Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden
Ariadne – Christine Rice
Theseus – Johan Reuter
The Minotaur – Sir John
Tomlinson
Ker – Elisabeth Meister
Snake Priestess – Andrew
Watts
Hiereus – Alan Oke
First Innocent/Young Woman –
Susana Gaspar
Second Innocent – Nadine
Livingston
Third Innocent – Justina
Gringyte
Fourth Innocent – James Laing
Fifth Innocent – William
Towers
Stephen Langridge (director)
Alison Chitty (designs)
Paul Pyant (lighting)
Philippe Giraudeau
(choreography)
59 Productions (video)
Royal Opera Chorus (chorus
master/second conductor: Renato Balsadonna)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera
House
Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor)
 |
Hiereus (Alan Oke), Snake Priestess (Andrew
Watts), Ariadne (Christine Rice)
Image: Bill Cooper |
If, first
time around, in 2008, The Minotaur
offered the obvious excitement of the premiere, it was now noteworthy how
quickly it had settled into repertory status. Not that it has yet been
performed elsewhere than Covent Garden, though it should be as a matter of urgency,
but that its 2013 outing proceeded with the apparent ease one might expect of,
say, The Magic Flute or Carmen. That is surely testament both to
the excellence of the performances we heard as well as to the stature of Birtwistle’s
opera itself.
Though it packs an undoubted
musico-dramatic punch, The Minotaur
is not perhaps the overwhelming experience, the assault upon one’s faculties,
offered by The Mask of Orpheus. It arguably
stands a ‘late’ or at least ‘later’ work, somewhat simpler – these things are
relative, of course – and more direct (ditto). The unbroken thread of the
score, a metaphor for Ariadne’s own thread, brings the work closer to
conventionally understood operatic tradition. This is a more linear work than
many, for though Birtwistle and his librettist, David Harsent, also play once
again with ritual and repetition, re-telling is incorporated, expressed, almost
Wagner-like, within an essentially linear narrative. The labyrinth, then, has
order, clearly discernible, beyond the apparently senseless chaos of
human-bestial existence, as symbolised in the person of the ‘half and half,’
Asterios the Minotaur. Whether to start here, with The Mask of Orpheus, with Gawain,
with Punch and Judy, or elsewhere is
not something about which to become unduly worked up; the choice would be akin
to deciding or falling upon a Wagnerian baptism of fire with Tristan or the Shakespeare-like entrée
of Die Meistersinger, and so on.
It is difficult to imagine, however, that anyone with ears to hear and with the
slightest curiosity would not be hooked; my immediate response upon emerging
from the theatre was to hope that I should be able to find a ticket for a
subsequent performance.
Reworkings of myth proceed in
typical Birtwistle fashion, though here of course the credit is at least as
much Harsent’s. An especially interesting idea is the presentation of the bull
who mounted Pasiphae as Poseideon; the Minotaur is therefore perhaps Theseus’s
half-brother. (We still do not know, nor does he, whether Theseus be the son of
Poseidon or the son of Aegeus.) It is, moreover, an excellent touch to
tantalise us with Theseus’s future abandonment of Ariadne; it is stressed that
they will board the ship together, but it is equally noteworthy that no one
foresees her reaching Athens. The orchestra, meanwhile, acts very much in
neo-Wagnerian style as Chorus, shadowing, intensifying, commenting upon the
action. Perhaps there is something of Bach in the well-nigh obbligato quality
of the alto saxophone identified with Ariadne – who in this retelling becomes
perhaps a more compromised, even ambiguous character. She is not always ‘straight’
with Theseus; she even attempts to trick Fate, both by moving a pebble from one
hand to hand. It takes a second try, moreover, before she acts truthfully
towards the Snake Priestess. Things could readily have turned out otherwise,
then, or maybe not, if one believes in Fate. At any rate, thinking about such
matters, experiencing them through the drama, is unavoidable.
Ryan Wigglesworth’s
conducting proved almost Classical, again contributing very much to the
suspicion that this opera has already attained ‘classic’ status. With an orchestra and chorus on top form, the
musical drama, incisive, ominous, gripping, beautifully melancholic, spoke, as
the cliché would have it, for itself. There was no need for any extraneous ‘excitement’
to be applied from without; this was a far more fulfilling, musically-involving
approach. The battery of percussion spoke, of course, but so did the steely yet
malleable tones of orchestral woodwind, and not just the saxophone. Choral baiting
of the Minotaur truly chilled our blood, just as others’ blood will be spilled
on stage.
Christine Rice offered a heartfelt,
conflicted Ariadne, Johan Reuter a stolid – but deliberately so – Theseus, his
heroism thoughtfully questioned. John Tomlinson, celebrating an extraordinary
thirty-five years on the Covent Garden stage, seems to have made the role of
the Minotaur just as much as his own as he did the Green Knight in Gawain. (Salzburg’s new production this
summer will almost inevitably feature him.) It is a part well suited to his
advancing years. Vocal perfection is not required; it might even be out of
place. But dramatic presence and integrity most definitely are; the tragic
plight of a creature created and
rejected so cruelly by ‘humanity’ was searingly portrayed. Andrew Watts again
caused consternation with the mysterious archaic babble of the Snake Priestess,
tellingly translated by another old Birtwistle hand, Alan Oke. Elisabeth
Meister made an equally fantastic impression as the chilling Ker, feasting on
the innocents’ blood; it is a screaming harpy-like role, but a musically screaming one, especially in
this assumption. There was, in short, no weak link in the cast, and it is a
very strong cast indeed.
Stephen Langridge’s staging
tells the story with clarity, aided by Alison Chitty’s straightforward yet
imaginative designs. I cannot help but retain a niggling doubt that a more
adventurous production might have brought out a good number more dramatic
strands than we see here. Something more Mask
of Orpheus-like or indeed Soldaten-like
might have alerted the audience to dramatic layers that went unseen, if
certainly not unheard. By the same token, however, there is nothing wrong with
expecting and/or permitting the audience to do some ‘aural thinking’ for
itself. Let us hope, in any case, that before long there will be alternatives,
which will expand our imaginative understanding of the work.
Programme essays were for
the most part particularly informative, pieces by Rhian Samuel and David Beard
especially so, though it is slightly odd to read Samuel referring to The Mask of Orpheus as ‘Birtwistle’s
early opera’; ‘earlier’ perhaps? Moreover, Ruth Padel’s piece is simply incorrect
to claim that ‘Monteverdi’s first opera was Arianna’;
it was of course Orfeo. Nevertheless,
I learned a great deal from the contributions taken as a whole. How splendid,
then, to experience the Royal Opera House very much back on form – and on form
in so many ways.
