Luke Styles, Macbeth, Royal Opera, 9 September 2015

Linbury Studio Theatre

Duncan, Second Murderer – John Mackenzie-Lavansch
Malcolm – Michael Wallace
Sergeant, First Murderer – David Shaw
Lennox, Third Murderer – James Geer
Ross – Benjamin Cahn
Macbeth – Ed Ballard
Banquo – Alessandro Fisher
Lady Macbeth – Aidan Coburn
Macduff – Richard Bignall
Fleance – Luke Saint
Lady Macduff, Porter – Andrew Davies
Macduff’s Son – Xavier Murtagh

 

Ted Huffman (director and librettist)
Kitty Callister (designs)
David Manion (lighting)


London Philharmonic Orchestra
Jeremy Bines (conductor)

 

I applauded the Royal Opera House – and still do – for presenting a new work as the first piece in its new season. It was not its first performance; that had been given at Glyndebourne. But that is beside the point. A commitment to contemporary opera has been growing at Covent Garden, and that is in every respect an excellent thing. An inevitable consequence of that, despite the safeguards of workshops and so on, is that not all the works presented will turn out to be imperishable, or even perishable, masterpieces. There is no problem with that; frankly, much of the bewildering operatic repertoire is of dubious æsthetic quality in any case.

 

If that sounds like a build-up to disappointment in this particular case, then I am afraid it is. There is no need to repeat the difficulties or indeed the opportunities concerning the transformation of Shakespeare into opera. Especially to an Anglophone audience, familiarity with the words as well as the story – Ted Huffman uses Shakespeare’s words, albeit ‘cut, occasionally re-ordered, and, in a few cases, … reappropriated from other characters – enables re-adaptation and the idea of readaptation to take a place closer to centre stage than might otherwise be the case, although there is no particular sense of this as a meta-opera. What we have is a concentration upon politics; the witches are nowhere to be seen. (One particularly celebrated composer has already treated them in ludicrous fashion; they may well be better off left alone.) And we have a surprising, intriguing foreshortening, ending with Macbeth’s coming to power, in almost Poppea-like triumph, although an ‘evening-length’ version of this seventy-five minute, single-act work is envisaged by composer and librettist. As it stands, there is ironic power in hearing what was Malcolm’s closing speech – to what I assume is intentionally banal music - in the voice of a victorious Macbeth, and I think there would be even if one did not know of the transformation. It seems odd, in an opera, to eschew the possibilities afforded by soliloquy, but there might well be an imperative to alienate, so there is no need to condemn on principle.

 

Alas, what has emerged proves – with the usual caveats concerning a single performance – more dull than anything else. This is not a disaster, during the performance of which one simply feels embarrassed. However, the lack of musical characterisation, vocal interest, probing of any of the possibilities an all-male cast might have offered, all seem a missed opportunities, given the richness of the source. The musical language often sounds close, in a generalised sense, to Britten, but without – well, you can complete the rest from those three lacking qualities alone. Differentiation of soundworld between internal reflection and external military – two percussionists certainly make their mark – is for me perhaps the strongest feature of the score.

 

Lady Macbeth, a character with, to put it mildly, operatic potential, is played by a tenor, but that seems to be it in gender terms. ‘Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,’ might have seemed a fruitful line to pursue sung by a man, but it is not present. She more or less disappears from dramatic view, and even before she does gives little impression of what it might be that has elevated her into the dramatic pantheon. Macbeth fares a little better, but more simply from his presence, from Shakespeare, and, in this case, from a highly engaging performance from Ed Ballard (real stage presence, both physically and musically!) than from the work itself.

 

Indeed, I had no problem with any elements of the performance. The cast performed creditably; if feats of characterisation were not achieved, that is hardly the singers’ fault. This remained in many ways an excellent opportunity, well taken, for members of the Glyndebourne Chorus and its Jerwood Young Artists Programme. I am sure we shall hear more from a good number of them. The LPO chamber ensemble under Jeremy Bines sounded committed and incisive throughout, as if this actually were The Rape of Lucretia. Moreover, Huffman’s production, in modern army dress, seemed well thought through and executed and suggested its own parallels with recent and contemporary politics and warfare.

 

Who knows? In the highly unlikely event that anyone reads this in a century’s time, mine might be one of those ridiculous views cited in descriptions of ‘initial audience failure for subsequently acclaimed masterpieces’. In a way, I hope it is, or at least, so as not to be too conceited, that a view like mine is, since I should much rather we have another masterpiece than not. Rightly or wrongly, I cannot imagine what, at least from this first version, might lead to such a transformation in judgement.

 

The Rake's Progress, Royal Academy of Music, 16 March 2015

Sir Jack Lyons Theatre, Royal Academy of Music

Tom Rakewell – Bradley Smith

Anne Trulove – Rhiannon Llewellyn
Nick Shadow – Božidar Smiljanić
Baba the Turk – Claire Barnett-Jones
Sellem – Gwilym Bowen
Trulove – Lancelot Nomura
Mother Goose – Katherine Aitken
Keeper of the Madhouse – Ed Ballard 

John Ramster (director)

Adrian Linford (designs)
Victoria Newlyn (choreography)
Jake Wiltshire (lighting)

Royal Academy Opera Chorus
Royal Academy Sinfonia
Jane Glover (conductor)

The apogee of neo-Classicism, an opera surely intended to incite debate upon debate about it and its form, whatever Stravinsky’s typically disingenuous, eye-twinkling denials, The Rake’s Progress is, unless one is Pierre Boulez, very difficult not to admire, almost as difficult not in some sense to disapprove of or at least to suspect, perhaps almost as difficult to love. I think this Royal Academy staging might just have proved me wrong on the final point.

For what struck me about John Ramster’s production and, of course, the performances onstage it inspired, was that they treated this first and foremost as an opera. They  certainly were neither deaf nor blind to the debates – ‘The Rake’s Progress seemed to have been created for journalistic debates concerning: a) the historical validity of the approach; and, b) the question whether I am guilty of imitation and pastiche. If the Rake contains imitations, however – of Mozart, as has been said – I will gladly allow the charge (given the breadth of the Aristotelian word), if I may thereby release people from the argument and bring them to the music.’ (Stravinsky) – but they did not become ensnared by them. Still less did they mistake them for questions of æsthetic quality. Ramster’s production frames the work well, the first scene indicating a mid-twentieth-century filming of an eighteenth-century drama, and there are occasional reminders, not least the appearance in various guises of indications as to how many days Tom Rakewell will have left before his reckoning with Nick Shadow. But for the most part, that framing falls away, and a somewhat yet not excessively stylised set of designs (all handsomely done by Adrian Linford) is not mistaken for human hearts beating beneath the framing and the ‘debates’.

For that, the cast, well prepared by Jane Glover, naturally deserves the lion’s share of the credit. Bradley Smith presented a weak, human, yet impossible-not-to-like Tom: just as he should be. His sappy tenor proved appealing throughout, but moving too, especially towards the end: all very much in character. Rhiannon Llewellyn’s Anne combined grace and beauty to a properly euphonious degree; her first act aria was very fine indeed. Božidar Smiljanić’s Nick stole the show on a number of occasions: protean, dark, and humorous. One could hardly have asked for more. Claire Barnett-Jones revealed a richly expressive voice as well as a finely-judged sense of humour as Baba. As Sellem, Gwilym Bowen offered a very different sense of humour, utterly captivating, never outstaying its welcome, and likewise never at the expense of excellent musical values, line and attention to the words exemplary. Indeed, there was hardly a moment in the entire performance on which one could not readily discern Auden’s libretto. Lancelot Nomura’s deep-voiced Trulove, Katherine Aitken’s haughtily naughty Mother Goose, and Ed Ballard’s Keeper of the Madhouse rounded off, but certainly did not merely round off, an excellent cast.

Choral singing was mightily impressive, as was Ramster’s direction of the chorus. After a slightly, though only slightly, shaky start, in which Glover’s conducting lacked the bite one (not unreasonably) expects, the orchestra passed with flying colours too. Again, a heart was revealed, without any loss to the intellectual, time-travelling revels, in which now more than ever one can understand why Stravinsky would make his next (apparent) about turn. Schoenberg est mort, or rather he may, to a post-war generation, have seemed to be; serialism, however, was already in Stravinsky’s personal way under preparation. Richard Leach's harpsichord playing, not least in that extraordinary graveyard solo, was dazzling.

I am not yet entirely won over by Henze’s typically anti-Boulezian – and not just anti-him – words from an interview in 1967:

Soon the ‘clusters’, the serial recitatives and the ‘happenings’ will have exhausted themselves, and the young composer will look around in vain in this wasteland for something to nourish his hungry soul. I believe, in contrast to Boulez for whom the neo-Classical Stravinsky is 'very weak' (there they go, forty years of musical history, brushed aside in a couple of words!), that in the next few years he will be seen properly for the first time, and understood in all his greatness and significance. The history of music knows plenty of examples where a reorientation has been necessary. This will be the case in the near future too.

In any case, that debate is surely dead and buried; no one thinks about ‘Darmstadt’ like that any more, nr indeed even speaks of ‘Darmstadt’ as such a thing-in-itself; I doubt, moreover, that anyone thinks about Henze and Stravinsky quite in Boulez-of-1960s vein either. For me, neo-Classical Stravinsky’s achievements nevertheless remain very mixed; Orpheus, for instance, I dislike as much as ever, though ‘dislike’ is not to be confused with ‘denigrate’. Perhaps, though, I was edged a little closer to Henze on this occasion. If so, it was by virtue of this fine staging and performance.

 

Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, Royal Academy Opera, 20 November 2014

Sir Jack Lyons Theatre, Royal Academy of Music

Suor Angelica – Emily Garland

Suor Dolcina - Nika Goric

Monitress – Laura Zigmantaite

Suor Genovieffa – Eve Daniell

Suor Osmina – Kirsty Michele Anderson

Mistress of the Novices – Helen Brackenbury
Abbess – Katie Stevenson
Zia Principessa - Anna Harvey

Lauretta – Charlotte Schoeters

Nella – Eve Daniell
La Ciesca – Katherine Aitken
Zita – Laura Zigmantaite
Gherardo – Richard Dowling
Rinuccio – John Porter
Amantio di Nicolao – Dominic Bowe
Gianni Schicchi – Ed Ballard
Marco – Henry Neill
Betto – Alistair Ollerenshaw
Guccio – Jamie Wright
Maestro Spinelloccio – Timothy Murphy
Pinellino – Michael Mofidian
Simone – Lancelot Nomura
Gherardino – Harriet Eyley

Will Kerley (director)

Jason Southgate (designs)

Royal Academy Sinfonia

Peter Robinson (conductor)

 

Two-thirds of Puccini’s triptych made for yet another excellent evening at the Royal Academy of Music. It may sound exaggerated to say that London’s conservatoire opera performances more often than not put its main houses to shame, but that does genuinely seem to be the case. Productions may be a more fraught issue, but when the vocal performances are superior, that says a great deal concerning both the quality of musicianship on offer at the Royal Academy and elsewhere, and also questionable casting decisions from the Royal Opera (Idomeneo fresh in the memory) and ENO.

 

Comparisons – from which she would have nothing whatsoever to fear – aside, Emily Garland’s Suor Angelica quite floored me: a startling mature performance. This is not the sort of repertoire one really expects to hear from singers so young; indeed, this was the first conservatoire performance I have attended of Puccini. But Garland’s voice was the real thing, her tragic plight involving one as only a fine vocal performance could. Puccini’s mix, especially here, of sadism and sentimentality can be hard to take, but we found ourselves here in expert hands. The supporting cast had not a weak link, and Anna Harvey’s elegantly-sung Zia Principessa made for a cruel foil indeed. My other doubt, a priori, would have concerned a small-ish orchestra, and there were occasions when, even in a small theatre, a few more strings would have helped. However, they were few and far between, and, if I have heard more symphonic Puccini, especially earlier on, than Peter Robinson’s, he was always attentive to the action. Moreover, the final scene’s emotional impact flowed as much from the tauntingly gorgeous orchestral sound as from Garland’s inspired performance. Will Kerley’s keenly-observed production makes excellent use of Jason Southgate’s resourceful set and of course an eager company of nuns; the musical drama, quite rightly, remains our focus, with little to distract us from its unfolding.

 

Gianni Schicchi emerged after the interval in gloriously garish colours – at least so far as the staging was concerned. I sensed a kinship, perhaps coincidental, with Richard Jones’s Covent Garden production, though the updating comes closer to our time, with Rinuccio cheekily capturing moments à la mode on his telephone camera. The liveliness of the direction, every character’s movements and reactions carefully attended to and utterly convincing, even in loving caricature, was matched by a string of fine vocal performances. Again, the cliché of not a weak link in the cast held triumphantly; moreover, there was a real sense, quite an achievement this, of a true ‘company performance’. Ed Ballard’s assumption of the title role was a joy, as alert to words as to music as to stage action: another singer here from whom we shall surely hear more. I doubt that anything will convince me that ‘O mio babbino caro’ is not an unfortunate mistake, a fly in the ointment, though doubtless a case can be made for a moment when the brilliance of Puccini’s scherzo stops. That said, Charlotte Schoeters sang it and the rest of her role beautifully, making a winning pair with John Porter’s ardent Rinuccio. When I say that it is difficult to disentangle the other performances, I mean nothing but praise by that; to attempt to do so would degenerate into a mere repetition of the cast list, and the whole was far more than the sum of the parts. Robinson and the orchestra were perhaps on finer form still, that glistening orchestral brilliance to which I alluded married to an unerring sense of dramatic direction. Congratulations to all concerned!