Kurt Weill - Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2019
Esa-Pekka Salonen, Ivo van Hove, Karita Mattila, Alan Oke, Sir Willard White, Annette Dasch, Nikolai Schukoff, Sean Panikkar, Thomas Oliemans, Peixin Chen
ARTE Concert - 11 July 2019
As a satire of capitalism Brecht and Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny has surely never felt so relevant and present with the times as it does now with the rise of populism and consumerism escalating towards end days. Never has it been more the case of giving the people what they want as long as you can get into a position of power and make some money out of it. And even if they don't yet know what they need, it's up to the enterprising businessman and leader to manufacture a dreams that they can sell them.
Directing Weill's anti-opera for Aix in 2019, Belgian stage director Ivo van Hove would seem to be in a good position to make this subject contemporary and relevant, but instead he goes for what is almost an anti-production approach. Using his familiar modern stage techniques of a stripped-back stage, using projections and on-stage cameras, it certainly emphasises the idea of capitalism being based on a sense of falsehood, illusion and fake glamour that is very much in the spirit of Bertolt Brecht, but it also turns out to be surprisingly dull and not as effective as it might be.
It's not surprising then that the stage is bare at the start of the opera. Widow Begbick, Fatty and Trinity Moses are literally in the middle of nowhere, three crooks chased out of town so they can't go back, their truck broken down so they can't go forward. Begbick tells them that they are going to build the city of Mahagonny there out of nothing. With the promise of entertainment, a deregulated paradise free from red-tape and restrictions on personal freedoms an unpopular laws and taxes, they're sure that it won't be long before the city and the stage is populated, attracting those with something to sell (like Jenny Smith and her girls, first at the door waiting for the punters to arrive) and those who believe that they can buy anything; everything is for sale, everything is permitted and money talks.
Up to a certain point anyway and it's in the fall of the city of Mahagonny that there ought to be some lessons learned - but only if you see the opera as a cautionary tale and there's nothing to say that it's anything more than a merciless satire on society and a bleak outlook on the darker base impulses of humanity. Certainly Jimmy Mahoney begins to recognise at one point that money can't buy you everything, but all he feels is missing is the urge to hit someone, and - wouldn't you know it - that's a need that can be exploited to make more money. Ultimately it's a self-destructive urge, and essentially the whole system is predicated on just such an outcome, or at least on putting it off for as long as possible while achieving the maximum consumption and profit.
It's all something that we can still recognise in the world today on an even bigger scale, with the urge towards violence and making money fuelling many a war. Even the hurricane and close call with death that Mahagonny narrowly avoids can be seen as a phenomenon brought on by man-made activity, in the accelerated abuse of natural resources and global warming. So perhaps it doesn't need to be overly emphasised or made explicit. We are all very much aware of what is wrong with the world today and the global consequences of what is happening. The real question is why do we still do it?
You would think however that the system should at least be superficially attractive and appealing. You don't need to go down the missing-the-point route of the Royal Opera House's 2015 production to achieve that, but Ivo van Hove doesn't even want to permit any such illusion, and indeed insists on showing us its ugliness and how we are willing to look past it for the sake of it suiting our immediate needs. Updating it for the modern age, van Hove's production incorporates how we have come to accept even digital manipulation as something of worth when it has no material value whatsoever. Everything is acted out for cameras, a selfie generation wanting to be immortalised on reality TV. Even the indulgences of the 'Everything is permitted' section of the opera takes place in a faked green-screen environment. It's a hollow experience and yet we've come to accept this as being enough.
So if Ivo van Hove's production feels very hollow and lacking in any substance, perhaps that the point, but you do get a sense that there is a wasted opportunity here to make something more of the opera and take it to another level. There's more to Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny than that however and its other qualities at least go some way to providing balance and reflection on the work. Musically the performance at Aix is of the highest order under conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. It's a fine interpretation that shows the richness of the work, its dynamism and unexpected sophistication, its ability to use whatever type of musical genre, jazz, classical, cabaret - and match it to drama and character as well as to the subtext it wants to use to undercut them.
In terms of singing, the work does have 'proper' operatic qualities and challenges. Nikolai Schukoff provides the most satisfying performance as Jimmy Mahoney, resolute and dissolute, capturing all the contradictions of the character and singing the role tremendously well. Karita Mattila and Annette Dasch also give good committed performances full of character and fire, if a little unsteady in places. What they also do particularly well is work with the on-stage camera close-ups that van Hove often uses this to bring an edge of intimacy and urgency to the work. That's not so much the case here, where despite the excellent work of the orchestra and some outstanding choral work from Pygmalion - the opera (and Jimmy) gradually fizzles out without it ever feeling like it makes the necessary impact. But maybe that tells us something as well.
Links: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence
Leoš Janáček - From the House of the Dead
La Monnaie-De Munt, Brussels, 2018
Michael
Boder, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Willard White, Pascal Charbonneau, Štefan
Margita, Nicky Spence, Ivan Ludlow, Alexander Vassiliev, Graham Clark,
Ladislav Elgr, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, Aleš Jenis, Pavlo Hunka, Florian
Hoffmann, Natascha Petrinsky, John Graham-Hall, Peter Hoare, Alexander
Kravets, Alejandro Fonte, Maxime Melnik
La Monnaie Streaming - November 2018
Krzysztof Warlikowski's production of Janáček's From the House of the Dead
received mixed reviews when it opened at the Royal Opera House early
last year. Seen again as a co-production with La Monnaie in Brussels -
who would be much more familiar with the director's working methods -
it's clear that Warlikowski does try to impose too much onto Janáček's
final opera, but even though it has enough going on in its own terms,
it's not as if the opera can't take it. As with the Royal Opera House
production, if it serves just to get this magnificent work performed -
it's not only Warlikowski's debut there but From the House of the Dead
that had never before been performed at Covent Garden - then it's
job done, and despite the usual reservations and sometimes valid complaints about
the director's methods, it's largely a job well done.
As
far as trying to do too much, well Warlikowski could probably have done
without the theoretical philosophising of Michel Foucault distracting
from the strong musical opening scored by Janáček that takes you into a world of masculine power-play and violence that has a
heightened malevolence within the confines of a prison. It matters
little whether that is a work camp in Siberia, as it is in Dostoevsky's
original work - one written about from hard-earned experience as a
political prisoner - or in what looks more like an American prison yard.
It's a work about observations on the nature of life in the prison
camp, the kind of people from all walks of life who end up there and
what confinement does to them.
While the philosophical
elements add little to the essential meaning of the work, they do at
least present an observational view on the nature of justice and
imprisonment. Far more successful are the real-life observations
in the filmed interviews that give the production a more genuine human
touch that is far from theoretical. Projected onto the steel curtain
that drops between acts, a prisoner talks about his detachment from the
world around him and how it leads to a greater awareness of the
presence of death. It adds to the deeper exploration in Janáček's opera
of sentiments that are brought out rather than submerged or destroyed
by the pervasive violence, anger, hatred, bitterness and regret around
them. Women are almost never out of their thoughts or stories - love
and family - but even though it is twisted and distorted in this
all-male environment, it's a spark that still ignites passions.
That
spark needs to be there in a production and From the House of the Dead
doesn't have much in the way of action to dramatise. Warlikowski finds
other fine ways of expressing those inner underlying sentiments and the
complex way they manifest themselves in words and actions, stories acted
out with cartoon violence and life in the prison environment with much
more realistic brutality. He also avoids what would now appear to be
hackneyed imagery in the references to birds, and in particular an
injured eagle that is looked after by the inmates and released at the
same time as the political prisoner Gorjančikov. Warlikowski finds a
more modern and original form of expressing it using two black dancers
(dancers often serving a similar function in the director's
productions). Cross-dressing and play-acting out the drama in Act II is
given perhaps too much emphasis with too much going on that is
distracting (another frequent feature in Warlikowski's productions), but
it's an attempt find a modern way to relate to those deeper masculine
concerns expressed in the work.
From the House of the
Dead then is not a conventional work and it doesn't have a central
figure much less a hero, as that would go against the intentions of
what the work is about. Gorjančikov's narrator becomes an observer,
collecting not just stories but also recording the impact these significant incidents have had on
the inmates. It's about how hope and the spark of human kindness is
never extinguished, even in such a place, even after all they've been through. Each of the characters relate
their stories, their fears and complexes, their humanity submerged
by the proximity and behaviour of other male characters, of having to
get on and live with them, of having to survive not being shafted by
them in one way or another, and Warlikowski does this by focussing on
the relationships, on little acts of kindness between them, even after
acts of appalling violence.
Janáček was always a
progressive 20th century musical innovator, a unique voice who had
developed a few tricks in his time and never rested on a single simple
means of expression but was constantly seeking to innovate. His use of adapting the rhythms of the spoken voice to
determine flow and rhythm are expanded further here for the specific
challenges of adapting From the House of the Dead. The rhythmic pulse
could be seen as representing the monotony and repetition of daily
existence, but Janáček - particularly in this new critical edition of
the score, a score that Janáček was unable to oversee though to
completion - shows subtle shifts under Michael Boder's direction. Never
simply repetitive, it's constantly developing and changing, showing how
people can adapt to their surroundings and change it by degrees.
Within
the score and the world it depicts, human actions, words and
behaviours are not negligible and can cause unpredictable shifts
as hope turns to despair, the progressive rhythm broken by outbursts of
violence, then repaired and finding its rhythm again. It's an
incredibly rich work, Janáček also employing harder sounds and
unconventional instruments including chains, not as a dramatic element,
but as part of the fabric of the world the work operates within.
Ultimately however personal interpretation is vital to bring the work
to life and it's that investment that is brought to it by an outstanding
cast of singers who are given plenty to get their teeth into. Pavlo Hunka in particular makes Šiškov's Act III story heartbreaking
and Nicky Spence is a menacing figure in a number of character roles
that exhibit a surprising but necessary emotional range for this work.
That's all to fit perfectly not with Janáček's score, but with the
thoughtful interpretation of this remarkable work by Boder and
Warlikowski.
Links: La Monnaie-De Munt
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - La Clemenza di Tito
Salzburger Festspiele, 2017
Teodor Currentzis, Peter Sellars, Russell Thomas, Golda Schultz, Christina Gansch, Marianne Crebassa, Jeanine De Bique, Willard White
Medici.tv - 4 August 2017
The stock of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito has certainly risen over the last few decades. Conductors and directors no longer shy away from its formal opera seria origins or its sympathetic treatment of wise noble rulers, realising that everything that is great about Mozart is as much there in his final opera as it is in his celebrated collaborations with Lorenzo da Ponte. When Mozart's musical language is allowed to exert its own narrative, the work seems to take on an aspect of supreme beauty in relation not so much to the wisdom of an ancient Roman ruler as to the troubles that the human soul has to grapple in recognition of and in overcoming its own flaws and weaknesses.
Directors and conductors have employed a huge variety of ways to bring out this aspect of Mozart's genius in his work, and I've never failed to be impressed with the flexibility with which La Clemenza di Tto is able to transform and adapt, fit around and find humanity in each of its characters, all of whom have their own focus of conflict. Trims have often been made to the recitative and a few arias have been dropped to make up for the six week rush within which Mozart completed the commission, but no-one has felt the need to radically reconfigure and alter the work the way that Teodor Currentzis and Peter Sellars do in their 2017 production for the Salzburg Festival.
Aside from some reconstructions of lost Vivaldi operas, I can't think of another opera production that worked as freely with a composer's material as the Salzburg La Clemenza di Tito, and this is a work that has never been considered incomplete by any means or in need of any reconstructive work. Yet, Sellars and Currentzis eviscerate Clemenza of much of its recitative and choruses in its place add pieces from Mozart's C-Minor Mass, from the Requiem and even the Masonic Funeral Music as an added finale when Titus dies in this production. You would have reason to be worried that the integrity of the piece would be compromised by such unwarranted meddling, but in truth, the intent and the beauty of La Clemenza di Tito remains intact.
The reason for that is obviously that because the heart of Mozart still lies behind all the pieces that have been added and reassembled here. It's still no easy matter to hold that together and retain the purpose and flow of the original work, and with the always controversial figures of both Teodor Currentzis and Peter Sellars involved, there's no guarantee that any such experimentation will work, but in this case it does. The ability of both to put the work in service of meaningful sentiments and situations that we recognise in the world today even allows them to go even further in the musical and stage direction to create something quite remarkable, profound and moving - as remarkable, profound and as moving as Mozart ought to be.
You can pinpoint little moments that work brilliantly; the Benedictus from the C-Minor Mass being the response of the people to Titus diverting the tributes earmarked for a temple in his honour towards the fund to rebuilt homes lost during the last eruption of Vesuvius; the visual placement on the stage of a basset horn accompaniment to Sesto's 'Parto Parto' aria; Annio's heart-rending solo during the Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem following the burning of the Capitol that almost kills Titus; but what matters is that all these moments only serve to bring out the underlying sentiment of love that is twisted by human turmoil and weakness, and how it is translated or redeemed by the human wisdom and forgiveness of Tito. Everything is in service to bringing this out, and it's best brought out in attentiveness to what Mozart's music tells us.
So a lot of responsibility lies with how Teodor Currentzis interprets and arranges Mozart's music, and since this conductor is well-known for his radical reinterpretation and revisions of Mozart's music, that is always going to be both interesting and controversial. The distinctive approach to the balance, arrangement and use of instruments is evident in Currentzis's MusicAeterna ensemble's use of period instruments, including a baroque guitar and an archlute, as well as fortepiano flourishes added during the recitative. It never sounds anything less than completely Mozart, a fresh, contemporary and adventurous response to the deep emotional content within the work, highlighting the strength of the melody and giving it a beautiful open transparency.
The concept and the stage direction are more important here than set designs, the Felsenreitschule auditorium contributing to the atmosphere here, with little else in the way of constructions in George Tsypin set design other than abstract light sculptures. The modern-day costumes and suggested ethnicity of the chorus also has contemporary resonance, as does Sesto's wearing of a suicide vest for his terrorist mission against the state. Flowers, candles and photos are arrayed across the stage at the start of the Second Act in a remembrance display for the victims of this terror attack, which might be a bit of a cliché now, but it does function to highlight the reality of such violence, and the need all the more to respond to it with tolerance, forgiveness and compassion.
The prospect of some heavy-handed messaging is always a risk with Peter Sellars, but here he genuinely taps into something present and real, not an abstract artificial construct of an idea based around terrorism and refugees - and more importantly, it taps into Mozart. Sellars employed a similar theme and technique when directing a merger of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex with Symphony of Psalms at Aix-en-Provence in 2016 - although keeping them separate, the latter as a 'sequel' to Oedipus Rex - but this is much more ambitious and much more successful in the results it yields.
The direction of the singers and their fully engaged performances also takes La Clemenza di Tito far away from any opera seria mannerisms or formality. As is often the case with this work, the emphasis can shift very much according to the strengths of the singers. Russell Thomas is not the most lyrical or Mozartian Titus, the role often going to softer voices, but you can see him as a figure who commands trust and respect, particularly in his delivery of his concluding arias. Golda Schultz by comparison was a softer, more sympathetic Vitellia, capable of being moved deeply by the horror she sets in motion. The stand-out performances here for me however came from Marianne Crebassa's deeply conflicted Sesto, and from Jeanine De Bique's soaring Annio.
Links: Salzburger Festspiele, Medici.tv
Francesco Cavalli - Il Giasone
Grand Théâtre de Genève, Geneva - 2017
Leonardo García Alarcón, Serena Sinigaglia, Valer Sabadus, Kristina Hammarström, Kristina Mkhitaryan, Alexander Milev, Günes Gürle, Raúl Giménez, Willard White, Migran Agadzhanyan, Dominique Visse, Mariana Flores, Mary Feminear
ARTE Concert - February 2017
The first opera composers, back in Venice in the 17th century, believed that the Greek tragedies were meant to be performed to musical accompaniment, and the invention of opera was a way of reinstating music as a key component of dramatic expression. The notion about Greek drama proved to be a mistaken one, but from it developed a whole new way of expressing classic tales and drawing out underlying subtexts, ideas and themes. Realising its potential, the first great opera composer Monteverdi soon extended the scope of opera beyond the gods and myths of the classics and into the more commonplace earthly sentiments of human love, loss and lust. His student Francesco Cavalli took these ideas even further.
It's only now as more of the composer's works are being examined and performed that we are beginning to realise the extent to which Cavalli developed the art of lyric drama. Central to the rediscovery of many rare Cavalli works is the Argentinean baroque specialist conductor Leonardo García Alarcón. The success of his Elena at Aix-en-Provence in 2013 is being followed with a premiere this year of Erismena, and he unearthed the wonderful Eliogabalo for the Paris Opera in 2016. Alarcón and Geneva's contribution to the development of the Cavalli catalogue is another rarity, Il Giasone, composed in 1649. It's also derived from those classical Greek epics, but it's given what we can now see as a characteristic humanly rich and down-to-earth treatment from Cavalli.
Cavalli's Il Giasone gives us a different perspective on the story of Jason that the less than flattering one that we would be more accustomed to hearing from the perspective of Euripides's Medea. So has Jason just had bad ancient Greek PR? Well, Cavalli's Il Giasone gives a more rounded account of the leader of the Argonauts and judging by the tender duets that he shares with Medea, there seems to be genuine love, affection and respect there for the Queen of Colchis. On the other hand, Jason's promiscuity is also made quite apparent in Cavalli's opera, a habit that will get him into trouble further down the line by the time he gets to Corinth. Here, having had what Wikipedia amusingly describes as having "extensive relations" with the women of Lemnos, Jason has already fathered twins to Hypsipyle (Isifile in the opera) and Medea's nurse Delfa claims that he has had another set of twins with her. He certainly puts it about a bit.
What is Jason's response to all these accusations? Well, Serena Sinigaglia's direction for Il Giasone seems to be perfectly in the spirit of Cavalli's usual treatment of such situations; deny everything. Or he at least has the wit to claim, while wearing a cheesy grin at the thought of all these women claiming paternity, that it could have been him, but who's to know and how he is supposed to keep count of his conquests and the resulting progeny? That really sets the tone for a work that is far fresher and more entertaining than a work almost 400 years old has any right to be. The delightful Geneva production and Leonardo García Alarcón's conducting of the Cappella Mediterranea contributes to this impression with a staging that is simple, captivating and musically invigorating.
The set and costume designs by Ezio Toffolutti are just perfect for every purpose, and Cavalli has plenty of purpose to put them towards. There are no extravagant gestures or clever concepts applied, just an effort placed into making the stage look stylish attractive and dramatically effective. The main prop is a dark circle of standing stones with surrounding flat-panel bushes that serve as hiding places and platforms for romantic assignations, as well as providing a suitable location for Medea to work invocations and cast spells. The costumes, mainly on the part of Isifile and her Lemnos entourage, are 1920s' period elegance, while there is also good use made out of body suits for the muscular Ercole, the hunchbacked Demo and the nursing attributes of Delfa. They also come hilariously complete with miniature appendages for the dancing cherub Amore.
The plot has something of a 'Carry on Jason' kind of comic farce to it with Demo (Migran Agadzhanyan) providing stuttering double-entendres and the nurse Delfa (who else can do this role better than Dominique Visse) leaping on any sailor who is game enough to take her on, but that's only part of Cavalli's rich entertainment. The situations can also convey something of the underlying menace of Medea's formidable reputation, but at the same time show an unexpected tenderness and even sensitivity for Jason, seeking protection for him in his quest for the Golden Fleece. It might seem like there are far too many little side-plots and situations, but even with a large cast of mythological heroes, villains, gods, dwarfs, queens and kings in complex arrangements, they all display recognisably human characteristics and contribute to the central subject of the relations between men and women. Cavalli scores the music for it all wonderfully, with invigorating dance rhythms, touching laments and reflective love duets.
Medea is a gift of a character in whatever dramatic or operatic incarnation she appears and Kristina Hammarström takes the role well here in the Geneva Il Giasone alongside countertenor Valer Sabadus as Jason. Cavalli rarely goes in for showy arias, preferring instead to give the performers strong characters that they can really get their teeth into, and that's certainly the case here. Even so, there are a number of duets between Jason and Medea that are just beautifully written and performed here. Kristina Mkhitaryan also has a substantial role as Hypsipyle/Isifile which she sings wonderfully, bringing a lovely clear brightness to the character. Musically, it's a real treat with Leonardo García Alarcón's conducting the Cappella Mediterranea, the period instruments bringing out a lovely percussive rhythmic edge to the score with a deep low continuo accompaniment.
Links: ARTE Concert, Grand Théâtre de Genève
Alban Berg - Lulu
English National Opera, 2016
Mark Wigglesworth, William Kentridge, Luc De Wit, Brenda Rae, Sarah Connolly, Michael Colvin, James Morris, Nicky Spence, Willard White, David Soar, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, Clare Presland, Graeme Danby, Sarah Labiner, Rebecca de Pont Davies, Sarah Champion, Geoffrey Dolton, Joanna Dudley, Andrea Fabi
The Coliseum, London - 12th November 2016
Every time I see it, I marvel at how dense a work Lulu is and how frustrating it is to get a grasp on. It's never a question of liking or loving it - it's a work of art that lies beyond such superficial considerations. Lulu is an opera that demands engagement but at the same time keeps you at a distance. Almost by definition it's a piece whose meaning and wider application must remain elusive, since its main character herself must remain an enigma.
I can only imagine how much more difficult then it must be for the performers and directors to take on its musical challenges and at the same time draw it into something coherent and comprehensible for an audience. It must be a challenge of Ring-like proportions. Lulu is a work that leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but at the same time it defies any attempt to pin it down. Or if not so much interpretation, it demands artistic engagement. Whether on the part of the singers - particularly in the leading role - or the director, there's room to make a mark, place a personal stamp on the raw material that Berg provides.
Although it almost adds another level of complexity that for the sake of attention and focus it could well do without, William Kentridge's production for the English National Opera is an almost perfect way to approach Lulu, being neither illustrative or interpretative. Using projections of bold Indian ink sketches and splatters on a canvas of text, William Kentridge's designs address the question of art within Lulu, and in doing so they provide a new insight into the work. Lulu is not just a figure immortalised in a painting by the Artist, she is a living work of art. This is what gives Berg's opera its endless fascination at the same time as it frustrates the viewer and the director who attempts to pin it down.
The inability to pin Lulu down - she even resists attempts to give her just one name - is exactly what Kentridge brings to the production through his constantly reworked drawings, sketches and inkblots. Painted on top of blocks of newspaper or dictionary text, the illustrations are neither decorative nor illustrative of the drama, but perhaps more attuned to the music and to the art of the music. The images layer on top of one another, cutting and jumping, flipping reverses and mirror images, reflecting the impossibility of defining Lulu - the person, the opera, the concept, the idea - into one single image. Notoriously, Lulu is all things to all men; an object, the personification of men's lusts and desires who cannot possibly live up to the ideal.
In contrast to my usual experience with Lulu then, fascination with a production's attempts to define her or at least define the ideal gradually leading to frustration as the work slips away from any efforts to exert control over it, Kentridge's production had the opposite effect. Act I was the most frustrating since it didn't offer any 'vision'. The projections seemed to be little more than a series of gestures, slapdash ideas without any strong conceptual core behind them, offering no way of making the narrative any easier to follow, even if it has a distinct and attractive visual presence.
By Act II however, this constant reworking of the enigma of Lulu became mesmerising. You really do see the turning point in the reinstated 'film sequence', the moment that Lulu's ascendancy starts to decline, the moment her currency devalues and how afterwards she starts to become weary of the attentions of men, recoiling from the constant gaze, only to find that she has never had an identity of her own. Act III then becomes captivating in a way that productions using Friedrich Cerha's impressive efforts to complete the third Act of the work - the incomplete opera creating an enigma and fascination of its own - rarely achieve. The production leaves you with a sense that it has continually added to the picture of Lulu rather than taken away from her in her decline to a horrible end.
In fact, Kentridge and co-director Luc De Wit do make the fractured narrative of Berg's efforts to condense Wedekind's two 'Lulu' plays much easier to follow. Each of the characters is colourfully dressed, contrasting with the start black-and-white imagery of the projected ink illustrations. And not just colourfully dressed, but colourfully interpreted, each showing a distinct personality in character and in voice. Without the distraction of trying to work out who was who and who is married to Lulu now, the complexity of the relationship between the narrative, the production design and the difficult shifting musical landscape is actually much easier to grasp. Two silent figures of a man and a woman - dressed in black-and-white, the man wearing a newspaper head mask, the woman more Lulu-like - also add an indefinable quality of living artworks to the unspoken matters of the work. Even if if the principal character remains elusive, she is not a void.
A considerable part of the success of achieving that must lie with the singer performing the role of Lulu and Brenda Rae fulfilled the role marvellously. Aside from the technical challenges of the role, she brought an ideal tone and temperament that suited the intent of the production here. This Lulu as portrayed by Rae is neither lascivious nor hysterical, but essentially and necessarily human, as flawed and capable of misjudgment as anyone. If she is irresistible to men, it's clearly more of a projection of what the men impress on her than anything she initiates. She's more victim than vamp. Sarah Connolly is luxury casting for Countess Geschwitz and Nicky Spence made a great impression as Alwa, but there was much to admire in all of the cast; in James Morris's Dr Schön, Michael Colvin's Artist and David Soar's Athlete. With so much going on I always find it hard to take in Berg's huge complex score, but Mark Wigglesworth's conducting proved to be the unifying force for all its tones and styles, as well as for its dramatic content.
Links: English National Opera
Igor Stravinsky - Oedipus Rex/Symphony of Psalms
Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, 2016
Esa-Pekka Salonen, Peter Sellars, Joseph Kaiser, Violeta Urmana, Willard White, Joshua Stewart, Pauline Cheviller, Laurel Jenkins
Culturebox - 17th July 2016
The performance of Stravinsky's Oedpius Rex and Symphony of Psalms at the Aix-en-Provence festival is a perfect example of just what is so important and great about opera as a living artform. You can ponder the implications of Sophocles' Greek drama, you can give attention to where Stravinsky places emphasis in his reading of the material, and you can formulate all kinds of connections between the real-world and how it is presented on the stage. Sometimes however timing and events can add yet another entirely unpredictable and unforeseen element to give a work of art a life entirely of its own.
The event in question at the time of this July 17th 2016 performance of Oedipus Rex at Aix-en-Provence, was the terrorist attack a few days earlier in nearby Nice during the Bastille Day celebrations that resulted in 84 deaths. In the light of such a horrific event it becomes impossible not to look at this production in a different way from how it might have been originally intended, or from how you might have looked at it even a week earlier. If the production however touches on the essence of the questions raised in the ancient Greek drama, it will inevitably make its own truthful associations with those recent events, and Peter Sellars' production does seem to touch at the heart of them.
So while such events were evidently far from the mind of the original Igor Stravinsky/Jean Cocteau presentation of the Sophocles drama, its combination with Peter Sellars' modern dress production opens the drama up enough to allow it to resonate with such events. Suddenly, without it being the intention of anyone involved, you can see the fear and incomprehension of the French nation in the people of Thebes as they are afflicted by a terrible plague. You can see too how they would turn to their leader in this time of mourning to seek reassurance and protection. You can also see the powerlessness felt by that ruler - a man in a suit - who is ignorant of the part he has played in bringing this plague upon his people. In denial, feeling assailed and powerless to do anything else, his natural reaction is to strike out.
Sellars' direction might still be encumbered somewhat by familiar mannerisms and affectations, but there is unquestionably something absolutely right about the method employed if it allows those connections to be made. It's debatable whether the tribal wood carvings and throne add anything other than relating the present to antiquity, suggesting that there is a deeper human truth here that lies outside the surface considerations of time, place and dress costume. The chorus making exaggerated semaphored hand-signals is another affectation that doesn't really seem to add anything, but if without really being aware of it it makes the audience pay more attention to the words being expressed and it helps the chorus think about the importance and urgence of what they are singing, then it undoubtedly serves its purpose here.
I'm sure that the direction and the sense of occasion would have made its way into the singing performances as well. You can certainly get a sense of that in the performance of Joseph Kaiser as Oedipus. The ruler of Thebes is a man of authority and respect for his past actions saving the city, and Kaiser carries all of that in his lyrical tone, but there's an edge there as well as the enormity of his origins starts to become clear. Willard White is also fired up in this performance as Creon, Tiresias and Messenger, delivering messages that no-one wants to hear. In a role that is equally emotional, Violeta Urmana struggles however to contain and control it, her singing sounding rather wayward in a wavering line, but it's an intense performance. The speaking role of the narrator/Antigone shouldn't be underestimated for its importance in relating events and relating to the audience, and Pauline Cheviller gets that across with deep feeling.
Although musically connected, coming from the same period in Stravinsky's neoclassical style, it does seem odd to pair the Greek drama of Oedipus Rex with the Christian sentiments of Symphony of Psalms. Dramatically for the sake of the staging however, Sellers draws very loosely in this short presentation from Sophocles' 'Oedipus at Colonus'. Pauline Cheviller's Antigone is again the narrator who links the two parts together, and Ismene is played by a dancer. In this follow-up, the wandering blind Oedipus in exile is led by his daughter away from Thebes to be welcomed in Colonus near Athens, where he will end his days "with peace divine". Setting the Greek play to Symphony of Psalms does seem tenuous on a rational level, but rationality and suitability are not so much the point here as taking the lessons learned from Oedipus to the next stage on a human level.
The stage accordingly is emptied of any props, reflecting an Oedipus stripped of his former life, his position, his sight. Sellers uses lighting effects to describe his emotional state, some of which is rather Robert Wilson-like in effect, with a small neon square of light to the side of the stage being where Oedipus eventually is led and left to lie down and rest. It looks gorgeous and is a perfect accompaniment and setting for Stravinsky's beautiful music, conducted here wonderfully by Esa-Pekka Salonen. The singers again punch out the choral singing with arms and hands, and some ballet movements all contribute to reflect what is being expressed and how it relates to what is going on in world not so very far away from where this performance took place in Provence.
Links: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Culturebox
Kurt Weill - Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Royal Opera House, 2015
Mark Wigglesworth, John Fulljames, Anne Sofie von Otter, Peter Hoare, Willard W. White, Christine Rice, Kurt Streit, Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts, Darren Jeffery, Neal Davies, Hubert Francis
Royal Opera House, Cinema Live - 1 April 2015
What is both clever and great about Weill and Brecht's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is that as long as we live in a society that is centred around capitalism and commerce, its message is always going to be pertinent and relevant. Inevitably there's much made of how the message of the work reflects our own current economic downturn, but even if we lived in boom times, the opera would still show fairly accurately the kind of 'Wolf of Wall Street' excess and vulgarity, the moral and social breakdown that inevitably follows when the acquisition of obscene amounts of money it seen as an end in itself. There's not much to be said for capitalism, is there?
As well as being clever (and true), this is however part of the problem with the work as it stands as an opera. It's rather preachy. Its parable of the building of a city by three criminals whose founding principles are based on nothing more than exploiting its transient citizens for every penny they can get out of them (no money left, you'll feel the full weight of the law - immigrants welcome, as long as you have something (money, cheap labour) to contribute) is more of a concept than a plot, and it lacks genuine engagement. It's true that Bertolt Brecht was more interested in gaining the intellectual participation of the audience than their emotional engagement or identification with the characters, but for the work to succeed on the opera stage today, it needs a little more of a bite to shake a modern audience out of its complacency.
Perhaps Brecht didn't anticipate, considering its evident failings as a model for social well-being and despite its superficial allure, that Capitalism could possibly turn out to be so pervasive as to be endorsed as a sine qua non, but then, it's clear from this work that he doesn't have too much faith in human nature being motivated by anything other than naked greed and self-interest. Nonetheless, the Royal Opera House production of Mahagonny does feel complacent. Not in terms of professionalism or performance - everything is well considered here - but it is a production that is designed for the opera stage for a Covent Garden audience, and it consequently fails to invite anything but a complacent shrug of recognition. 'That's so true', you think, 'but not much you can do to change it'.
For a regular opera, you don't really expect much more of a response than that, but Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is not a regular opera and, consequently that's really not good enough. It's not entirely the fault of John Fulljames's direction for the Royal Opera House, but inherently a problem with the work itself. It's not the anti-opera that it sets out to be, but rather does end up preaching to a well-heeled audience that is not really going to consider its wealth vulgar, or have to worry that it will all disappear on binges of whoring and drinking. Weill might be partly to blame for how the musical language speaks and soothes away any unwelcome recognition, its jazz-influenced rhythms no longer as daring as they might once have been, but Brecht's heavy-handed mocking of capitalist society doesn't invite any real engagement or suggest alternatives either.
A stage director, set designer and a musical director willing to really engage with the message could however make more of a difference here. The problem with John Fulljames, Es Devlin and Mark Wigglesworth's interpretation is that it is resolutely opera house. They do justice to the letter of the work as it was written, and give every indication of the relevance of its intentions, but they don't find a way to update the nihilistic 1930's spirit of the opera in a way that would invite a modern audience to put aside their opera preconceptions. The La Fura dels Baus production at the Teatro Real, by way of comparison, managed to be a little more adventurous and inventive with the work, and conductor there, Pablo Heras Casado, managed to get more of the genuine swagger and swing of the orchestration. The production team at the Royal Opera House, on the other hand, don't really treat Weill and Brecht's work differently from the way they would approach any other opera commission.
Es Devlin's set designs are, it has to be said, inventive and very much find a modern way to envision the themes of the work - even if it tripped up the performers on one or two occasions. The city of Mahagonny comes literally from the back of a lorry, neatly compartmentalising the scenes in the first act, while the second and third acts add shipping containers to the construction. There are no niceties here, it's a city that has evolved out of the practicalities of delivering commercial products and services. That's as much a reflection of the abstraction of Brecht's alienation devices, inviting audiences to consider the "idea" of a city rather the concrete reality of a realistic set. We're now familiar with this kind of set design now however, and just as much depends on what you do within in. Unfortunately, John Fulljames doesn't find any original way of making consumption in this permissive society anything more than it is on the page. When you have actually seen worse in reality on the streets of modern metropolises, it's fairly tame stuff indeed.
So, instead of engaging with the ideas, there's not much else for the critic to review here other than the old fall-back of how good the singing performances are - as if Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is just another work to be assessed in that peculiar view of opera as little more than a perpetual singing contest. Christine Rice was the probably the strongest voice here as Jenny, giving a great rendition of the famous Alabama Song, but for me she was much too plummy and operatic for the down-and-dirty role. Kurt Streit was best with character, but his singing was also strong, bright and lyrical, capturing the wild abandon of Jimmy McIntyre. If character realism is important here, and it's debatable, it would then colour your view of Anne Sofie von Otter's over-acted Widow Begbick, but it was an enjoyable characterisation, even if it apparent that her voice is no longer strong enough to carry the sung-recitative sections. Willard White's voice isn't as strong as it once was either but Trinity Jones is a familiar role for him, and he can still do it well.
This was a good performance then and highly entertaining, as professional as you would expect from the Royal Opera House, but something was still missing. Being aware of the content from a synopsis isn't usually an issue with opera - you can usually expect an infinite amount of variety in interpretation - but here, having laid it out beforehand in the pre-screening and interval features, it all played out a little too routinely and complacently. One thing Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny should never be is routine and complacent, but whether that's a problem with the Royal Opera House's production or the world itself worryingly becoming a parody of capitalism that outstrips anything in Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's opera, one would like to think you'd get more out of this work than just a nice evening at the opera.
Links: The Royal Opera House
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Don Giovanni
La Monnaie - De Munt, 2014
Ludovic Morlot, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Sir Willard White, Barbara Hannigan, Topi Lehtipuu, Rinat Shaham, Andreas Wolf, Jean-Luc Ballestra, Julie Mathevet
La Monnaie Internet Streaming - December 2014
What is both delightful and disappointing about Krzysztof Warlikowski's productions is that they can sometimes take away from a work as much as they give to it. In the case of La Monnaie's Don Giovanni for example, Warlikowski makes it feel fresh, modern and relevant to today rather than being merely a cautionary historical adventure story about a licentious noble. On the other hand, Mozart and Da Ponte's work is already perfect in itself, always giving, always revealing new dimensions and ever open to re-evaluation and reinterpretation. How far should you go in modernising a masterpiece if it risks corrupting what is inherently great about it?
Well, the answer is obvious for many people - leave Don Giovanni well alone and out of the hands of these Regietheater directors - but Warlikowsi is definitely onto something here. Don Giovanni's behaviour should shock a modern audience in the manner that it would have shocked an early 19th century audience, or if shock isn't that easy to come by on stage in the 21st century, it could at least aspire to be as edgy, challenging and contemporary as Steve McQueen's 2011 film 'Shame'. Other directors however have managed to find a way of getting this across the relevance of Mozart's Don Giovanni without having to stretch the credibility of the plot the way Warlkowski's does in attempting to fit it to another work in a different artform with different aims.
Warlikowski however isn't particularly concerned with dramatic naturalism, and since he's working in opera, there's no reason why he should be. He's not concerned that his mise-en-scène doesn't entirely match up with the letter of the libretto or that credibility is damaged when characters act out-of-character. It's not really staged with first-time opera goers in mind, the director, rather like Like Stefan Herheim's productions, assuming that the audience is familiar enough with this work to notice any discrepancies and think about why they are there. It's not entirely high-brow post-modernism either for the audience to be self-aware of the dramatic construct or for the characters to be aware of themselves playing roles. The central question at the heart of Don Giovanni is indeed one of innocence, manipulation and playing of roles, and those themes should still be evident to anyone.
Are the personalities of Don Giovanni really as naive as they seem or are they complicit to a greater or lesser degree in Don Giovanni's deception and self-deception? This isn't entirely a new idea, and it's often established in how Donna Anna behaves during the opening scene - is she raped or has she invited the seducer in? Is she aware of his identity or not? - but Warlikowski's production is indeed shocking in the way he presents it. As usual in a Warlikowski production, the tone is established by a movie prelude that sets out his premise. In this case, with a filmed prelude that almost shot-for-shot replicates the opening scene on the subway in Steve McQueen's 'Shame', the director clearly wants us to relate to Don Giovanni not as a heartless libertine, but in the modern context of an ordinary damaged individual whose only escape from himself is through his self-destructive and all-consuming sex-addiction.
We see another movie when the opera starts, and again, taking a scene from 'Shame], it's a soft-porn movie involving Don Giovanni in an orgy with two women. The film is watched off-stage from a box in the La Monnaie theatre by Don Giovanni and Donna Anna (alongside a glum Leporello), with the Commendatore and a female companion in the box opposite. Don Ottavio's early appearance at one point suggests that even he is not entirely an innocent party, but how much each of those involved know about the identity of Don Giovanni and how much they go along with his activities (which are proudly displayed on the screen for all to see, so they at least can't be unaware of his reputation) isn't entirely clear at this stage. Whether he tries to rape Donna Anna in the theatre box or whether she is willingly taking part in a sex game, the Commendatore thinks he's gone too far and suffers the consequences with a bullet through the head.
Well, if you didn't already know Warlikowski's work by reputation, you very quickly find out from this opening that he's not a director to pull any punches. The same uncompromising position is taken throughout, the settings and locations scarcely resembling those in the original, the lurid colourful lighting, strobing and glitterball lighting effects on shining modern surfaces not even the least bit naturalistic. Strange and sometimes semi-naked figures wander around, some of them part of Don Giovanni's retinue and some of them party-goers, others symbols or apparitions, the killing of the Commendatore evidently biting at his conscience and pushing him over the edge, but there is also a young girl with a skipping rope that it would appear to represent innocence. If La Monnaie's production doesn't quite hit all the necessary points, it seems to me however that it's less to do with Warlikowski's unconventional reading (although I'm sure many would dispute that assessment), and more to do with the musical interpretation.
Using a reduced orchestra but not period instruments, this doesn't sound like a familiar Don Giovanni either. The arrangements and instrumentation as conducted by Ludovic Morlot don't carry the dark tone that is required, but the rhythm that is such a part of Mozart isn't there either. Familiar arias can sound quite different here because of this, but that could also be as much to do with the type of singers cast here. It's not necessarily a bad thing to drop many of the mannerisms and conventions, particularly for a production that wants to cast a fresh eye over the work, but I'm not sure that it even supports Warlikowski's vision for the work. Acting is given prominence and that works to the advantage of the director's intentions, but it means we lose the power of the singing interpretation and delivery to get it across.
Some of the performers can make up for this. Barbara Hannigan, for example, is a little light and high in voice for Donna Anna, but she gives the performance everything (she never does anything less) in a wonderfully unhinged version of her character. Although Don Giovanni obviously remains the central figure of the work, it's Donna Anna who is the key to how he is treated in her pursuit of vengeance. Here, that's less for the murder of her father the Commendatore than from a twisted sex game on her behalf, in which she is just as manipulative and dangerous in her actions and relations with those who come into contact with her. Despite his fate here, Don Ottavio is no fool in this production. He knows that the truth is not so simple "How can I believe that a nobleman could be guilty of so black a crime!" and, as sung by Topi Lehtipuu, his "Dalla sua pace" consequently has an undercurrent of suspicion for Donna Anna's state of mind. He knows what he is dealing with and pays the price, much as Don Giovanni does.
There's a similar commitment to the interpretation from Jean-Sébastien Bou's Don Giovanni, and little of the usual swagger. Although the film 'Shame' is used to suggest a modern response to Don Giovanni's 'condition', it's not over-emphasised elsewhere, but left to Bou to give you pause for thought over culpability and the guilt that drives him to madness, and he does it well. Some of the other performances don't get the balance of acting and singing quite as successfully. Rinat Shaham's Donna Elvira makes a stronger impression than most, and although clearly stretched, she sings the role well, but her character is a little more difficult to fathom. Overall, it's definitely a case of taking with one hand and giving with another in La Monnaie's production, and while you don't take from Mozart lightly, there's still much to admire in Warlikowski's approach that makes you think about the sheer wilful perversity of a work that should indeed inspire such a strong reaction.
La Monnaie's Don Giovanni can be viewed streaming until 27 January from the links below. The next streaming productions from La Monnaie are Handel's ALCINA and TAMERLANO from 18 Feb to 10 March.
Links: La Monnaie, RTBF Musiq3
Richard Wagner - Parsifal
Royal Opera House, London - 2013
Antonio Pappano, Stephen Landridge, Simon O'Neill, Angela Denoke, Gerald Finley, René Pape, Willard White, Robert Lloyd, Dušica Bijelić, Rachel Kelly, Sipho Fubesi, Luis Gomes, Celine Byrne, Kiandra Howarth, Anna Patalong, Anna Devin, Ana James, Justina Gringyte, David Butt Philip, Charbel Mattar
Opus Arte - Blu-ray
Richard Wagner's Parsifal is a work of supreme brilliance, the final work of a musical genius. It's the summation of a career that marked the highest achievement in the world of opera not only up to that point, but it's debatable whether it has ever been surpassed. More than just standing as one of the greatest works of opera ever composed however, it's also a work of art that is practically a philosophical summation of everything it means to be a human, suffering in an imperfect world while searching for meaning and a higher sense of purpose. Musically, the work even seems to go beyond itself and expand into another realm or dimension that lies outside conventional space and time, and it can even take the listener there with it. If you've experienced Parsifal, you'll understand that is not hyperbole.
No pressure then for any opera house who has to put it on and live up to such high expectations. While there are ideological problems and contradictions inherent within Parsifal, there is at the same time a degree of openness to interpretation in how to present a work that is far from conventional and difficult to stage as a traditional opera that makes it an intriguing prospect, but there are dangers in trying to pin it down to any one meaning. It's perhaps unreasonable then to expect anyone to have anything new to add to what is inherently great in itself, just that the work be allowed to weave its magic. As such, it's hard to find any fault with the Royal Opera House's 2013 production of Parsifal, but inevitably some parts fare better than others.
In terms of just the pure performance of the work and indeed the purity of the performance, the concept, the casting, the attention to meaning in the musical detail and the manner in which every element of the work contributes to the piece as a single interlocking whole, everything about this production is well-considered and judged to near-perfection. Every element brings out the quality of Wagner's writing to its fullest expression and is performed with passion, purpose and complete commitment. Other than René Pape singing Gurnemanz, the cast might not have been the Wagnerian's first-choice for these roles, but my goodness, they all perform like they ought to be.
Most extraordinary of all is Angela Denoke, who gives an utterly magnetic performance, seemingly possessed with the spirit of Kundry. Kundry is evidently no ordinary woman but something mythical and superhuman, so it's a bit much to expect anyone to really embody this character to the extent that Wagner developed her but... well, there you go, Denoke is something of a phenomenon here. It's such a strong and committed performance, from a vital central role, that it anchors all the others - not that they aren't spectacular in their own right. Gerald Finley feels the pain as Amfortas, director Stephen Landridge working with this aspect of the work as the driving force for the stage conceptualisation. Finley's singing is as smooth, precise and as measured as his Hans Sachs for Glyndebourne, but perhaps just a little too calculated. Combined with the pain of the grail itself (a new idea of which more anon) and the pain of Kundry's long, troubled existence that Denoke takes to a new dimension, it all serves to underpin the central concept in a variety of complementary ways.
Simon O'Neill might not quite have the character or the acting ability to lift Parsifal up to a similar level, but you can't really find any serious fault his singing or his unstinting commitment here. He gives it everything and perhaps over-expresses when sometimes a singer just needs to surrender to the role. His stamina however is impressive, and he doesn't just hold firm and steady throughout, but finds near-impossible reserves to keep up a consistent level of performance across the almost four hours that the role of Parsifal calls for. You know that you can rely on that level of professionalism and consistency from René Pape as Gurnemanz and we aren't disappointed. I'd say we get even a little more from Pape this time around, particularly in his third act performance as a shuffling near-broken knight who finds his long suffering and his faith have been rewarded. It's all there in those finely sung lines and Pape delivers them with self-contained dignity.
Knights of the Grail are there in name only in Stephen Landridge's abstract-modern production, all of them wearing immaculate grey suits rather than suits of armour. The staging is a little bit cold and clinical in this respect, Alison Chitty's symmetrical geometric stage design dominated by a large cube that serves principally as a hospital room for the bed where Amfortas was being looked after by concerned doctors. The use of lights and sometimes projections however also use the cube to reveal backstory elements in flash-frames and live-action slow motion. Nothing should overwhelm the senses more than the music or the expression in the singing in Parsifal, and every element here seemed well-judged to suggest and engage the audience rather than over-emphasise or impose a false reading. The bloody depiction of Klingsor's auto-castration, for example, is a strong image, but it ties into the sense of pain, of the image of sick world in need of healing that is there throughout the work and brought out in Landridge's production. And it must be said, brought out also in Willard White's performance and his presence throughout much of the second act.
Landridge's production continually engages with imagery that relates very closely to the original stage directions, but with a distinct twist that makes you re-examine what it all means. Most striking (and controversial) of all is the image of the Grail itself. There might be an inward rolling of the eyes when the cube opens up at the behest of the knights to reveal that the Grail is actually a child wearing nothing but a loin cloth, but the sense of a sacrificial act and the question of blood - both so vital to the underlying message of Parsifal - as well as the sheer pain of Amfortas's role as the keeper of the Grail, is unquestionably intensified when the ritual involves the actual cutting of the child and spilling his blood for the faithful.
Such touches don't perhaps reveal any new vision for the work, but they certainly find a thought-provoking way to touch on the philosophical mysteries and the religious significance of the work without having to rely on over-used Christian imagery that has become detached from its original significance and meaning. The meaning of Parsifal may remain elusive but as Simon Callow succinctly put it in his perceptive commentary during the intervals when I viewed this at the cinema screening, it's really just about the world being in a mess and being healed by a return to innocence. The Royal Opera House's production, led from the pit by Antonio Pappano with attention to detail and with genuine feeling for the work's Good Friday message, ensures that it touches upon and brings together every aspect of the transcendent beauty of Wagner's great masterpiece.
On Blu-ray, the clinical qualities of the production design are perhaps made even more evident. The image quality in the High Definition transfer is however impressive, and it benefits considerably from the DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 mix that warmly expresses the detail and the beauty of the orchestral playing. The BD is a two-disc set, with Act I and II on disc one, and Act III on disc two. There are only a few short features on the discs - a 6-minute Introduction to Parsifal that takes into account the production and the characters, and a five-minute piano run through of a scene from Act II between Simon O'Neill and Antonio Pappano. The booklet explains the significance and the intent of Alison Chitty and Stephen Landridge's production design, and there's a fascinating essay by Lucy Beckett on the writing of Parsifal, with reference to Wolfram von Eschenbach's 13th century text that serves as a basis of the libretto.
