Salzburg Festival (5) - Katya Kabanova, 26 August 2022

Felsenreitschule

Katěrina Kabanova – Corinne Winters
Marfa Ignatěvna Kabanova (Kabanicha) – Evelyn Herlitzius
Varvara – Jarmila Balážová
Boris Grigorjevič – David Butt Philip
Váňa Kudrjáš – Benjamin Hulett
Tichon Ivanyč Kabanov – Jaroslav Březina
Savël Prokofjevič Dikoj – Jens Larsen
Kuligin – Michael Mofidian
Glaša – Nicole Chirka
Fekluša – Ann-Kathrin Niemczyk

Barrie Kosky (director)
Rufus Didwiszus (set designs)
Victoria Behr (costumes)
Franck Evin (lighting)

Christian Arseni (dramaturgy)

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus director: Huw Rhys James)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra,
Jakub Hrůša (conductor)

Images: SF / Monika Rittershaus 

For me, Barrie Kosky has often been at his best when staging more serious operas, which do not lend themselves to his trademark ‘showbiz’ treatment, and for which he has shown a single-mindedness again quite different from what other stagings may have led us to expect. Pelléas, Rusalka, Eugene Onegin, and Iphigénie en Tauride spring immediately to mind. Others differ strongly, I know, so it is probably more a matter of taste as anything else (though not in the case of that breathtakingly dishonest Bayreuth Meistersinger). This new Salzburg production of Katya Kabanova broadly falls, I suppose, into that category. There was certainly nothing to object to, nothing to distract; and yet, I could not help but feel—more feel than think—that something was missing. 

Theatre is not, of course, made in a vacuum. Experience of the pandemic—far from over, of course, whatever our overlords may tell us—is still raw and its consequences are still very much with us (he wrote, typing, FFP2-mask-clad, on a train out of Salzburg). No need to worry: this is not a Katya full of masks, Microsoft Teams, and parties chez Johnson and Simmonds, though surely it will come. (My bet is on a Zoom Tristan by 2025.) But rather, the vast stage of the Felsenreitschule seemed strangely underused, as if to allow for social distancing, save—a crucial exception, I grant—for a vast, immobile (boundaries occasionally altered between scenes) crowd, backs turned to us throughout. Extremely realistic, of all shapes and sizes, this wall of puppets could well have been taken for actual human beings, had one not known—or suspected, given the lack of movement. It was an arresting image, walling in the community, Katya’s horizons, and indeed those of everyone else, although Kosky’s interest, not unreasonably, seemed to lie in the heroine. A large stage with nothing else to detain us: on second thoughts, one could readily have had set designs and kept the characters apart as necessary, so perhaps it was not Covid at all. Words from a programme interview lend credence to that view, Kosky saying that he did not want to ‘do Kátá Kabanova as an Ibsen or Strindberg drama – it’s not just about the family.’ He says he and his production team needed ‘to consider how we could represent this village or small town and Kátá’s feeling of isolation within this place, and at the same time concentrate on Kátá and the immediate family around her, without turning it into a chamber piece with walls, doors, tables, chairs and a samovar – which wouldn’t work anyway in the Felsenreitschule.’

So maybe the pandemic and the horrific loneliness it brought for many of us haunts responses rather than intention; or maybe, just maybe, the one does not exclude the other, especially in the work of so experienced a man of the theatre. For whilst Kosky verbally acknowledged the role of the community, and that puppet-wall was ever-present, the impression—present, I think, in much of the Personenregie too—was of a more existentialist drama than either we are accustomed to or those words imply. True, there were at the beginning of each act other, sonic hints of something, whether natural or social, lying beyond. Birdsong preceded the first act, bells the second, and thunder the storm of the third. Beyond a light bit of sado-masochism, as Kabanicha walked Dikoj around on a leash and poured liquid on him, the abiding feeling for me remained loneliness in a vast space.

In the title role, Corinne Winters proved an estimable contributor to this concept, determined to make her own way in the role, never remotely reliant on post-Hardy (at least for an English speaker) cliché. If I observed and was duly repelled by her treatment, only really at the end was I moved. I say this not as adverse criticism; that seemed to be the dramatic strategy, to emphasise the final breakdown. It seemed to be Jakub Hrůša’s conception too, in the pit. Goal-orientation is not only a musical strategy for Beethoven and his followers. There was never an ounce of sentimentality, never a moment to enjoy the excellent, if not to my ears always entirely idiomatic, playing of the Vienna Philharmonic for itself. Sometimes, I may have wished the music, the drama, would linger just a little, but that was surely the point. And surely they were right.

Where I had a few doubts was with some of the Czech language heard. I cannot really say more than that, speaking not a word of the language myself, but I wonder whether it is a coincidence that, without knowing who they were beforehand, I often felt a greater immediacy from those whose first language it was. First and foremost was Jarmila Balážová: an outstanding Varvara, glowing with an infectious zest for life in such sharp contrast with Katya’s fate and, yes, that of the society around them. Presented with considerable vocal beauty and undeniable sincerity, David Butt Philip’s Boris was another fine portrayal—from an artist who seems never to give anything but. Evelyn Herlitzius gave a duly terrifying star turn as Kabanicha, surely one of the most unremittingly evil characters in all opera. As is her wont, this was a powerfully committed performance throughout. Benjamin Hulett’s idea of Kudrjáš and his communication of that idea seemed almost designed to vindicate the description in Ivana Rentsch’s excellent programme essay of his character’s ‘mellow detachment’, as much expressed through sonority as gesture.All contributed, though, to the sharply delineated drama unfolding; there were no exceptions, nor even weak links. And whether the pandemic coloured conception, response, or both, is perhaps unimportant, given the tragic power of the denouement.

 

Manon Lescaut, Royal Opera, 17 June 2014

Royal Opera House

Manon Lescaut – Kristïne Opolais

Lescaut – Christopher Maltman

Chevalier des Grieux – Jonas Kaufmann

Geronte de Revoir – Maurizio Muraro

Edmondo – Benjamin Hulett

Innkeeper –Nigel Cliffe

Singer – Nadezhda Karyazina

Dancing Master – Robert Burt

Lamplighter – Luis Gomes

Sergeant of the Royal Archers – Jihoon Kim

Naval Captain – Jeremy White

Jonathan Kent (director)

Paul Brown (designs)

Mark Henderson (lighting)

Denni Sayers (choreographer)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Stephen Westrop)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Sir Antonio Pappano (conductor)

 

A moronic audience and obscenely high ticket prices were not designed to have one in the best of moods. The Royal Opera House should be ashamed of itself for its cynical pricing: I had to pay £51, more than I could really afford, for the most distant reaches of the Upper Amphitheatre, from which it is impossible to see the singers’ fasces, whilst Stalls tickets far exceeded £200. So more should those who, having previously been laughing, shuffling, talking, opening sweets, coughing, sneezing, etc., booed the production team. Jonathan Kent’s staging has all sorts of problems, yes, but such boorish, threatening behaviour has nothing to do with art and suggests the perpetrators would be better off at a football match, of which there seems to be no shortage at the moment.

 

Indeed, it was tempting to conclude that such people received what they deserved. Having tittered at the surtitles – is it not side-splittingly hilarious that someone should be interested in preserving an emerald or too? – they, needless to say, failed to notice what might have been the virtue of Kent’s production, had it been coherently thought through and presented. Turning the tables on spectators of different varieties, most notably during the filmed ‘show’ of Manon’s antics in the second act, set to a backdrop of sickly pink vulgarity, might have worked in a Katie Mitchell-like manner; it might even have succeeded in indicting those who had turned up for an evening of conspicuous consumption and sentimental refusal to hear something other than ‘lovely tunes’. One might be able to set aside jarring details, such as this modern(-ish) woman having had parents decide to send her to a convent. The problem is that a not uninteresting idea – and I appreciate that this is a generous reading of what we see – utterly collapses following the interval. Suddenly, without warning, and more to the point without discernible agency, we appear to be in a different production altogether. The point – and again I am trying to be generous – may well be that now the audience, having been rendered aware (a fine chance with most of that lot!) of its complicity, should now be more or less conventionally harrowed, but that is not how it comes across. What registers instead are incoherence and ineptitude, increased by designs which seem to have been ‘borrowed’ from Kent’s less than successful Flying Dutchman.

 

By the time one reaches the fourth act, the production team seems to have given up completely. Not only is it well-nigh impossible, even for the most sympathetic viewer, to consider the cartoon-like presentation with a hint of irony; it is far from clear whether Des Grieux’s failure to bother to find some water, instead just sitting down a few yards away, is deliberate or just an unknowing commentary on what we have been watching. If Kent had had the strength of his (apparent) convictions, had continued to undermine an ‘easy’ reading, perhaps by having Manon fake her death and return to a life of luxury, this would have been worthier of respect; as it stands, one can neither sympathise with the characters nor with the botched attempt at critique of the ‘drama’, such as it is.

 

With a cast such as this, there are compensations of course, but again, bearing in mind the cynical pricing, that is hardly enough. Jonas Kaufmann sounded at times a little strained in the first act – he would surely be more home as Siegmund, the sort of role in which the ROH never permits us to hear him – but, even from the very back of the house, one could see as well as hear his dramatic presence. The Italianate sobs are not overdone, thank goodness, and one could take dictation from his words and vocal line alike, however softly sung. Much the same, bar the Siegmund observation, could be said of Kristïne Opolais, whose shaping of her lines was every bit as impressive as Kaufmann’s. The voices may not always quite have blended, but they certainly came together powerfully in the fourth act – which would have been far better off in a concert performance. Christopher Maltman’s Italian sometimes seemed a little deliberate, but his was an alert reading of the role of Lescaut, both on stage and in voice. Maurizio Muraro probably had the best of the production in terms of the presentation of Geronte; his was a powerful presence throughout. ‘Supporting’ roles were pretty much all well taken; especial mention might be made of Benjamin Hulett’s finely observed Edmondo. Choral singing was of an equally high standard.

 

As for Antonio Pappano’s conducting: well, at least it was not his Wagner. Many extol him in Puccini; he certainly seems more at home here than in a great deal of other repertoire. There remains, though, more than a little stiffness, and that same desire to ‘accompany’ rather than to lead. The Wagnerisms of Puccini’s score came through, perhaps ironically, far more strongly than when I had heard the work in Leipzig in April, but, like much of the rest, they seemed isolated rather than properly placed within a greater scheme. Delicacy was more to the fore than passion, let alone a dialectic between them. The orchestra, bar some surprisingly thin string tone at times, played very well, considered in itself, though it was too rarely given its head; I could not help but wonder what a symphonic conductor such as Daniele Gatti, Semyon Bychkov, or Riccardo Muti would have brought to the performance. That said, the most glaring shortcomings were those of the half-baked staging.  This really is not, or at least should not be, the place to present work-in-progress.