube, Roundhouse

Handel - Jephtha

George Friedrich Handel - Jephtha

Buxton Festival, 2012

Harry Christophers, Frederic Wake-Walker, James Gilchrist, Susan Bickley, Gillian Keith, Jonathan Best, William Purefoy, Elizabeth Karani

Buxton Opera House - 11 July 2012

Staging a Handel oratorio is an attractive proposition, since they often contain some of his most beautiful and stirring compositions in a much freer and more varied form outside of the restrictions and conventions of the Italian opera seria, but they inevitably present certain challenges when it comes to dramatising them for the stage. Works such as Theodora and Belshazzar are indeed semi-dramatic, their religious subject sometimes the only reason preventing them being staged as operas due to English censorship restrictions of the time on the staging of biblical subjects, and they have been successfully adapted as staged opera works, as even has Messiah. Categorised as a “dramatic oratorio in three acts”, Jephtha however doesn’t actually have all that much happening in the way of action, but the qualities of the music in Handel’s final oratorio, finished while partially blind and losing his sight completely soon after, mean that it’s certainly worth trying to find a way to present it to a modern audience.

The libretto by Dr Thomas Morell presents the biblical story of Jephtha from the Book of Judges in the oratorio style of repeated declamations and pronouncements, the devout sentiments expressed in a poetic fashion with only small sections of recitative to link them together. Not a lot actually happens in the relatively straightforward story, where Zabul asks his brother Jephtha to lead the Israelites into battle against the Ammonites. If successful, Jephtha will continue to rule and he vows that if God helps him, he will sacrifice the first thing he sees on his return. It’s his daughter Iphis however who he encounters, come to meet her father. Jephtha agonises over what has happened, but intends to carry out his promise, only to be prevented at the last moment by the intervention of an angel. The biblical story is filled out (and given a happy ending) by Morell by way of Euripides, with some scenes featuring Iphis’s beloved Hamor, and Jephtha’s wife Storge lamenting the premonitions she has had of what is to befall her family.

Like opera seria work from this period, it’s difficult to stage such scenes naturalistically, and particular so in a work that was created as an oratorio, where not only is there much expression of interiorised emotions, but those expressions are particularly ‘elevated’, by which I mean relating to religious convictions and conceptual ideas more so than simply reacting to circumstances. A conventional stage setting won’t work, and might even work against such a particular means of expression, so director Frederick Wake-Walker’s approach is appropriately conceptual. Initially, the staging seems to take a leaf from the book of Christof Loy, the stage bare but for five chairs, the singers dressed formally, taking their places as if for a rehearsal of a performance, walking forward to sing from the stand placed at the front of the stage, with some brief interaction between them. The idea of it being a performance remains throughout, coming through again at the presentation of flowers at the end, but there are other elements at play here that are more difficult to pin down.

It’s left to the chorus - an important element in Handel oratorios, and the principal attraction for staging such works - to take on the task of enhancing the meaning or deeper expression in this Buxton Festival production of Jephtha. Dressed in black robes, with ruffs around their neck, quite what their movements and placements on the stage mean can’t really be defined, but in many respects, they are the embodiment of the scenery, the sentiments and the whole mood of the piece. I know that sounds like grasping for meaning, but meaning is there for the individual to find in the work and its presentation, and if you are attempting to express dark thoughts and “scenes of horror”, then this approach is much more appropriate than setting it in a countryside location or some such naturalistic location. The measure of whether this approach works or not is in whether the full force of the work comes across without the need for literalism (which would be difficult to find in this work in any case), and there was no question that it served Handel and Morell’s work exceptionally well.

Just as vital, if not evidently more so, is the musical accompaniment and the singing, and in that respect, the staging supported what was being expressed here and didn’t detract from it. The playing from the Orchestra of the Sixteen in the pit conducted by Harry Christophers was marvellous, finding the drama in the music itself and working in accord with the singers. The role of Jephtha has the widest variety of emotions, from angry declamation and fervent passion though to complete dejection and soft humility, and James Gilchrist matched the tone and delivery for each sentiment perfectly. This is a wonderful work however for the variety of voices and in how they work together side-by-side in individual sections, but also in unison in duets and trios. Susan Bickley’s Storge, Gillian Keith’s Iphis and countertenor William Purefoy’s Hamor were all outstanding in this respect, each fully characterising their roles through the voice even more so than through the expression of somewhat obscure pronouncements. Jonathan Best and Elizabeth Karani in the smaller roles of Zebul and Angel fitted wonderfully into this arrangement, an arrangement of voices and expression that is amplified by Handel’s choral writing, delivered passionately by the Festival Chorus.

Britten - The Turn of the Screw

Benjamin Britten - The Turn of the Screw

Glyndebourne 2011

Jonathan Kent, Jakub Hrůša, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Miah Persson, Susan Bickley, Toby Spence, Giselle Allen, Thomas Parfitt, Joanna Songi

Live HD Broadcast, 21st August 2011

Although Glyndebourne haven’t been associated with perhaps the most famous name in modern English opera until relatively recently – a longstanding feud between the Suffolk opera company and Britten creating a thirty-five year gap up that lasted until the 1980s – they have put on some notable productions since. Two of Britten’s most famous operas however have had to wait a considerable time before they made their first appearance on the Glyndebourne stage, but with a production of Billy Budd conducted by Mark Elder in 2010, and a 2006 production of The Turn of the Screw, Glyndebourne can certainly be seen to have made amends for those notable absences. If it’s not quite as definitive a production as their remarkable staging of Billy Budd last year, The Turn of the Screw, Jonathan Kent’s 2006 production revived here for the latest season, recorded and broadcast live in HD, is however a very different kind of opera that demands a different kind of treatment and performance.

The Turn of the Screw is similar to Billy Budd – as Mark Elder oberved – in that it deals with the theme of the loss of innocence, but, adapted from a short novel by Henry James (1898), the loss of innocence seems even more distressing when it is applied to the corruption of young children. In some respects a ghost story – one of the most famous and enigmatic of ghost stories ever written – The Turn of the Screw is also one of the first works to consider its hauntings and apparitions in psychological terms, the sightings of sinister figures seeming to be extensions of the hysterical imaginings of a sexually repressed Victorian governess. Charged with looking after two young children, Flora and Miles, by their uncle who is always away elsewhere on business, the Governess – with perhaps a bit of a crush on the man she only meets once (he’s not seen at all in the opera version) and who has forbidden her having any further contact with him unless absolutely necessary – the desires of the woman and her own repressed emotions become reflected and even enacted out on the lives of the children.

There are however many possible readings of the material which defies easy analysis and intentionally – to rather more disturbing effect – leaves plenty of room for ambiguity and personal impressions. Britten’s opera plays on this, or at least takes account of the potential that can be drawn out further through the use of equally evocative, ambiguous and often disturbing musical motifs and even nursery rhymes. The opera can be seen as a ghost story where the ghosts of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint are indeed present and interact with the children and the Governess, as a psychological reading where they are the manifestation of a heightened or disturbed mental state brought about by sexual repression (the Governess first sees Peter Quint on a tower after thinking about the children’s uncle, believing it to be him), and it is indeed also about the loss of innocence. It is not so much the suggestion of child abuse enacted upon the children by the malevolent servants – although that reading is certainly suggested – as much as the consideration that Flora and Miles will not remain innocent children for long, but will inevitably be “corrupted” by the world, by knowledge, and perhaps unwittingly even by the over solicitious behaviour of the Governess herself, conscious and feeling guilty about her own repressed adult desires.

Musically, all these thoughts and emotions are evoked magnificently in the chamber orchestration, where even the smallest of sounds, tones and emotional states have complex meanings and are often picked out by individual instruments. Jonathan Kent chooses to set the opera in the 1950s as the last period of innocence (a period and theme he would reuse in his 2010 Glyndebourne production of Don Giovanni for similar reasons), which doesn’t really add anything – although it does have additional significance as being the original period in which Britten’s opera was composed – but likewise, it doesn’t detract at all from the tone or the content of the opera. Much more importantly, Paul Brown’s set designs for the country house at Bly remain sparse and fluidly changeable, like the moods of the score and the tone of the whole piece itself. The walls surrounding the starkly lit set give an enclosed claustrophobic quality to the isolated drama being played-out, the centre of the stage dominated by a set of French windows that likewise suggest closedness, as well as showing a world outside, marked by a twisted tree branch. It’s a strong representation of the interior world in which Mrs Grose and the Governess want to keep the children protected and the external world which holds horrors that irresistibly attract them. Britten’s score likewise plays with this ambiguity, with plaintive violins relating to closed internal emotional states, while flutes and harps suggest the open air, as well as a more floating spiritual domain, but one that also has a more sinister touch.

The sets and music working in perfect accord, with concentric platforms swirling objects fluidly and hauntingly into place with perfect timing, the players of the London Philharmonic Orchestra marvellously conducted by Jakub Hrůša to draw all the necessary tension out of the score, the singing was also perfect for the occasion. Really, it would be hard to say which side of the physical/spiritual divide held the upper hand, such was the strength of expression, deluded and dangerous though it might be, of Susan Bickley’s Mrs Grose and Miah Persson’s Governess, their terror over the apparitions powerfully delivered. They were however more than matched by Toby Spence’s Peter Quint and Giselle Allen’s Miss Jessel, who both asserted a forceful and appropriately sinister physical and vocal presence. The ensemble pieces with the children Thomas Parfitt and Joanna Songi were most effective in this regard, Songi in particular an impressive young talent. Pitched perfectly on every level, form and content working in perfect accord, this was a fine performance of another impressive Britten production at Glyndebourne.

Turnage - Anna Nicole

Mark-Anthony Turnage - Anna Nicole

The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London 2011

Antonio Pappano, Richard Jones, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Alan Oke, Gerald Finley, Susan Bickley, Loré Lixenberg, Peter Hoare, Rebecca de Pont Davies, Allison Cook, Andrew Rees, Grant Doyle, Wynne Evans

Opus Arte

Dealing with a low-brow subject, treating it to an outlandish and tasteless staging, with crude language and bad-taste humour, there is a danger that Anna Nicole, an opera by Mark Anthony Turnage about the former Playboy model who died of a drug overdose in 2007, could be accused of making Eurotrash out of American Trash, but the language and the staging befits the tone of its subject. The barrage of rhyming couplets in the libretto from Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer the Opera) may clearly signal their intention to rhyme at the end with four-letter words and other mildly shocking profanities, but at the same time there is wit and pathos here in a libretto that actually manages to cut through the niceties directly to harsh crude reality of the circumstances of Anna Nicole Smith’s life, unpalatable though that might be to the average opera-going audience. Benjamin Britten and particularly Billy Buddcomes to mind in the use of language, in its subject – which is also about a kind of loss of innocence on a bigger level than just the personal – and in Turnage’s score, which also adopts his usual jazz and American influences, successfully finding the right tone for each occasion.

The colourful, tastefully tacky set-designs by Richard Jones also adopt the right tone with plenty of eye-catching sights not commonly seen in an opera house, including a sequence in a lap-dancing parlour replete with artificial breast-enhanced women twirling themselves gymnastically and provocatively from poles. The decision to present the opera as if it were a reality-TV show in which a chorus of TV hosts interview Anna Nicole Smith, already dead but looking back over her life and tracing the path from smalltown girl to media celebrity that will ultimately lead to her destruction, is a masterstroke and it imbues the piece with a slightly sinister edge that grows as the opera proceeds. The tone darkens considerably by the second half, when it does indeed become a tragedy, as the people in Smith’s life disappear to be replaced by masses of ominous black figures with TV cameras for heads.

Antonio Pappano, conducting the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, does well to allow the music score to assert its presence and not be overshadowed by the spectacle or the libretto. Eva-Maria Westbroek is marvellous in the title role, and well supported by Gerald Finlay and Alan Oke. As more of a Wagnerian soprano, Westbroek is not really tested by the limited singing demands of the role, but she sings exceptionally well and manages to bring out the inherent humanity of her character, never letting her be merely an icon, nor indeed, allowing the performance to descend into parody. Whether the opera ultimately has anything new to say or whether it touches on anything deeper in its subject – if indeed there is anything deeper to be drawn from its subject – is questionable, but Anna Nicole demonstrates nonetheless that opera can still be a vital artform to address contemporary subjects in a powerful manner that can connect with a modern audience.

On Blu-ray from Opus Arte, the opera – opening with a legal disclaimer that it is “not intended to be an actual factual depiction of any person” – looks every bit as bold as it should, the striking colours deeply saturated, with strong blacks and contrasts, and a good level of detail. This often looks just stunning, and it is well filmed, picking out the singers at the right moments, while also allowing the overall impact of the set to be appreciated. The audio tracks in PCM Stereo and DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 are also effective in allowing the detail of the musical arrangements to come through. Subtitles are in English (so you can check that they actually sang what you thought they sang but couldn’t quite believe), French, German and Spanish. Aside from a Cast Gallery, the only other extra on the disc is a brief Production Report (8:25), introduced by Pappano, which nonetheless covers the development of the opera well with interviews with Turnage, Thomas and Westbroek.

Turnage - Anna Nicole

Mark-Anthony Turnage - Anna Nicole

The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London

Antonio Pappano, Richard Jones, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Alan Oke, Gerald Finley, Susan Bickley, Loré Lixenberg, Peter Hoare, Rebecca de Pont Davies, Allison Cook, Andrew Rees, Grant Doyle, Wynne Evans

World Premiere - February 17th, 2011

A few eyebrows will have been raised, and no little amount of scepticism expressed, when it was announced that Mark-Anthony Turnage would be writing an opera for the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden about Anna Nicole Smith, a former Playboy model who died of a drug overdose in 2007. In reality, however there’s nothing at all new about opera dealing with women who live scandalous lives and come to an untimely end. If Turnage’s Anna Nicole is unlikely however to be considered a masterpiece on the scale of Madama Butterfly, La Bohème, La Traviata or Lulu, it at least has the advantage of dealing with a contemporary subject with the kind of social lifestyle and aspirations that a modern audience can relate to more easily. And if the merits of Anna Nicole as an opera can certainly be questioned, there is at least no doubt, judging from the headlines and media attention that it has generated, that is indeed a worthy subject of great interest to the general public.

Commissioned by the Royal Opera House under the direction currently of Antonio Pappano – a great supporter of opening up opera to a wider audience – the general public would at least have been no doubt familiar with the subject of the opera, Anna Nicole Smith, and have some familiarity with the nature of her “career” and the circumstances of her death at the age of only 39. What was rather less certain was the tone that would be adopted by Mark-Anthony Turnage (Greek, The Silver Tassie) – a composer who can be rather experimental in his work, and is known for incorporating jazz and other forms of modern music into his compositions. It didn’t take too long for it to be established that the tone of the opera would be heavily influenced by the choice of Richard Thomas as librettist, the resulting barrage of rhyming couplets, with a high swearword quotient, bring Anna Nicole closer to Thomas’ work on Jerry Springer the Opera than to Turnage’s Greek.

Initial and surface impressions however prove to be deceptive, for while Anna Nicole Smith’s early life, her escape from the “shithole” backwater of Mexia (pronounced Mu-HAY-ah, we are told, as if it gives the town some kind of distinction) and her first marriage to Billy Smith is very much the kind of material that US daytime TV shows thrive on, it does nonetheless have a relevance to how a large proportion of society live and it reflects their aspirations, unpalatable thought they may appear to an opera-going audience. Just as significantly, the manner in which the opera is initially presented and the tone it strikes is vitally important, and indeed it ought to match and be appropriate to the content. The decision then to present it through the medium of a chorus of TV hosts to whom Anna Nicole, already dead but looking back over her life in the manner of a reality TV show and tracing the path that will ultimately lead to her destruction, is a masterstroke, imbuing the piece with a slightly sinister edge that grows as the opera proceeds. The opera darkens considerably by the second half, when it does indeed become a tragedy, as the people in her life disappear to be replaced by masses of ominous black figures with TV cameras for heads.

While there are certainly plenty of eye-catching sights in the imaginative, colourful, tastefully tacky set-designs (by Richard Jones) to provide entertainment, with strong language and even a sequence in a lap-dancing parlour replete with breast-enhanced women twirling themselves gymnastically and provocatively from poles – all things that are, I think it’s safe to say, not all that common on the stage of the Royal Opera House and likely therefore to generate interest and headlines – it’s easy to be distracted from what is going on musically and in the opera as a whole. Richard Thomas’ rhyming couplets, which deliberately clearly signal their intentions to rhyme at the end with four-letter words and other mildly shocking profanities, actually manage to cut through the niceties directly to harsh realities of the circumstances of Anna Nicole’s life in a tone that is appropriate and understandable to a modern-day audience. It’s reality-TV language, but there’s something in the phenomenon and popularity of reality-TV as a representation of the American Dream that is worth examining, and Thomas’ libretto gets to the hard truths and the tragedy of it all, wrapping it up cleverly in pithy, satirical and witty phrases.

It’s easy also to be distracted from what Turnage is doing musically, but he, likewise, succeeds allowing the nature of the opera’s subject to establish the correct tone rather than imposing his own upon it. In doing so moreover, Turnage nonetheless finds a perfect expression for his own musical language and the often American influences that he draws from and incorporates into his music. Anna Nicole Smith’s leaving of Mexia (pronounced Mu-HAY-ah), for Huston, where she works in a Wal-Mart store, is set to a blues rhythm that matches the zombie-like movements of its employees, a swinging jazz percussion accompaniment is used for the strip-club scene, while other scenes evoke George Gershwin. Antonio Pappano, conducting the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, succeeded in allowing the music score to assert its presence at such times, darkening the tone considerably in the tragedy of the Second Act, by which stage the audience were thoroughly in the grip of the piece and solemnly mindful of where it was leading. Much credit for the embodiment of the tragedy that Anna Nicole’s life would represent has to go to the Eva-Maria Westbroek. As a Wagnerian soprano, her voice wasn’t at all tested by the limited singing demands of the role, but she sang exceptionally well and managed to bring out the inherent humanity of her character, never letting her be merely an icon, nor indeed, allowing it to descend into parody.

Whether Anna Nicole is ultimately considered a success as an opera – it received a very warm reception at its World Premiere from the audience at Covent Garden and a guardedly positive response from the national press – it is at least a success as far as the Royal Opera House is concerned, selling out its initial short run of six shows, but more importantly generating more interest and front page headlines than any other important opera event, premiere or any drawing of the biggest names in the opera to the house have achieved. Beyond its artistic merits, whether the opera ultimately has anything new to say or whether it touches on anything deeper in its subject – all of which are debatable and subjective – what Anna Nicole demonstrates is that opera can still be a vital artform that can address contemporary subjects in a powerful manner that connects with a modern audience.