BPO/Gilbert - Honegger, Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher, 8 June 2024

Philharmonie

Jeanne d’Arc (spoken) – Marion Cotillard
Brother Dominique (spoken) – Eric Génovèse
Narrator (spoken) – Christian Ganon

La Vierge – Elsa Benoit
St Marguerite – Adèle Charvet
St Catherine – Anna Kissjudit
Porcus, Voice, First Herald, Priest – Valentyn Dytiuk
Voice, Second Herald, Peasant – Alex Rosen

Stage direction – Côme de Bellescize
Production – Ony Sarfati
Costumes, stage equipment – Colombe Lauriot Prévost

Lighting – Thomas Costerg  

Vokalhelden Children’s Choir (directors: Johannes David Wolff, Judith Kamphues)

MDR Radio Chorus (director: Philipp Ahmann)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra 

Alan Gilbert (conductor).

Arthur Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher is an unusual work, seldom encountered in performance, though its duration at about seventy-five minutes makes it good for both concert and CD. It is generally classed as an oratorio, but the designation mystère lyrique arguably makes better sense, bringing it closer to a mystery play and reminding us that the work, with spoken dialogue and three central spoken roles, is at least as much Paul Claudel’s as Honegger’s. It has been fully staged, even filmed; here, it was given in what we might call a ‘concert staging’ from a team led by Côme de Bellescize, with vivid use of costumes and lighting, as well as excellent, integrated acting in spoken and, where appropriate, sung roles alike.

The work presents Joan of Arc’s final moments before burning at the stake, punctuated by flashbacks to her childhood visions and to her show-trial, reaching an ecstatic apotheosis in departing this world that musically, as well as dramatically, seems to partake more of Claudel’s French Catholicism than Honegger’s Swiss Protestantism. In the title role, first taken (and danced) by Ida Rubinstein, Marion Cotillard gave a memorable, charismatic performance in startling red, touched by a strange fanaticism that resisted temptation to sentimentalise, whilst alert to situational and personal injustice. (Perhaps that is residual Englishness on my part, and I should feel differently if I were French, though I suspect a strong distaste for many manifestations of popular piety also affects my response to this peculiar figure.) Eric Génovèse gave us a sympathetic and enabling, yet ultimately ambiguous Brother Dominique. Christian Ganon was very much the showman, even conjurer, as Narrator, in a neat conception bringing to life the tale from a book he read to the splendid, colourfully arrayed children’s choir, Vokalhelden, called upon to act as well as sing. 

Their adult counterparts, the MDR Chorus, brought heft and agility to their part, underpinning, elucidating, and battling in so much of the action, Honegger’s debt to Bach as apparent as his undoubted originality. Vocal soloists, often assuming multiple roles, all impressed, Elsa Benoit, Adèle Charvet, and Anna Kissjudit positioned in appropriately heavenly positions by the organ as the Virgin and Saints Marguerite and Catherine, vocal delivery enhancing that visionary quality. Valentyn Dytiuk’s roster of tenor roles, not least the pig, Porcus (Claudel’s play on words between cochon and Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais), was delivered with a fine sense of theatre, as well sung as they were characterful; so too were those of rich-toned bass Alex Rosen. 

Alan Gilbert’s leadership of these forces and spirited, idiomatic playing from the Berlin Philharmonic proved adept in imparting a proper sense of unity to what might on paper – and doubtless in a lesser performance – pose a danger of the unduly eclectic. Here, the powerful prologue, added de profundis by Claudel and Honegger in 1944, cast its dark shadow over the proceedings to come, as did the later rigour of Honegger’s counterpoint, without detracting from the Prokofiev-like sardonicism of the scene with Porcus and its seemingly fond return to the relatively carefree 1920s. One certainly felt the work’s Janus-faced quality, placed somewhere in between, as well as its resonances of an historic French nationalism, folksong and all. Ominous orchestral tolling and reimaginations of ‘early music’ led us through hallucinatory recreations of the girl’s visions, to the terrible fiery flame that would be her wedding dress, and beyond to the closing ensemble hymn and haunting reprise of an earlier, wandering flute solo. It was full of incident, for instance in the ondes Martenot’s suggestion of howling dogs, but also of quasi-cinematographic direction and reflection.

Munich Opera Festival (3) - Agrippina, 28 July 2019

Prinzregententheater

Images: Wilfried Hösl

Claudio – Gianluca Buratto

Agrippina – Alice Coote

Nerone – Franco Fagioli

Poppea – Elsa Benoît

Ottone – Iestyn Davies

Pallante – Andrea Mastroni

Narciso – Eric Jurenas

Lesbo – Markus Suihkonen

Barrie Kosky (director)

Rebecca Ringst (set designs)

Klaus Bruns (costumes)

Joachim Klein (lighting)

Nikolaus Stenitzer (dramaturgy)

Bavarian State Orchestra

Ivor Bolton (conductor)

And still they come. The opera world’s obsession with Handel’s operas shows no sign of abating. The Bavarian State Opera has, since Peter Jonas’s Intendancy, stood at the forefront of Handel staging; this new production of Agrippina was dedicated to him. As ever, I was pleased to see one of these operas for the first time in the theatre – how could I not be pleased to see almost anything in Munich’s wonderful Prinzregententheater – but again, as ever, I was left unable ever quite to put to one side the dramaturgical difficulties/problems/flaws/inadequacies. (Call them what you will.)

That Agrippina tells us next to nothing about ancient Rome is neither here nor there. One might say the same of La clemenza di Tito (in whichever version one cares to take it). It benefits also, I think, from being one of Handel’s earliest works. The freshness of his Italian writing is often very much apparent, even though some of the music he recycles – his own, that is, though Reinhard Keiser puts in guest ‘borrowed’ appearances too – perhaps breathes more easily in its earlier manifestations. There is certainly wit in Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani’s libretto; that seems to have appealed to Barrie Kosky, who somewhat oddly speculates in the programme on the cardinal’s sexual orientation on the basis of in-jokes, as he sees them. Again, that is really neither here nor there, but Kosky, for all the intelligence with which he writes otherwise in that programme, seems unable or at least unwilling to prevent himself from inflicting acts of arbitrary silliness. They do little to clarify or to further the action, and serve instead to suggest that it is not to be taken seriously. (If not, then what is the point at all? It is certainly not an intrinsically amusing work.) Silly dancing, that plague of so much vaguely ‘modern’ opera staging, recurs with wearying regularity; likewise gratuitous over-acting, which serves, it seems, only to dare one ‘humourlessly’ to decry it. As for the bizarre transformation at one point of Agrippina into nightclub singer, the less said the better.

Agrippina (Alice Coote)

There is, moreover, little or no sense of what might actually be at stake in the plot, most notably the very real danger in which Ottone, fallen foul of imperial favour, finds himself. The work’s dramaturgical difficulties are thus heightened rather than addressed, let alone resolved. Deferring an interval until the middle of the second act does not really help. The three-act structure is clear and meaningful; there is no obvious reason to present us with one-and-a-half acts at a time, other perhaps than cost-cutting. The descent of Juno to bless the final arrangement is – somewhat oddly, given the length of the evening – omitted. So too is the ballet that would follow; instead, we have an aria from L’Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato. That all does no harm, I suppose; presumably divine intervention stood at odds with whatever the production’s prevailing sensibility of the production is held to be. (Apart from vaguely modernised silliness, I remain at a loss.) Its inclusion might well, though, have offered opportunity for more of a critical, reflective stance than ever emerges.

Ivor Bolton’s tempi were sensible enough, at least for a while. It was not long, though, before one realised that the conductor had little or no sense of harmonic rhythm, and was simply treating the score as recitative-aria-recitative-aria, ad infinitum. Given some arbitrary pulling around of certain numbers, others remaining unpleasantly hard-driven, the work’s longueurs were again heightened rather than addressed. Orchestral playing was generally excellent, the Bavarian State Orchestra’s woodwind especially delectable. If strings would have benefited from warmer tone at time, that was clearly a consequence of Bolton’s allegedly ‘period’ style. Continuo exhibitionism was largely absent, for which, in the present climate, we should all be grateful, even though what remained was often somewhat staid.

There was much to admire in the singing, save for Franco Fagioli’s dreadful squawkathon as Nerone. His bizarre facial expressions were certainly matched by grotesque vocal production. Why anyone should wish to experience either is quite beyond me. The best that could be said was that his display was less atrocious than as Covent Garden’s Idamante a few years ago; at least he sang a few more of the right notes in Munich. Alice Coote offered a generous, beautifully shaded performance in the title role, coloratura a dramatic tool, rather than, as in Fagioli’s case, a mere object of (fallible) display. Elsa Benoît’s Poppea proved finely contrasted in tendency – Kosky’s more girlish conception of her was perhaps a little much – but possessing many of the same musical virtues. Oddly, the one aria in which accuracy of intonation left much to be desired was the one vigorously applauded by a sadly undiscerning audience. (It lapped up Fagioli too.) Iestyn Davies put Fagioli to shame in his unfailingly musical performance as Ottone. ‘Ti vuo’ giusta e non pietosa,’ which here came immediately before the interval, offered all the musical sensitivity and verbal acuity so conspicuously absent chez Nerone. There were otherwise no weak links, Gianluca Buratto’s Claudio perhaps especially impressive in his matching of style and temperament.

Claudio (Gianluca Buratto) and Elsa Benoît

Ultimately, though, none of the problems seemingly inherent in performance of Handelian opera seria were solved; a good few were not even acknowledged. Handel is unquestionably a fine composer. Is it too much, though, to ask that we look more to the music – and indeed to the musical dramas – in which he stands at his greatest? Most of the oratorios – pretty much any of them, other than Messiah – remain bizarrely neglected. They offer thoughtful singers, as well as audiences, considerably greater nourishment, on the whole. And can we not at least rid ourselves of this fad with vocal exhibitionism, especially when it fails so manifestly even on its own terms? There is room for Handel and Gluck; a surfeit of the former, however, tends only to have one longing for the ‘noble simplicity’ of the latter.

Munich Opera Festival (3) - Les Indes galantes, 24 July 2016

Prinzregententheater

Images © Wilfried Hösl
Elsa Benoit (Emilie) and Dancers of the Eastman Company

Hébé, Zima – Lisette Oropesa

Bellone – Goran Jurić
L’Amour/Zaïre – Ana Quintans
Osman, Ali – Tareq Nazmi
Emilie – Elsa Benoit
Valère, Tacmas – Cyril Auvity
Huascar, Alvar – François Lis
Phani, Fatime – Anna Prohaska
Carlos, Damon – Mathias Vidal
Adario – John Moore
Dancers – Navala ‘Niku’ Chaudhari, Kazutomi ‘Tzuki’ Kozuki, Jason Kittelberger, Denis ‘Kouné’ Kuhnert, Elias Lazaridis, Nicola Leahey, Shintaro Oue, James Vu Anh Pham, Acacia Schachte, Patrick Williams ‘Twoface’ Seebacher’, Jennifer White, Ema Yuasa

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (director, choreography)

Anna Viebbrock (sets)
Greta Goiris (costumes)
Michael Bauer (lighting)
Antonio Cuenca Ruiz, Miron Hakenbeck (dramaturgy)
Jason Kittelberger (choreographic assistance)

Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Freiburg (chorus master: Detlef Bratschke)

Munich Festival Orchestra
Ivor Bolton (conductor)





Hébé/Zima (Lisette Oropesa), Damon (Mathias Vidal), Kinderstatisterie

Baroque opera has long been an important part of the Bavarian State Opera’s programming. And beyond the company itself, Munich’s tradition stretches back many years indeed: Kubelík’s Handel with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, for instance. Yet, whilst there has been much Handel, Monteverdi, Cavalli, et al., in recent years, the French Baroque in general and Rameau’s music in particular seem to have been a closed book – as so often in the world outside France. Let us leave aside for the moment debates concerning whether ‘Baroque’ should be a suitable designation, merely noting that Rameau’s music seems to have provoked the word’s first artistic usage. An anonymous letter to the Mercure de France, occasioned by the 1733 Paris premiere of the composer’s first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie, printed in the Mercure de France, dismissed the opera’s novelty as ‘du barocque’; its melody was incoherent, its harmony unduly dissonant, and its metre chaotic.

 

That was certainly not how Rameau sounded on this occasion, quite the contrary. Indeed, I should not have minded a little more truculence – if not incoherence! – from Ivor Bolton’s conducting. Its fluency was admirable, but I could not help notice – and, at times, become a little tired by – a tendency remarked upon by a friend beforehand: namely the conductor’s penchant for turning everything into a dance. There is much dance music, of course, in this opéra-ballet, but that is not to say that everything must be. I know that many ‘authenticke’ musicians will argue to the contrary, even, God help us, in Gluck and Mozart, but the declamatory French of Rameau’s recitatives – here, admirably, indeed often thrillingly, supported by a continuo group involving Luke Green (harpsichord), Fred Jacobs and Michael Fremiuth (theorbo), and Werner Matzke (cello) – is not necessarily to be confined to them. The ravishing airs, duets, and above all, ensembles, would have benefited, at least to my ears, from greater – dare I say, quoting the writer to the Mercure de France, more ‘chaotic’? – variation.

 

That said, and that said perhaps at too great a length, there was otherwise much to relish from the Munich Festival Orchestra. Even I did not find myself missing modern instruments. (This is, I learned afterwards, the Dresden Festival Orchestra on location.) Indeed, the woodwind in particular very much offered their own, splendidly Gallic justification. Moreover, strings (twelve violins, five violas, seven cellos, two bass viols, one violone) were certainly not parsimonious with their vibrato, quite from it; this was an enlightened as well as an Enlightened performance from all concerned. Rameau’s love of orchestral sound, its implications for Gluck and, via him, for Mozart too (think of Idomeneo!) was vividly and, above all, dramatically, communicated.

 

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s direction, choreography included, treads a judicious line between various competing elements. If I were a little surprised that Munich chose this Rameau work as its first – for me, a tragédie lyrique, such as Hippolyte, would have been a more obviously compelling choice – then the voguish (for the 1730s, that is!) amalgam of opera and ballet offered opportunities to ravish other of the senses too. Cherkaoui’s dancers never disappointed, their movements – do these people have no bones in their bodies? – not merely responsive to the music, to the drama, but intensifying its possibilities, above all visual-dramatic tension at points of decision. If one wished to visualise a Rameau flute line, for instance, one could have done far worse than watch the movement on stage.

Without pressing his point too far, Cherkaoui probes what might hold this prologue and four entrées – as in Rameau’s definitive version – together. Opening in a classroom, the teacher, Hébé, leading her children in conjugation of French verbs, the unified drama takes them – and us – on a tour of different civilisations, and shows them, not the war personified by Bellone, often to have as much to teach us as we have to teach them. That is not to say that Rameau’s work, still less Louis Fuzelier’s libretto, can or should be understood in twenty-first century terms; however, its ambiguity, its insistence upon asking ‘who actually is the barbarian here?’ reminds us that we – and, looking at the world around us, how could we doubt this? – have no monopoly on multicultural virtue.

Phani (Anna Prohaska), Huescar (François Lis)

 

Yet there are differences too. The homosexual love denied by the Incan Huescar (here in European clerical carb) in Cherbaouki’s funeral-turned-wedding setting for the second entrée also finds its fulfilment; L’Amour, for us today, does not discriminate, heterosexual and homosexual love are, ultimately, after a struggle, equally valued. Moreover, for an English visitor, more than unusually embarrassed by his nationality at the moment, Munich’s ecumenism offered hope that Europe and indeed the world beyond it will survive. National flags, favoured by Bellone and a visiting American President, are not banished, but there is a vision of something greater to be glimpsed, in the European flags – and, indeed, in the exquisite blue and yellow of many of the children’s outfits. (The Kinderstaterie of the Bavarian State Opera were well trained and delightful in their roles.) And so, the young men who forsake Hébé and Europe for the ‘Indies’ (an all-purpose, ‘exotic’ Orientalism or Occidentalism!), learn through experience that conflict is not the way to prosper; the realisation of the peace-pipe ceremony at the close strikingly fulfils the work’s strikingly internationalist sentiment, dancers and vocalists as one.

 

Adario (John Moore), Dancers

The singing was, without exception, wonderful. Words were as clear as Rameau’s lines, whether in solo, duet, ensemble, or choral numbers. The Balthasar-Neumann Chor was certainly not the least impressive aspect of the performance. Lisette Oropesa and Ana Quintans set the scene splendidly in the Prologue, Hébé and L’Amour carefully differentiated, with Goran Jurić a strikingly successful general-in-drag. Tareq Nazmi’s sensitive bass offered wisdom and humanity; Cherbaouki’s skilful comparison between the roles of Osman and Ali was given sympathetic life, as were other such doublings of roles (more than mere doublings). Mathias Vidal and Anna Prohaska shone likewise as Carlos/Damon and Phani/Fatime. Both imparted depth in lightness, and lightness in depth, as graceful on stage as of voice. Cyril Auvity’s unerringly stylish tenor, François Lis’s deep yet never bluff bass, and Elsa Benoit’s sparkling yet variegated soprano offered other highlights; so too did the highly attractive chiaroscuro of John Moore’s baritone. Above all, there was a true sense of collaboration, rendering the performance as well as the work substantially more than the sum of its parts. As we once hoped – and perhaps may one day hope again – for a Europe too often divided, indeed torn apart, by Bellone…

 

Munich Opera Festival (1) - Die schweigsame Frau, Bavarian State Opera, 5 July 2015

Nationaltheater, Munich

Sir Morosus – Franz Hawlata

Housekeeper – Okka von der Damerau
Barber – Nikolay Borchev
Henry Morosus – Peter Sonn
Aminta – Brenda Rae
Isotta – Elsa Benoit
Carlotta – Tara Erraught
Morbio – Christian Rieger
Vanuzzi – Christoph Stephinger
Farfallo – Tareq Nazmi
Papagei – Airton Feuchter-Dantas

Barrie Kosky (director)

Esther Bialas (designs)
Benedikt Zehm (lighting)
Olaf A. Schmitt (dramaturgy)

Bavarian State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Sören Eckhoff)
Bavarian State Orchestra
Pedro Halffter (conductor)

If Strauss’s operas of the 1920s receive far too little performing attention, especially in the Anglosphere, those of the 1930s seem to fare worse still. Quite why is anyone’s guess; no one, I assume, would declare Die schweigsame Frau a greater work than Elektra, but it is clearly a better work than so many that continue to hold the stage. German theatres are different, of course, not least those associated with Strauss personally, so to see Strauss’s collaboration with Stefan Zweig and, at one remove, Ben Jonson, a visit to the Munich Opera Festival seemed like a good idea.

And so it was. One could not reasonably have hoped to hear Strauss in better hands. Not only could I find no grounds to fault Bavarian State Orchestra – not that, in imitation of the third act’s divorce proceedings, I was attempting to find such grounds – the orchestra reaffirmed its credentials as a Strauss orchestra to be spoken of in the same breath as Dresden and Vienna, and arguably more reliable than either, certainly more so than the latter. Precision and warmth – though not too much – were very much the hallmark of this performance, wisely guided by Pedro Halffter, who seemed keen to impart to his account a sense of, if not quite Neue Sachlichkeit, then at least of something that made Strauss’s writing here particular rather than generalised. Pacing was impeccable, quasi-autonomous musical structures coming fruitfully into contact with verbal demands: the sort of thing one longs for, generally in vain, in Rossini. The Straussian orchestral phantasmagoria is never far away, of course, but there is perhaps less overt dazzle in much of the score than in, say, Rosenkavalier or Elektra; Halffter and the orchestra appreciated its subtleties and responded to them in equally subtle yet undoubtedly sure fashion.  

I doubt that Brenda Rae’s Aminta could be bettered in any theatre today (although how would one know?) Just as sure of note and line as the orchestra and with greater, contrasting warmth, especially at those wonderful revelations, through the disguise of Timidia, of the fundamental humanity of Aminta, this was a performance to savour. Much the same could be said of her partner in crime – and love – Peter Sonn’s splendidly lyrical, often imploring Henry. Franz Hawlata’s Morosus was very much a character portrayal: too many notes, as it were, lacked a little when it came to the demands of intonation. But such was Hawlata’s identification with and communication of the role, it would be churlish to complain unduly; the audience responded warmly, and it was right to have done so. The quicksilver vocal and dramatic qualities of Nikolay Borchev’s Barber – despite the hideous green tracksuit he initially had to wear – were rightly appreciated by the Munich audience too. Okka von der Damerau captured to near-perfection the disapproving, ultimately amusing qualities of the Housekeeper. There was depth in the casting too: splendid rivalry to Timidia came from Tara Erraught (with, insofar as I could tell, a fine line in Bavarian dialect) and Elsa Benoit. There was indeed an excellent sense of company: no one disappointed and almost everyone shone.

Barrie Kosky’s production: well, it was considerably better than his Berlin Figaro. But I cannot help but think that his matching of high camp – the tasteless pink designs of the first part of the third act, splendidly realised on their own terms by Esther Bialas – and custard-pie slapstick is not really a match for Strauss, or for Zweig. The subtle, even sometimes not-so-subtle, æstheticism of both artists may well benefit from deconstruction. But might not a production that takes to heart the circumstances of the opera’s composition – this, after all, was the opera occasioning Strauss’s fateful letter to Zweig, intercepted by the Gestapo, which led to Goebbels having the composer resign from Presidency of the Reichsmusikkammer – offer a more fruitful, deeper (yes, I know, how Teutonic of me!) mode of questioning?  There is no doubting the skill with which Kosky and his production team accomplish their vision; I wish, though, that I could discern more in the vision itself. According to Kosky, quoted in the programme, ‘We have placed our protagonist in a world which swings [schwankt] uncertainly between Mel Brooks, the Muppets, and Vienna’s Josefstadt [Theatre].’ Make of that what you will.

Even for those of us who remained sceptical about the production, however, there was much to enjoy, for which many thanks should go to the Bavarian State Opera. This would surely make an interesting prospect for ENO, whose Strauss record has recently been anything but conspicuous, to bring to London. Now, how about an enterprising company offering us Salieri’s Angiolene, also based (loosely) on Jonson’s Epiocene? Or even a hearing for Mark Lothar’s 1930 Lord Spleen, written for Dresden? (Does anyone know the music of Lothar, a Schreker pupil whom Max Reinhardt enlisted as Music Director for Berlin’s Deutsches Theater in 1933, whether for this or for anything else? I freely admit that I do not.) George Antheil’s Volpone, which apparently owes a good deal to Zweig’s German adaptation of Jonson’s play, also awaits revival. And yes, more Strauss would be much appreciated too: Feuersnot, Friedenstag, Die Liebe der Danae, etc., etc. Opera houses of the world, unite: you have nothing to lose but Timidia’s timidity!

Munich Opera Festival (1) - Le nozze di Figaro, Bavarian State Opera, 17 July 2014

Nationaltheater, Munich

Count Almaviva – Gerald Finley

The Countess – Véronique Gens

Cherubino – Kate Lindsey

Figaro – Erwin Schrott

Susanna – Hanna-Elisabeth Müller

Bartolo – Umberto Chiummo

Marcellina – Heike Grötzinger

Basilio – Ulrich Reß

Don Curzio – Kevin Conners

Antonio – Peter Lobert

Barbarina – Elsa Benoit

Two Girls – Josephine Renelt, Rachael Wilson

Dieter Dorn (director)

Jürgen Rose (designs)

Max Keller (lighting)

Hans-Joachim Rückhäberle (dramaturgy)

Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera (chorus master: Stellario Fagone)

Bavarian State Orchestra

Dan Ettinger (conductor)

 

 

Image: Wilfried Hösl

 

One is unlikely to come across a cast of Figaro principals much better than this today, and the virtues of this performance indeed proved to be primarily vocal. Gerald Finley offered a handsomely-sung, dramatically alert portrayal of the Count, beautifully complemented by Véronique Gens, whose apparent indisposition was only occasionally evident. Erwin Schrott’s Figaro suffered from surprising occlusion of tone during the first act, but thereafter was very much on form, Schrott’s theatricality and musicality working very much in tandem. His Susanna, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller was perky and vivacious in both respects too. Kate Lindsey had a slightly uneasy start as Cherubino, but more than made up for it with a perfectly-sung ‘Voi che sapete’. One could believe in her/him throughout too, not least when she adopted the guise of awkward cross-dressing. Amongst the rest of the cast, Ulrich Reß’s Basilio stood out, although he alas – following directorial orders? – adopted the current tendency towards caricature in the role, if less so than sometimes one endures. Elsa Benoit’s Barbarina showed great promise, indeed great achievement; I suspect that we shall soon be hearing more from her.

 

If only the cast had been better supported, let alone led, by Dan Ettinger. The orchestra sounded as though it would have been happier playing without a conductor; indeed, though sometimes a little on the heavy side, the orchestral playing as such was distinguished throughout. Alas, Ettinger seemed never able to settle on the ‘right’ tempo: not that there is only one, but at the time, it should feel as though that were the case. After an Overture and good part of the first act that were driven as if they were Rossini, with little or no space to breathe, other numbers relaxed too much and felt unduly drawn out. Worse still were the occasions when tempi changed arbitrarily – this was no Furtwängler! – during a number, ‘Dove sono’ an especially unfortunate example, Gens seemingly very much at odds, and rightly so, with the conductor. It was far from the only occasion upon which coordination between stage and pit went quite awry. My habitual lament at the loss of Marcellina’s and Basilio’s fourth-act arias was exchanged for relative relief: a sad state of affairs.

 

Dieter Dorn’s production is an odd affair, of which I struggled to make much sense. I had the impression – which may of course be wide of the mark – that we saw a director of a fundamentally conservative disposition who nevertheless felt obliged to try something ‘new’, resulting in a compromise that lacked coherence. I assume that the contrast between period costume and scenic abstraction was deliberate, perhaps attempting to make some point about stylisation, about contemporary reception of an over-familiar eighteenth-century work, etc., but am not entirely sure quite what that point was. The fourth act’s ‘business’ with white sheets in place of ‘proper’ scenery has unfortunate echoes of a school play, or perhaps better, a school ‘movement’ session. The cast seemed to flounder on stage, and I could not really blame them. There was an equally unfortunate, if typical, tendency, if less extreme than can sometimes be the case, to confuse this most sophisticated of comedies with mere farce. (Does not Mozart’s score tell us everything we need to know in that respect – and indeed in every other?) For the most part, the cast rose above such limitations, but limitations they certainly were.