Euryanthe, Chelsea Opera Group, 23 November 2013

Cadogan Hall

 

King Louis VI - Richard Wiegold
Adolar - Jonathan Stoughton
Euryanthe - Kirstin Sharpin
Lysiart - Stephen Gadd
Eglantine - Camilla Roberts
Bertha - Melinda Hughes

Chorus of the Chelsea Opera Group (chorus master: Deborah Miles-Johnson)
Orchestra of the Chelsea Opera Group
Cameron Burns (conductor)

 

Poor Weber: opera companies, especially in England, do him anything but proud. And then, at least in the case of Euryanthe and Oberon, there is the matter of the dreadful libretti he had to set – presumably part of the reason why companies are unwilling to perform them. (Oddly, dreadful music seems to be less of a problem, given the lashings endured of Donizetti, Verdi, et al.) The best one can say for Helmina von Chezy’s efforts in Euryanthe is that they are merely awful, as opposed to the execrable text for Oberon.  Lucky Weber, then, to receive such a fine performance as this from the valiant forces of the Chelsea Opera Group.

Conductor Cameron Burns and his excellent cast should receive equal credit for what I have no hesitation in describing as the best COG performance I have heard – by some distance. Burns’s reading ought to have been welcomed with open arms in any opera house; indeed, it would have signalled a marked improvement in most of what we hear.  A refreshingly elegant, unexaggerated style – no frenetic waving around of arms to no evident end – did not in any sense preclude engagement with libretto, whatever its shortcomings, and score alike. It was surely testimony to sound training that soloists and chorus not only enunciated clearly, but for the most part seemed really to mean their words – even when the chorus was compelled to comment, without a trace of irony, that Euryanthe’s alleged betrayal of Adolar was the most grievous deed the world had ever witnessed: ‘ O Unthat, grässlichste von allen,
Die jemals auf der Welt erhört!’ Burns’s handling of Weber’s score was perhaps all the more revelatory, not least since it is about the music that, perforce, we truly care. Line was maintained throughout. Not a single passage sounded unduly hurried or remotely meandering.

The Overture was an interesting case in point. It offered quite a contrast with, say, Karajan’s account, firmly melded into an almost granitic Wagnerian whole as it is – and mightily, even wondrously, impressive. Here, however, we heard a greater variety of moods, textures, and tempi, arguably more faithful to the movement’s role as a potpourri introduction to Weber’s opera (as opposed to Karajan’s concert overture) and to the composer’s conception, without danger of lapsing into the merely sectional. Presentiments – one has to remind oneself that they are not echoes! – of Mendelssohn characterised the very opening, but a darker form of the supernatural made its voice eerily heard in the ghost music. Weber’s musico-dramatic experiments were communicated with apparent ease, boundaries blurred but not obliterated between more old-fashioned set pieces and the ‘forward-looking’ – at least to any self-respecting Wagnerian – treatment of recitative and arioso. Above all, dramatic tension remained tight and proportions simply sounded ‘right’, a far more difficult task to accomplish than many might appreciate.

The chorus sometimes lacked a little in youthful vitality, especially earlier on, yet became more animated as the opera progressed, later sounding impressive indeed in the great close to the second act. Not unfittingly, it was at that point that the orchestra perhaps gained its greatest dramatic heights too, though throughout there was a great deal of impressive solo playing, especially from the woodwind. If only Weber’s clarinet writing were as meaningful in his concertos as it is here; he clearly needed a dramatic impetus to reach the heights of which he was capable. Moreover, the strings, if at times a little reticent earlier on, subsequently showed themselves adept at providing just the right sort of musical cushion for vocal recitatives. I could not help but wish that we had heard Burns at the helm for the COG Die Feen earlier this year, not least since the amount the two works have in common – not solely influence, though there is a good deal of that – became increasingly clear, as indeed did the influences, perceptible yet again not exaggerated, upon Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. (If only, I thought, Weber had had a dramatist such as Wagner to shape the relationship between Lysiart and Eglantine, we might have had a more telling taste still of Ortrud and Telramund. Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable, appallingly misunderstood by many critics at Covent Garden last year, also came to mind more than once.)

Kirstin Sharpin’s star shone brightly in the tight role, words and music honoured to equal extent and indeed in fine alchemy. Hers was a portrayal both impassioned and noble, clearly longing to be properly ‘on stage’, yet offering considerable dramatic compensation even in concert. Sharpin’s cleanness of vocal line and dramatic commitment were shared by Camilla Roberts’s Eglantine. Tricky coloratura apparently evoked no fears; more importantly, such ambiguity as the libretto permitted was exploited to its dramatic fullest. Stephen Gadd likewise offered a finely honed portrayal of her accomplice, Lysiart, malevolent and sophisticated – again, insofar as the libretto permitted, but considerably more so than one would have likely have expected. Jonathan Stoughton revealed an often pleasing tenor as Adolar, drawing upon lyric and heroic reserves as required. This is clearly a voice which, if sensibly marshalled, will be in great demand for heroic roles; however, more careful phrasing was sometimes called for on this occasion. Richard Wiegold projected a benevolent voice of experience as the king, and Melinda Hughes’s brief appearance as the country girl, Bertha proved full of charm. All contributed to a performance that was very much more than the sum of its parts. Now will one of our opera companies – ideally, the Royal Opera – kindly take its cue and do its duty by Weber?

Die Feen, Chelsea Opera Group, 17 March 2013

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Lora – Elisabeth Meister

Ada – Kirstin Sharpin
Zemina – Eva Ganizate
Farzana – Emma Carrington
Drolla – Michelle Walton
Arindal – David Danholt
Gunther – Andrew Rees
Morald – Mark Stone
Gernot – Andrew Slater
Fairy King, Voice of Groma – Piotr Lempa
Harald - Ben McAteer
Messenger - Mario Mansillo

Chelsea Opera Group Chorus (chorus master: Deborah Miles-Johnson)

Chelsea Opera Group Orchestra
Dominic Wheeler (conductor)

 

Wagner’s attempts to have his first completed opera staged were to no avail; the interested reader may consult his autobiography, Mein Leben, for his own account. Eventually staged in Munich in 1888, five years after the composer’s death, it would not be staged in Britain until 1969, under the auspices of the Midland Music Makers Grand Opera Society. The Chelsea Opera Group, as is its custom, gave the work in concert, though I shall be fortunate enough to see Die Feen staged next month in Leipzig. It is a splendid work, far from perfect and at times immature, but far superior to a number of works, and indeed entire œuvres that continue, bafflingly, to hold the stages of many opera houses. For the Wagnerite, and indeed for those with any interest at all in musical history, there is considerable additional pleasure to be derived from the parlour game of identifying both the many influences upon the work and the ways in which it offers a true starting point for Wagner’s subsequent explorations.

 

Let me hand over for a moment to Wagner, writing in Mein Leben:

While I had written [the incomplete, preceding] Die Hochzeit without operatic embellishments and treated the material in the darkest vein, this time I festooned the subject with the most manifold variety: beside the principal pair of lovers I depicted a more ordinary couple and even introduced a coarse and comical third pair, which belonged to the operatic convention of servants and ladies’ maids. As to the poetic diction and the verses themselves, I was almost intentionally careless about them. I was not nourishing my former hopes of making a name as a poet; I had really become a ‘musician’ and a ‘composer’ and wanted simply to write a decent libretto, for I now realised nobody else could do this for me, inasmuch as an opera book is something unique unto itself and cannot be easily brought off by poets and literati.

And so of course, it would continue, Wagner writing all of his own musico-dramatic texts, even though in this instance he reworks – should that not be too modest a verb – Carlo Gozzi. One may trace a multitude other continuities or presentiments, not least the idea of the forbidden question, albeit the other way round from Lohengrin, at least in terms of gender, Ada, the half-fairy, half-mortal, having agreed to marry Arindal, the King of Tramond, with the condition that he never ask her who she is. Die Feen, however, is no tragedy, for, after inevitably having asked the question, had Ada disappear, and followed here to the underworld, where, Orpheus-like (a tribute to Wagner’s beloved Gluck?), he restored her to life with voice and lyre, Arindal gains immortality and joins Ada in the land of the fairies. Immortality would, of course, become a curse or chimera to the later, Feuerbachian Wagner: think of Wotan. Here, however, the trials he must undergo both recall The Magic Flute and presage Die Frau ohne Schatten. That is not, of course, to say that Die Feen itself is a crucial link between Mozart and Strauss, though Wagner certainly is, but rather to remind oneself that so many of the ideas on which German and indeed other dramatists draw are part of common currency, not least that of the resolutely unsentimental fairy tale, as in the present case. And then, there is Arindal’s hallucinatory Wild Hunt, which cannot but make one think of Gurrelieder.

 

I could go on and on about the ‘dramatic’ content, but ought at least briefly to say something in similar vein, if equally selective, about the music. For instance, there is a second-act figure that naggingly anticipates Tristan, and the choral writing certainly at times looks forward to Tannhäuser and Lohengrin.  Looking back, Weber, Marschner, and only slightly less, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schumann loom large in the general music language, this being a more unalloyed ‘German’ opera than either of its two immediate successors, Das Liebesverbot and Rienzi, though the Italian and French influences upon those works have often been exaggerated. But in any case, the broader point is that, for Wagner at this time, standing firmly in a dominant tradition of eighteenth-century German æsthetics, perhaps the key to understanding ‘German art’ was its power of synthesis, overcoming merely ‘national’ styles to progress, in his later Zurich ‘reform’ language, toward the universal.

 

Sadly, this performance was let down severely by the orchestra. Whilst it may not yet possess the Greek choral role of Wagner’s mature music dramas, it is nevertheless fundamental to the drama as a whole. Here, however, the players proved for the most part quite unequal to Wagner’s exacting demands. The first act suffered most, the strings in particular often painful to listen to, each desk apparently playing according to its own unique and highly variable system of temperament. Rhythm was little more of a strong point; indeed, at one point, Dominic Wheeler had to re-start proceedings, a wise split-second decision, which one did not envy him. In the circumstances, his direction of proceedings was not bad at all, though it could not be said that he boasted any especial insights. Ideally this music requires the advocacy of a great Wagner conductor, though very few have deigned to perform it, the late Wolfgang Sawallisch an honourable exception. Still, it seemed as though whatever Wheeler said to the orchestra, or at least to the strings, during the first interval paid off somewhat, for horrors were fewer as the work progressed. However, some truly dreadful woodwind and horn playing marred the beginning of the third act. At least the choral singing, whilst sometimes a little fuzzy and underpowered, stuck for the most part to the right words and notes.

 

There was a degree of tentativeness to some of the solo singing too, again most obviously in the first act, where one sometimes had the impression of relatively early rehearsal run-through. I later had it on good authority, however, that the soloists only received their scores two weeks prior to the performance; if that be true, one may appreciate their predicament, and deplore the situation. If there were often, though by no means always, a sense that greater familiarity with the score would have been of considerable assistance, there were no especially weak links in purely vocal terms. The smaller roles were in general well taken, Mark Stone impressive as the courtier, Morald, and Piotr Lempa splendidly stentorian in the small roles of the Voice of Groma the magician and the Fairy King; I should not be surprised to hear him in the future  as a big-stage Commendatore, even a Fafner.  Kirstin Sharpin’s Ada improved appreciably as the performance progressed; if vocal strength is intermittent at the moment, it is nevertheless present and will doubtless develop. Elisabeth Meister’s voice and dramatic presence are already the real thing; hers was undoubtedly the star turn of the evening. Not only did her voice stand head and shoulders above the others during ensembles, her dramatic commitment as Lora, Arindal’s sister, could be sensed and indeed seen throughout. At his best, David Danholt offered a tenor of impressive heft and no little tenderness. There were, however, times when he seemed a little uncertain and when his contribution petered out, perhaps out of tiredness.

 

Better than nothing, then, especially when nothing is what we have had for far too long. However, a rarity, even when its rarity-value is so thoroughly undeserved, often needs particularly talented advocacy, which in this case was at best fitful. Perhaps, in these circumstances, the cuts were not entirely ill-advised.

 

Alceste, Chelsea Opera Group, 28 November 2009

Cadogan Hall

Herald – Jonathan Sells
Coryphaeuses – Sophie Junker, Amy Payne, Paul Curievici, Jonathan Sells
Evandre – Paul Curievici
Alceste – Cécile van de Sant
High Priest of Apollo – Matthew Hargreaves
Oracle – Simon Wilding
Admète – Peter Bronder
Hercule – David Stout
Infrenal Deity – Simon Wilding
Apollo – Jonathan Sells

Chelsea Opera Group (guest chorus master: Robin Newton)
Nicholas Collon (conductor)

How welcome to hear Gluck’s Alceste at all, let alone in so creditable a rendition, for which many thanks must go to the ever enterprising Chelsea Opera Group. However revered Gluck might be by those of us who hope against hope that opera might be concerned with drama rather than vapid vocal display, the composer arguably receives the rawest deal of all the great musical dramatists in terms of performance. The COG’s history is of course littered with important performances, not least Colin Davis’s early Mozart and Berlioz, so it is perhaps to be expected that its attention might turn to such a cause. Rather to my surprise, I discovered that the group had mounted Alceste once before, under Lázsló Heltay, in 1983. I assume that was also the 1776 French version; performances of the original, Italian version, in many respects quite a different work, are extremely rare indeed. In any case, a generation is quite long enough to have waited and we can but hope for more Gluck from this stable.

Following the previous night’s ENO Messiah, quite the worst production of anything I have seen this year, it proved something of a relief to be able to concentrate on the music in the form of a concert performance. (And no, this does not contradict what I said above concerning opera as drama, though it is a sadness that one should have to say it.) I had heard Nicholas Collon only once before, in quite different repertoire, Berio’s Différences, but I hope and expect that there will be many other occasions. This was for the most part a Classical rather than a proto-Romantic Gluck, whatever the foreshadowings of Berlioz in the score. Collon, however, showed that this could be achieved without any of the condescension and unpleasantness of the ‘historically-informed’ – actually, anything but – brigade. Gluck’s vigour and dignity, his Winckelmann-like ‘noble simplicity’, and above all his concern for dramatic truth, were well served here. One felt very much that this was a French work, a tragédie lyrique in direct descent from Rameau; one could also hear that Idomeneo and, in the Oracle’s pronouncement, the Commendatore were only just around the corner. Rhythmic and harmonic impetus was maintained throughout, without any recourse to exhibitionistic shock tactics or otherwise frenetically driving the score. If the tragedy did not overwhelm in the way it might with a conductor such as Riccardo Muti, it is only fair to remind oneself that Muti had the forces of La Scala, whilst the Chelsea Opera Group is an amateur organisation.

Indeed, despite the odd fluff – more than that, sadly, in the case of the horns – the orchestra put many jaded professionals to shame. There were some truly wonderful moments, for instance the beautiful, melting oboe solo in Alceste’s ‘Grands Dieux, du destin qui m’accable,’ and the extraordinary piercing violin figuration during the Act I Scene III priests’ chorus. ‘Perce d’un rayon éclatant’ (‘Pierce with a shining ray’) – and it did. Orchestra and priests combined here in the Temple of Apollo to elicit a duly terrifying effect. There was a nice swing to the opening scene of the second act, in which premature rejoicing for the sparing of Admète’s life was heard once again from both orchestra and chorus. Collon ensured that ‘life’ here contrasted with the tragedy of impending sacrifice from the first act, heightening the tension between appearance and the reality that tragedy is still very much with us. The ballet music was not perfect, but more important than a few smudges was the character imparted to the dances: they too, indeed they particularly, must be compelled to take on dramatic character. In Gluck, the aspiration must be for nothing to be extraneous – which is perhaps why the closing divertissement, much of it in any case by Gossec, was omitted.

The choral singing, as I have already more than hinted, was generally of a very high standard: full-bodied yet in no sense lacking in clarity, one in the eye for those insisting that the latter require a paucity of forces. There was much to commend in the solo singing too. Cécile can de Sant could hardly be expected to erase memories of Janet Baker and Jessye Norman, or Kirsten Flagstad in the Italian version, but she showed herself fully committed to the draining title role. To begin with, she occasionally sounded a little forced; perhaps it was a matter of adjusting to the acoustic of a small hall such as the Cadogan. It was noticeable that she remained in character throughout, her eyes and stance reflecting her predicament even when she was not singing. When she was, she combined style and dramatic projection to very good effect. She had, moreover, the inestimable advantage of good French. Peter Bronder was less impressive as Admète. Whether again he was simply trying too hard for the acoustic, I do not know, but he often sounded uncomfortably loud, hectoring even. There could be no doubting his dramatic commitment, but shouting something does not in itself render it ‘dramatic’. David Stout made a bluff, good-natured Hercule, a role absent in the Italian original. Also notable was Matthew Hargreaves, as a suitably stentorian High Priest of Apollo. There were, indeed, no disappointments in any of the smaller roles. Special mention should be made of Paul Curievici, whose plangent, expressive tenor was put to stylish use as Evandre and a Coryphaeus. A member of the Guildhall’s Opera Programme, I do not doubt that we shall hear more from him.

Chelsea Opera Group will present two further operas in concert this season, both at the Queen Elizabeth Hall: La traviata on 21 February and Guillaume Tell on 23 May.