Edward II, Deutsche Oper, 9 March 2017

Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Images: Monika Rittershaus
Edward II (Michael Nagy) and Piers de Gaveston (Ladislav Elgr)

Edward II – Michael Nagy

Isabella – Agneta Eichenholz
Piers de Gaveston – Ladislav Elgr
Roger Mortimer – Andrew Harris
Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry – Burkhard Ulrich
Lightborn – James Kryshak
Angel – Jarrett Ott
Soldiers, Councillors, Guards, Tourguides, etc. – Markus Brück, Gideon Poppe
Spencer Jr – Gieorgij Puchalski
Prince Edward – Ben Kleiner

Christof Loy (director)

Annette Kurz (set designs)
Klaus Bruns (costumes)
Stefan Bolliger (lighting)
Yvonne Gebauer, Dorothea Hartmann (dramaturgy)

Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus master: Raymond Hughes)

Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin

Thomas Søndergård (conductor)

Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry (Burkhard Ulrich) and the crowd

Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini’s new music theatre piece – ‘Musiktheater in zehn Szenen,’ although I am unsure in what sense it is not an opera as conventionally understood – seems to have generated quite some controversy. I have avoided reading the offending article or indeed anything else until seeing this, but I hear that one journalist has been accused of homophobia in the insults she has hurled at the work. Let us leave that on one side – I can hardly do otherwise, not having read any of the commentary – and attend to Edward II on its own terms, or what I take them to be.

Foreground: Spencer Jr (Gieorgij Puchalski), Roger Mortimer (Andrew Harris), Gaveston, Edward 

 

It turns out to be one of those difficult things to write about: perfectly serviceable as an opera, competently constructed, doing pretty much everything one would expect it to and almost nothing one would not expect. The work’s ten scenes do not overstay their welcome; the pacing seems just about right. There is a very traditional operatic and more broadly dramatic contrast between the public and private: think of Schiller, or the Petrarchan AMOR/ROMA dilemma, although here, not unreasonably, one never has any doubt that King Edward will choose love and ‘sodomite’ – a word endlessly repeated – lifestyle over matters of state. A vicious crowd, stirred up by hypocritical clergyman, bays for sodomite blood. The Queen moves – perhaps a little quickly, but such is opera – from sympathetic, lonely figure to vicious, vengeful, murderess. There is, moreover, a genuine sense of ‘this could be any family’, the young Prince Edward torn between his two self-obsessed parents. Scartazzini’s score follows the action, in what sounds on a first hearing (with all the caveats that must imply) like a generic not-quite-contemporary modernism. It screams when one would expect it to, likewise creates a hushed atmosphere when one would expect; it has structural impetus of its own within scenes.

 

And yet, there is little that adds up to anything more than that, or at least it did not for me. We can leave aside the playing fast and loose with history and with sources: that is what dramatists do. However, the framing devices of librettist, Thomas Jonigk, come across as forced, and indeed almost haplessly agitprop. Attempts, for instance in comments by the Angel, to present knowingly anachronistic references to other pertinent historical events and figures, are a bit embarrassing, likewise the historical tour’s visitation of Edward’s cell at the close. The comparison between wronged Jews and sodomites is not pursued in any depth, and merely seems glib. It is, moreover, only really at the close – and perhaps this is deliberate, but if so, it again needs better framing – that Edward as a character comes into focus; everyone else, despite extremely strong performances, remains something of a caricature. Derek Jarman, let alone Christopher Marlowe, did this, or something akin to this, so much better. Scartazzini never seems to lead the action, to have the orchestra partake in it, engender it, rather than predictably mirror the events on stage. His vocal lines, such as they are, hold little or no interest of their own; I could not help but wonder whether he would have been better off writing a symphonic poem or equivalent on the subject.

Edward and Gaveston

 

The sad conclusion I ended up drawing was that this opera’s creators seem to have thought it enough to write a gay opera. Perhaps it is; we are not exactly blessed with a huge number of examples, at least overtly, proudly so. (Subtexts, however close to the surface, are another matter.) Overall, though, it feels too much like box-ticking, too little like something that might have arisen from genuine artistic necessity. Imagine what might have been done in an opera that placed queer experience at its complex heart, doing something akin to what Nono did for women’s revolutionary experience in Al gran sole carico d’amore. There will, I hope, be other opportunities – and, to be fair, there is an abundance of mediocre, or worse, operas dealing with heterosexual themes.

Isabella (Agneta Eichenholz) and Prince Edward (Ben Kleiner)

 

That said, the Deutsche Oper deserves only praise for the commitment it has shown, both in staging the new work and, still more, doing so in performances of such quality. Its orchestra and chorus, the latterly brilliantly trained by Raymond Hughes, played under Thomas Søndergård with a confidence that suggested this might have been a repertory work. Balance, weight, incisiveness, tenderness: all those qualities and more were present in the pit; on stage, one could hardly have asked for more from the chorus, director Christof Loy’s blocking of the partly differentiated mass a joy in itself to behold. Indeed, Loy’s work in general – I speak as someone who has been far from a constant fan of his productions – deserves great credit, essentially presenting the opera as a somewhat abstracted version of classic grand opera, with slightly alienated invasions from without. The ‘family values’ crowd was an obvious ploy, replete with placards from any reactionary demonstration one might care to look at, but it made its (agitprop) point well enough.

Angel (Jarrett Ott), Edward, and Spencer Jr

 

Michael Nagy drew one in more than one had any right to expect in a visually torn, vocally secure performance of the title role. As the Angel only the King could see, Jarrett Ott offered all the strength and comfort Edward might ever have asked: a rock in a vicious world indeed. Ladislav Elgr, seen for about ninety per cent of his time on stage merely in well-fitted white vest and briefs, exhibited as the favourite, Gaveston, a near-ideal marriage of fun, born of social desperation no doubt, and magnetism. Agneta Eichenholz made the most of that abrupt transition from wronged woman to monster in a powerful assumption of the role of Isabella. The darkness of her relationship to Andrew Harris’s unreconstructedly masculine Mortimer could only really be hinted at, given the confines of the work, but hinted at it certainly was. There was a good deal of camp humour to be had from the recurring double act – from thirteenth-century soldiers guardedly admitting their sodomite tendencies to modern tour-guides – of Philip Jekal and Gideon Poppe. The Mime-like nastiness, with an undoubtedly chilling Nazi allusion of just following orders, of Edward’s murderer-with-abortionist’s-bag, Lightborn, was splendidly portrayed by James Kryshak. Ben Kleiner’s treble could hardly be faulted as the young prince; he knew how to deport himself on stage too. And last but not least, Gieorgij Puchalski’s performance in the non-speaking role as Spencer Junior, the new favourite risen from the ashes of the old, showed just what the suggestiveness and sheer physicality of a dancer in a vocal work can achieve.

 

If the above tends too much towards a list, that is part of my point. These were all, without exception, fine performances indeed; they did all they could with a work that could have been much worse, but ought to have been much better.

 

Lulu, Royal Opera, 4 June 2009

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Lulu – Agneta Eichenholz
Countess Geschwitz – Jennifer Larmore
Dr Schön/Jack the Ripper – Michael Volle
Alwa – Klaus Florian Vogt
Schigolch – Gwynne Howell
Animal Trainer/Rodrigo – Peter Rose
Dresser/Gymnast/Groom – Heather Shipp
Prince/Manservant/Marquis – Philip Langridge
Mother – Frances McCafferty
Painter/Negro – Will Hartmann
Professor of Medicine – Jeremy White
Fifteen-year old girl – Simona Mihai
Lady Artist – Monika-Evelin Liiv
Journalist – Kostas Smoriginas
Manservant – Vuyani Mlinde

Christof Loy (director)
Herbert Murauer (designs)
Reinhard Traub (lighting)
Thomas Wilhelm (movement)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Antonio Pappano (conductor)

Good news is in short supply for the Royal Opera’s new production of Lulu, but there was some. First, there actually is a new production of Lulu, the sole previous example (Götz Friedrich/Colin Davis) having been presented in 1981, revived once in 1983. (The two-act, pre-Cerha version was never staged at Covent Garden: extraordinary, until one considers what else has not been, whilst the neglected Tosca returns every season.)

Moreover, much of the singing was very good. Michael Volle scored another triumph with his role debut – remarkably, only Will Hartmann had sung his part before – as Dr Schön. Thoughtful, musical, as real a character as the production would allow him to be: this was a first-class performance. Hartmann impressed just as much and for just the same reasons, plus his honeyed tone, in his roles, especially the Painter. Klaus Florian Vogt made a welcome house debut as Alwa and exhibited the virtues we have come to know from his Walther and his Lohengrin. If perhaps too blank a canvas in the first act, this might well have been a response to direction; in any case, his desperation during the chilling final scene of the second act was moving indeed. Gwynne Howell simply was Schigolch: always a role to be relished, as here. I was put in mind of Norman Bailey. Jennifer Larmore was a more feminine Geschwitz than one often hears, beautifully sung, though not so strong, so differentiated a character as might be the case. Again, this qualification might at least partially be ascribed to the production. Peter Rose sang well, though he makes a physically unfortunate Athlete, unless, as did not seem to be the case, irony were intended. Philip Langridge offered carefully etched portrayals of his three roles, insofar as the production, etc., etc.

And then, of course, there was Agneta Eichenholz’s Lulu. Often impressive in vocal terms, though she struggled on a few occasions with the extraordinary difficulties of Berg’s writing, Eichenholz failed to exert the animal magnetism the role truly demands. Christine Schäfer, amongst others, has offered a portrayal so compelling as to leave this in the shade, and sadly, one cannot put out of one’s mind other singers in a role such as this. Even in a revisionist portrayal, it is not enough to be primarily a victim: Lulu is far more interesting than that. I suspect, however, that Eichenholz might grow into the role.

If the central role was a little underplayed, how much more so was the orchestra. In itself there was little to complain of in the orchestral playing; indeed, many woodwind and brass players truly shone. Antonio Pappano, however, showed once again that, whatever his abilities in the Italian repertoire, they are not paralleled in his conducting of German music. As so often in his Wagner, Pappano failed to weld the momentary into a greater structure, although there were perhaps fewer of the stop-start frustrations than in much of his Ring. Much of the score, especially during the first act, sounded tentative, unsure of where it was going or just diffident, as if the conductor were concerned to keep the orchestra down in favour of the singers. Some listeners apparently approve of such ‘considerate’ conducting but it underplays the labyrinthine complexity of Berg’s score, which here, extraordinarily, often sounded rather thin. Balancing Berg’s lines is here, as in his Op.6 Orchestral Pieces, a daunting task; it is not achieved by over-simplification of the textures, which in no way equates to Boulez’s famed clarity. There were, admittedly, audible reminiscences of Mahlerian dance rhythms, but they lacked bite and they lacked formal integration. Lulu makes enormous demands upon a conductor, just as it does upon a soprano. But there are several conductors who would be more suited to this task, so why not ask them? Boulez would doubtless have been impossible to persuade; likewise, I fear that we shall only be able to dream what a Lulu from Claudio Abbado or Bernard Haitink might have sounded like. Yet imagine what a storm might have been unleashed in the pit by Michael Gielen, Sir Simon Rattle, Zubin Mehta, or Christoph von Dohnányi. Sir Andrew Davis presented an excellent account at Glyndebourne. Ingo Metzmacher would have been another obvious choice. In a head-to-head contest at Covent Garden, Daniel Harding showed himself to have a far greater aptitude for Wozzeck than Pappano. I shall resist the urge to go on, but surely a Music Director should be more attuned to his strengths and weaknesses.

I invoked the production repeatedly when referring to the singers, so I ought now to explain. This was not quite a non-production but it was a non-scenic production, bar an irritating glass screen. Christof Loy calls this minimalism but I am not at all sure that it is appropriate for Lulu. True, some of the acting is well directed, and one notices it especially because there is nothing else at which to look. The æsthetic seems to remain realistic; there is no Robert Wilson-style artificiality. True, the production makes one concentrate on the score, which might have had considerable justification in a performance more strongly conducted, since again there is little else to detain one’s attention. Yet one could say that of a concert performance. The parallelism of the characters and to a certain extent that of the situations, was clear, given the lack of any particularity for any scene; again, one could say the same of a concert performance. Yet whilst the locations might not be of overriding importance, differentiation does matter. Without prior knowledge of the work, I cannot imagine a member of the audience being anything other than confused. Who were these people? Where were they and why were there? How had bourgeois society contributed to their predicament? Even a sparing depiction of some aspects of that society would have helped. Abstraction – and I realise that abstraction is not quite the same thing as such ‘minimalism’ – seems more or less the only path to follow in Tristan; it seems appropriate for a number of mythological works; it does not, however, follow that it will work in everything. I have admired a number of examples of Loy’s work before, most recently his Munich production of Henze’s The Bassarids. However, the director’s claim in the programme that ‘for me, the school of reductionism is a school of keen-eyed observation that focuses in part on the psychology of the characters and in part on their universal timelessness,’ seems to miss an important point. Works are different and not all of them will respond equally well to the demands of the same ‘school’. Time and place, not even necessarily those of the composer’s own vision, matter in Lulu.

I find myself, then, unable to offer more than a single cheer. The opportunity, at least in this country, to see Berg’s wonderful second opera is simply too rare for it not to be worth attending. However, a better choice of conductor and a more appropriate production could have made this so much more than a mixed blessing.