Strauss - Salome (Paris, 2022)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Opéra National de Paris, 2022

Simone Young, Lydia Steier, Elza van den Heever, Iain Paterson, John Daszak, Karita Mattila, Tansel Akzeybek, Katharina Magiera, Matthäus Schmidlechner, Éric Huchet, Maciej Kwaśnikowski, Mathias Vidal, Sava Vemić, Luke Stoker, Yiorgo Ioannou, Dominic Barberi, Bastian Thomas Kohl, Alejandro Baliñas Vieites, Marion Grange

Paris Opera Play - 27th October 2022

There's not a lot of point in comparing one production of an opera with another, or indeed weighing one against another. There are always going to be differences of musical interpretation and evidently different people singing are going to make it sound and play out differently from one production to the next. Depending on the numerous factors involved in live performance, even the same production can differ from one revival to the next, even from one night to the next. It all comes down to personal preferences, and opinions will always vary. When you view two productions of Salome side by side however - one of the most intriguing of all opera works - it's hard not to make direct comparisons. As far as the Paris 2022 production stands against the recent Tcherniakov one at Hamburg, all it confirms is that this extraordinary work is infinitely open to radical ideas and interpretations.

When I reviewed the Hamburg production earlier this month, I suggested that if you go back to the original Oscar Wilde play, the pre-eminent theme of the work is how the darkest human lusts and behaviours can be tolerated as long as they are kept hidden and not spoken about in polite society. Wilde was of course satirising Victorian society and the underlying moral corruption more than retelling a biblical story, but you could certainly see an interpretation of hypocrisy in religion as well. That idea was largely adhered to in the Tcherniakov production, which managed to draw on the dark power of the work while remaining largely bloodless in explicitness. Not so much here in director Lydia Steier's production for the Paris Opera.

One other vital element of Salome is that it it was written with the intention of being shocking, provocative and taboo breaking, and the genius of Richard Strauss is such that he was capable of pushing the accepted conventions of musical language to similarly provide shock and outrage. This is the beauty of the work, or the ugly beauty of the work, if you like. Steier's Paris production definitely tends towards the character of the work to shock and thereby reveal more of the hidden nature of mankind's inherent selfishness and cruelty, rather than dress it up in flowery Symbolist poetry. As far as it applies to Salome in this production, she is not actively involved in the orgy of sex and violence at Herod's party but bored with it, which perhaps suggests a deeper pathology, but I'm not sure this production really gets to what it might be. 

Of course if you have shown Herod indulging in such activities, you can hardly expect him to be shocked when his stepdaughter shows the same tendencies pushed in another direction and thinking of it as 'love'. Herod's hedonistic party is viewed in a high room with wide glass window, showing a slow motion wild drunken orgy where cruel lusts and desires are freely indulged in the beating, murdering and mutilating of slaves. Semi-naked men and women prisoners are brought up from the dungeons, their bloody brutalised and mutilated bodies later carried down the stairs by men in bio-hazard suits to be dumped off into a pit at the side of the stage only to be replaced from the dungeons with a continuous supply of victims.

Very much tending towards darkness, the production uses lighting to soften and darken during Salome's poetic eulogising of the wild beauty of the tortured emaciated caged Jokanaan. It explodes into light when he rejects her advances, although here he seems to be leading her on somewhat (or maybe only in her fevered imagination) before delivering his imprecations, leading her to strike him with a cattle prod. What is critical in the depiction of this scene is capturing its extraordinary dynamic, here more so since the singing of Elza van den Heever and Iain Paterson delivers it so well. It's intense and compelling on every level. Every perversion is permitted, even as far as Salome masturbating over the cover of the cistern as Jokanaan is triumphantly lowered to the climatic music that Strauss composed for this scene.

The production manages to introduce a little lightness or further dynamic into the opera with the outrageous appearance and dress of Herod and Herodias. It does this without altering the grotesque overblown quality of the work, and crucially the quality of the singing is maintained. John Daszak's Herod enters with a feathered headdress, wearing a silk cloak over a see-through top. Sporting a blonde mullet, he looks like a New Romantic video star from the 80s. Herodias is similarly attired, with a dress supported by nipple hooks (Karita Mattila wearing a false boob set). There is something of a blend of 'Girls on Film', 'Wild Boys' and 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' about the look only taken to nightmarish lengths, with plenty of Pete Burns-like characters among the party entourage. Mattila plays up to the part of Herodias marvellously, flirting with the guard, both she and Herod making suggestive use of fruit in a way that Barrie Kosky would be proud of, but it fits with the florid metaphors used by Wilde to such great effect.

In terms of performance, this is one of the most impressive and impactful I can remember, but then it needs to be in order to rise to the challenges set by the production design, stage direction and musical direction. Simone Young's conducting of the Paris orchestra in particular is just outstanding here. It helps that the sound quality on the Paris Opera Play platform is so good. Using headphones, you can hear every little detail and sweep of dynamic orchestration. All of the cast have sufficient force matched with lyricism to deliver the decadent phrases of Lachmann's translation of Wilde's play. It feels like this play was written to be performed in the heightened state of opera, as effective here in Strauss's version as in Antoine Mariotte's Salomé using the original French text. As with Maeterlinck and Debussy in Pelléas et Mélisande, there is something about Symbolist works that seems well-suited to lyrical interpretation.

Whether or not you find the look of the production distasteful - it certainly pushes all the buttons to shock - this is a very well-directed Salome. The characters, their qualities, their flaws are all laid out to see and the singers are given space to express it. There is no confusion about what is going on, the focus is maintained where it needs to be in the marking and choreography. Whether Lydia Steier manages to probe any deeper into the dark psychology of the character of Salome could depend more on how the viewer responds to it. Having watched another Salome recently and found new elements to consider, it might not be fresh enough for me personally this time, but the singing is outstanding and under the musical direction of Simone Young this wonder of the opera repertoire remains as impressive as ever.

They key to how you might respond to the work lies, as it often does, in the depiction and outcome of the Dance of the Seven Veils. There is no oriental exoticism here whatsoever, the 'dance' shown for what it really is. Herod strips, sexually abuses and pleasures himself over a disgusted Salome, who nonetheless allows this to be taken to its brutal conclusion before she is subsequently gang-raped by the rest of the guests stirred up by the night's revelry of violence. Salome here is not gorily glorious (except in her own mind) but reduced to something pitiful, crawling across the floor, while Herod's page takes a gun to the whole rotten lot of them. It's all pretty revolting, but undeniably as dark and brutal as any conventionally staged conclusion of this magnificent opera.

External links: Opéra National de Paris, Paris Opera Play

Wagner - Das Rheingold (Bayreuth, 2016)

Richard Wagner - Das Rheingold

Bayreuth, 2016

Marek Janowski, Frank Castorf, Iain Paterson, Markus Eiche, Tansel Akzeybek, Roberto Saccà, Sarah Connolly, Caroline Wenborne, Nadine Weissmann, Albert Dohmen, Andreas Conrad, Günther Groissböck, Karl-Heinz Lehner, Alexandra Steiner, Stephanie Houtzeel, Wiebke Lehmkuhl

Sky Arts - 26 July 2016

Frank Castorf's controversial production of Bayreuth's current Ring cycle may look far removed from the traditional mythological settings of Wagner's epic, but in reality it's closer to home and to the intent of the work than you might think. At heart, the central theme of the Ring that purity of intentions in relation to politics and power (if there even is such a thing - now there's mythology for you) is often corrupted by the imperfections of what makes us all human comes as a timely reminder of where we are in the world today and how we've got there. I haven't seen any Ring cycle even remotely as relevant and powerful as this in the last few decades.

Although Castorf sets the Ring's opening prelude music-drama Das Rheingold in a motel on Route 66 in the USA (and subsequent parts are equally global in their locations), a German or European audience would easily recognise the parallels it has to much that has taken place recently in Germany and in Europe in relation to power and politics. It wouldn't happen until long after his death, but Wagner's vision of the fall of the gods and the flawed human forces that replace them would be borne out by later historical developments. Without making any direct reference to a period that is loaded with controversy, Castorf makes a daring parallel that extends the purity of Wagner's idealised dream of a united nation into the corruption of those ideals by Hitler. It's almost as if Wagner could see it coming.

So uncomfortably close to home is that subject that Castorf is forced to bury it in layers, but rather than obscure the intentions of the Ring, the layers instead build upon it and prove its validity. It might be hidden behind a parody of the corruption of the American Dream in Das Rheingold, but such is the strength of Wagner's framework and vision that a German audience might recognise a similar dream closer to home in the reunification of East and West Germany or in the dream of closer European union. Regardless of whichever level you relate to it, Castorf's production is one that cuts through the mythological trappings and makes the subject of power and corruption, gods and humans really meaningful and relevant in a way that hasn't been seen since Patrice Chéreau's production at Bayreuth 40 years ago.

For all the lengthy expounding over 18 hours or so of the Ring cycle, the questions of purity of motive and intention (whether socialist or capitalist) being quickly subverted for the love of power and money is established fairly quickly in Das Rheingold (to such an extent that I've always felt that there are limited returns from the lengthier subsequent works - but maybe that's just me). A small man fed up of toiling in an underground cavern, the dwarf Alberich here wakes up in this production on a sunbed at a motel and is unable to resist the lure of the glamorous Hollywood starlet Rhinemaidens relaxing by the pool. He soon abandons any hope that the rich bathing beauties might slum it with him and instead decides that he can do much more with the vast quantities of gold they possess. Off he runs with it, hoping to turn it into a product that will benefit the workers only to become someone who later exploits them, corrupted by the power of wealth and promise of influence.

Meanwhile, the god Wotan and his wife Fricka (enjoying a threesome with Fricka's sister Freia) are in temporary accommodation at the motel while the builders are in. His dream is about to be realised (a grand statement that testifies to his dream of a making a nation great again through reunification). He's so busy admiring the view of his creation from his hotel room that he has forgotten that it needs to be paid for, and the Giants have arrived as heavies presenting the bill. The threats of the purity of his family being corrupted (Freia) by these thuggish foreigners he has used as cheap labour is more than he can bear. Having been told by Loge of the vast quantities of Rhinegold stolen by Alberich, he's prepared to exploit the Dwarf's weaknesses and appropriate those riches for the greater good (himself). Loge takes pleasure in playing with his lighter to ignite those flames and it's done significantly in the proximity of a petrol station.

Further backed into a corner over how he rules, the 'human' failings, the personal and domestic problems of this god/politician/leader/artist/ industrialist/genius composer all too soon unravel any noble intentions he might once have had. The supposed infallible omnipotence of the gods is coming to an end as all giants - gods or human - are inevitably destroyed by the corruption of office, the trappings of power, the lure of money or just indulgence of personal lusts and drives. Wagner's Ring however is more than just an allegory and has many other elements to highlight and explore - love, honour, family - but even within itself it can be seen to be an equally flawed creation (its composer too) with its inflated self-importance. All of this however reflects the inherent problem in man's ambition to assume power for a personal ideology.

Castorf's production not only deals with those larger themes in an elaborately constructed revolving motel/poolside/petrol station forecourt designed by Aleksandar Denić - one that touches on some big American themes - but it is sensitive to the complexities of Das Rheingold and the Ring, using cameras and screens and other familiar imagery ingeniously to explore and illustrate the text, subtext and nuances of a work that is too often overlooked in favour of Die Walküre. Castorf shows (or convinces me anyway) that Das Rheingold is the key work in the cycle, one that establishes the tone to be followed, one whose roots and leitmotifs will go on to be developed later in other ingenious ways - but the whole heft of the work is already contained in this opening masterpiece. All too often smothered in mythological trappings and the ambition of conductors and directors as a work more concerned with gods than mortals, rarely has the richness of all the qualities of Das Rheingold and its meanings been so openly exposed and laid bare. This is just brilliant.

Its ambitions are matched by the quality of the musical performance under Marek Janowski. It establishes a tone and detail that allows Frank Castorf to make full use of the rich cast of characters, singers and actors who go some way towards bringing Wagner's masterpiece to life and endowing it with personality. I wasn't totally convinced that Iain Paterson has the personality to carry Wotan but he does however create a great double act with Roberto Saccà's brightly lyrical Loge. Sarah Connolly sang well although Fricka seemed to get lost a little in all the goings-on. She should assert herself more convincingly later. Elsewhere all the roles were wonderfully entertaining and fascinating in their characterisation, notably Albert Dohmen's Alberich, Günther Groissböck and Karl-Heinz Lehner's Giants and Markus Eiche's Donner, but even down to the Rhinemaidens all these wonderful creations just breathed life and exuberance and this Bayreuth Das Rheingold was consequently one of rivetting drama full of meaningful portent. 

Links: Bayreuth Festival

Monteverdi - Orpheus/Odysseus/Poppea (Komische Berlin, 2014 - Blu-ray)

Claudio Monteverdi - Orpheus/Odysseus/Poppea

Komische Oper, Berlin - 2014

André de Ridder, Barrie Kosky, Dominik Köninger, Julia Novikova, Peter Renz, Günter Papendell, Ezgi Kutlu, Tansel Akzeybek, Brigitte Geller, Roger Smeets, Helene Schneiderman

Arthaus Musk - Blu-ray

Barrie Kosky's work is becoming more widely known in the UK from colourful, fresh and not entirely controversy-free productions of mainly Baroque opera at the ENO (Rameau's Castor and Pollux), Glyndebourne (Handel's Saul) and Edinburgh (Mozart's The Magic Flute), but the Australian director is also the artistic director at the Komische Oper in Berlin, the city's German language opera company. You can expect then that his Monteverdi Trilogy (L'Orfeo, Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria and L'Incoronazione di Poppea the composer's only existing complete operas) is going to be very different from any other versions of some of opera's earliest and greatest compositions. You don't know the half of it...

It's the Komische, so even Monteverdi is subjected to the German language treatment. That might sound strange to the ears were the works performed in an historically-informed way on period instruments, but remarkably the musical interpretation is just as "translated" here. While the melodic line and continuo is followed in as far as Monteverdi variously scored it for these works with theorbo and bass viol, Elena Kats-Chemin has introduced new instrumentation for all three works, including an accordion, a banjo and an electric guitar as well as a range of exotic instruments like the djoza from Iran, a West African kora (bridge-harp) and a Syrian oud (lute).

The familiar melodies and rhythmic structure is there, but less rigidly adhered to, blending into a much richer texture of plucked and hammered sounds that actually give a real kick to the arrangements. It's not just the colour of the instruments that is used either, but the melody can stray into a tango, into German jazz, Slavic folk, klezmer or ragtime swing. It might sound outrageous, but it gets across the wide dynamic of the tones within and across these works and is always appropriate to the context. What is also fascinating is hearing those instruments play baroque music and discovering the connections the various styles have with one another. It's as if they can all be ultimately traced back to Monteverdi, and I suppose in a way they can.

Needless to say, Barrie Kosky revels in the opportunities to match the colour and playful nature of the music with vividly bright, colourful productions that are inventive in situation on a busy stage that is usually a riot of dance and movement. Musically and in terms of staging, reflecting the director's concept of the loss and ultimate destruction of the Arcadian ideal across the three works, the trilogy is at its most elaborate in Orpheus (L'Orfeo). This would be appropriate for a work that spans such a wide range of human experiences and emotions, from joyful celebration to mournful despair and the determination of Orpheus not to be defeated by the cruel war constantly waged between the Gods subjecting mankind to the whims of Time, Love, Fate and Chance.

Kosky's production then strongly marks the contrast between Paradise and Hell, illustrating the endeavours of Orpheus and the power of human art and ingenuity to celebrate love and beauty in the face of outrageous fortune. The stage is filled with movement, with dancers and life-size puppets, but it works in a complementary way with the nature of the subject and with the unconventional musical interpretation conducted here by André de Ridder. As the most adventurous of the three stagings, it works marvellously, allowing the German language performance to fit in well with the celebration of life in all its richness and colour. The singing performances by Dominik Köninger as Orpheus, Julia Novikova as Eurydice and Peter Renz as Amor, no doubt help make that work as well with the sheer lyrical beauty of the voices.

The rather more austere staging for Odysseus (Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria) doesn't significantly alter the impact that is achieved by the richness of the work itself. Accordingly, the music has the same kind of musical reinterpretation but with a different colour from that of Orpheus. Turkish melodies and rhythms infuse Poppea's lament and other imaginative musical flourishes on a grand piano are inserted in those Monteverdean short bursts of melody in the middle of recitative. The scene of the three suitors characterises their claims with a tango rhythm or a burst of a Habanera. Again without destroying the composer's structure, this is very much in the spirit of improvisation and interpretation that are a vital element to the make-up of Monteverdi's operas, the singing voices taking up the main expression of emotions. Ezgi Kutlu in particular impresses here as Poppea, but Günter Papendell's Odysseus and Tansel Akzeybek's Telemachus are also very strong.

In terms of the advancing the concept of the staging, one of the main factors that establishes the tone of the work is of course the Prelude. In Odysseus, Time, Fortune and Love make fools of the activities of men and the purpose of Odysseus. The expedition to Troy and the war that ensued has led to Odysseus blown off course for 20 years. Arcadia has been lost, Odysseus is wandering, longing for a return to peace in his homeland, with his family and loved ones, and it is also causing Penelope great torment. The 'patria' here then is nothing more then than the green, green grass of home, a mostly bare platform with the orchestra behind the performers. The period is kind of late-60s/early-70s, the suitors looking particularly sleazy as if they've just spilled out of a bar hoping to pick up a wealthy widow, but the tone at the same time colourfully evokes nostalgia for old-fashioned ways.

The set is also minimally dressed for Poppea (L'Incoronazione di Poppea), but this is more than compensated for by the colour, movement and stage directions that extend out beyond the orchestra pit on a wide platform. Disappointingly however, having got quite used to it in the other two works, the musical reinterpretation is less evident here, despite L'incoronazione di Poppea being a work that has a wide range of emotional colour and variety of situation. A little bit of electric guitar makes fitful appearances, and banjos are used to bring a little more of an edge to the basso continuo. Somehow however, despite the fact that great care has been take to establish a distinct sound world to each of the works, it isn't until quite late in the piece that the instrumentation finds the kind of rhythmic pulse that should drive the work.

Barrie Kosky however is not short of ways to use the singers, dancers and supernumerary sprites to push the expressions of all the violent and lustful passions in Poppea into the movement and exhibition of the body. There is a considerable amount of full-frontal nudity here, mostly male, none of which is the least bit erotic. Amor - a vital character to all three works (sung in each by Peter Renz) - is a constant presence here, but again taking its lead from the prelude, Love might be dominant, but Virtue has been defeated and Arcadia destroyed. Poppea takes place consequently on the side of a volcano, grey, with large boulders littering the landscape. The contrast between Nero and Poppea's violent love and the monstrousness of their actions towards others is depicted in all its horror, and matched by the intense singing. All of the performers are simply outstanding here, but I particularly liked Helene Schneiderman's unrepentantly vengeful Octavia.

The quality of the visual aspect of each of the Blu-ray discs is fine, but there is a little bit of haziness to the image with some minor blurring in movement that is not as clinically sharp as most HD releases. On Orpheus and Odysseus, there is a kind of yellowish tint with gives a warmer tone. These characteristics are less evident on Poppea, which also seems sharper. The singing sounds a little amplified which might be down to the use of radio mics, although they are not obviously worn by the performers, and the mixing is not quite as bright as you might find on recordings of baroque music. It's warmly toned if you like, and comes over well on the DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 and PCM stereo mixes, but best of all on headphones. Subtitles are in German, English, French and Turkish. There are no extra feaures on the discs, but there are synopses and a great deal of information on the production in the large booklet that comes with the box set.