Bellini - Beatrice di Tenda (Paris, 2024)

Vincenzo Bellini - Beatrice di Tenda

Opéra National de Paris, 2024

Mark Wigglesworth, Peter Sellars, Tamara Wilson, Quinn Kelsey, Theresa Kronthaler, Pene Pati, Amitai Pati, Taesung Lee

Paris Opera Play - 15th February 2024

It surprises me that Beatrice di Tenda isn't a better known opera. Most of Bellini's works are revived on a semi-regular basis and his significance is hardly underestimated as an important figure in the development of Italian opera, but his works don't seem to get the attention they deserve and this one in particular is largely neglected. Why? Perhaps it's a little old fashioned for modern tastes, or perhaps the challenge of this opera is that it needs skilled singers in all the key soprano, tenor and baritone roles. It's telling the title role is defined by recordings made by the likes of Joan Sutherland, Mirella Freni and Edita Gruberova. If it's a case of needing it to be modernised a little or waiting for the right singers to come along, well, then the Paris Opera get it right with this 2024 production directed by Peter Sellars.

That's not all they get right. There's a lot more to successfully producing an opera like this and it really needs commitment, belief and passion on every level, but it also needs to be carefully pitched. Passion is at the core of the opera, but it is also surrounded in coldness and that is identified and brilliantly reflected in how the production design here contrasts with the delicacy of the playing of the exquisite melodies. It's not that the plot has a lot to offer other than romantic drama, as Italian opera thrives on that, but it's how those passions conflict with power that drive the musical drama. Bellini is masterful in his treatment of such material, no less than Verdi, Donizetti or the opera seria of Rossini, but for me the characteristic that sets Bellini apart is not just the passion, not just the sophistication of the writing, but a sense of refinement. That's fully in evidence in this lovely opera, and I think that's what the director Peter Sellars attempts to retain and reflect it in a modern light.

On the face of it the drama has little to distinguish it from many other Italian operas. Based on a historical figure, Beatrice, the Duchess of Milan, is now married to her second husband Filippo Visconti, a union that has given him great power and influence, but they now have very different ideas about how to use their position. Beatrice wishes to support social programmes, while Filippo wields his authority ruthlessly over the people. Beatrice is horrified at the impact that their marriage has inflicted on the people of the nation and considers ending the marriage, which is not easy for a woman to do. Filippo too is being advised to end the marriage, but in order to cling to the power he finds an excuse to have her reputation destroyed by accusing her of conducting an affair with the minstrel Orombello, and tortures the man into a confession.

There are a lot of familiar elements here that can be found in the historical operas of Donizetti, in Anna Bolena and Roberto Devereaux, but Bellini's opera here has a distinct character and it's the duty of director to bring that out. There is an edge to Beatrice di Tenda in a libretto doesn't hold back on the details of the violence inflicted on the people on Orombello or the cruelty of Filippo's regime, and Sellars strives to make that as hard-hitting as possible. The music might sound beautiful but it doesn't soften the darkness at the heart of the work. There is a nobility in confronting such horrors head on, never bowing, and that's what Bellini's music counters. Even Filippo in the end recognises where real power lies. Well, almost. The second concluding act of the opera consequently is extraordinary and enormously powerful. Evidently however, it's how the subject is sung by the performers is perhaps the most vital element contributing to that impact.

Bel canto is all about the singing. It's in the name and it needs to be done well or not done at all. Italian bel canto opera is not a repertoire that I have been following lately however, so few of these performers are familiar to me, but even so I can't remember hearing bel canto sung so well as it's done here. Singers and performers like this are not just there to show off the beauty of their voices, but also bring out the qualities of the music and the form, and in that respect, this is singing of the highest calibre. It's interesting too that it is American singers who shine in the main roles. Tamara Wilson's Beatrice is just phenomenal, her range impressive, her delivery and performance perfectly judged. Hawaiian born baritone Quinn Kelsey is a strong counterweight that makes Filippo a formidable opponent. No less impressive here are Theresa Kronthaler as Agnese and Pene Pati as Orombello. 

Act I consequently is impressive and immersive despite the conventionality of the plotting, while Act II is just off-the-scale brilliant, the increased intensity and emotional drama between the principal characters and their conflicting worldviews reaching almost fever pitch as they hold firmly to their beliefs and inner nature - for good and for ill. As it's Bellini, the chorus also play a large part in the swaying between these opposing positions. Like La Sonnambula, like La Straniera, they provide commentary and reaction, reflecting confusion and the horror of the people observing the troubles of high society - "Nothing escapes our eyes" -  but they have a participatory role here as well, influencing as well as being affected by what occurs. All of this not only underlines the intensity of the operatic drama, but it gives the plot considerably more weight beyond it being merely a historical royal intrigue.

Director Peter Sellars introduces a clean grand set designed by George Tsypin for La Bastille. All of the action and intrigue takes place in the palace gardens, within a low maze of hedges made of mesh steel and tall conical trees. It has a cool elegance. Costumes are modern, smart, elegant befitting the high society. Evidently there is no need to distance the drama by setting it in the original time period of 1418, but I'm not convinced that introducing laptops and mobile phones is really necessary either. When Filippo confronts Beatrice with evidence of what he sees as plotting to Beatrice's outrage as the violation of her personal secrets, he presents her with a laptop computer as evidence. Agnese can be seen later scrolling on her mobile phone doubtlessly checking how many likes she is getting on social media for her actions. It feels a little heavy-handed and doesn't really make any commentary that is worth making a point about. Window cleaners and hedge trimmers are also a distraction that add nothing to the production design.

Sellers, who incredibly has never directed an Italian opera, not even Verdi, does much more than update the production with modern technological devices. He also has some interesting things to say about the opera in an interview shown during the interval of the Paris Opera Play live broadcast of the opera. He makes a strong case for the effectiveness of the work to really touch on the horror of living under a dictatorship, about the fragility of human beings within such a regime and the possibility of them being broken. It's clearly all laid out in the libretto and in how Bellini scores it, making Beatrice di Tenda really quite revolutionary in terms of Italian opera up to that point in 1833, and unquestionably still relevant as a subject today.

Bellini's penultimate opera, I find this a much more interesting work than his more famous final opera I Puritani, but evidently a lot depends on how well individual productions are directed and sung. Sellars direction makes a strong case for the relevance in the work, Mark Wigglesworth conducts the Paris Opera orchestra with fervour, but it's the quality of the singing performances in this Paris Opera production that truly raise Beatrice di Tenda to a level of greatness.

External links: Opéra National de Paris, Paris Opera Play, 

Photos : © Franck Ferville/OnP

Eötvös - Valuska (Budapest, 2023)

Péter Eötvös - Valuska

Hungarian State Opera, 2023

Kálmán Szennai, Bence Varga, Zsolt Haja, Tünde Szalontay, Adrienn Miksch, Tünde Szabóki, Mária Farkasréti, András Hábetler, Krisztián Cser, István Horváth, Balázs Papp, Lőrinc Kósa, András Kiss, János Szerekován, Zoltán Bátki Fazekas, Attila Erdős

OperaVision - 17th December 2023

I haven't read the Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai, but know of his work through the films of Béla Tarr, the Hungarian director who has adapted three of his works as Damnation (1988), Sátántangó (1995) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), all of them remarkable. The latter is based on the Krasznahorkai's 1989 work The Melancholy of Resistance. The film is a powerful piece of allegorical cinema, almost abstract and surreal, but at the same time finding a way to touch on the everyday experience of people in society in decline or indeed living in fear under a totalitarian regime.

As the preeminent Hungarian composer of the present day and now 80 year old veteran of contemporary music, it falls to Peter Eötvös to bring an opera adaptation of The Melancholy of Resistance to the stage as the opera, Valuska. Although he has composed 12 operas over the years, this is surprisingly his first in Hungarian. Anyone familiar with the composer will know that it is not likely to be a rich musical opera in the traditional style, but what it should be and what it is, like Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies, is a fresh perspective on an enigmatic work that brings a new perspective and insight into what this extraordinary work is all about. And, in the process, lift it out of any specific time period and make it a work that can be endlessly revisited and reconsidered.

Certainly the themes in the film adaptation and the opera are similar, both evidently connecting with the original work's themes. There are differences of approach of course, and whereas Werckmeister Harmonies centred on the perspective of the learning impaired János Valuska, Eötvös - despite the opera's title - at least initially foregrounds the experience of his mother Piroshka Pflaum, sung here by the always wonderful Adrienn Miksch. Catching a train, she is appalled by the behaviour of those around her, feeling threatened by the uncouth behaviour particularly of men, but women also appear to behave in strange ways. She keeps hearing about and reading leaflet and posters advertising a travelling circus that is exhibiting the largest whale in the world and also promises a guest appearance from "the Prince", a mysterious enigmatic figure, who clearly demands respect even if his powers are unknown.

Piroska's friend Tünde (Tünde Szabóki) has been appointed mayor of the town. One of her first actions is to engage circus as part of her campaign to win over the people, but she feels that her "Well-Groomed Garden, Tidy House" movement is in trouble and needs the help of a learned gentleman. That person is her husband the Professor but he cannot be convinced. Tünde will have to rely on Piroska’s son János to convince him, even though the young man is regarded as a half-wit in the town. Even his mother considers her son a degenerate, presumably for spending so much time drinking in the local pub.

He may be considered an idiot but János (Zsolt Haja) has a particular talent for astronomy and a seemingly unique awareness of the position of man within the cosmos. He often demonstrates the movements of heavenly bodies into the phenomenon of a solar eclipse on demand for the drunken revelers in the pub as his party piece. By the same token, János is entranced at the circus by the majesty of the whale, this magnificent creature from nature that perhaps represents God or the centre of the universe, while the other townsfolk are all in thrall to the mystery of the Prince, a circus freak who has taken on a dangerous cult of personality, his presence is rumoured to cause unrest wherever he appears.

In contrast to Béla Tarr's stark monochrome realism, the staging of Valuska by director Bence Varga emphasises a more comic-absurd perspective of the work, with grotesque cartoonish figures with extra padding added. Tarr's film version of the story famously runs to just 39 long entrancing shots, while Eötvös's opera condenses this down to just 12 scenes. The librettist Kinga Keszthelyi introduces a narrator to preserve significant lines from Krasznahorkai's text, but Tarr manages to do just as effectively without. What is common to both works is the emphasis on a world running down, disappearing into absurdity, triviality and imbalance or disregard for what is important. Who needs a Judgement Day, the Professor observes when the world is in terminal decline and order will break down eventually of its own accord? That day may not be far away.

The decline into disorder might be less grandly cinematic in Eötvös's opera, there might have more of an edge of absurd dark humour but Valuska nonetheless captures other qualities of what is clearly a significant work. You can see it as a meditation of our place in an entropic universe or a depiction of people living in fear in Hungarian society during the Communist years, watching everything fall into ruin, being afraid to walk the streets, expecting danger on every corner, waiting for the regime of power to crumble and the next totalitarian leader to take over. Or you take it at face value as the disturbed perspective of a lunatic or an innocent who sees the world around him differently from everyone else, valuing nature and the cosmos above fear and superstition, who becomes a danger for not fitting in.

As the title of the film adaptation suggested, the idea of order in harmonic principles and the question of conforming to those principles or breaking them down and establishing a new order can be seen as central to the themes of the work, and that is presumably of interest to Péter Eötvös in his musical composition. The music here feels more like theatrical music rather than grand opera using a medium chamber ensemble. Although Eötvös provides textures of a wide range of sounds, he rarely makes use of all the instruments at once. The music mostly consists of short phrases of mainly woodwind and percussion, but there are long sinuous lines and string accompaniment for monologues. When combined with the dark absurdity of a corrupt world and a victimised innocent among it, the textural qualities of Valuska combine to have a quality not unlike Berg's Wozzeck. Valuska however has its own disturbing logic and view of the world, the music an essential element that contributes to the sense of underlying menace. The vocal writing for the opera is wonderful and the singing performances at the world premiere here are magnificent.

External links: OperaVision, Hungarian State Opera

Photos: © Nagy Attila

Tchaikovsky - The Maid of Orleans (Düsseldorf, 2023)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - The Maid of Orleans

Deutsche Oper am Rhein, 2023

Vitali Alekseenok, Elisabeth Stöppler, Maria Kataeva, Sami Luttinen, Aleksandr Nesterenko, Sergej Khomov, Luiza Fatyol, Thorsten Grümbel, Evez Abdulla, Richard Šveda, Beniamin Pop, Johannes Preißinger, Žilvinas Miškinis, Mara Guseynova

OperaVision - 20th August 2023

Cinema has shown us that there can be a number of ways of presenting the Joan of Arc story. On the one side you have Carl Theodore Dryer's silent masterpiece of spiritual interiorised conflict The Passion of Joan of Arc and Bresson's austere recounting of the court records of the Trial of Joan of Arc. On the other side you have Luc Besson's actioner The Messenger with Jacques Rivette’s two-partner Jeanne la pucelle divided between 'The Battles' and 'The Prisons' seeking somewhere in-between. The question that all of the films grapple with to one extent or another, or fall to one side or the other on, is whether Joan is a warrior or saint.

When it comes to opera however it's a different story. Although this warrior/saint dichotomy presents great material for an opera, it represents different things to Verdi and Tchaikovsky in their versions of the story. Using Schiller as the source material for both, each find their own particular way into the story which also appeals to the operatic tradition, even if it perhaps takes it a little further off course. For Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco, the father/daughter relationship is emphasised and Joan's ignited passions give expression to the idea of a nation and a people struggling oppressed under wartime conditions and given dramatic force through huge stirring choruses. Tchaikovsky makes use of these musical elements also but with greater focus on the spiritual drive, giving that additional emphasis through the romantic melodrama of a love story.

The force of these feelings of spiritual and emotional conflict can't be ignored in any staging and director Elisabeth Stöppler's 2023 production of The Maid of Orleans for Deutsche Oper am Rhein draws on that right from the dramatic overture. The Virgin/angel appears to Joan as a mirror image of herself in white shift and chainmail dress. At this stage it's just an awareness that she has a calling, but Joan is not yet ready and conflict rages within her (if Tchaikovsky's stirring music is anything to go by). To be fair, she's not getting a lot of support from her father who wants her to be a nice little housewife and arrange a husband for her protection, but the advancing forces on Orléans and Joan's prediction of Salisbury's fall means that this idea is resisted and the urgency of war takes precedence. It's at the end of Act 1 that the angel gives voice to her calling to take to the sword and the battlefield.

It's only really then that the urgency of Tchaikovsky music takes flight. Not that it's been anything less than intense up to now, but it's finally given revelation and purpose. Much like Tatiana's ecstatic letter to Onegin, there is a sense of fatalism in this, Joan throwing herself fully and irrevocably into the service of her inner passion and voice. If that perhaps doesn't seem quite as convincing as an expression of whatever it is that drives Joan, it's perhaps less to do with Tchaikovsky's handling of the material than the opera libretto's reliance on rather old-fashioned overly-earnest and solemn declamatory expression. There's a danger that the passion can be subsumed by nationalistic fervour but Tchaikovsky's opera does manage to give expression to the drama and what is at stake at a human level. Verdi faced the same problem with the same mixed results until he found a librettist like Boito who could give him better material to work with.

It still means that a lot of this is declamatory of feelings and conflict and little to support all this fervour in dramatic terms. There's no real action other than reports from the battlefield which are reflected and commented upon in arch terms like "he sleeps the eternal sleep". The libretto is a horror to work with and if it is to succeed on the stage, it's going to need something more than the rather unconvincing passion that is ignited in Joan's impossible love for an enemy soldier, Lionel. The director and singers here try their best to make that work with the rather bombastic expressions, but it just leads to an extraordinary amount of grasping and grappling with each other on the part of Joan and Lionel. It looks ridiculous in the middle of a war, but in terms of giving expression to those inner feelings through the singing, it's given full voice and commitment.

All of the singers are fully committed and impressive - as is the chorus (some members a little more overly enthusiastic than others) - but Maria Kataeva's Joan and Richard Šveda's Lionel in particular have to rise up to the over-the-top demands of Tchaikovsky score. We're on the heavier side of the Tchaikovsky of the 1812 Overture variety, and then some. Lionel's love for Joan truly feels life or death here, but that only leaves the director Stöppler with a challenge to bring a little more realism and humanism to the situation. There's a need to recognise at the same time that Joan of Arc is an uncommon character in a modern age, driven indeed by an internal fire, inspired by god, heaven and the angels as well as nationalistic pride. Playing it as period won't cut it, so Stöppler chooses to give it a more modern-day look and feel. And, considering it's Tchaikovsky, the current situation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine can't be ignored.

The choice of setting all four acts of the opera in the same location of a church serves to at once rein in the excessive elements of the opera, while at the same time attempting to focus it on Joan's experience being an internal transcendental spiritual experience. The same idea perhaps applies to contrasting of the modern day East European dress of the people and their experience of war with the heroic declamation of the choruses and the libretto. The reality of the situation and the reality as we know it from images from present-day Ukraine are there to see without any need to overstate the case or the parallel. King Charles VII here is more like an extravagant wealthy man with Dunois his bodyguard, both Sergej Khomov and Evez Abdulla succeeding also in giving strong performances that support both the work and the stage presentation. 

Updating the work to underplay any nationalistic expression or heroic glorification of war as being a God-given command is perhaps a necessary condition for a director, but the question is whether it doesn't end up undermining what Joan of Arc represents. Can The Maid of Orleans really work without the period Joan of Arc or does it have any more universal quality that allows us to see the same passions and sentiments in the present day? Is it still relatable? Of course it may be possible, but I didn't get too great a sense of it here. The plot too never really adds up to anything meaningful. Joan's crime in this version appears to be falling in love with an enemy and thereby losing the approval of heaven and the people. She is no longer la pucelle.

Rather than being burned at the stake for this, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein production uses the single location of the church finally being destroyed as a symbol for the fire of Joan's passion burning out and becoming an object of pity to the confused populace. Or something like that. It doesn't really make a lot of sense in the original stage directions or in the stage production here. The single location of the church also reminds me of Tcherniakov's recent take on War and Peace, but that was more towards distancing from the militaristic and nationalistic side of Prokofiev’s version of the drama, while here it seems to be harder to put any such distance from the work's romantic heroism, religious and sentimental fervour.

Under Vitali Alekseenok, the conducting and musical performance of the opera is however clearly exceptional. The passion on stage is replicated in the music which works hand-in-hand with the drama. It's a little bombastic with the huge choruses on top, but it's meant to be, Tchaikovsky giving early Verdi a run for his money in the lack of subtlety stakes. All the passion is there however in the music and there too unquestionably in the efforts of the director to get it across somehow on the stage, reaching a conclusion of a kind of ecstatic transcendence. The point of it escapes me, the worthiness of the work remains in question, but it is still marvellous to hear this work and this side of Tchaikovsky given such a full blooded performance.

External links: Deutsche Oper am Rhein, OperaVision

Photos : © Sandra Then

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

Strauss - Salome (Hamburg, 2023)

Richard Strauss - Salome

Staatsoper Hamburg, 2023

Kent Nagano, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Asmik Grigorian, Kyle Ketelsen, John Daszak, Violeta Urmana, Oleksiy Palchykov, Jana Kurucová

ARTE Concert - 29th October 2023

Dimitri Tcherniakov's opera productions have tended to look very much alike in recent times, all tending towards contemporary upper middle-class settings, looking rather brown and dull. The interpretation or reinterpretation of the works in question has however never been dull. They may rarely accord accurately with the original stage directions but the director's approach at least finds new ways to consider the meaning of the works and what they say about contemporary society and the place of the individual within it, often from a psychoanalytical perspective. So while Tcherniakov's production of Strauss's Salome for Hamburg looks similar to his recent stage productions, you can imagine he will nonetheless find considerable riches in the psychology or psychopathy of this particular work.

It doesn't take too long to identify the little twists to the stage directions in this production and find them intriguing enough to see where he will take them. It's a dinner party for Herod's birthday and the assembled well-to-do guests are arranged around the table, some slightly outlandishly dressed. Narraboth observing the pale beauty of the princess Salome in the moonlight is not one of the waiters standing around the walls as you might expect, but one of the guests. The princess has made a late sullen appearance at the table in a white puffa jacket and Ren & Stimpy T-shirt, rejecting the welcome of her mother Herodias.

The initial proclamation from Jokanaan then does not come from a deep cistern but from the other end of the table, from man in a brown jacket and jeans, sporting glasses and comb-over (his hair definitely not like clusters of black grapes), smoking a cigar and intoning his grave pronouncements from a book he is reading. He seems out of place here, lost in his own world, bearing perhaps an air of disdain or self-righteousness, but possibly just oblivious to the frivolity of the dinner party. This Jokanaan is not a prisoner, but a guest, respected for his wisdom, but evidently seen as a bit eccentric.

You could also describe Tcherniakov's take on this opening scene as eccentric, but bearing in mind what we already know about how this party is going to play out, it's intriguing enough to wonder how this idea is going to be developed. Well, one aspect of Oscar Wilde's play is about social decadence and illicit lusts that are acceptable as long as they remain hidden under a mask of outward respectability, and this suggested openness of those behaviours provides a good opportunity to expose that. Not that any further enticement is needed as the work itself is still for me one of the most daring, provocative and hauntingly beautiful works of opera ever written. With Kent Nagano conducting, it enthralls from the first notes here, drawing you into a unique and very specific mood that never lets up as it progresses unbroken on a real-time path towards its shocking conclusion. Some fine singing from Oleksiy Palchykov as Narraboth certainly invites you to remain into the fascinating sound world of dark psychopathology.

As powerful as the work remains, what is still a challenge is finding a way to bring out is the shock nature of the work's subversive element of Wilde’s marriage of Symbolist poetic imagery with Biblical subject matter and a decadent high society. Removing the mystical status of Jokanaan, and presumably removing the removing of the head is going to make that harder, even if the conclusion might have lost some shock value now (but not much). One way is how the setting of this production attempts to bring what people really think about each other is brought much more into the open. When Salome complains about the lascivious looks of John Daszak's Herod and her mother's tolerance of his attentions, she does it in front of them and the guests, while they try to laugh it off as Salome just being Salome. It really heightens the sense of murderous intent.

Again however, Tcherniakov seems determined at every stage to undercut the familiar set pieces and find other means of bringing out ...well, whatever it is he is attempting to bring out. The failure of Narraboth to kill himself is neither here nor there, the Tetrarch slipping in blood only figuratively as a joke for the uproar that has developed at his party should dissipate the dark Symbolist imagery, but the tension somehow still remains. Salome's reaction and outburst at Jokanaan's rejection of her advances that plays out alongside this and the theological dispute of the Jews is however very strange. Delving through her old suitcase that her outraged mother - an excellent Violeta Urmana - throws at her feet, she dresses up with white face paint as a kind of a mime artist or Pierrot figure and sinks into shocked silence.

Similarly, Tcherniakov refuses to rely on the familiar explicit eroticism of the Dance of the Seven Veils, but tries to move past that and find another way of bringing out the uncomfortable nature of the relationship between Herod and Salome. Rather than strip off layers of clothing, Salome is almost naked already as Herod lasciviously dresses the drained, disconnected, semi-comatose Salome in a bizarre clown-like outfit. The whole scene remains static as the dance winds up to an anti-climatic conclusion. Salome remains impassive up until the moment that Herod refuses her wish, when she smashes a glass and threatens to take it to her throat. Kyle Ketelsen's Jokanaan it has to be said, also remains impassive, observing dispassionately as she calls for his head.

She may not be permitted to express anything to feed the lascivious illicit desires of Herod during her dance, but elsewhere the singing role is more than expressive enough to bring out everything that needs to be said/unsaid, and Asmik Grigorian is expressive enough in her singing and acting performance at the call for execution and the aftermath for this to remain as charged as it can possibly be. I'm not sure anyone can fully explore the madness of Salome's obsession and her corruption, but it's there in the libretto and the writing for the voice waiting to be brought to life in performance. Grigorian is lyrical and forceful in her delivery, not particularly loud or strong to carry over the massed forces of the orchestra, but it's an impressive and compelling performance nonetheless that really brings out the complexity of this character, her nature, her emotions and reactions.

Tcherniakov and Grigorian take this as far as it can go, although with this director you always have to wonder if he doesn't take it so far into absurdity that he sometimes undoes the good that has been established. There is no moon, no blood, no headless corpse, so you have to look elsewhere to find out what drives these characters. What is it that Salome wants that Jokanaan’s existence denies her? Respect? Attention? Love? Death? Self worth? Whatever you think it is, whether Jokanaan lives or dies, it's beyond a spoiled, over-indulged rich girl to understand or obtain. The seed of a sick brood, she is only capable of wreaking destruction. Much as you miss Wilde's haunting imagery, Grigorian's performance is enough to ensure that the power of this extraordinary work - still one of the finest in the whole opera repertoire - still comes through in the Hamburg production.

External links: Staatsoper Hamburg, ARTE Concert

Catán - Florencia en el Amazonas (New York, 2023)

Daniel Catán - Florencia en el Amazonas

Metropolitan Opera, New York, 2023

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Mary Zimmerman, Ailyn Pérez, Gabriella Reyes, Mario Chang, Mattia Olivieri, Nancy Fabiola Herrera, Michael Chioldi, Greer Grimsley

The Met Live in HD - 9th December 2023

Regardless of what you think about the artistic merits of the opening productions of the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD Season, there is a clear intent to extend the range of opera and the opera audience and an important part of that is bringing new works to the stage, new works at least as far as being presented at the Met is concerned. Opera deserves this kind of progressive renewal, its means of expression through music and drama meaning that it can be many things, with each composer free to express their own character, culture and ideals. Spanish language composers don't however have much of a tradition of opera, certainly not in comparison with Italian and German language opera. Daniel Catán's 2016 opera Florencia en el Amazonas is therefore a vital work to be put on at the Met, a work that has the opportunity to fully express Latin American passions. It certainly has that, but is passion all opera is about? Does it not need some depth as well? Some truth?

Well, that would be for the individual to determine how successful the opera and the production is at finding and presenting those qualities that the work has to share. Passion is certainly a defining characteristic of Mexican art and drama in my experience, to the extent that it can be a little overwhelming and come at the expense of subtlety and genuine feeling. You only need to see the expression of Rolando Villazón presenting the Met Live in HD presentation of the opera, and the enthusiasm of the singers being interviewed during the interval to get that impression. I realise that this is a broad generalisation informed on my part only by limited experience mainly of Mexican cinema, but it's a view that isn't changed after seeing Catán's Florencia en el Amazonas.

Without wishing to undervalue the skill and beauty of the composition - one thing that is undeniable is that Florencia en el Amazonas is a truly beautiful opera of Straussian musical richness - the impression is that it verges on being a parody of an opera. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, and Strauss and Hofmannsthal flirted with that idea in many of their operas (Capriccio, Ariadne auf Naxos, even Der Rosenkavalier). In some way however Florencia feels like it's more of an opera about opera, or about the power of opera, and not just because the main character of the work is an opera diva, although that is telling in itself.

The setting at least is one that is given to the rich extravagance with which it is treated. It takes place in the early 1900s on a steamboat, El Dorado, that is making its way though the Amazon rainforest on the way to Manaus, where the legendary opera singer Florencia Grimaldo is appearing at the reopening of the famous jungle theatre. Among the passengers are a couple whose marriage has cooled down, Rosalba, a journalist who is writing a biography of Florencia Grimaldi, and - unknown to all on board - the great diva herself, returning to the place where she started out on her career before becoming famous in Europe. She is also harbouring a desire to see Cristóbal, a former lover who was an inspiration to her.

That's the setting. In terms of plot, there really isn't much to talk about other than what transpires between the characters and within them, but that doesn't stop the on-board romance that develops between Rosalba and the captain's nephew Arcadio or the quarrels between the married couple Paula and Alvaro from being pitched at a very high emotional level. As if that is not enough there is also a mystical figure, Riolobo, acting as a commentator and in some way an influence over what transpires between the passengers; a spirit of the river if you like, although there are plenty of other exotic creatures seen as the steamship progresses through the overheated atmosphere of the Amazonian rainforest.

Directed by Mary Zimmerman, the Met's production matches the colourful nature of, well ...nature in the Amazon region, recognising that at heart the work is a celebration of life and nature. There's not too much realism here (none whatsoever in fact), Riccardo Hernández's sets absolutely beautiful to look at, the costumes of the creatures worn by dancers colourful and inventive, with the dancers dressed as waves even spilling over onto the deck of the steamboat a lovely touch, but it's all a little bit kitsch. That's traditionally Mary Zimmerman and the Met for you, but you'd have to extend that description to Daniel Catán, as this suits his opera perfectly. Musically it flows - overflows really - with expression, the heightened pitch constant and rising to such an extent that you would think there is little room for it to go anywhere after the first act. Well hold on to your opera glasses because it continues to soar higher in Act II.

There is nonetheless much to admire in this. The music is exquisite, Straussian in its rich orchestration and melodies, Puccinian in its romanticism, giving the singers some wonderful parts to sing, challenging too since they rarely vary in pitch or intensity. It's like you get one 'un bel dì vedremo' after another. If this sounds like it could become tiring on the listener, imagine how it must be for the singer. Having said that it is clear that the cast relish such an opportunity and the quality of the singing is extraordinarily good. Ailyn Pérez is a revelation singing in her native Spanish language with the arias that Catán has written for the role of Florencia, but Gabriella Reyes’s Rosalba is no less prone to soaring emotions, or indeed Mario Chang as Arcadio. All are hugely impressive in sustaining this and attempting to give it meaning, but it still feels a little hollow and performative, lacking in any real depth.

A great deal was made of the fact that the librettist, Marcela Fuentes-Berain studied under the Nobel Prize winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, but I felt that the connection was overstated as a reason for the opera and the production to indulge in magical realism. Here the opera puts forward the idea that life itself is beautiful, magic, and that the experiences and pains we endure are transformative and find expression in art. There is however not a single moment in the opera that feels like it has any connection with truth or reality. One thing I do admire however is its optimism, something that is rare in traditionally tragic opera of this kind. Florencia’s epiphany at the conclusion, finding the meaning of love in the time of cholera is like a validation of 'un bel di vedremo' (or 'un día precioso veremos' here maybe), where she somewhat appropriately becomes a Señora Mariposa. Sadly, that's not a sentiment greatly in accordance with our current troubled times.

It would be unfair to describe such beautiful music and the optimistic outlook in Florencia en el Amazonas as a weakness, since it's not easy to determine whether it's the opera that is at fault or the production which perhaps over-indulges it. Like many 'flawed' opera works I'm sure it could be 'redeemed' by the right kind of production, one that really seeks to explore it and put it through its paces, one that takes the opportunity to examine it in more depth than Zimmerman and the magical realism trappings to see whether there is a germ of truth and realism in there that can be brought out. 

Perhaps at this stage however it's more important that this is even being put on at the Met as a true representative voice for Spanish language or Latin American opera. I recall however that I might have said something similar about Catán's Il Postino over a decade ago, that it was a work that also has the potential to cross-over, to reach and touch a new audience for opera. Opera trends don't move at a great pace, so it might take another generation for that to happen, but while Florencia en el Amazonas might not have made a great impression on me, I have no doubt that is capable of inspiring others.

External links: Metropolitan Opera, The Met Live in HD

Photos: Ken Howard / Met Opera

Puccini - La Bohème (Dublin, 2023)

Giacomo Puccini - La bohème

Irish National Opera, 2023

Sergio Alapont, Orpha Phelan, Celine Byrne, Sarah Brady, Merūnas Vitulskis, Iurii Samoilov, Gyula Nagy, Lukas Jakobski, Eddie Wade, Fearghal Curtis, David Scott, Kevin Neville

Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Dublin - 26th November 2023

If you think there is nothing radical you can do to enhance Puccini's La bohème, then you've probably only seen variations of John Copley's Royal Opera House warhorse or the classic Franco Zeffirelli stage production and haven't seen the extraordinary versions over the last decade by Stefan Herheim and Claus Guth. Whether that is strictly necessary, whether it adds anything to what is already there and more than sufficient on its own in Puccini's score is another matter. Updated to a different time period but not contemporary (or in outer space) you get the feeling that this is the direction taken by Orpha Phelan for the Irish National Opera production. Why risk spoiling what is already perfect by trying to impose a contemporary situation upon it.

It's arguable in any case that Henry Murger's original 1851 novel 'Scènes de la vie de bohème' is very much about a specific time and place, but there is clearly much that can be read in the interrelated story collection that says much about society, poverty and artists. That however is not the main concern of Puccini's La bohème, or perhaps it is but with a shift of emphasis onto the romantic relationships that are also present in Murger. Puccini's La bohème is at heart a love story, two love stories even, supported by some of the most soaring romantic and tragic music composed for an opera. The best thing about Phelan's INO production is that it doesn't get in the way of this, but supports it almost exactly the way an audience expects. The worse thing about is that it gives you exactly what you expect.

Indeed, as the other (extreme) versions mentioned above indicate, since they make such a huge impression, it's a long time since I've seen a La bohème so lacking in surprises or inspiration. Even the current Royal Opera House production from 2018 had a freshness to it. The danger of this is that with familiarity the opera comes across as little more than a series of set pieces, and when it adds up to set pieces there's little sense of true emotion or drama. Well, that's a risk in the first half at least, and no matter what the production does (even in the hands of Guth), it would be hard not to feel almost devastated by the progression of the final two acts as scored by Puccini.

La bohème's enduring appeal as a tragic romantic opera drama needs little critical support or analysis on that front. The balance of the work is masterful, its contrasting of Rodolfo and Mimi's spark of love on a downward trajectory from its moment of ignition contrasted by Musetta and Marcello's relationship heading in the opposite direction. Puccini plays these two troubled relationships out simultaneously to the same music, with superb use of motifs and repeated refrains that play out in contrasting contexts. As familiar as it has become, there is no question that it's still a masterwork.

Whether it has anything deep or important to say depends on the experience of the individual listener. Certainly I've seen little in opera that comes close to the ecstatic experience of discovering love and the agonising pain of losing it (only Shakespeare can match this in Romeo and Juliet and in Othello). More specifically, it's how Puccini's music captures the rush of young love, the sensation of wanting to have it all and have it now, only later having to deal with the realities of life and relationships. And it has to be said that the realities of poverty and its impact on relationships is not underplayed, even if it's often shown in the context of the brevity of happiness grasped by the bohemian artists in Paris in a specific historical period.

Poverty, illness and death impacting on love and relationships is of course not something that only relates to a distant past. Orpha Phelan however is not too ambitious in her setting of this between WWI and WWII apparently, although like the last INO production, the Jack Furness directed Faust, it's somewhat random and non-specific. There are few twists in each of the scenes in the four acts of this La bohème, although they do flow together well, creating the necessary climate, light and conditions you would expect to find in each of those scenes. It all feels rather perfunctory, trying not to impose on it anything beyond what is necessary for those scenes to work, but in consequence, not really inviting you to consider them in a new light. It has a tendency to just wash over.

Indifference to the situation of the bohemians is the last thing you want from this opera, but there is one considerable factor that prevents this from happening (aside from Puccini's score conducted well here by Sergio Alapont) and it's the fact that you have you have everything you expect from a Rodolfo and a Mimi in the casting of Merūnas Vitulskis and Celine Byrne. In fact, you'd be hard pushed to find any better today, not just in terms of their ability to meet the technical challenges, but also in terms of the necessary passion that goes into performing these roles. Unfortunately, that's more down to the professionalism of the singers and their familiarity with the roles, as the stage direction didn't really add a great deal of conviction to dilemma that Rodolfo and Mimi find themselves in. The same can be said for all the main roles, especially the fabulous performances of Sarah Brady as Musetta and Iurii Samoilov as Marcello.

Irish National Opera were I feel a little more adventurous in their first few seasons since they were formed in 2018, even in their approach to the big operatic standards. Orpha Phelan has also been much more adventurous in the past with beautiful interpretations for the INO's La Cenerentola and Lalla Roukh for Wexford. Following the first opera this season Faust, it feels like post-pandemic they are focussing on bringing an audience back and taking them along with them. It might not appeal to those who like their opera productions a little more avant-garde but I'll say this for their La bohème; playing out to full houses at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin with an opera like this, performed to this kind of standard, there are a lot of people who will be back for the next one. And the next one is Salome, and there's no playing safe with that one. 

Links: Irish National Opera