Richard Strauss - Salome
Salzburg Festival, 2018
Franz
Welser-Möst, Romeo Castellucci, John Daszak, Anna Maria Chiuri, Asmik
Grigorian, Gábor Bretz, Julian Prégardien, Avery Amereau
Medici.TV
There comes a point in a Romeo Castellucci production when you wonder if it's worth the effort trying to make sense of it. It's
not that they don't have meaning and value, Castellucci's productions
are original, striking and do often find a new way of looking at a
familiar work, but there are strange elements within that defy any
attempt to pin them down or directly relate them to the works in
question. Even when the director provides you with some pointers of
where he is coming from, you can't always follow where he is takes it.
Ultimately however, it fits or it doesn't, it will work for some and not
for others. His Salzburg Festival production of Salome presents the
same issues and is likely to similarly split audiences.
Salome
for Salzburg is typical Castellucci in that respect at least. Some of
the director's familiar techniques and obscure images are in there, but
the production is not just a rehash of familiar tricks and tics, and -
unlike a director with a singular vision like Robert Wilson for example
- he doesn't try to force each opera to fit into their distinct
worldview, but rather approaches it on it own terms, even if there is
sometimes a similar visual aesthetic. This production is very much a
response to Salome, even if inevitably it doesn't entirely match the
familiar imagery and stage directions that we are accustomed to expect
on some level with this opera, and even if it can appear somewhat
obscure and occasionally even baffling.
In fact, rather
more than most directors who take a work on its own terms, Castellucci
is also known for taking the location into consideration and making it
part of the production. Not that you really have much choice when it
comes to the Felsenreitschule venue in Salzburg, an open air riding
school carved into the very rock of the city. There's a reference here
then to a Latin inscription carved above the nearby Sigmundstor or
Neutor Tunnel 'Te Saxa Loquuntor' ('The Stones are talking of you') that
Castellucci employs as a distinctive way to consider the work in terms
of its Salzburg production, but what it means is anyone's guess, and
easier to describe than interpret.
The location itself is
of course spectacular in its own right, even if it's just for scale and
atmosphere. The arcades are actually blocked off here to form a more
solid surrounding wall, with openings used occasionally for entrances,
exits and props. If nothing else it gives 'presence' to the flow and
decadence of Oscar Wilde's original text and the taboo-breaking nature
of the content that is in line with the employment of Strauss's musical
forces. The detail of the composer's attempts to account for the
line-by-line control of mood and subtext is where Castellucci perhaps
has more of his own personal views and ways of presenting it.
You
expect eccentric touches and they are most obviously there with the
lower half of everyone face painted red. Everyone that is except
Herodias, who is painted green for some reason and Salome, whose face is
not painted, but who is marked out in contrast to everyone else by her
virginal white appearance. Virginal is very much suggested by the
opening scene before the music starts, showing her as little more than a
child - whether it's a flashback or a suggestion of her real age is
unknown - who cuts through the veil that presents the Sigmundstor Latin
inscription. The back of Salome's dress when she appears in the opera
appears to be stained with menstrual blood. If it was any other kind of
blood, I think we'd know about it from the production and her
protective and vocal mother Herodias might have had something to say
about it.
The other significant person in the work of
course is Jokanaan, or the prophet John the Baptist, whose voice does
indeed appear to talk of you from the stones (Te saxa loquuntor),
imprisoned below the floor in a cistern. His face is painted black,
making his first encounter with Salome very effective indeed; she slight
and delicate in white, eclipsed by the dark, wild, primitive and almost
bear-like mass of Jokanaan, a man who had lived in the wilderness.
Indeed there is an eclipse of sorts, with a huge black circle that
overwhelms and enfolds their first encounter. Reinforcing his wild
erotic presence, a live horse can be seen rearing out of the circular
pit that holds him. So far so much is mostly just giving emphasis to
the forces at work in the opera, forces that are most definitely there
in the sinister, sinuous, beautiful and violent music, the Vienna
Philharmonica well conducted through that variety of moods and colours
by Franz Welser-Möst.
The other strange and confusing
touches in the production relate to and contrast with how we expect to
see the more iconic scenes of the work. During the Dance of the Seven
Veils, Salome doesn't actually dance (heaven forbid that Castellucci
should be so literal), but instead she kneels head down semi-naked on a
plinth with the word SAXA written on it, while a block of stone is
lowered 'crushing' her beneath it. Feel free to interpret that how you
like. Instead of Jokanaan's head being presented on a silver charger,
we have Jokanaan's naked decapitated full torso, with the head of
a horse (presented as a first appeal to Salome to change her mind) left
beside it in a shallow pool of white liquid. As far as taboo-breaking
goes, you would expect an animal head to have additional shock impact
and hint at illicit desires - which you should really be aiming for at
the conclusion of this opera - but neither the thunderous cacophony of
the closing notes nor the staging really make the necessary impact here.
That perhaps doesn't matter as much when the
performances have been intense elsewhere throughout (although I do think
that the impact of the conclusion should be viscerally felt). Asmik Grigorian certainly carries the kind of soaring intensity that the
opera's Salome ought to have, reaching the luxurious heights and the
depraved depths of the work. Herod and Herodias can sometimes be given
to older singers just past their prime, but that's not the case here
with John Daszak and Anna Maria Chiuri. Daszak isn't ideal but does
carry a suitable haunted quality. Chiuri is spectacular, giving this
Herodias a lot more input than usual. Gábor Bretz is not the most
sonorous Jokanaan, but again his presence is felt. I'm not sure that
Castellucci has any great vision for the work or the characters, but he
certainly gets to the heart of their natures, working with the opera and
the location to bring his usual unique qualities and intensity to this
Salzburg production.
Links: Salzburg Festival, Medici.TV
Richard Wagner - Lohengrin
Bayreuth Festival, 2018
Christian
Thielemann, Yuval Sharon, Georg Zeppenfeld, Piotr Beczala, Anja
Harteros, Tomasz Konieczny, Waltraud Meier, Egils Silins
BR-Klassik - 25 July 2018
The
premiere of Bayreuth's new production of Lohengrin for their 2018
festival tends to emphasise the colourful fairy-tale qualities of the
work, but whether it gets to the mythological qualities that Wagner's
opera aspires to is another matter. Whether the values the work puts
forward have any meaning or application to the world we live in today is
questionable in any case. Dresden's production would seem to think not,
retaining the work's medieval legend setting, but Bayreuth usually take a
much more adventurous analytical probing of Wagner's works for
continued relevance and contemporary meaning, as the previous production by Hans Neuenfels demonstrated. With Lohengrin, there's always the
tricky question of its legacy to consider, which Olivier Py's production for La Monnaie recently explored. The intentions of the latest
Bayreuth production are a little more difficult to fathom.
Whether
you take it at face value or probe deeper and more critically,
Lohengrin however is inextricably related to the matter of German
nationalism, Wagner seeking through mythology and legend to identify the
characteristics that define the German people. Whether it's critical
of certain unpleasant and dangerous aspects of that nature or laudatory
and idealistic is questionable, but it's possible to see it both ways.
Doing so of course risks polarising those aspects into broad definitions
of 'good' and 'evil', and the fairy-tale setting does tend towards such
a Manichean division at the cost of any finer nuance. There are
certainly other elements that suggest other ways of looking at the work,
but it has to be said that initially, the symbolism is confusing and
difficult to pin down.
Part of the reason for this of
course could be down to the fact that the set designers, the artist Neo
Rauch and his wife Rosa Loy, worked independently on their conception of
the work and then tried to integrate that with director Yuval Sharon's
ideas. There's a clear difference of views then on what the intention,
purpose and relevance of Lohengrin is, but that can also provide an
interesting dialectic that can promote some interesting new thoughts on
the work. Even if it's hard to fathom, I have to say I'm more taken
with the visual aesthetic in this new Bayreuth production than with the
contradictory thoughts that LA Opera director Sharon - the first
American director invited to work on a Bayreuth production - entertains
on the work.
Visually the production design is stunning, a vision in pale blue. There's nothing naturalistic
about the mythological fairy-tale setting of Lohengrin, so there's no
need whatsoever to have it in any realistic/idealistic depiction of
medieval Brabant. Rauch and Loy's designs do pay lip service to period
in the stylised costumes, but they also have more eccentric fairy-tale
touches like wings attached to the backs of the main characters; long
insect wings mostly, and little bat wings for Ortrud. There no real
sign that these are used for flying, although the sword-fight challenge
between Telramund and Lohengrin takes place in the air on wires. What
does stand out as incongruous but spectacular is the huge wireless
electrical generator tower where Lohengrin makes his appearance and the
giant Tesla electrical coils that the accused Elsa is tied to in
preparation for burning at the stake.
The imagery and the
conflict of characterisation in this production does have a tendency
then to highlight the divisions between good and evil. Is God on the
side of the German people or against them, and is the struggle between
Ortrud/Telramund and Lohentrin/Elsa a contest really to determine God's
will as a resolution to King Henry's concerns about how to unite the
people behind him? Admittedly, this view is probably influenced more by
Waltraud Meier's brilliant interpretation in her expression of the word
'God' while she sets out to manipulate Frederic von Telramund. There
is however also something about the division between old ways and new
ways, between faith and magic that is highlighted in the traditional
ceremonial heraldry and the 'magic' of electrical forces, the gods of
technology. There is even some hint of visual reference to Fritz
Lang's Metropolis in this, where there is a similar need to reunite
heart and mind in order to bring the people together as a nation.
Whether
that's relevant to today is of course open to interpretation, but
certainly viable in that it can be applicable to all kinds of
contemporary issues, and perhaps particularly German ones. Yuval Sharon
however takes a somewhat contrary viewpoint to the meaning and
contemporary relevance of the work, seeing it as some kind of an
expression of #MeToo and women's rights. His questioning in an interview whether "Can real love exist if you aren't allowed to know the
partner?" and his view that Elsa and Ortrud are strong women who need
to assert their own personality over "corrupt men" (including
Lohengrin), since "blindly trusting and obeying someone is not
permissible in our society" seems to me to be the complete opposite of
the intended view of the opera on questions of faith and
trust. There's nothing wrong in challenging or updating that view, and
Wagner's views are certainly open to reevaluation, but I don't think
that the director makes a convincing case by imposing modern gender
politics onto the work when the real issues surely lie deeper than that
on placing one's faith and trust in the concept of a nation.
The
question is at least relevant in terms of power - if you want to
consider the references to electricity simply in those terms - in who
has the right to wield it and how they wield it. Nothing of course is
that clear cut, and inevitably, by the time we get to the third Act it
becomes harder to tie all the different symbols and imagery together
into something meaningful. Frederic von Telramund's body isn't brought
onto the stage for the last scene, but his detached wings are pinned to a
flat piece of scenery that looks like a bush. The people carry
flickering moth-shaped lamps, and the concluding return of Godfrey, the
heir to the throne of Brabant, turns up not as a swan or a child on a
swan but as a fully grown green man who resembles an East Berlin traffic
light Ampelmann carrying an illuminated green shoot (the merging of
nature and technology - who knows? It's Bayreuth).
Whatever you make of
it all, it's a great Lohengrin that looks and sounds terrific and is
certainly thought-provoking. Christian Thielemann can do no wrong as
far as I'm concerned, conducting this performance with pace and vigour,
but never aggressively, allowing the full Romantic flow of the work to
dominate. The casting on paper looks close to ideal, but the few
concerns you might have are borne out to some extent. Little needs to
be said about Georg Zeppenfeld's clear authoritative King Henry; his
acting abilities are maybe limited to eyebrow raising, but there's not a
lot of room for interpretation in the role. Tomasz Konieczny is a
superb Telramund; no cartoon villainy here, he combines a steely
formidability in his voice with a weakness towards the machinations of
Ortrud. Waltraud Meier is evidently not the force she once was, but her
experience and interpretation count for a lot, bringing much to a vital
role that deserves more than caricature. I've never been completely
convinced with Anja Harteros as a Wagnerian singer, but she is capable
of surprising you in the right role. Elsa is not the right
role.
The star of the show as far as I was concerned (and
the Bayreuth audience as well from the sound of it, although Meier also
got a long enthusiastic and respectful ovation) was Piotr Beczala.
Drafted into the production at short notice following the departure of
the scheduled Roberto Alagna, who found himself not fully prepared for
the role, Beczala was a luminous heroic Lohengrin (despite Sharon's
misguided attempt to paint this Lohengrin as some kind of cruel
authoritarian figure), his voice clear, bright and lyrical, his diction
superb, sounding genuinely otherworldly. It's great to hear a different
voice from the ubiquitous Klaus Florian Vogt in this role (quite how
Alagna might have sounded is anyone's guess, but it might be intriguing
to hear that one day) and Beczala, who already demonstrated his
capability for the role in the Dresden production in 2016, is even better here,
completely in command. There's no question whose side God is on here.
Links: Bayreuth Festival, BR-Klassik
Giuseppe Verdi - Alzira
Buxton Festival, 2018
Stephen
Barlow, Elijah Moshinsky, Kate Ladner, James Cleverton, Jung Soo Yun,
Graeme Danby, Phil Wilcox, Luke Sinclair, Brian McNamee, Helen Bailey
Buxton Opera House - 20th July 2018
If
there's a lesson to be learned from the fate of Verdi's Alzira, it's
never offer a negative assessment of your own work. Whether Alzira is a
noble failure or potentially redeemable is never really going to be
considered when the composer is on record describing it as "proprio
brutta" (downright ugly). If you want to consign one of your operas to
obscurity that's the way to do it. Even when all of Verdi's early
operas have been revived in recent years - successfully or otherwise -
most companies still give Alzira a wide berth. Even when compiling a
complete Tutto Verdi collection of the composer's work on DVD, the
producers could only manage to include a concert version of this opera
rather than a fully staged performance.
It's a very
pleasant surprise then to discover that Alzira's poor reputation really
isn't merited. Far from it, in fact. The only proper way to judge that
however is by seeing it in a fully staged performance and thankfully,
Buxton Festival were brave enough to take on the challenge (and curse)
of Alzira as the third of Stephen Barlow and Elijah Moshinsky's early Verdi revivals
(following Giovanna d'Arco in 2016 and Macbeth in 2017) in preference to a more
predictable Attila or Il Giorno di Regno, both of which have a lot less
to recommend. Moshinsky's production really does pull the work together
and proves that, as is often the case, a good production can mitigate
against any perceived weaknesses and highlight the strengths of an opera
like this.
The weakness of Alzira is that it's an early
Verdi opera, which means that it's a bit crash-and-bang and not terrible
subtle or original in its plot or characterisation. Based on a play by
Voltaire about the assassination of a Spanish governor of Peru by an
Inca uprising, Verdi chooses his sources material from a solid literary
source but, as is often the case in the earlier works, jettisons any
real political questions about the work's attack on colonialism and
religion and instead gives the opera audience a romantic drama. The
strengths of Alzira lie in the fact that it's still Verdi and he can
bang out a great tune, has a strong sense of drama (particularly high
drama) and dramatic pacing, and the work never outstays its welcome by
trying to make anything more of the plot than is there on the surface.
It's
a basic plot to say the least. Gusmano, the son of the Spanish
governor Alvaro, wants to marry Alzira, the daughter of one of the
Peruvian tribes trying to establish peace with the Spanish authorities.
Alzira however is in love with Zamoro, the leader of the Inca tribe in
rebellion against the colonial powers. Zamoro has been captured,
tortured and has escaped, returning to plead clemency for the governor
Alvaro, who has been kidnapped in retaliation by the Incas. He then
returns apparently from the dead to the anxious Alzira. When Alvaro
steps down and leaves his son to take his place as governor, Gusmano
forges ahead with the wedding plans, leading to a further attack by
Zamoro and his tribe, where Gusmano is killed.
Setting a
complicated impossible romantic love story against the background of
political turmoil and revolution is a fairly standard Verdi opera plot
that he would carry on with as far as Un ballo in maschera and to some
extent, albeit in much more sophisticated compositions, in Don Carlos and
Aida. Here, long before Aida, there's an exotic setting - 16th century
Peru - but at this stage you wouldn't really know it from the music or
characterisation; there's little to distinguish it from Oberto,
Ernani, Attila or any one of many early to middle period Verdi works.
Verdi nonetheless turns the standard plotting of Alzira into a rousing
drama with plenty of action and stirring grand choruses. Like many of
the Verdi operas of this period it might seem a little rudimentary,
there's a lack of memorable arias and there's no 'Va pensiero' or
'Patria oppressa', but it uses the political charge of the plot to hit
all the necessary dramatic points exceptionally well, and even quite
thrillingly.
A lot of the credit for it coming across
that way has to be down to the spirited musical and singing
performances. It would be a mistake to look for any real sophistication
in the plot or music, but that doesn't mean Alzira shouldn't be taken
completely seriously. Trying to play it ironically or with distancing
effects doesn't do such Verdi works any favours. It demands to be
played and performed with passion and sincerity, and Stephen Barlow
conducts a spirited account of the work that feels fully committed and
believing in the drama. The same approach works for the singers as
well, with Kate Ladner as Alzira doing well to navigate the considerable
challenges that Verdi provides to the soprano in these works, working
alongside an impressive Jung Soo Yun as Zamoro, who also shone in last year's Macbeth as Macduff.
That goes
some way to making the plot a little easier to swallow, but what brings
it all together is Elijah Moshinsky's direction and the excellent
production design of Russell Craig. The costumes and set colouration looks
more Cuban than Peruvian, or closer to a Central American revolution, but for
the purposes of the work - which never really explores the colonial
issues - it works even better. TV breaking news reports put the drama
into this context and the real-life revolution footage and abuse of the
oppressive authorities does contribute to making the drama feel real and
present. Projections are also used in a more abstract way also to
suggest deeper sentiments than the plot or music really contain, but
more than that they ensure that there is plenty of visual interest to
engage the audience. Quite simply though, the real strengths are all in
just good direction of the performances.
Quite why Verdi
didn't believe in the work the same way that the Buxton team do is a
mystery, although his reported comments are thought to be disparaging of
the libretto more than his own solid musical contribution. I suspect
part of the dislike of the work might also have been
dissatisfaction with the ending. It's quite unusual for the 'villain' of
the piece to be given an almost heroic role at the conclusion that puts
the leading romance into the shade. It might not be the most convincing
turnaround certainly and there's no Macbeth-like 'Mal per me' to seek
or gain audience sympathy. As good as James Cleverton is, even he can't
quite carry off this turnaround, but it certainly provides a shock,
sudden resolution to the opera that is hammered home with relish by
Barlow and a superb Northern Chamber Orchestra. What a delight to see
Alzira being rehabilitated in this hugely enjoyable production. Not a lost masterpiece maybe, but a modest gem.
Links: Buxton Festival
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Idomeneo
Buxton Festival, 2018
Nicholas Kok, Stephen Medcalf, Paul Nilon, Rebecca Bottone, Heather Lowe, Madeleine Pierard, Ben Thapa, Richard Dowling, Julian Debreuil
Buxton Opera House - 19th July 2018
As well as working on a trilogy of rare early Verdi works over the last couple of years, the Buxton Festival have also been presenting a number of Mozart's early operas that aren't quite as well known and rarely staged. Like early Verdi these can be a mixed bag but very worthwhile if you can find and show the qualities and the promise in the works. La Finta Giardiniera proved to be an absolute delight in Buxton's staging, wonderfully effervescent and playful, but Lucio Silla last year on the other hand came across as rather dour and uneventful. Idomeneo is certainly the best of early Mozart and consequently it is always worth exploring, but in contrast to some exciting and ambitious recent readings of the work elsewhere, Buxton's approach doesn't initially seem to have a great deal to bring to the work.
For an opera that is very much connected to the sea and the curse of Neptune, Stephen Medcalf's production somewhat counter-intuitively sets the whole three acts of Idomeneo within a dry room that is semi-buried in a sand drift. It's a simple enough image that does capture some sense of the domestic drama at the heart of the plot as well as the forces of nature at the heart of the work without having to be overly literal. If Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside could bring all the heart-freezing sentiments of Schubert's Winterreise fully into being earlier in the day during one of the hottest summers on record in the UK, well there's no reason why Buxton can't likewise test the effectiveness of Mozart's setting of Idomeneo. And you wouldn't bet against Mozart winning through.
With the same set designed by Isabella Bywater unchanged for all three acts, and only open doors and windows for the characters and chorus to make their entrances and exits, there was no other apparent concept or original reading applied. If there was any area in which Buxton's Idomeneo differed from other recent productions, it was that Stephen Medcalf took a rather more balanced view of the contrasting forces at work in the opera. This was one of the kindest and most gentle Idomeneos I've seen, particularly in its sympathetic treatment of Electra and Idomeneo, more often seen as the villains in the piece. That does actually place a very different perspective on the work, but you really have to wait a long time in this opera seria for its impact to come through.
In terms of characterisation and relationships and how they are expressed through the opera seria medium, the production is fairly 'dry'. Idomeneo's indecision, vacillation and agonising over his rash promise to Neptune to kill his own son as a sacrificial offering doesn't cut much ice in terms of eliciting sympathy. Idamante and Ilia's romance feels rather wet and unlikely to ever get off the ground, each of them delicately stepping around the subject. In such a situation where everyone is being 'nice' and non-committal, Electra seems to have the best potential to break through here and shake the opera up, but she too seems to take it rather philosophically, mildly disappointed at her rejection by Idamante rather than filled with righteous vengeance.
How much is down to the direction and how much down to the characterisation adopted by the singers and even how much of it is down to Mozart's music potentially being rather too generous is debatable. The singing is good all around, but little of it seems to express any real personality, particularly when you want and expect an Electra full of fire and fury. But as the opera exerts its own momentum a strong central figure does emerge, and in contrast to the tendency to portray him as weak, indecisive and no longer fit to rule, it's Idomeneo who surprisingly takes centre stage. After all, the opera is named after him, so there is merit in looking more closely at his role in the drama.
And when you're looking towards characterisation in a Mozart opera, the best gauge of that is by listening to the music that Mozart writes for the characters. Mozart at this age may perhaps not have the depth and insight into human nature that is evident in is greater mature works, but he is by no means restricted by the conventions of the opera seria format, and even at this stage shows tremendous ability to create fully rounded characters out of what is a very limited dramatic situation. And it's only fully rounded by the time you get to the end of the work. So as austere as the production and the music might seem, Mozart's personality, his innovations with the form, his undoubted attention to Gluck's reformist agenda and his own sense of melody and dramatic flow still strike you as astounding. Austere it is not, but rich in detail, alive at every moment and never indulgent.
Conducted by Nicholas Kok, the music was allowed to exert its own force and carry the momentum of the accumulated scenes. Stephen Medcalf follows this line also and allows Idomeneo's curse, fate and fall to emerge from it as the true heart of the work. Idamante's love, generosity and humanity are important and Heather Lowe gives voice to that, just as Madeleine Pierard expresses Electra's anger but doesn't allow it to overwhelm and dominate. In line with Mozart's music, it's Paul Nilon who makes every moment of Idomeneo's agony to be truly felt, seemingly possessed by an evil spirit that forces him to enact the promised sacrifice, fighting with himself and his guilt at surviving the sea-wreck. Quite brilliantly supporting this interpretation, Neptune, when he makes his appearance at the end of the opera speaks chillingly through the possessed body of Idomeneo.
If the Buxton production of Idomeneo shows us anything it's that Mozart's writing is capable of supporting other readings and interpretations, but even in its purest and most austere form and despite its serious nature, it's a rich and involving work in its own right. Allowing each of the characters voice (although Arbace is inevitably cut back here, he's far from essential to the overall impact), allowing the set pieces to have their place - the placing of the Act III quartet 'Andrò ramingo e solo' absolutely pivotal and hugely impressive here - allowing the chorus - likewise impressive - to contribute their part, is what really drives this work and makes Idomeneo an endlessly fascinating work if you stick with it and most importantly, give Mozart's music its place.
Links: Buxton Festival
Richard Strauss - Salome
Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam - 2017
Daniele
Gatti, Ivo Van Hove, Malin Byström, Evgeny Nikitin, Lance Ryan, Doris
Soffel, Peter Sonn, Hanna Hipp, James Creswell, Roger Smeets
Culturebox - June 2017
It's
isn't often obvious to judge what play or opera you are looking at just
from a view of the sets alone in an Ivo van Hove production, but the
set for the one-act drama of Salome for the Dutch National Opera is
unmistakable. It might not be in the obvious Biblical setting, but the
tones, contrasts and the basic functional requirements for Strauss's
opera, or indeed Wilde's play, are all there. A large frigid moon hangs
over the scene where an elegant room bathed in red light set to the
back of the stage, and at the front is terrace like a circus arena with a
hole at the centre.
Whether it's modern or Biblical, the
hole is always more than just an entrance to the cistern where
Jokanaan, John the Baptist is imprisoned in Herod's palace. It's a
place where Herod and Heriodas want to hide the witness who speaks out
about their decadence. It's also a gaping maw of desire, a dark abyss
that exerts an irresistible attraction to their daughter Salome, a young
woman who has grown up in this house of corruption. Those
undercurrents of forbidden lusts are there in Wilde's original 1891
work, a play that still has the capacity to shock. Salome is a play dealing
with a taboo subject whose importance still hasn't been fully
acknowledged I feel, darker and more daring than the image of corruption and decadence in 'The Portrait of Dorian Gray', both of which
now take a back seat to the image of Oscar Wilde as wit represented more often on stage by his Victorian comedies and social satires.
Richard
Strauss however clearly recognised the power of the work and its
underlying attack on social conformity when he first saw the
controversial play in German translation in its first European
performances, the original (in French and in English) having been banned in England. It's an outright attack on the
hypocrisy of outward respectability covering over darker impulses, and
it chimes with a climate of Viennese turn of the century Freudian
analysis and exploration of repressed self-destructive impulses and
bloodlust festering under a layer of surface respectability; an impulse
that would soon be unleashed in the horrors of the Great War.
It
was also a time when music was looking for a new expression or outlet
for these new modernist views. Strauss retains the post-Wagnerian lush
lyrical romanticism and exoticism that reflects the elegant surface of
social respectability, but found an extraordinary new musical language
to probe beneath the surface, a darker and more violent edge that lies
within its unsettling dissonance, sudden shifts of tone and juddering
declines and suspensions. As one of the most daring pieces of music
written to that point, changing the face of music for a century, or at
least pointing the way towards it, it's not only in Strauss's opera that
Wilde's Salome is more frequently presented, but it's in it that it really
lives.
A staging of the work then should also be radical
and have the capacity to shock, or at least find a way that represents
the spirit of the original. On the surface, Ivo van Hove's production
isn't the most radical, but in the direction of the performers at least,
he does find a way of getting to the heart of what remains compelling
and shocking about the work. It need hardly be said that the central
tension in the drama is between Salome and Jokanaan. How Herod,
Herodias and Narraboth interact with Salome is very much contributory to
the direction the work does in and its overall impact, but the focus
here is very much on the pivotal confrontation between Salome's
worldview and the one that Jokanaan both represents and decries.
Salome
is the offspring of this corrupt society that hides its true face. In
her generation's twisted view of the world, she wants to bend it to
satisfy her own desires and at the same time turn her power towards
exposing the true nature of this hypocritical society and completely
destroy it. Speaking out against that hypocrisy and indulging those
desires. This small incidental drama of a Biblical nature sets out to
do achieve nothing less than complete annihilation. As Wilde
prophetically recognises the fate that would befall him later, such
actions and indulgence comes at a cost and ultimately prove to be
self-destructive. Somehow Strauss's music carried the same seed of
self-destruction in it, a darker abyss that Strauss would soon turn away
from himself.
It's asking a lot of a young singer like
Malin Byström, but under Ivo van Hove's direction she largely succeeds.
There's a youthful innocence there at first, with a dark dirty desire
from an abused corrupted childhood that is straining to get out.
Jokanaan provides that foil to set herself against and test where the
limits lie. She's not sure at first what she wants, but becomes
dangerously capable of pushing taboo boundaries. Rejected by Evgeny Nikitin's solemn restrained Jokanaan,
Byström handles Salome's transition over from pleading princess to
violent murderous intent brilliantly, but it's also underscored well and
delivered with jarring intensity from Daniele Gatti in the DNO
orchestra pit. She's a dangerous spark waiting to ignite and Herod and
her mother supply all the fuel she needs to set the world on fire.
The mechanics of the stage directions are mostly adhered to in
Van Hove's production, but with a few varying points of emphasis. The
moon gets larger, Narraboth kills himself in full public view looking
down at the abyss, not away in some dark corner. Projections play a role,
as they often do in the Belgian director's productions. They come into
play mainly during the Dance of the Seven Veils, which is danced by
Byström, but enhanced to show her dancing not for Herod but Jokanaan.
The prophet's head is not delivered on a silver platter, but Jokanaan
himself, covered head to foot in gore in a shallow basin that Salome
wallows in. He's not entirely dead either, or perhaps moves only in
Salome's head, crawling to an illicit and bloody union. If there's any
contemporary commentary in Ivo van Hove's production it eludes me, but
as an image of how Wilde and Strauss incautiously explored the direction
society was going in, the DNO production is immensely powerful.
Links: DNO, Culturebox
Richard Wagner - Parsifal
Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich - 2018
Kirill
Petrenko, Pierre Audi, Georg Baselitz, Christian Gerhaher, Bálint
Szabó, René Pape, Jonas Kaufmann, Wolfgang Koch, Nina Stemme, Kevin
Conners, Callum Thorpe, Rachael Wilson, Paula Iancic, Tara Erraught,
Manuel Günther, Matthew Grills, Golda Schultz, Selene Zanetti,
Noluvuyiso Mpofu
Staatsoper.TV - 08 July 2018
I'm
convinced that if I never watched any other opera but Parsifal, I'd
still continue to find it an inexhaustible source of wonder, continually
offering new insights about life, its purpose and meaning. There
aren't many operas that offer as much, particularly from what appears to
be so little. Whether it's Wagner's music itself, the director
involved in a new production, the conductor, the singers, the staging,
it seems that there are infinite ways of exploring this enigmatic work.
It seems impossible not to engage with its deeply spiritual content, and
each and every new performance and contributor seeming to have
something new to bring to it. That's certainly the case with this
exceptional 2018 production of Parsifal from the Bayerische Staatsoper.
On
a basic narrative level Parsifal seems to be a religious parable or
fantasy that bears little connection with real life matters. In
Monsalvat, a place outside of space and time, the knights dedicated to a
cult of the Holy Grail are falling into despair, their hero Amfortas
having been struck by the Holy Spear of Destiny no longer able to endure
the pain of performing the ceremony of the unveiling of the the grail
that gives strength to its acolytes. They are crying out for someone to
resolve the conflict and division in the world since the spear
has fallen into the hands of Klingsor. Along comes an innocent fool
who doesn't even know his own name. He is moved by what Gurnemanz shows
him and determines to do something about it, to learn and understand.
That's Act I. In Act II, resisting temptations of the flesh he
encounters Kundry, a restless spirit who awakes him to a new awareness
not just of the self, but of others. He wrests the spear from Klingsor
and, after many years of wandering lost, finds his way to return the
lost spear to Monsalvat in Act III.
On another level
Parsifal is a story of redemption, the Grail and the Spear symbols of
the gifts that God has given which can be used for good or evil.
Mankind has taken a wrong step and it needs someone - someone pure who
doesn't know the ways of the sinful world - who can heal the divisions
and put us back on the right path; a return to innocence through death,
rebirth and renewal. Parsifal's journey is not an easy one, the
acquiring of learning and knowledge is difficult and painful, but it is
through pain and loss that he acquires compassion and, through
compassion, purpose. The opera however is not just about Parsifal, but
Gurnemanz, Amfortas, Kundry and even Titurel reaching his end, all have
their own paths to take towards redemption, resolution, transfiguration
and transcendence, but Parsifal is the light that shows them the way.
There
are many paths to follow then in Parsifal, and evidently even the above
description and reading is greatly simplified. What lifts Parsifal to
another level entirely and which can't be put into simple narrative
terms is of course Wagner's miraculous music. Noble, dignified,
passionate and compassionate, it embodies all the qualities of being human and striving to
understand, but there's an abstraction in the flow and blend of melodies
and leitmotifs, in the use of instruments and sounds, in the choral and
ceremonial aspects of the work that also touches on something deep and
spiritual and makes this little fable something more meaningful and
endlessly capable of revealing new depths.
So what are we
to make of Pierre Audi's new production of Parsifal for the Bavarian
State Opera's 2018 summer festival? Well, initially, not a great deal.
There's no particular emphasis or vision in display in the first Act,
other than the distinctive and unusual set designs by the German artist
and sculptor Georg Baselitz. Audi has successfully worked with visual
artists before - not so long ago with Anish Kapoor on another production
of Parsifal for the Dutch National Opera - and it does succeed in
bringing another personal vision of a world that lies between
abstraction and reality, a world turned upside down and deflating.
Monsalvat appears to be deep in the woods, the knights congregating
around a rough hewn structure of stone pillars that come together like a
pyramid bundle of sticks sculpture. Kundry is to be found under the
skeleton of whatever beast she rode in on. The outdoor-living monks
wear heavy robes and tribal paints on their face, stripping down to
reveal padded naked suits when Amfortas carries out an act of
self-bloodletting within the sacrificial altar of the stone sculpture.
Aside
from the eccentricities of the designs - which are nothing more than
bringing the style of Georg Baselitz's paintings and designs to life -
there's not much in the way of a concept revealed here. It seems to be
relying on Kirill Petrenko's conducting of the score to bring out the
real depth and mysteries of the work, and that's not necessarily a bad
thing. Under Petrenko, this is a performance of extraordinary quality
by the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, perfectly paced and balanced to
allow the emotional depth at the heart of the work infuse the limited
dramatic action, and indeed even the otherwise unspectacular 'time
becomes space' and unveiling of the grail 'transubstantiation' scenes.
It's
only in Act II of this production that the path, intent and purpose of
the work becomes evident. The more I see Parsifal, the more it becomes
clear that the key figure in the work, the role that is most rewarding
in terms of following the progression from lost to found, from
self-interest to care for others, is not Parsifal but Kundry. How
successful this is may well be down to the singers involved, and Nina Stemme is just astonishingly good here - one of the greatest
performances of this role I've ever heard or witnessed. But the
characterisation and understanding of who Kundry is important, and Audi
and Stemme seem to have paid particular care and attention to this
aspect of the work.
It's significant that Kundry is seen
awakening out of a long "sleep of death" at the beginning of all three
acts. It's her long-suffering moans we hear clearly in each of these
scenes as she is called back into the pain of existence. Wild, untamed
and confused, seeking redemption for a kind of 'original sin', she
struggles with her own nature, unsure of the path to take, helping to
ease the pain of Amfortas in one incarnation, forced to act as an agent
of Klingsor in another. Tired of being torn, she wants to believe that
there is a chance of rest, that someone will bring her struggle to an
end. Like all the others, it can't be done by will alone, but in Act II - according to the very direct imagery of Georg Baselitz - a wall is breached.
Pierre Audi
also pays particular attention to Parsifal in this Act and Jonas Kaufmann is very much able to make something of this characterisation
and his interaction with Stemme's extraordinary Kundry. In a quite
different reading of Wagner's exotic music for the Flowermaidens scene,
Parsifal is not seduced, but rather the music seems to exude compassion -
not love or lust - that he feels for these poor twisted naked bloody
creatures of Klingsor (as Baselitz depicts them in lumpy padding). It's
not just compassion though, but fear of compassion, unprepared for what
it will take out of him. It's a reaction that for the first time made
me think of the Flowermaidens scene not as some false Garden of Eden but
rather as something closer to Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, a
religious scene that Wagner would undoubtedly have considered and
referenced in relation to compassion, pain and sacrifice.
It's
a simply stunning Act II, superlative on every level of execution in
concept and performance. Its position as the true pivotal scene in the
opera is fully realised here, the single greatest enactment of this Act
that I have ever seen. It's not just Stemme, Kaufmann and Koch, it's
Audi's direction, Baselitz's simple but meaningful set designs and,
essentially, Kirill Petrenko's management of the ebb and flow of Wagner's near
miraculous score reaching out and bringing all of this together. When
you see it the way it is supposed to be done it's no wonder that
Klingsor is so quickly and easily dispatched at the end of the Act.
Parsifal has become an unstoppable force that has still to learn to
control and come to terms with the knowledge and power he has gained
through the medium of Kundry, but at this point he's just burning fire.
By
the time we return to an upturned Monsalvat in Act III, it really does
feel like a long time has passed, that Parsifal's righteous fire has
lost none of its force but Kaufmann's demeanour wields it like a
smouldering sun exuding only light and warmth. The tone and intent of
this Act remained deeply moving and sincere in its account of
redemption, rebirth and a return to innocence but it felt to me that
there were understandable signs of tiring in the orchestra and in the
performances. It also brought out the one real weak-point in this
production, which was Christian Gerhaher's Amfortas. Gerhaher sings one
of the most beautiful lyrical Wolframs you will ever hear in
Tannhäuser, but he seemed to me ill-suited and lost as Amfortas. Then
again, with the focus wholly on how Kundry and Parsifal become the
catalyst to change, there is inevitably less attention paid to the other
aspects of the work. If Amfortas's pain was at the same level, it would not
only present a different balance, it would almost be too much for a
viewer to bear in this production.
René Pape's Gurnemanz
is also underdeveloped. Pape is left to stand inhabiting his own
world, almost invariably poised beatifically with hands clasped in front
of himself, focussed on the delivery but visibly wilting under the heat
in the theatre as much as under the weight of the role. It has to be
said that the delivery is still very good. I have mixed feelings about
Jonas Kaufmann's Parsifal. On the one hand he does bring depth and
compassion to Parsifal, his singing heartfelt and emotional. On the
other hand his range lacks effectiveness as he tires, going from soft
and barely audible to full-volume belting at the cost of real emotional
feeling. He tries to compensate in his acting and often
overcompensates. Without question however he delivers some
spine-tingling moments here, particularly in his interaction with Nina Stemme's Kundry. There I'm afraid words are completely inadequate to
express the depth of detail, the warmth of tone and expression in
Stemme's ability to bring one of the greatest characters in all opera to
life. It's just extraordinary and it makes this Parsifal extraordinary as well.
Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV
Giuseppe Verdi - Macbeth
Staatsoper under den Linden, Berlin - 2018
Harry Kupfer, Daniel Barenboim, Anna Netrebko, Plácido Domingo, Kwangchul Youn, Evelin Novak, Fabio Sartori
ARTE Concert - 21 June 2018
There's
definitely an air of a prestige event about the Berlin Staatsoper's
star-studded summer spectacular Macbeth, but also in its live open air
broadcast, a sense of it being an occasion that can be accessible to a
wider audience. Macbeth's recent elevation to becoming one of his most
popular operas is deserved, and certainly among the best of the
composer's earlier works. As such it has all the requirements of a
crowd-pleaser, a showcase for imaginative stage direction, impassioned
musical direction and for superstar singing. Verdi, Macbeth,
Shakespeare, Kupfer, Barenboim, Netrebko and Domingo; evidently you're
in for a treat. While the Berlin production can't fail to impress,
there's still a lingering sense that it's more of an event than great
opera.
The early indications in the setting of Act I
Scene 1 are that Kupfer's production isn't going to shy away from the
darkness and the horror that lies at the heart of Macbeth. There are
however different ways of presenting the nature of that horror and
Shakespeare and Verdi have differences of emphasis on the nature of
power and ambition in Macbeth. For Verdi, the centrepiece of the opera
is 'Patria opressa', the consequences that the lust for power has on the
ordinary people caught up in war. Should a director stick closer to
Shakespeare's themes or Verdi's? Well, there's no reason why you can't
do both.
Phyllida Lloyd's production of Macbeth for the Royal Opera House found several ways to make
the consequences and the reality of the underlying struggles present on
a stage littered with the bodies of the dead, and Harry Kupfer's
production for Berlin, while it may be a little more elegantly staged,
also immediately places us is a world of almost apocalyptic devastation.
Thick plumes of smoke rise from explosions of flame and lightning
rains down on the scene as Macbeth and Banquo appear in the aftermath of
the battle that will determine the future kings of Scotland. The
witches dressed in rags scurry around the bodies in the muddy
battlefield rags, scavenging over the spoils of war; a scene that tells
you all you need to know about what is ahead without any mystic
prophesy.
The veteran stage director's sets the scene
well and what follows is equally spectacular. Kupfer's current visual
aesthetic is for blacks, greys and steely silver, with off-kilter
angular background projections of elegant, slightly surreal landscapes,
and it works well for the contrasts and tones of Macbeth. The cold
luxury of the Macbeth household is in stark contrast to the devastation
outside in the real world, but it also captures a sense of the nature of
Lord and Lady Macbeth's pretensions and sense of their own importance
and ambition to rise. Verdi's music for these scenes, and Lady
Macbeth's aria 'Vieni t'affretta' tell you as much, and Kupfer reflects
this well.
There's really not much else to say about
Kupfer's directorial choices. The remainder of the opera takes place in
a series of equally suitable settings that provide variety and yet
maintain a consistent tone. Every scene makes an impact - whether it's
the ambush of Banquo by the maw of a digger on a building site or
Macbeth's apparitions taking place within the crater of an active
volcano - even if it doesn't say anything deeper than that. It's not
the most insightful reading of Macbeth, but then Verdi's abilities at
this stage in his career are far from the level he would attain with his
later Shakespeare adaptations of Otello and Falstaff. The sets and
direction however present impressive visual effects that match the
character of the entertaining and expertly played performances.
Entertaining
and expertly played that is, but likewise not with any great insight or
depth. Anna Netrebko stamps her authority on the role of Lady Macbeth right
from 'Vieni t'affretta' in the second scene of Act I, and her mastery
of her character and ability to express her nature has already been
capably demonstrated. As you would expect, she demonstrates great
technical ability and considerable personality but, whether it's just
the influence of the direction and the occasion, the personality is more
Netrebko than Lady Macbeth; her 'La luce langue' is a little mannered, with
no real sense of evil, menace or engagement with the world around her.
Unfortunately,
that lack of engagement might also be down to the casting of Plácido Domingo. It's possible that Macbeth might well have a trophy wife, but
it doesn't help that during his mental breakdown - where there is no
actual ghost on the stage in this production - he looks more like her
doddery old father. There's no chemistry here at all between Netrebko
and Domingo. There's also the fact that while Domingo can sing the role
well enough he just isn't a baritone. In other roles and even in other
Verdi roles it might not matter so much, but the necessary
contrast, weight and lyricism that is needed for Macbeth just isn't
there. The addition of 'Mal per me' (making the best of both
versions) consequently lacks the impact of the more direct ending and
in fact it falls rather flat.
The Berlin Staatsoper's
Macbeth then is very much a mixed bag. Daniel Barenboim conducts a good
account of the score that holds back on bombast and allows the pace,
rhythm and melodies to find their own sense of menace and horror. If it
feels a little too smooth for early Verdi, that's as much to do with
the elegant production that looks lovely, but fails to really follow
through on the gritty and bloody drama that the opening scene appeared
to promise. It's perhaps churlish to find minor faults with Netrebko
and Domingo, who both delivered professional and crowd-pleasing
performances, but these was more of a sense of them being opera gala
performances than related to true lyric drama.
Links: Berlin Staatsoper, ARTE Concert, YouTube
