Iolanta and L’Enfant et les sortilèges, Royal Academy of Music, 18 March 2019

Susie Sainsbury Theatre

Images: Robert Workman

Iolanta – Samantha Quillish

Brigitta – Emilie Cavallo

Laura – Yuki Akimoto

Marta – Leila Zanette

Vaudémont – Shengzhi Ren

Alméric – Joseph Buckmaster

Robert – Sung Kyu Choi

Ibn-Hakia – Darwin Leonard Prakash

Bertrand – Niall Anderson

King René – Thomas Bennett

L’enfant – Olivia Warburton

La princesse, La chauve-souris – Alexandra Oomens

Le feu, Le rossignol – Lina Dambrauskaitė

La théière, Le rainette, Le petit vieillard – Ryan Williams

Maman – Tabitha Reyonolds

La tasse chinoise, La libellulue – Hannah Poulsom

La bergère, Une pastourelle, La chouette – Aimée Fisk

La chatte, L’écureuil – Gabrielė Kupšytė

L’horloge comtoise, Le chat – James Geidt

Le fauteuil, L’arbre – Will Pate

Oliver Platt (director)
Alison Cummins (designs)

Jake Wiltshire (lighting)

Emma Brunton (movement and puppetry)

Royal Academy Opera Chorus and Sinfonia

Gareth Hancock (conductor)

Tchaikovsky’s one-act Iolanta seems to have gained in popularity recently. London, at any rate, has two different productions this year: this, at the Royal Academy of Music, and at Holland Park this summer. As ever, the question with a one-act opera is what, if anything, to pair it with. (That hardly applies with Salome or Elektra, though couplings have been known, but it will generally do so with shorter works.) Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges is a popular choice, and rightly so, from the one-act stable. Without much – although not without any – in the way of overt connection being made, the two operas complemented each other nicely, both proving excellent showcases for their young singers, both proving substantially more than that too.

Oliver Platt, one of our most accomplished young directors – last year, I saw two (!) fine productions of Così fan tutte (here and here) – once again offers us stagings both intelligent and involving. Like their hero(ine)s, they take their own paths, yet where those paths intersect, the results are thoughtful and intriguing. Iolanta seems to me greatly misunderstood – or at least too often mostly understood in a way that limits rather than sets it free. The subtext seems obvious – a blind girl, kept safe by her father, eventually freed from her imprisonment by a stranger – and yet, too often ignored. Here, it certainly is not, a greenhouse, a place of hothouse care and incarceration, placed firmly on stage, its flourishing yet stifled plants both inspiring and warning, could Iolanta but see them. Likewise the surgical gloves of her companions, weirdly static in aestheticised presentiment of Maeterlinck and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. But when, finally she can see, finally she can become – in the eyes of men, in the eyes of society more generally – a ‘woman’, Iolanta turns suddenly away from the sun’s blinding rays, from adulthood. It is too late: orchestra and chorus have rejoiced, she gives out a cry of anguish, but no one cares – other, perhaps than us, in the audience. Now she is on her own, awakened, seeing; or rather, captive once again, this time without the alleged protection and solace of childhood.

The boy in L’Enfant et les sortilèges – a trouser role, naturally, in this most elegantly queer of operas – is on his own too; or is he? This is certainly an opera very much about childhood, an irredeemably adult idea, rather than a children’s opera. And so there is, or should be, always something enticing and yet disturbing about that penetration of an imagined child’s lair, here very much centred upon the imaginings of his bedroom. Here, the constructivism of our imagination, that of the work’s creators, most likely that of the ‘child’ too, is put centre stage. We see, lightly worn, the workings: puppetry, other short-trouser children, books, fabrics, a tent from his – our? – own life, creating a world that is, yes, imagined, but also equally his, Ravel’s, Colette’s, our own. It is never predictable, always with an element of the dream, of the unconscious, yet one can hazard a guess where it has come from, at least in retrospect. We are all psychoanalysts now, are we not? And when the Princess emerges, from the tent in the garden – here, as in Iolanta, a place of magical enticement, which may or may not be quite what it seems – she is dressed as Iolanta was. Will the boy do to her what the earlier princess’s prince charming was set to do to her? Most probably: not, however, quite yet, for childhood, whatever that might be, and its enchantments, its gifts, still reign. Light and dark take a related, yet different path. At least, we believe so…

These are not in any way easy operas for students, however accomplished, to perform. The young musicians of the Royal Academy acquitted themselves very well indeed. Without repeating the cast list, I should like to mention a handful of singers who stood out for me. All, however, performed creditably, whether individually or as a company. Samantha Quillish’s Iolanta was heartfelt, moving, possessed both of heft and subtlety: everything, at least, anyone could reasonably have asked. Shengzhi Ren’s Vaudémont proved honest, ardent, again moving: just what the Tchaikovsky brothers wanted, allowing us, should we wish, to question their assumptions whilst affording them the dignity of being taken seriously. Thomas Bennett’s King René grew in strength and compassion as the evening progressed, whilst Sung Kyu Choi’s Robert offered quite a taste of what might have been, had characters’ choices been different. Olivia Warburton’s Child (L’Enfant) impressed in every possible way: her French, her demeanour, her elegance of line. This was a character, both ‘real’ and constructed, in whom one could believe, ably supported and abetted by a near faultless cast.

It was perhaps inevitable that the orchestra, conducted by Gareth Hancock, would sometimes fall a little short. Orchestras twice its size will find these tough nuts to crack, let alone together. There was much to savour, though, and if I sometimes missed the flexibility of the finest Tchaikovsky performances, that was hardly the point here. Hancock supported his singers with skill and care, permitting them, like those flowers in the greenhouse and the garden, to bloom as they would. As to what happens next, we shall see – and hear.

Mavra and Iolanta, Guildhall, 2 November 2016

Silk Street Theatre, Guildhall

Ibn-Hakia (Joseph Padfield), Iolanta (Elizabeth Skinner), and King René (David Ireland)
Images: Clive Barda

Mavra

Parasha – Anna Sideris
Vassili – Dominick Felix
Mother – Jade Moffat
Neighbour – Bianca Andrew

Iolanta

Iolanta – Elizabeth Skinner
King René – David Ireland
Marta – Jade Moffat
Brigitta – Marho Arsane
Laura – Chloë Treharne
Bertrand – Bertie Watson
Alméric – Eduard Mas Bacardit
Ibn-Hakia – Joseph Padfield
Vaudémont – John Findon
Robert – Daniel Shelvey
 

Kelly Robinson (director)

Bridget Kimak (designs)
Declan Randall (lighting)
K. Yoland (video designs)

Chorus and Orchestra of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Dominic Wheeler (conductor)

 

The Guildhall has shown typical enterprise in programming: two very rarely staged one-act operas in an intriguing double-bill. As I never tire of pointing out, much of the best London opera is to be found in our conservatoires. This term, we have already had an outstanding Royal Academy Alcina; later this month, we shall hear La finta giardiniera at the Royal College.

Any mild disappointment here was occasioned only by Stravinsky’s Mavra itself. I do not begrudge, indeed I wholeheartedly welcome, its staging. Although the Philharmonia recently performed it, I was unable to attend, and I have never previously had the opportunity. If there is a weaker work by the composer in his maturity, I am delighted to say that I have forgotten it. (I might dislike Orpheus, but I recognise its craft. Even Jeu de cartes has a good deal more going for it.) Describing it, as a short buffa work at the cusp of his Ballet russes and neo-Classical tendencies, makes it sound more interesting than it is. It does not overstay its welcome, perhaps, being so short, but the motoric elements here really do sound as if the composer is on auto-pilot. At best, one might find a passing correspondence with L’Histoire du soldat, even Petrushka, but it is trivial stuff really, with a trivial story, concerning a pair of lovers who trick the girl’s mother into accepting her hussar into the house as a new domestic servant.

 

Parasha (Anna Sideris) and Vassili (Dominck Felix)

Here, it was given, as the composer preferred, in the vernacular. Vocal performances were all spirited, well attuned to the trickiness – here, somewhat pointless trickiness, I tend to think – of Stravinsky’s writing. Anna Sideris and Dominick Felix proved agile of voice and on their feet. Jade Moffat and Bianca Andrew offered fine ‘character’ support as Mother and Neighbour. Solo and ensemble demands were navigated readily, in lively combination to the considerable amount of stage action required of them by Kelly Robinson’s updated (1960s?), production. Bridget Kimak’s colourful designs engaged the eye, and if there was not a great deal to the staging beyond what one saw, it is not clear that there could have been. There were a few occasions on which orchestral rhythms and ensembles might have been tighter still, but under Dominic Wheeler, the uneasy marriage of clockwork and Russian colour in its last, equivocal hurrah generally came across well. I shall leave the final word with Stravinsky, writing to his publisher in 1969, imploring him to publish the work: ‘Of course the music is not and will never be a success and there may be no demand or justification for printing it; and if I say that worse music than Mavra is performed you may say that better music is also not performed. Still, I would like to see the work in print.’

Neighbour (Bianca Andrew) and Mother (Jade Moffat)

 

Iolanta, by contrast, has great music indeed, fully worthy, at its best, of the composer of Eugene Onegin. I noticed far less the run-of-the-mill quality of some exchanges than I had in such exalted surroundings as the Paris Opéra earlier this year, which is surely tribute to impressive performances indeed. There, in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s searching staging – somewhat slow-burn in Iolanta itself, but cleverly paving the way – the opera had been paired with The Nutcracker, as indeed had been the case at the latter’s premiere in 1892. In a programme note, Robinson noted that both plots are – I should, more cautiously say, might be considered – ‘variants of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale’. I wish, then, that the two stagings were more obviously connected, drawing out connections rather than leaving it at that. That said, there was much to admire in Iolanta in itself, updated to a modern hospital ward, the princess awaiting her awakening under the watchful – and not-so-watchful – eyes of her nurses and some impressive-looking medical equipment. As in the opera itself, it is not entirely clear to what extent, if any, the Moorish doctor, Ibn-Hakia, plies anything other than the psychological tools of his trade, although an operation certainly takes place here at the right time. Video projections and lighting work powerfully later on, both to illustrate, simply yet unforgettably, the blinding first light and the all-important presence of the eye. Iolanta’s? God’s? We seem free to choose.



Vaudémont (John Findon)

 

Most importantly, space is permitted for an excellent cast to work Tchaikovsky’s wonders. The central pair of lovers both proved impressive indeed. Elizabeth Skinner faltered on one occasion, yet otherwise proved moving and generous of spirit. Her portrayal of the princess’s blindness was unerring; no one could have failed to be on her side. John Findon, as Vaudémont, was, quite simply, outstanding. His ardent tenor was just the thing, rising thrillingly above the orchestra – remember how young these singers are! – and yet capable of considerable subtlety. Their Russian, like that of the rest of the cast, seemed to me excellent too: I certainly managed to follow its meaning (without, alas, any real knowledge of the language) when the surtitles failed. David Ireland’s King René was another generous, keenly observed portrayal; there was no doubting his love for his daughter and consequently his plight. All of the singers acted well as a company, listening to each other and responding in kind. Eduard Mas Bacardit, Bertie Watson, and Daniel Shelvey offered, to my ear, particularly fine performances, but there was not a weak link in the cast.

Robert (Daniel Shelvey)

I occasionally wondered whether the orchestra might be too small, but it rose to the occasion at the great climaxes, showing instead that Wheeler, ever attentive to the score’s ebb and flow, had been keeping it down, emphasising, perfectly reasonably, chamber tendencies, or at least possibilities, within.

Iolanta/The Nutcracker, Opéra National de Paris, 11 March 2016

 

Images: © Agathe Poupeney / OnP

 

Palais Garnier

 

King René – Alexander Tsambalyuk

Iolanta – Sonya Yoncheva
Vaudémont – Arnold Rutkowski
Robert – Andrei Jilikovschi
Ibn-Hakia – Vito Priante
Alméric – Roman Shulakov
Bertrand – Gennady Bezzubenkov
Martha – Elena Zaremba
Brigitta – Anna Patalong
Laura – Paola Gardina

Marie – Marion Barbeau

Vaudémont – Stéphane Bullion
Drosselmeyer – Nicolas Paul
Father – Aurélien Houette
Mother – Alice Renavand
Robert – Takeru Coste
Sister – Caroline Bance

Dmitri Tcherniakov (director, set designs)

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Edouard Lock, Arthur Pita (choreography)
Elena Zaitseva (costumes)
Gleb Filshtinsky (lighting)
Andrey Zelenin (video)

Chorus and Children's Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris (chorus master: Alessandro Di Stefano)

Dancers of the Opéra National de Paris

Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine

Alain Altinoglu (conductor)

 

The spirit of Gerard Mortier seems truly renewed at the Paris Opéra under Stéphane Lissner: not restored, for, times having changed, such an attempt would be meaningless, but renewed. Mortier’s intendancy was not perfect, of course; far from it. Any artistic endeavour that takes the risks necessary for success will experience failures too, something grim bureaucrats seem incapable of understanding. Nor, I am sure, will Lissner’s be; again, how could it be? However, even on the basis of the two evenings I have experienced so far, this and the great opening declaration of intent, Moses und Aron, the wilderness years of Nicolas Joël now, thank goodness, seem another, almost forgotten era.

If Romeo Castellucci’s Moses, somewhat belying his previous operatic reputation, proved remarkably faithful, in an almost traditional sense, to the work, then Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Tchaikovsky double-bill fuses fidelity and infidelity in what was arguably more daring fashion. The dialectic between the two comes often to the fore. First, one might point to the historical fidelity of pairing the two works. Iolanta was performed before the 1892 premiere of the Nutcracker. Here Tcherniakov combines the works in ways both expected and unexpected; indeed, toying with our expectations, confounding them and yet remaining faithful in some senses to them, might, according to taste, be seen as another principal theme of the evening or, perhaps better, as a manifestation of that previously mentioned. It would not, for instance, take a great deal of thought, save for the hosts of opera-goers unaccustomed to or even hostile to thought, to guess that a girl’s or young woman’s sexual awakening might be at the heart of what we see. And, indeed it is. Iolanta is an opera put on for Clara or, rather, as I learned afterwards upon seeing the programme, ‘Marie’. (Nothing I read in the synopsis went against what I had seen and understood; it confirmed the directness and the complexity of the storytelling and analysis, but was not necessary.) Yet it is not Christmas, as we should have expected and as we seem to have been led to expect. The set remains the same initially, the show having taken place chez Marie, but one thing that disappears is the one thing that has surely pointed to a connection, the Christmas Tree (and indeed, the thing we perhaps most strongly associate with a ‘traditional’ Nutcracker). It is, instead, Marie’s birthday, as a cake with candles makes clear. A birthday is, of course, a rite of passage if ever there were one – and, for many of us, a time to recall past horrors, even to experience new ones, at least as much as to ‘enjoy’ the festivities.

 

 

Iolanta itself takes place relatively ‘traditionally’. We see no sign of mediæval Provence. (Do self-styled ‘protectors of the work’ really know anything about mediæval Provence?) However, we see what, for much of the history of opera, has been something approaching the norm: an opera set in a period and with assumptions comprehensible to its (initial) audience. What has now become one of the most obvious settings for an opera, the time and place, more or less, of composition was long the default before historicism – always a word and idea to cover a multitude of sins – took root, in the nineteenth century. The phrases that perhaps jar – where is the ‘cave’ in this well-to-do drawing room? – seem intended to jar, although who knows? For the most part, we are settled, perhaps a little too settled, in the comfort of a Victorian-age family Christmas. The fun and games at the start, the blind girl led by her nursemaid, Martha, and friends, Brigitta and Laura, provide an image of a life that might seem perfect, unless one looks. Then one sees and hears a room full of love and, as times goes on, a room full of despair, claustrophobia the handmaiden to the well-meaning yet disastrous conspiracy that has denied Iolanta knowledge of her condition. Knowledge, at least since Eden, is necessary, whether we like it or no; and knowledge, together with romantic, indeed sexual love, will be necessary to rescue her. Such is the task of Vaudémont. He knows not who she is; she knows not who he is. His anguish at her plight is real, even shocking. Even when one ‘knows’ the opera, one feels that his reaction to her blindness might lead him to forsake her. He does not, of course, but Tcherniakov’s typically strong, even overwhelming, Personenregie has one believe one is experiencing the story for the first time, as in some sense one is. One cannot step twice into the same stream twice, however ‘traditional’ that stream might look.

The first act ends at the crucial point of lyrical exaltation, self-exaltation and yet discovery in each other: Iolanta and Vaudémont in love, before her cure. It was with this scene that Tchaikovsky actually began work on the opera, underlining its centrality. In a sense, Tcherniakov underlines its centrality by shifting the framework. (It is not in any case, central in terms of placing within the opera; there is not so very long to go in the opera following this climax.) Its resemblance to an Anton Rubinstein song, ‘Longing’ greatly annoyed Rimsky-Korsakov; allusion, though, is surely the thing, given the subject matter. This, at any rate, is the beginning of the breakthrough; regaining her sight is not inevitable at this stage, but it is this which makes that possible. All then happens ‘as it should’.

The Nutcracker then begins part-way through this second act of the evening. Identities shift, dancers replacing lookalike – or dress-alike – singers, or occasionally not. Marie, who has been physically engaging with the characters has begun her awakening too. The love between her and Iolanta, or the actress/singer playing her, seems real, genuine. So, in sexual form, it soon becomes clear, is that between her and her own Vaudémont, the ginger hair so noticeable before the ‘break’ the strongest clue of identity. But the party has its own course to take, some games nastier than others, some reproductions more faithful than others. Tcherniakov’s use of the LP to usher in some ‘hit’ numbers reminds us necessarily of Walter Benjamin’s celebrated – too celebrated? – essay. The guests go away, but they do not. Just when Marie and her lover might finally be together, they return; who is spoiling the fun of whom?

 

 

Then, catastrophe. If sight, the visual beauty of creation, had been won by Vaudémont for Iolanta, we seem now to move backwards. Not to Marie being blind, of course; we do not have that sort of banal symmetry, which would make no sense in this context. But the moment of shock is replicated; and what is more explosive than what must come next? The festivities disappear – just as they would have done in The Nutcracker ‘itself’ – but we find ourselves in a more desolate landscape. Nuclear winter? Figuratively, at least. Snow falls, yes, but there seems little hope, at least until Marie finds her way in this new world. (Remember Brünnhilde’s trauma at loss of her divinity? Remember her fear at the prospect of losing her virginity, let alone the consequences in Götterdämmerung?) Multiple Maries, multiple Vaudémonts, multiple other characters, familiar or not from ‘before’, have their choreographed couplings, some briefer than other, learning (perhaps) as they go on. Monstrous toys – think of how we, as ‘adults’, often consider ‘toys’ – play their part, just as they did in ‘the original’; yet all is new, strange. When Marie returns ‘home’ – it has been a dream, a fantasy, or something like that, yet which is which? – she knows she will never be the same again. So do we. Tcherniakov’s whirlwind, literal as well as metaphorical, has changed her and, in many of our cases, changed us.

 

I have never seen ballet treated so seriously, so convincingly, as a dramatic art form, and again, what could be more faithful to Tchaikovsky, adamant that the genre was anything but a mere divertissement? The land of Lully, Rameau, and Gluck (well, sort of the land of Lully and Gluck!), the land of Béjart, the lands of the Ballet Russes do both genres proud and create something both old and new (but enough of Die Meistersinger until my next review). Choreography, from Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Edouard Lock, Arthur Pita does not stand out as a ‘thing in itself’, as so often in opera-ballet collaborations (when we have them at all). Nor does dance itself. The excellent dancers contribute as much as the excellent singers; I shall forego detailed consideration only on account of my lack of expertise. Suffice it to say, I was at least as captivated by Marion Barbeau and Stéphane Bullion, and not only in their pas de deux but throughout, as by Sonya Yoncheva and Arnold Rutkowski. Indeed, given the placing in the dramatic hierarchy of the two works, I was perhaps still more so, without that denoting a judgement upon performances as such. Yoncheva’s Iolanta was heartfelt, and made us, or at least me, feel with her. This was a lovable character, one felt, and a good deal of the drama, so carefully directed by Tcherniakov, flowed from that. The sincerity of Rutkowski was equally palpable. There was no weak singing, even where Tchaikovsky’s score sags in inspiration (as it surely does from time to time). Everyone played his or her part and played it well.

 

If there were times during the opera when I wondered whether Alain Altinoglu’s conducting, always sure of purpose, were just a little too refined, that was, on reflection, a foolish criticism. What is one supposed to do? Unconvincingly imitate the rough-and-readiness of a (doubtless ill-remembered) old Bolshoi recording? What we saw and heard disabused us of such notions. There was in any case no gainsaying the excellence of the orchestral playing in every section; this is surely one of the world’s greatest opera house orchestras and deserves its praises to be sung as such. Moreover, Altinoglu’s long-term strategy, just like Tcherniakov’s truly came into its own in the second work; Tchaikovsky is, almost of all composers, not one to be too comfortably enjoyed, lest what really matters about his music, what it can say to us now, recede from our view and our hearing. One can perhaps exaggerate the score’s proto-modernism, just as one can exaggerate Stravinsky’s closeness to Tchaikovsky. (Was there ever a slyer composer when it came to influences, to throwing one off the track, perhaps even to throwing himself off the track?) But there are, I think, undeniable neo-Classical elements and tendencies, especially in a particular sort of performance. There were times, actually, when I thought more of Busoni’s ‘Young Classicism’, of his Arlecchino and Turandot, as well as Strauss’s Ariadne – and certainly not just on account of its metatheatricality. That may speak more of my own concerns than those of the staging or musical performance ‘as such’ but again, that speaks of the welcome openness of both. The slipperiness of the work-concept served, visually and aurally, to reinforce our admiration for the works we heard.

 

Salzburg Festival (1) - Le Rossignol and Iolanta (concert performances), 20 August 2011

Grosses Festspielhaus

Nightingale – Julia Novikohova
Cook – Julia Lezhneva
Fisherman – Antonio Poli
Emperor of China – Andrei Bondarenko
Chamberlain – Andrè Schuen
Bonze – Yuri Vorobiev
Death – Maria Radner
Soprano solo – Claudio Galli
Contralto solo – Theresa Holzhauser
Tenor solo, First Japanese Emissary – Andrew Owens
Second Japanese Emissary – Derek Welton
Third Japanese Emissary – Elliot Madore

Iolanta – Anna Netrebko
Count Vaudémont – Piotr Beczala
King René – John Relyea
Ibn-Hakia – Evgeny Nikitin
Robert, Duke of Burgundy – Alxey Markov
Alméric – Antonio Poli
Bertrand – Yuri Vorobiev
Martha – Maria Radner
Julia Lezhneva – Brigitta
Rachel Frankel – Laura

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus master: Jörn H Andresen)
Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
Ivor Bolton (conductor)


I first heard The Nightingale as a schoolboy, watching a BBC television broadcast conducted by Boulez. Though I instantly fell in love with the work, and have remained fond of it, opportunities to hear it seem bewilderingly infrequent: this indeed was my first live performance, and even then only in concert. Though the singing was often very good, I am afraid to say it was let down by the listless direction of Ivor Bolton. I had not thought of him previously in terms of Russian music, and shall certainly not do so now. Colours that should sound beautiful, ravishing even, were here merely nondescript. If one strained, there might be a little Debussy to be heard here and there, but one should not have to strain. The Wagnerisms – and there are many more than one might expect – were nowhere to be heard at all. As for post-Rimsky orientalism, of whatever persuasion, this was by comparison as grey as a slab of concrete. That extraordinary opening to the second act, in which St Petersburg telegraph wire should meet a Franco-Russian Orient fell utterly flat, given the lack of harmonic urgency. God forbid that Bolton should be let loose – and this conducting was loose indeed – upon The Rite of Spring. Nor was there any real sense of harmonic progression. That the singing still registered must be accounted a compliment to the cast. Julia Novikhova naturally stood out as the Nightingale: hers is a beautiful, clean, agile voice, ideally suited to the role. Maria Radner’s Death chilled yet somehow also exuded beguiling warmth, whilst Andrè Schuen impressed in the small yet far from insignificant role of the Chamberlain. They deserved better, though, much better. What generally seems to fly by seemed to last forever.

If anything, Bolton’s conducting of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta began in still worse fashion, though it would improve. The orchestral introduction sounded – and looked – as if it were conducted by a band master, beat to beat, laborious and with no sense of what might connect one note to another, let alone one phrase or period to another. This certainly was not pointillistic – that might have been interesting – but merely dull and inept. Forget the idea that Tchaikovsky’s melodies might soar: or at least rely entirely upon the singers for them to do so. The Mozarteum Orchestra did what it could; indeed, its sound was often gorgeous, if a little on the small side. But it and the singers were more often than not constricted. When, later on, Bolton seemed to attempt something a little more unbuttoned and idiomatic, his flailing around was both visually off-putting and seemingly disconnected from the results. Again, the singers provided a great deal of compensation. Anna Netrebko was simply outstanding in the title role, whose style and character she inhabited as completely as I could imagine (in the circumstances). It is a long time since I have heard a soprano soar so effortlessly and brilliantly above a Romantic orchestra, though her intimacy was equally affecting. Netrebko clearly itched to portray the blind princess on stage, but nevertheless succeeded both in moving and in exhilarating. Indeed, it was in her duet with Piotr Beczala as Vaudémont that the best was brought out of him: thrillingly operatic in a (mostly) good sense, though the audience’s philistine applause impeded what dramatic flow they had managed to impart. Bolton should have driven the music on regardless, but simply stopped and then started again. Earlier on, Beczala sounded unduly Italianate: more a ‘star tenor’, albeit with sometimes alarmingly wide vibrato, than the embodiment of a character, his persistent vocal sob a poor parody of late Pavarotti, minus the personality. John Relyea, however, proved a splendidly sonorous King René, who yet somehow managed to be outshone by the stunning, virile Duke Robert of Alexey Markov. His aria is perhaps a little too much dramatically, but it impressed tremendously on its own terms. Let us hope for a staging soon, but from a conductor with some feeling, and preferably more than that, for Tchaikovsky – and either a more appropriate coupling or none at all.