Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (2) – Pelléas et Mélisande, 9 July 2024

Grand Théâtre de Provence

Images: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 2024 © Jean-Louis Fernandez

  

Pelléas – Huw Montague Rendall
Mélisande – Chiara Skerath
Golaud – Laurent Naouri
Arkel – Vincent Le Texier
Geneviève – Lucille Richardot
Yniold – Emma Fekete
Doctor, Shepherd – Thomas Dear
Actors – Sarah Northgraves, Kamila Kamińska, Olivia N'Ganga

Chorus of the Lyon Opera (chorus master: Benedict Kearns)

Orchestra of the Lyon Opera

Susanna Mälkki (conductor)

  

Opera, or the Undoing of Women is a celebrated treatment of the genre by the French philosopher Cathérine Clément. Clément’s book has rightly come in for a good deal of criticism, not least since it signally fails to treat opera as a musical genre, looking solely at plots and ignoring the liberation the female voice in particular can embody. I heartily recommend Carolyn Abbate’s review, entitled ‘Opera, or the Envoicing of Women’ (not, as my autocorrection has just insisted, ‘the Invoicing’, though some might nod wearily at that too). That said, no one could seriously deny the treatment of female characters in most repertoire works is to our mind problematical. Katie Mitchell certainly would not; that indeed, is the starting point for her landmark production of Pelléas et Mélisande, first seen here in Aix in 2016, and on which I am now catching up.

What Mitchell does might well, in 2024, seem an obvious and necessary thing to do, yet it is difficult to think of a previous case (just as with, say, Joachim Herz in the Ring or Wieland Wagner in Parsifal).That it seems obvious must in large part to be ascribed to her work and that of other feminist directors. Ultimately, the idea is to present the work from Mélisande’s standpoint, rather than have her – as one might argue the work does – as a blank canvas on which men and, more broadly, patriarchy paint their fantasies. The means of doing so is to present the drama as Mélisande’s dream. An opening dumb show has her, on her wedding day, take a pregnancy test – some people, for reasons unclear, found this amusing – which, one presumes, gives from a concurrent relationship a positive result. Quite a predicament, and thus the dream-drama is set in motion, Pelléas representing the father, Golaud the husband. The castle extends from the bedroom in which the action has begun, and to which it often returns. Sometimes there is one Mélisande; sometimes, seeing herself in the way one sometimes can in dreams, there are two. 

Golaud is a serial abuser; not only does Mélisande sees herself raped, but the girl (in this production) Yniold too. Pelléas is a nervous wreck and mummy’s boy yet retains his allure, ultimately satisfying Mélisande in a way Golaud never could, in highly erotic scenes that ensure one level of musical meaning hits home as rarely before, whilst a charismatic, creepy Arkel ultimately rules the roost. There is even a prize won for non-irritating, non-gratuitous use of mobile telephones, Golaud sending Yniold to Mélisande’s room to report on the lovers and continuing to bark commands via that medium. The castle’s claustrophobia is highly realistic, as is the rest of the drama, but visual Symbolism will live to fight another day and Debussy’s score remains.

Susanna Mälkki and the accomplished Lyon orchestra generally had it unfold at what gives the excellent impression of being its ‘own’ pace, however chimerical that ideal may be in practice. (It takes a good deal of work to sound ‘natural’.) Inspiration from Wagner, Tristan and Parsifal in particular, was strong, dramatically pointed without overwhelming. There was, though, plenty of room for other stars in this musical constellation, French forebears not the least of them. Whether this were conscious or otherwise, letting the score do ‘its’ work, does not really matter. Debussy remained questioning, ambiguous, yet never merely vague; this was drama, not mere ‘atmosphere’, especially in combination with Mitchell’s staging.   

Chiara Skerath rose to Mitchell’s challenges and more, offering a multi-faceted Mélisande as finely sung as it was acted. She and her alter ego were not on stage the whole time, but one could have been forgiven for thinking, still more feeling, that they were. Huw Montague Rendall’s damaged yet alluring Pelléas was, in some ways, the most striking of all, beautifully, elegantly sung, yet with a halting scenic awkwardness that only at the height of passion could be put to one side. Laurent Naouri’s brutal Golaud and Vincent Le Texier subtler, yet in some ways darker still, Arkel, cunningly calculating far ahead of the rest, were similarly memorable in and faithful to their roles. Ironically, even here, one could not but hear Mélisande’s standpoint via their voices. That is not intrinsically a bad thing, of course, since opera performance is an ensemble effort. All involved played their part, not least the stage hands at work revealing and concealing different parts of the world Mélisande’s unconscious had created. We now (usually) have intimacy coordinators, but that development is very recent; here, Ita O’Brien was credited. Given the level of intimacy, her contribution will have been greatly valued by all. 

For what we saw and heard made us think and rethink on the spot. Even seeing the word ‘comédiennes’ in the programme gave pause for thought. In English, we have at last begun to move on from ‘actors’ and ‘actresses’ save in historical usage, but that development is also recent and I recall thinking it read oddly on my first encounter; French is meanwhile, given its lack of a neutral gender, beginning to pursue a project of ‘feminisation’, encouraging parity in the use of female forms. Who is ‘further on’? Are there important questions when horrifying abuse rages unacknowledged? Answers may or may not be clear, but Pelléas will never quite be the same again.

Die Zauberflöte, Royal Opera, 15 September 2021

Royal Opera House

Tamino – Bernard Richter
Pamina – Salome Jicia
Papageno – Huw Montague Rendall
Queen of the Night – Brenda Rae
Sarastro – Krzysztof Baczyk
Monostatos – Michael Colvin
Papagena – Haegee Lee
Speaker – Jochen Schmeckenbecher
Three Ladies – Alexandra Lowe, Hanna Hipp, Stephanie Wake-Edwards
Two Priests – Harry Nicoll, Donald Maxwell
Two Armoured Men – Alan Pingarrón, James Platt
Three Boys – Rafael Flutter, Benjamin Jardim, Victor Wiggin

David McVicar (director)
Dan Dooner (revival director)
John Macfarlane (designs)
Paule Constable (lighting)
Leah Hausman, Angelo Smimmo (movement)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus director: William Spaulding)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Hartmut Haenchen (conductor)

Images: Bill Cooper. (C) ROH 2021

David McVicar’s 2003 Magic Flute production is really starting to look—more to the point, feel—its age. When fresh and new, especially when conducted by Colin Davis, it had a winning sense of theatrical wonder. If it never tried to plumb the work’s Enlightenment, Rosicrucian, or other depths, it left open possibilities in performance for others to do so. There was striking imagery in John Macfarlane’s designs and the story was told with clarity and intelligence—even if the final scene always seemed a little trite. Now, however, on its n^th revival, much has degenerated into mere silliness. There is enough there to remind us of what it once was, with stronger direction, but enough missing to have one regret its lack. Seeing the first night of this revival on the same day that Nadine Dorries was named Culture Secretary suggested a rare moment of Dorries enlightenment, given her strange claim that ‘left-wing snowflakes’ had somehow managed to ‘dumb down’ pantomime. Once we reached the stage of fart jokes, I began to wonder whether, politics and flakiness aside, Dorries might, perish the thought, have unwittingly hit on a point. I suspect coronavirus restrictions played a part, getting in the way not only of interaction but some of the more ambitious mechanical elements, but it was difficult not to think more interesting solutions might have been explored. Perhaps there was simply not enough rehearsal time.

Tamino (Bernard Richter)

Singing, at least, was in another league. Bernard Richter’s Tamino was everything one could reasonably expect: alluring of tone, careful of words, warmly sympathetic. Huw Montague Rendall’s Papageno proved both lively and thoughtful, likewise respectful of the text, whist appreciating that it is the starting- and not the end-point for a performance. His was a properly physical performance, which nonetheless appreciated that there is much more to the character than that. Salome Jicia’s beautifully sung and acted Pamina and Brenda Rae’s astonishingly accurate, far from entirely unsympathetic Queen of the Night impressed similarly. The Three Boys can sometimes prove a weak link, but not here, Rafael Flutter, Benjamin Jardim, Victor Wiggin comprising an uncommonly fine trio. Krzysztof Baczyk initially sounded a little underpowered as Sarastro, but came into his own in the second act. Choral singing had its moments, in positive and less positive ways.

Brenda Rae (Queen of the Night)

Hartmut Haenchen’s conducting could have been worse. Indeed, I have heard much worse, though a rushed, scrappy Overture, the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House on decidedly sub-par form, was cause for concern. Thereafter, breackneck tempi were not, let us be thankful, the order of the day. Indeed, speeds in themselves were rarely a problem. There was rarely much sense of grace, light, or indeed, where necessary, wisdom and weight in the orchestra and its direction, though; for that, the singers seemed more or less left to themselves. Instead, we trudged from number to number, sometimes even from bar to bar, without much sense of a greater whole. It was dutiful Kapellmeisterei, neither more nor less, a world away from Constantin Trinks’s revelatory Don Giovanni in here July.

An unruly audience did not help, applauding, even cheering etween and sometimes even in the middle of numbers: the second-act finale, for instance. That may occasionally, regrettably, happen, but Haenchen seemed to go out of his way to facilitate it. (He even turned for a bow at one point.) So, still more, did the revival direction, which went so far as to leave pauses without anyone or anything on stage. There is quietly accepting the near-inevitable; there can even be metatheatrical framing; there is also pandering to the lowest common denominator. If The Magic Flute is not about about gently, joyously assisting Bildung or self-cultivation, then I do not know what is. Ultimately, though, this speaks of how tired McVicar’s production has become. Time for a change, I think.

Papageno (Huw Montague Rendall)

When a work such as this is given in the original language—German at least, though little sounded especially Viennese—the dialogue needs greater attention. Fidelio often suffers similarly. Some performers were excellent in this respect, Richter and Montague Rendall first and foremost, and there were other perfectly reasonable performances. A few, however, spoke in bizarrely laboured fashion, at barely half speed. The effect was more weirdly expressionist than humorous. Given the dialogue fulfils a similar role here to recitativo secco, it deserves the same care in terms of pacing and rhythm, as well as pronunciation. Appearing to mean something would be a distinct advantage too, as would more accurate titles for those who insist on laughing uproariously at them.

For what it is worth, most of the audience seemed to love it. I was delighted to hear some excellent singing. The production may be seen on ROH Stream from Friday 1 October and is rep until 7 October.

Salzburg Festival (5) - Soloists/Mozarteum/Pichon: Mozart, Paisiello, Salieri, and Martín y Soler, 18 August 2019

Grosser Saal

La folle giornata

Mozart: Lo sposo deluso, KV 430/424a: Overture, Quartet, ‘Ah che ridere!’, and Aria, ‘Dove mai trovar quel ciglio?’

Paisiello: Il barbiere di Sivilgia: Cavatina, ‘Saper bramate’

Mozart: Recitative and aria, ‘Bella mia fiamma, addio’ – ‘Resta, oh cara’, KV 528; Insertion aria, ‘Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia,’ for Vincente Martín y Soler’s Il burbero di buon cuore, KV 582; L’oca del Cairo: Aria, ‘Ogni momento dicon le donne’; Canzonetta, ‘Ridente la calma,’ KV 152/210a; Nocturne (trio), ‘Se lontan, ben mio, tu sei,’ KV 438

La scuola degli amanti

Mozart: Der Schauspieldirektor, KV 486: Overture; Aria, ‘Männer suchen stets zu naschen’, KV 433/416c; Aria, ‘Io ti lascio, oh cara, addio’, KV Anh.245/621a; Der Schauspieldirektor: Arietta: ‘Da schlägt die Abschiedsstunde’

Salieri: La scuola de’ gelosi: Sextet, ‘Son le donne sopraffine’

Mozart: Lo sposo deluso: ‘Che accidenti! Che tragedia!’; Canzonetta, ‘Più non si trovano,’ KV 549

Il dissoluto punito

Mozart: Thamos, König in Ägypten: Entr’acte: Maestoso-Allegro

Vicente Martín y Soler: Una cosa rara: Sextet, ‘O quanto un sì bel giubilo’

Mozart: Recitative and aria, ‘Così dunque tradisci’ – ‘Aspri rimorsi atroci’, KV 432/421a; Aria, ‘Vado ma dove? oh Dei!’, KV 583; Aria, ‘Per pietà, non ricercate’; L’oca del Cairo: Sextet, ‘Corpo di Satanasso!’; Thamos, König in Ägypten: Chorus, ‘Ne pulvis et cinis superbe te geras’, and final music to the fifth act of the play

Claire de Sévigné, Siobhan Stagg (sopranos)

Lea Desandre (mezzo-soprano)

Mauro Peter (tenor)

Huw Montague Rendall (baritone)

Robert Gleadow (bass)

Choir of Soloists from the Young Artists’ Project

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra

Raphaël Pichon (conductor)

Image: Salzburger Festspiele / Marco Borrelli

Now this is just what the Salzburg Festival should be doing in its longstanding Mozart-Matinee series: one of the most delightful and thought-provoking I have yet to attend. Divided into three ‘scenes’, each accorded as title the subtitle of one of the Da Ponte operas, this concert, from an excellent cast of young singers, the Mozarteum Orchestra, and Raphaël Pichon, offered suggestions as to inspirations, sources, context, and sometimes just affinities between music for a number of principal characters in each opera from other works by Mozart and contemporaries. So, for ‘La folle giornate’, we welcomed to the stage the Count, Countess, Figaro, Susanna, Cherubino, and Dr Bartolo; for ‘La scuola degli amanti’, the full Così sextet; and for ‘Il dissoluto punito’, its entire cast too. Arrangements, where necessary, were credited to Pierre-Henri Dutron and Vincent Manac’h. One may sometimes have quibbled about the programme attribution of certain parts to certain others, but that was part of the fun and enlightenment. We all approach these greatest of operas in different ways, with different ears, with different memories, at different times. One of the great losses of recent years in the Festival has been that of a core Mozart ensemble of singers, often singing the major operas for several years in succession. This concert not only hinted at that time-honoured practice, but also brought many thoughts to mind of Mozart’s own work with particular singers on particular operas.

A decent-sized orchestra for a small hall (strings 8.7.6.4.3) played with verve, vigour, and great sensitivity, all on show in a warm account of the Overture to the operatic fragment, Lo sposo deluso, its second, Andante section winningly prayerful – reminding us that Mozart, like any good man (or woman) of the Enlightenment, made little or no distinction between sacred and secular. (Such, in broadest outline, will be the starting point for my next book.) I may have preferred more string vibrato there, but such was Pichon’s style, and my ears soon adjusted. Moaning that this was not Colin Davis would rather have missed the point on this very particular occasion. Pichon handled very well the transition to the quartet, ‘Ah che ridere!’ from our reassigned Count, Countess, Figaro, and Cherubino, all of whom excelled in concert-ish-performance acting too: the knowing glance, the perfection of timing, and so on. Mozart’s prophetic progression to full vocal ensemble: well, we know very well where that was heading. Huw Montague Rendall’s following aria marked him out as perhaps first among equals for me, though I had no complaints from any of the singers. It was, in any case, an absorbingly full, characterful performance, quite as vivid as any on stage. Mauro Peter’s aria from the ‘other’ Barber of Seville, Giovanni Paisiello’s, was beautifully sung, capturing the sense that this was far more straightforwardly Italian a serenade than anything Mozart would have written – and more seductive than anything Rossini would. Paisiello’s lovely writing for pizzicato strings (as well as mandolin) and clarinet was relished by players and conductor alike. Siobhan Stagg’s concert aria suffered a little from unduly ascetic violins, especially during the recitative, but my goodness, she knew how to use recitative – as, of course, did Mozart, in accompagnato of extraordinary musico-dramatic riches. As for his chromaticism in the aria itself, we were but a stone’s throw already from Wagner and Schoenberg. Lea Desandre’s coloratura was sometimes a little shaky in the insertion aria Mozart wrote for Vicente Martín y Soler’s Il burbero di buon cuore, but her tone was nicely suggestive of Cherubino. A vigorous contribution from Robert Gleadow, a palpably sincere – if a little too ‘white’ for my taste – early canzonetta from Claire de Sévigné, and a refreshing choice for ‘finale’, the delectable Metastasian ‘Se lontan, ben mio, tu sei’, rounded off a first scene that, like Figaro itself, had one straining for more.

On then, after the interval, to ‘La scuola degli amanti’ and ‘Il dissoluto punito’. If Pichon, here as elsewhere, never quite managed to hear, or at least to communicate, the Schauspieldirektor Overture in a single breath, it had pleasing weight and vigour. Gleadow, who, it was revealed was suffering from excruciating back pain, offered a lovely Don Alfonso-ish aria, to which Montague Rendall responded with a poignancy that threatened almost to eclipse his own Guglielmo and touch the (allegedly) more sensitive Ferrando. If I thought the ‘Fiordiligi’ Schauspieldirektor number closer to Pamina, that opera was not on offer here – and the final coloratura made its own point. Salieri’s sextet from his strikingly similar (in plot) 1778 La scuola de’ gelosi, to a libretto by Caterino Mazzolà (librettist for Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito, after Metastasio), was, like the Paisiello number, more straightforwardly Italian, less contrapuntal – but then, it would be, and not only because it was written for Venice. Mozart, upon a return to Lo sposo deluso, followed on seamlessly, almost immediately demonstrating who was the greater composer and dramatist, but then, he would. A Metastasian closing number, again written for quartet and three basset horns, offered prayerful continuity with the first scene as well as a degree of contrast in the same respect. What could be more apt?

We stepped back slightly in time for the final scene, to the second of the three Da Ponte operas, or rather to music in its orbit. For ‘Il dissoluto punito’, we opened and indeed closed with some of the astonishing incidental music for Thamos, King of Egypt. Here was the full-bloodedly Romantic Mozart we knew from the piano concertos as well as from Don Giovanni, the Mozart ETA Hoffmann had no doubt was of his party. On hearing the sextet from Martín y Soler’s Una cosa rara, we might well by now have replied, like Leporello on hearing a snatch of ‘Non più andrai’, ‘Questa poi la conosco pur troppo’, so often have we heard its quotation in Don Giovanni. But why? What a lovely opportunity, not least in so compelling a rendition, to hear the original, genuinely admired, it would seem, by Mozart. Its move to the minor was perhaps especially interesting – and quite differently accomplished from any instance I could immediately recall in Mozart. Gleadow’s aria, once again, spoke wonderfully on its own terms; no one would surely have known the conditions under which he was having to sing. Desandre’s, which followed, displayed here absolute control of her instrument and clarity of line, was well as a wonderful way with Italian. Peter (or ‘Don Ottavio’) offered typical sincerity in his preceding a splendid clarion call (Montague Rendall) and full ensemble from the unfinished L’oca del Cairo. I do not think I have ever heard the music leap from the page with such joy. That, in a sense, was the ‘finale’; but, in an inversion of the practice of Don Giovanni, we returned to the tragic, minor mode, Montague Rendall leading his colleagues, an additional quartet of vocalists included, in a magnificent, Gluck-haunted ‘Ne pulvis et cinis superbe te geras’. If this were not sacred music in the fullest sense, I do not know what would be.

La bohème and Poro, Komische Oper, 19 and 20 April 2019

Komische Oper

Image: Iko Freese/drama-berlin.de

Mimì – Heather Engebretson

Musetta – Hera Hyesang Park

Rodolfo – Jonathan Tetleman

Marcello – Huw Montague Rendall

Schaunard – Michael Borth

Colline – Samuli Taskinen

Alcindoro – Carsten Sabrowski

Parpignol – Emil Ławecki

Merchant – Mathias Spenke

Customs Sergeant – Jan-Frank Süße

Customs Guard – Tim Dietrich

Barrie Kosky (director)

Rufus Didwiszus (set designs)

Victoria Behr (costumes)

Simon Berger (dramaturgy)

Alessandro Carletti (lighting)

Poros – Dominik Köninger

Mahamaya – Ruzan Mantashyan

Sir Alexander – Eric Jurenas

Nimbavati – Idunnu Münch

Gandharta – Philipp Meierhöfer

Timagenes – João Fernandes

Harry Kupfer (director)

Hans Schavernoch (set designs)

Yan Tax (costumes)

Simon Berger (dramaturgy)

Jürgen Hoffmann (lighting)

Thomas Reimer (video)

Children’s Chorus (chorus director: Dagmar Fiebach) and Chorus (chorus director: David Cavelius) of the Komische Oper, Berlin 

Orchestra of the Komische Oper, Berlin

Jordan de Souza and Jörg Halubeck (conductors).

Image: Monika Rittershaus

I do not usually review opera productions together like this, even when they might be thought to have something more obviously in common than stagings of Puccini (La bohème) and Handel (Poro; in German, Poros). On this occasion, however, it occurred to me that it might be interesting, even illuminating, to compare recently opened new productions by the Komische Oper’s present Intendant, Barrie Kosky, and one of his most celebrated predecessors, Harry Kupfer. Whether that should prove to be the case will, as always, be for the reader to decide.

An obvious comparison, or rather contrast, lies in the works and the language in which they were given. La bohème could hardly be more central to the opera repertory; finely crafted, greatly moving work though it may be, one might think it appeared on our stages a little too often. Poro, on the other hand, is one of Handel’s lesser-known works: not entirely without reason, I have to say. Puccini’s opera certainly benefited from being given in Italian, original language productions having been one of Kosky’s most welcome innovations during his tenure. Puccini in German is, for many of us, no more alluring a prospect than Puccini in English. Poro(s), however, was given, at Kupfer’s request, in German translation, harking back to his time as an assistant director at the Halle Handel Festival – which was the basis of his choice of work. It has its moments, perhaps especially in the third act, but whilst the arias are rarely unattractive, many of them could happily be transferred from one ‘character’ – does anyone really care about these people? – to another without loss. I suspect that some, at least, of the interest in this opera lies in Metastasio’s Italian – not knowing the original, I can only speculate – and that its translation not only into German, but into a somewhat prosaic contemporary German, detracts from the poetic worth and meaning. There is no need to be fundamentalist about such matters, but this seemed more an exercise in nostalgia than a real dramatic choice.

Image: Monika Rittershaus

That impression was heightened, I regret to say, by Kupfer’s production. No one would deny his place in operatic history. Moreover, recent stagings, if hardly showing him at his very best, have had much to offer. This, however, really does nothing other than move the action, such as it is, from the India of Alexander the Great’s time to that of the British Raj’s establishment. Orientalist scenic backdrops and costumes show no critical distance. Alexander’s demotion to ‘Sir Alexander’, officer of the English Crown, betokens nothing more than a change of uniform. A Union flag unfurled at the end has a little more ironic edge, given the more than usually absurd device of the lieto fine, but a brief, unmotivated shift to cricket whites earlier on at least verged on the embarrassment. Given the thinness – let us be kind – of musical characterisation here, a strong hand from the director is really needed for a critical, modern audience. What we saw here might, with the possible yet by no means certain exception of the updating, have been seen fifty or sixty years ago. Any play with the potentially fascinating disjuncture between antiquity, and two stages in British imperial history (the 1730s and the 1850s) was, so far as I could discern, entirely absent. Maybe it would have been better off staged in English…

Image: Iko Freese/drama-berlin.de

Kosky, by contrast, proved more able to draw compelling drama from his work, whilst still working essentially within a framework of what we might call ‘fidelity’ to it. The story is told clearly, bar a somewhat confusing excision of Benoît, the students’ landlord, his part sung instead by Colline (in character as Colline, unless I misunderstood). But the age old dramatic conflict between private and public comes very much to life visually and viscerally, as do questions of what we see, what we remember – and how. Photography, aptly enough for the age, lies at the heart; or, perhaps better, enables us to understand what we think of, rightly or wrongly, as the heart. The first and fourth scenes take place in Rodolfo’s studio – cramped like the garret it should be and so rarely is – and that is how Mimì comes to life: an image, invested with whatever it is he and we see in her. Not that she lacks agency, but we are left in little doubt as to the maleness of this Parisian gaze. The city, moreover, comes to life – or recedes into our memory – through faded, yet atmospheric daguerreotypes. Debussy’s claim to Manuel de Falla, cited in a programme interview with conductor, Jordan de Souza, that no one had represented Paris so well musically as Puccini, seemed very much to the fore here: past, present, even future brought together in dramatic unity that yet permitted for disjuncture, for play, for deception. The fleshpots were there too, memorably in the rotating orgy of the second act and beyond the stage for the third, but their (near-)presence was an integral part of the drama of the city, of these individuals, of their interaction, not in any sense a source of titillation. There was something painterly and indeed photographic in a dramatic sense – unlike the ‘jungle’ backdrop and statue of Poro.

De Souza was an unquestionable asset to the drama too. Rarely if ever have I heard this opera so well conducted. Often, with profit, one hears certain aspects of Puccini highlighted: Puccini the Wagnerian, Puccini the modernist, Puccini the colourist, Puccini the melodist, and so on. Here, however much of an illusion this may be – and, more important, however great the art that conceals art – it seemed that we heard not only those and other facets to the composer’s artistry held in balance and in dramatic contest, but that one heard this Bohème, this particular set of performances and production, in such balance. I can say no fairer than that. By contrast, Jörg Halubeck heightened rather than lessened the sense of the formulaic in Poro. There was rarely anything to which to object, but nor was there anything about which to enthuse. A few more strings, more warmly played, would not have gone amiss; that, it seemed, was to be attributed to Halubeck’s ‘period’ puritanism rather than to any such inclination on the players’ behalf.

If solo singing came across more strongly, with greater personality, in La bohème, that would perhaps be to be expected. There was nonetheless nothing to disappoint in Poro, even if in most cases, I suspected a more invigorating conductor (and director) might have helped. Soprano, Ruzan Mantashyan and mezzo, Idunnu Münch were for me the pick of the bunch, nicely contrasted and yet complementary. If only Handel (or rather Metastasio) had been more inclined to duets and ensembles; or, indeed, to choruses, in which one of Handel’s greatest strengths surely lies. (That is surely not the least reason for the general superiority of his oratorios.) The young cast for La bohème had wonderful chemistry as well as personality, Jonathan Tetelman and Huw Montague Rendall touching in kindred spirit and individuality as Rodolfo and Marcello. One could believe in both, feel with them, in a way never possible in the Handel opera. (And yes, I know that is not really the point.) Heather Engebretson’s Mimì duly lit up the room, personification, as it were, of the candle that insisted on self-extinction, whilst Hera Hyesang Park balanced with great expertise and sympathy the competing demands of Musetta’s personality. In short, the whole was greater than the sum of its considerable parts, whereas in Poro, both ultimately fell short. That said, both performances met with enthusiastic reception from the audience. There is doubtless room for both; there were unquestionably audiences for both too.