Handel - Xerxes (Duisburg, 2019)

George Frideric Handel - Xerxes

Deutsche Oper am Rhein, 2019

Konrad Junghänel, Stefan Herheim, Valer Sabadus, Terry Wey, Katarina Bradic, Torben Jürgens, Heidi Elisabeth Meier, Anke Krabbe, Hagen Matzeit

OperaVision - January 2019

What is impressive about many of Stefan Herheim's productions is his ability to get deep underneath the driving forces of the works in question, whether it's by transporting the work into a modern context and completely deconstructing it (La Bohème, Rusalka), setting it in the wider context of the time and history surrounding its creation (Eugene Onegin), or even using the creator of the work and its creation to illuminate and provide another way of looking at the works (Parsifal, The Queen of Spades). Ironic distancing has to be maintained however with a respect for the fundamental concerns of the work and sometimes you get the impression on rare occasions that either Herheim's approach is completely ironical or he just doesn't have anything particularly deep or meaningful to say about the work.

Keeping opera seria entertaining and relevant to a modern audience while respecting the musical conventions and intentions of the work is a challenge for any director, and Handel's Xerxes/Serse is not the most dramatic or involving of treatments on a subject that has been covered many times in baroque opera. Sometimes however all you need is a single idea or context to set the work within, and Herheim's idea is a simple one that comes from a reversal of the work's English title; Xerxes becomes Sex Rex, the first century Persian king is actually something of a sex maniac.

That's actually an original and refreshing way of looking at the traditional role of the powerful ruler's involvement in a situation that is common in opera seria. Disrupting the romantic lives of everyone around him when he decides to choose a partner for himself, often it's seen in terms of a ruler being self-absorbed and oblivious to the concerns of others, asserting his will in an abuse of power. Nowadays that kind of behaviour from someone in a position of power and authority is seen differently as a sex pest or sexual predator, but Herheim doesn't attempt to put it in a modern context in the style for example of the 2017 Karlsruhe Semele.

Herheim in fact doesn't appear to choose to delve any more deeply than the simple reversal of the title however in this production of Xerxes, and rather than modernise the production or seek to put it in the context of a framework, he seems instead to just let it play out looking like a period production from 1738 when the opera was composed. Or is it a parody of an old opera seria production? This is where Herheim likes to blur the lines, but he gives little away to indicate any kind of irony or detachment, other than perhaps the fact that the behaviours of the characters are more recognisably human than the rather stiff formalism of roles and characters that you might expect from this.

But what might you reasonably expect from Xerxes? When the opera was first performed it wasn't terribly popular because it broke several of the strict rules of opera seria. For a start, Handel reduced the formality of da capo repetition in arias, reducing most of them down to one-part arias, which doesn't give the singers quite as much leeway for ornamentation. He also introduced an element of buffo comedy into the work, and mixing buffo and seria is a serious misdemeanour that in earlier times in France was known to result in a war, or at least a war of words in the Querelle des Bouffons.

Handel, I imagine, wasn't trying to start any wars, but simply reacting to the practical demands of the storyline, which to be frank was surely a rather tired situation even by Handel's time, and introduce a little more musical colour to the palette. Which he undoubtedly does, but perhaps not to the extent that the work can be staged 'straight' to a modern audience. I've no doubt that Stefan Herheim has thoroughly researched this, but as far as I can see, all he has managed to come up with as a way of tapping into the spirit of the work and presenting it to a modern audience is to exaggerate the other elements or bring them up to the level of Xerxes the Sex Rex.

Elviro as the comic fool for example, is played up to an almost slapstick level where he can hardly move for stumbling or bumping into people. Herheim even has him arguing with the prompter and the conductor in the pit, and Xerxes in annoyance breaks a musician's flute. Atalanta is extra-flirtatious and scheming, Romilda extra-prim and virtuous resulting in Atalanta's plots to remove her rival by attacking her in one scene with a knife, a snake, a gun, a cannon which puts a hole in the back of the scenery through to the backstage, then uses a crossbow and eventually succeeds only in bringing down a doll of Eros. With some dancing sheep thrown in, Herheim himself describes it all as a “baroque Muppet Show”.

There's no doubt that this enlivens the work to some degree, and it's quite clever in a nudge and a wink kind of way that recognises we are all actors playing roles on the stage of life, but there's not a lot more to it than that. There perhaps doesn't need to be for this opera, particularly when the production values are as high as we've come to expect from a Herheim production. If it's not a parody of an 18th century opera, it has all of the old-world spectacle of the stage design, props and costumes. It looks good, it sounds good, it's a bit of fun, and that ought to be enough, but it doesn't really do much to lessen the predictability and conventionality of the drama from feeling very tiring over the three hours it takes to get to a conclusion.

Perhaps that's down to the work itself which, hearing it for the first time, doesn't seem to rate among the most memorable of Handel's works. There's moments to enjoy of course in the musical performance under the direction of Konrad Junghänel who keeps it flowing along quite well. With recitative in German and the principal arias in Italian, the singing performances are good, counter-tenor Valer Sabadus in the castrato role of Xerxes tries hard to inject life and humour into the proceedings, Katarina Bradic as his cross-dressing jilted fiancée Amastre brings a lively verve to her performance. There's much to enjoy also in the complications between Atalanta, Romilda, Arsamene and Elviro, but the singing doesn't always have the necessary fullness and, despite all the efforts and prettiness of the production, it does come across as a disappointingly limp affair.

Links: Deutsche Oper am Rhein, OperaVision, YouTube

Handel - Semele (Karlsruhe, 2017)

George Frideric Handel - Semele

Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe - 2017

Christopher Moulds, Floris Visser, Jennifer France, Ed Lyon, Dilara Baştar, Katharine Tier, Terry Wey, Edward Gauntt, Hannah Bradbury, Yang Xu, Ilkin Alpay

Opera Platform - May 2017

If you consider it in simple dramatic terms, not a great deal happens in Semele. It's a tale of Jupiter up to his old tricks again, spiriting down to mingle with mortals and have his pick of whatever attractive lady takes his fancy, much to the displeasure of his long-suffering wife, Juno. Based on the classical legend from Ovid's Metamorphoses, there's a basic moral about Semele's pride in consorting with the gods and thinking herself their equal, but primarily it's a poetic subject, with any relatable human context submerged in flowery language and mythological matters of the gods.

The range of sentiments and the manner in which they are couched however provide perfect material for Handel to demonstrate what he could achieve at this stage in his career. Semele's subject matter and treatment would make it more suitable for the English oratorio format than the Italian opera form that the composer had by this stage abandoned. The story's distinct scenes offer a variety of musical responses that Handel undertakes with grace, wit and invention. Producing the non-religious subject of Semele as an oratorio for the Lent season of 1744 stirred up some resentment and controversy, but Handel was never one to let tradition overrule musical imperatives and his own desire progress and develop the music-drama form.

Despite Handel's wonderful variety of musical moods - and a few famous arias - Semele can still be a little dry in its subject matter, in its repetition of banal statements and its delivery of solemn declamations, so it undoubtedly helps if you can enliven a dramatic presentation and bring the gods a little more down-to-earth. The Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe production directed by Floris Visser does that in a very clever manner that updates the context of the story of Semele while at the same time retaining near complete fidelity towards character and purpose. Just as importantly, the production fully captures the essential spirit and charm of Handel's musical arrangements for the work. It's not profound, but it's certainly clever, charming and - with Handel's music behind it all - enchanting.

A lovely little dramatic play over the intro sets the scene quite perfectly in the Karlsruhe production. Here Jupiter is a philandering American President with an eye for the ladies (take your pick - most of the costume designs and Ed Lyon's appearance suggest JFK era, but the use of technology and a Monica Lewinsky reference in the closing scene give it a more timeless application). Recently inaugurated, it's not long before the first lady Juno catches the President carrying on with his secretary Semele (daughter of Cadmus, the King of Thebes, who no doubt has the influence to get her a post at the White House as an intern). Furious, the President's wife arranges for the threat to be neutralised by arranging a marriage for the young woman to Athamas, a promising young military officer.

Act I of the oratorio/opera then opens with the familiar setting of the unfortunate playing out of those wedding arrangements, the somewhat drawn-out wedding situation at least engaging the interest in seeing how this modern twist can be made to fit in with the mythological content and whether any real-world message can as a consequence cut through the old-fashioned trappings of antiquity. With numerous inventive responses - I imagine that a certain amount of credit for that must go to the creative and meaningful development of the dramaturgy by Klaus Bertisch - the Karlsruhe production does that very well and makes it thoroughly entertaining into the bargain.

To cite just a few examples, the wedding of Act I has a timeless feel, with character types and situations that are much more recognisable in this context. In place of the thunderbolts that herald Jupiter's intervention, we see instead the President directing a SWAT operation that provides just as much storm and drama without the hokey imagery of gods descending on clouds and chariots. Nor are there dragons with a "thousand fiery eyes" that guard Semele's hidden mountain retreat, but a video of an armaments test of new helicopter technology by Juno's PA Iris achieves much the same impact and effect.  

Aside from the clever technical solutions provided, Floris Visser also ensures that the characters also respond appropriately to this world view, without straying too far away from the essence of what the drama is striving to convey. Juno and Iris provide the most fun, knocking back a bottle of Jack Daniels as they plot revenge on Jupiter. Somnus, the God of Sleep who they engage/blackmail to help them storm Jupiter's hideaway, is a dozy porn-addicted computer geek who will hack the system in return for sexual favours. The magic mirror that Juno uses to appeals to Semele's vanity is a camera, and it's also at the hands of the press - flashbulbs replacing bolts of lightning - that Semele is undone and realises too late her mistake in consorting with the 'gods' who play by their own rules with little thought for the consequences it has for 'ordinary' people.

This all brings a welcome sense of fun and significance that is wholly appropriate for the work, but it doesn't neglect the greater variety of mood and emotions that Handel was able to develop outside the restrictions of the Italian opera format. There's tenderness in the situations of Athamas and Ino; there's a jaunty smugness to Juno and Iris at the success of their plotting and of course; there's considerable breadth of character to Semele and the experience she undergoes beyond the normal fluctuations between joy and despair. Visibly pregnant at the end of Act I, with a couple of fantasy dream sequences illustrating her illusions, her predicament is made rather more meaningful and clearer than their child mystically arising out of her ashes at the conclusion (the birth of Bacchus no doubt a boon for those two dipsos Juno and Iris).

Christopher Moulds conducts the score with the requisite attention to pacing, rhythm and mood, perhaps smoothing the edges out a little, but it's hard to determine that from a compressed audio stream. The singing too holds up its side of the deal that is required to make this production work so well, with engaging performances throughout. Jennifer France is a lively and assertive Semele, not just a floozy for the President, impressive in her characterisation of the role, which is sung wonderfully. Ed Lyon, more presidential than god-like, gives an engaging performance; Terry Wey's lovely alto countertenor brings a measure of sweetness and sympathy for Athamas; Katharine Tier and Hannah Bradbury make a great team and provide some of the most entertaining moments as Juno and Iris. The demands of the English diction are a challenge for Dilara Baştar and her Ino sounds overly harsh at first, but she comes into the role well.

Links: Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Opera Platform

Cavalli - La Didone

Francesco Cavalli - La Didone

Théâtre de Caen, 2011

William Christie, Clément Herve-Léger, Anna Bonitatibus, Kresimir Spicer, Xavier Sabata, Maria Streijffert, Terry Wey, Katherine Watson, Tehila Nini Goldstein, Claire Debono, Joseph Cornwell, Victor Torres, Valerio Contaldo, Mariana Rewerski, Matthias Vidal, Francisco Javier Borda

Opus Arte

Depending on the work, depending on who is playing it and depending on how it is staged, Cavalli’s operas - some of the oldest works in existence - can struggle to hold the attention of a modern audience. They can be long, usually based on classical subjects, consist of long stretches of recitative accompanied principally on harpsichord and lyrone basso continuo with a limited range of period string instruments. There’s little in the works that lends itself to exciting staging in the way of, for example, the French regal entertainments of Lully and Campra, with all their ballet sequences and choral arrangements. There are no such difficulties with this particular work - one of Cavalli’s earliest operas first performed in 1641 - a version of the familiar story of the Fall of Troy and the love story of Dido and Aeneas, and with the production being in the hands of William Christie and his company, Les Arts Florissants, there are no concerns either about the musical interpretation of La Didone, which is staged with dramatic intensity by Clément Herve-Léger.

What makes La Didone rather more accessible than some works of early opera is the libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello, the librettist responsible for Monteverdi’s ground-breaking L’Incoronazione di Poppea, an opera that daringly put real characters onto the stage for the first time rather than the gods and heroes of ancient mythology. Even though La Didone is related to the mythological figures of Virgil’s epic Latin poem ‘The Aeneid‘, it benefits nonetheless from Busenello’s wonderful humanising of the characters and indeed the gods. The libretto isn’t made up of the usual vague pronouncements and declarations, but is dramatically and poetically expressive of the range of human emotions and passions that are brought out by this expansive work. In the first half - in the model followed by Berlioz in the now more familiar Les Troyens - the libretto captures the true horror and nature of the experience of war, the destruction of one’s country and with it one’s hopes and dreams. The second half also corresponds with Berlioz’s division, with Aeneas’ arrival in Carthage and with the trials that are brought by love and betrayal, expressed in a variety of ways, through Dido’s love for her dead husband, her rejection of Iarbas, and in her love for Aeneas’ that is curtailed by his sense of duty (to the gods) to abandon her and strike out for Italy.

This wonderfully rich story is brilliantly described in Busenello’s libretto, but if it truly achieves the same kind of expression of human passions that can be found in L’Incoronazione di Poppea, it’s also due to the musical compositions of Cavalli, himself a pupil of Monteverdi. William Christie directs this from the harpsichord and the rhythms and tone are clear, precise and dynamically attuned to the emotional content of the work, emphasising the horror with driving chords and accompanying the delicate laments and love-songs with heartfelt lyricism. Even without a synopsis (there isn’t a detailed one with this DVD/BD release unfortunately), it’s not difficult to follow what is going on thanks to the clear libretto where figures introduce themselves naturally, and due to the musical accompaniment that defines them. This is particularly strong in the tricky first Act, where in addition to gods directing the events, numerous figures wander around the dark ruins of Troy in despair, terrorised by marauding Greeks - Coroebus dying in the arms of Cassandra, Hecuba’s despair for the fate of the women, Aeneas’s wife Creusa murdered and returning as a ghostly figure. Appropriately then, it all looks and sounds like the Hades of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo supplanted into the hell of a destroyed Troy.

Things actually become a little more confusing in the Carthage sections in this production with the doubling up of roles, when the same singer who played Aeneas’ dead wife Creusa in Act 1 (Tehila Nini Goldstein) turns up in Act 2 as Juno trying to destroy him. Even trickier, Cupid disguises himself as Aeneas’ son Ascanio in Act 2 to bring about the love between Aeneas and Dido, so although it makes for a convincing disguise when both Cupid and Ascanio are played by the same person (Terry Wey), it could be just a little confusing. (The chaptering, available as a pop-up on BD, will however clarify any other confusion over which characters are singing at any time). The fact that it works is down to the strong direction and staging working in perfect accordance with the music and the drama of the libretto. Clément Herve-Léger keeps the sets simple, employing only one or two large and effective symbolic gestures. It’s not period, but other than the inappropriate scaffolding for the down-to-earth gods and Venus lugging a suitcase for her journey to Carthage - an effort to humanise the appearances of the gods in line with the nature of the work and against the tradition of big fanfares and mechanical stage entrances - there are no distracting modern anachronisms.

With the simplicity of the staging and the sparseness of the orchestration, compared to conventional opera, much depends on the quality of the singing here. Populated extensively from Christie’s ‘Jardin des Voix‘ school for new young talent, the singing is exceptional right across the whole cast. Anna Bonitatibus is a clear, powerful and resonant Didone (Dido), and Kresimir Spicer a gentle lyrical Enea (Aeneas), both of them commanding and deeply expressive in the central roles, but the cast - clearly trained for this kind of singing - is made up of youthful voices filled with passion, clarity and a purity of tone that is well suited to early opera (some however - such as Francisco Javier Borda playing both Ilioneo and Mercury - try a little too hard). La Didone is still not without some longeurs for anyone unfamiliar with early opera, but this is certainly one of the more accessible works of this period, treated to a beautiful looking and fresh sounding production from Les Arts Florissants, that brings a much needed vitality to this rare 370 year-old work.

Opus Arte’s Blu-ray release comes with impressive specifications in terms of High Definition image and sound. The period instruments in particular have a wonderful clarity of tone within the natural reverb of the Caen theatre. It sounds a little bright and there’s no low-frequency range at all in the DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 mix, but it’s distributed well emphasising the fragility of the delicate playing and the strength of the vocal expression. The PCM Stereo mix is also clear and true. The BD is dual-layer BD50, 1080i and all-region compatible, with subtitles in English, French and German only. There are no extra features other than a Cast Gallery and a booklet with an essay on the work which has a brief outline of the story, but there is no detailed synopsis.