The Golden Cockerel, English Touring Opera, 5 March 2022

Hackney Empire Theatre

King Dodon – Grant Doyle
Prince Guidon – Thomas Elwin
Prince Aphron – Jerome Knox
General Polkan – Edward Hawkins
Amelfa – Amy J Payne
Golden Cockerel – Alys Mererid Roberts
Queen of Shemakha – Paula Sides
Astrologer – Robert Lewis

James Conway (director)
Neil Irish (set designs and costumes)
Rory Beaton (lighting)

Chorus and Orchestra of English Touring Opera
Gerry Cornelius (conductor)

No one could have known at the time of planning—a couple of years ago, I think—but in current circumstances it was eerie, even uncanny, to sit down to a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov’s final opera, The Golden Cockerel. Composed in the aftermath of the disastrous Russo-Japanese war and only premiered, following extended disputes with the censor, in 1909 after Rimsky’s death, it portrays a lazy king persuaded once again to defeat in war following claims, once again, of enemy incursions at the borders of his realm. King Dodon and his two sons are, to be blunt, idiots; their advisors, official and otherwise (the Golden Cockerel, brought as an Astrologer’s gift) are not necessarily any better. A foreign queen who conquers the realm through conquering the king’s heart stands a little close to home too. Situations differ, of course, but it would have been strange indeed not to draw contemporary parallels, if only in hope that a cockerel might come to peck Russia’s latest autocrat to death. ‘What will the new dawn bring? What shall we do without a tsar?’ 

I found it fascinating, if not entirely convincing. In Iain Farrington’s extremely skilful chamber reorchestration, one would often not have known—at least up in the gods—that one was not hearing a larger orchestra. Rimsky’s meeting-point between the folkloric and more modernist, Stravinskian tendencies, mediated as so often by darker, Wagnerian roots, both delighted in itself and posed intriguing dramatic questions of its own, not least in combination with Pushkin. Gerry Cornelius’s command of detail and sweep in the score impressed greatly, as did the playing of the English Touring Opera orchestra. If the referential motivic elements of the composer’s writing sometimes seemed a little obvious, that was hardly a fault of the performance. The English translation by Antál Dorati and James Gibson sounded very dated, making the opera sound unfortunately close to Gilbert and Sullivan. Thank goodness we have now gone beyond attention-seeking rhyming couplets. 

Alas, the second act seemed considerably over-extended for its material. Whenever Rimsky comes closer to Verdi—as, for instance, in The Tsar’s Bride—his musical drama becomes less appealing to me, often bordering on the tedious. Overall proportions to a relatively brief work are a little odd, or felt so. That said, James Conway’s colourful yet darkening, subtly militarising staging offered a sense that knowing orientalism must by now offer its own self-critique—which may just offer us hope. The Astrologer, oddly uncredited in the cast list yet ultimately revealed in the biographies to be Robert Lewis, underwent a final revelation on stage as holy man Rasputin to the Queen’s Tsarina Alexandra. They were the only ones who had actually existed, the rest an illusion (as we had been warned, yet had probably forgotten). Make of that what you will. 

Lewis certainly made the most of his ritualistic appearances dramatically and vocally: a memorable assumption. Grant Doyle offered a fine comedic performance, with rich hints of something darker, to King Dodon, as verbally acute as it was centred of tone. Thomas Elwin and Jerome Knox shone, insofar as the work permitted, as the king’s useless, sailor-suited sons, contrasted and complementary. So too did Paula Sides’s Queen of Shemakha with bewitching coloratura and beguiling lyricism. All roles were cast from strength, detailed portrayals from the company at large contributing to a pervasive sense of barbed merriment. Closer interpretation was largely and, I think, fruitfully left to us.

La bohème, English Touring Opera, 26 February 2022

Hackney Empire Theatre

Marcello – Michel de Souza
Rodolfo – Luciano Botelho

Colline – Trevor Eliot Bowes
Schaunard – Themba Mvula
Benoît, Parpignol – Matthew McKinney
Mimì – Francesca Chiejina
Musetta – April Koyejo-Audiger
Alcindoro – Phil Wilcox
Policeman – Aidan Edwards

James Conway (director)
Christopher Moon-Little (revival director)
Rory Beaton (lighting)
Florence de Maré, Neil Irish (designs)

Chorus and Orchestra of Chorus of English Touring Opera
Dionysis Grammenos (conductor)

Still they come—and come again, as in this English Touring Opera revival of James Conway’s production of La bohème. The work’s popularity shows no sign of abating, and why, one might ask, should it? It is a fair question, up to a point, especially when considered vis-à-vis the many lesser works that make up much of opera’s benighted ‘core repertoire’. It is a well-nigh perfectly crafted work, remarkably concise and accomplishing so much within four short acts, one might be tempted to ask further, ‘why should operas be longer?’ Many are not, of course, and many do not need to be. Monteverdi, Mozart, Wagner, and a few others one often regrets they are not longer still, yet appreciates the craft and integrity that ensured they were not. Puccini, however, gets things just right on his own terms and attracts newcomers and old-hands alike. 

All too rarely—and this is a sadness—is it on account of the productions his operas, still less this particular opera, receive. Stefan Herheim’s staging remains the only one I have seen (alas, only on video) to accomplish something of great interest in the way one might naturally expect of the composers mentioned above, or indeed most others. If I cannot say Conway’s production joins Herheim, it has far better excuse than those intended for larger houses. It is not trying to do so, but rather intelligently presents a more or less ‘traditional’, unquestionably resourceful Bohème suited for touring across the country, often to towns that might otherwise not receive a single opera performance all year. Revived with equal intelligence by Christopher Moon-Little, there is thus nothing to complain about and indeed much to cherish. A realism that is yet not quite realistic, suggestive, as Conway proposes in the programme, of dream memories is just the thing—all the more so when one thinks about it. Puccini’s Bohemians (perhaps all the more so Henri Murger’s) will at some point get over ‘it’, however all-encompassing it might seem to them at the time; at least, the men will. And the women, the civettas or grisettes (on whom, read Moon-Little’s splendid programme note), well, they are fated to be remembered only by those ultimately shallow artists-turned-gentlemen. There is much enlightening observation; I cannot recall a production/performance that brought to one’s attention so clearly the importance of Schaunard’s being a musician, for instance. Nothing gets in the way; the story is clearly told. I was unsure why Parpignol had become ‘Pa’Guignol’ but his puppetry—perhaps that was enough reason—adds a welcome sense of bite, which might with benefit have been extended further. As discussed, though, that was doubtless not the aim here. 

It helped greatly to have for once a youthful cast for whom no disbelief needed to be suspended. That cuts both ways: one appreciates the callowness—at least from jaundiced middle-age—as well as the attraction of ‘Bohemian’ life, but that is surely as it should be and is no comment on the artistry involved. If Hackney cannot be home to a tale (partly) about hipsters, where can? Each of the central male quartet was splendidly distinguished, by voice, character, even costume, whilst at the same time forming a coherent ‘group’. Michel de Souza’s ardent Marcello was, rightly, a keen match for Luciano Botelho’s sensitive portrayal of Rodolfo. Trevor Eliot Bowes and Themba Mvula impressed as much as any Colline and Schaunard I can recall. Francesca Chiejina and April Koyejo-Audiger offered keenly observed performances which evidently developed over time as Mimì and Musetta: no stock gestures here. What I missed was a greater sense of chemistry between the pairs of lovers, leaving enjoyable performances that never quite moved. Perhaps, though, that was my fault, or perhaps it was even the point. Diction throughout was excellent, though the surtitle translation was often strange: ‘kind regards’ should surely remain the stuff of passive-aggressive e-mail.

 Bryan Higgins’s chamber orchestration (twenty-seven players, strings 6.4.2.2.1) works very well, even in a large theatre such as the Hackney Empire. That does not negate, but rather supports, the achievement of the orchestral players themselves: as varied of tone and dynamic contrast as they were incisive. At the big moments, one might well have been listening to band three times the size. Intimacy came off just as well. Smaller theatres, ETO’s touring bread and butter, will have a treat in store. Orchestra, cast, and score were ably conducted by Dionysis Grammenos, if sometimes the music and thus the drama stopped and started a little too much for my liking. Others, though, may have found a certain lack of ‘symphonic’ continuity, for want of a better adjective, in keeping with the cinematic anticipations of the work. At any rate, there was no doubting the concision. Now for ETO’s new production of the season, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Golden Cockerel.

Idomeneo, English Touring Opera, 8 March 2019

Hackney Empire Theatre

Images: © Richard Hubert Smith

Ilia – Galina Averina

Idamante – Catherine Carby

Idomeneo – Christopher Turner

Arbace, High Priest of Neptune – John-Colyn Gyeantey

Elettra – Paula Sides

Voice of the Oracle of Neptune – Ed Hawkins

James Conway (director)

Frankie Bradshaw (designs)
Rory Beaton (lighting)

Chorus and Orchestra of English Touring Opera

Jonathan Peter Kenny (conductor)

The greatest miracle in operatic history? On balance, I tend to think so. The distinction of Idomeneo’s forebears, be they operas of Mozart, Gluck, or anyone else, ‘reformist’ or otherwise, is too readily overlooked. Nevertheless, the leap from La finta giardiniera to Idomeneo remains a challenge to explain – or, better, a mystery at which to marvel, in which to rejoice. I remember, as an undergraduate, once noting an examination question with a quotation something along the lines of ‘It is impossible to explain the quantum leap Wagner took from Rienzi to Der fliegende Holländer,’ followed by the injunction, ‘Nevertheless, make the attempt.’ Something similar might be said here, and Wagner is surely the only comparable case; I wonder, though whether Idomeneo might not offer a miracle still greater.

Idamante (Catherine Carby), Chorus, Ilia (Galina Averiana)

Speaking of miracles, English Touring Opera does not come so very far off with a production and performance that, considered as a whole, mark the finest I have seen. We do not live in a golden age of Mozart stagings, nor do we live in a golden age of Mozart conducting; most likely, such golden ages never existed in the first place. There are exceptions, though, just as there most likely always have been. Idomeneo nonetheless seems to have proved particularly unlucky – or perhaps I have been particularly unlucky with it. If Jonathan Peter Kenny’s direction of the keen ETO Chorus and Orchestra occasionally seemed to err a little on the bright and bubbly side – this is, after all, a work as much in the tradition of tragédie lyrique as anything else, and one Mozart wished, in the case of subsequent revision to take further in that direction – then there remained, once past the strangely perfunctory opening bars, much to admire. Admirably flexible, there was enough in Kenny’s conducting to convey the dramatic power and dazzling originality of Mozart’s intimations of so much nineteenth-century practice: orchestral colour (yes, with roots in Gluck, even Rameau, yet peering forward to Weber, Berlioz, and beyond), and both a shorter- and longer-term harmonic strategy, the latter married to Wagnerian dissolution of formal boundaries and consequent alternative, often sonata-led constructivism, that at the very least rival Don Giovanni. Slight roughness around the edges was a price well worth paying for such musico-dramatic commitment.

Elettra (Paula Sides)

Much of that came, of course, from the singers, more than a match for any other cast I have heard in the theatre. Christopher Turner’s Idomeneo was certainly the best I have heard: vulnerable, thoughtful, utterly secure of line, and possessed of all the necessary vocal firepower, wisely deployed. Galina Averina and Catherine Carby made for a beautifully matched, yet also contrasted, Ilia and Idamante, moral examples through struggle, without a hint of didacticism. Paula Saides’s Elettra proved little short of sensational, an object lesson in the combination of line, colour, and dramatic involvement to create in time something so much greater than the sum of its parts. John Colyn-Gyeantey combined the thankless role of Arbace with the slight role of the High Priest. A little confusingly, the roles were elided rather than simply sung by the same artist, but that was not his fault. Coloratura was, throughout the cast, deployed not only with accuracy but with meaning; much the same might be said of ornamentation.

Idomeneo (Christopher Turner)

James Conway offered a typically resourceful production: not only, of course, for the Hackney Empire, but for a host of theatres up and down the country, many of them in towns that will otherwise see and hear no opera all year. He proceeded from trusting the work, from seemingly – however much of a theatrical illusion this may be – permitting it to speak for itself. Costumes, lighting, facial expressions, especially from the chorus of Trojans and Greeks, hinted at the political backdrop, without reducing the work to the all-too-easy, if understandably appealing conception of a ‘wartime drama’. A Mediterranean, even Cretan setting was likewise apparent, without dominating or overwhelming. This was above all a drama of sacrifice, in the line of Antoine Danchet’s original Idomenée at least as much as the Abbé Varesco’s revision (much transformed by an often frustrated Mozart). Lest that all sound a touch too werktreu, an excellent twist, drawn out of the drama rather than imposed upon it, was brought to us in Elettra’s final attempt to hold Ilia hostage, perhaps even to slaughter her.

The only real disappointment one might have entertained lay in the considerable cuts visited upon the score. If I could live with them, I suspect anyone of good will would also have been able to do so. Richard Strauss, after all, conducted far more drastic surgery, especially to the recitative, eliminating the harpsichord entirely – alongside, of course, acts of wholesale recomposition. Might I have preferred to hear a more ‘complete’ version, leaving aside for the moment the lack of what we – or Mozart – might consider a definitive text? (Many would consider the Munich ‘original’ preferable to the single Vienna performance; I should broadly, not without qualification, agree.) Of course. That, however, is quite beside the point. Within all manner of unavoidable constraints, not least the needs of touring, it would have to have been this, something like it, or nothing at all.

Idamante and Idomeneo

That ‘this’ emerged superior to any other Idomeneo I have experienced in the theatre thus says all the more, given its regrettable – in a utopian sense – constraints. Magnificent, musically and dramatically, though the ballet music may be, we could hardly expect the company to stage that too. Martin Kušej’s 2014 Covent Garden production, sadly let down by atrocious conducting and a still more atrocious Idamante, offered a one-off solution of no dance whatsoever, a provocative frieze of shell-shocked regime change; such, however, is hardly a negative coup de théâtre gladly to suffer repetition. There is often much to be said for straightforwardness; there is pretty much everything to be said for conviction. This production and these performances offered both – and more.

Iphigénie en Tauride, English Touring Opera, 5 March 2016

 

Images: Richard Hubert Smith

Hackney Empire Theatre

Iphigénie – Catherine Carby

Oreste – Grant Doyle
Pylade – John-Colyn Gyeantey
Thoas – Craig Smith
Scythian Guard – Simon Gfeller
Ministers of the Sanctuary – Ashley Mercer, Bradley Travis
Priestesses of Diana – Susanna Fairbairn, Samantha Hay

James Conway (director)

Anna Fleischle (designs)
Guy Hoare (lighting)
Bernadette Iglich (choreography)

Orchestra and Chorus of English Touring Opera
Martin André (conductor)

At last, an opera company bothering, in London, to perform an opera by one of the most important composers in the history of the genre! (When the Royal Opera performed Orphée et Eurydice, it condescended to Gluck by hiving him off to an external orchestra, as if he somehow were not good enough for its own players.) One grows weary of lamenting, year after year, Gluck’s absence from our programmes. This performance at the Hackney Empire sold out, showing that there is a keen audience, both of devotees and newcomers; if Gluck is not programmed, just as when Schoenberg, say, is not programmed, it is because companies have decided not to do so, not because no one will go. It is all the better, then, that English Touring Opera will take the production to many theatres around the country that would otherwise receive no opera at all, let alone any Gluck operas.

What most, me included, would consider the crowning masterpiece of Gluck’s career will win converts from any willing to treat opera as a serious art form; those who are not might as well remain in front of the television. For Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the great German art historian and archaeologist, ‘the only way for us to be great, and if at all possible, immortal,’ was ‘by imitating the ancients’. Such was the context for Gluck’s crystallisation of plans for operatic reform, opera, which should have been the inheritor of Attic tragedy, being seen instead to have degenerated into an undramatic farrago of vocal and scenic exhibitionism. (It is hard not to sympathise in the case of, say, Vivaldi’s operas, and many others.) Gluck’s (well, Ranieri de’ Calzabigi’s) 1769 Preface to Alceste remains a landmark document in operatic history, the archetypal declaration of operatic reform. It was very much what we heard here:

I have striven to restrict music to its true office of serving poetry by means of expression and by following the situations of the story, without interrupting the action or stifling it with a useless superfluity of ornaments; and I believe that it should do this in the same way as telling colours affect a correct and well-ordered drawing, by a well-assorted contrast of light and shade which serves to animate the figures without altering the contours. Thus I did not wish to arrest an actor in the greatest heat of dialogue in order to wait for a tiresome ritornello … nor to wait while the orchestra gives him time to recover his breath for a cadenza. … I have sought to abolish all the abuses against which good sense and reason have long cried out in vain. ... Furthermore, I believed that my greatest labour should be devoted to seeking a beautiful simplicity.

Moreover, it was what we saw too. James Conway’s production, focused on Anna Fleischle’s resourceful single set will doubtless transfer well to other, smaller theatres. It proves eminently adaptable, focusing our attention, like Gluck’s music, on the drama, not upon extraneous ‘effects’. That is not to say that there is anything bloodless to it. Quite the contrary, in fact, the blood-drenching of the opening scene, Iphigénie and her priestesses compelled to perform their appalling task, hits home powerfully, the well-nigh psychoanalytical quality of Gluck’s writing – storm external and internal – powerfully conveyed. Conway concentrates on the characters and their plight, permitting the drama to do its own work, or so it seems. One especially welcome aspect is his willingness to follow the homoeroticism of the relationship between Oreste and Pylade. (Quite why many other directors decline to do so remains a mystery to me.) Their second-act kiss is a splendidly handled moment. Have they (physically) been lovers all along? Perhaps, but I had the impression that, at this moment, facing death and the prospect of never seeing each other again, they could finally act as their romantic friendship had all along urged them. However difficult Oreste had become, perhaps even tried to be, they now found themselves helpless, compelled by Fate to snatch the moment. The openness of Conway’s staging allows one to read that moment as one will; there is no doubt, however, that this is the truest of love. Nothing, however, detracts from the playing out of the tragedy, Guy Hoare’s lighting clearly focusing our expectation and concentration.

An unfortunate exception came with the decision to present the deus ex machina in the guise of a little girl Diana, splashing around in the puddles. It makes for an undeniably arresting moment of theatre. Alas, its vocal effectiveness stood in inverse proportion to the element of visual surprise. Another aspect of vocal weakness came with Craig Smith’s stiff Thoas, king of Tauris. It is not the most grateful of roles, perhaps, but he sounded elderly rather than barbarous. Otherwise, there was much to admire in the cast. Catherine Carby’s gave a heartfelt performance as Iphigénie; how could one not deeply sympathise with her plight? Grant Doyle’s Oreste came across as properly conflicted, properly stunted by his appalling experiences, growing in humanity and self-knowledge. If John-Colyn Gyeantey’s Pylade was not always vocally secure, sometimes possessed of an unduly distracting vibrato, he had one believe in his character and his motivations, which is of greater importance; moreover, ‘Divinité des grandes âmes’ proved a proper climax to the third act. An excellent small chorus made its mark in various guises, as did those taking the smaller roles.

What a joy, moreover, to hear Gluck performed on modern instruments! If Martin André’s direction sometimes veered a little towards the frenetic for my taste, one hears far more extreme examples. Rarely did the instruments sound circumscribed, even if a little warmer string tone would not have gone amiss at times. More importantly, though, the bubbling of this well-nigh proto-Wagnerian (and proto-Berliozian) wordless Chorus told us so much of what we needed to know, explained so much of what we saw on stage and heard in the vocal line. Continuity and variety were impressive, André ensuring that both emerged as sides of the same dramatic coin. This was not a performance on the grand scale of, say, Riccardo Muti’s legendary recording from La Scala, but one would not have expected it to be. ETO does in many respects a far more important job, for which we should all offer thanks. There could be no doubt that it gave us the opportunity to hear just what Louis Petit de Bachaumont wrote of, in the account he gave in his Mémoires secrets of the 1779 premiere:

It is a new genre. It is truly a tragedy, … a tragedy in the Greek style. There is no Overture, … no arias [an exaggeration, but one knows what he means!]; but many indications of passion expressed with the greatest energy; they arouse an interest hitherto unknown on the lyric stage. One can only congratulate Chevalier Gluck for having discovered the secret of the ancients, and he will raise it to a pitch of undoubted perfection.

Now, more Gluck, please!

 

 

Pelléas et Mélisande (arr. Annelies van Parys), English Touring Opera, 1 October 2015

Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music

Arkel – Michael Druiett

Geneviève – Helen Johnson
Golaud – Stephan Loges
Pelléas – Jonathan McGovern
Yniold – Lauren Zolezzi
Mélisande – Susanna Hurrell 

Oliver Townsend (designs)

Mark Howland (lighting)
Bernadette Iglich (movement)
Zakk Hein (video)
James Conway (director)

Orchestra of English Touring Opera

Jonathan Berman (conductor)

 

In a better world, or even the same world with better audiences, the proportion of performances given by our opera houses of Pelléas et Mélisande and La traviata would at the very least be reversed. As it is, we find ourselves forced to make a virtue out of the relative rarity of performances of a work all consider to be a towering masterpiece. We are grateful when they come, and perhaps treasure them all the more. We are, or at least should be, especially grateful when a touring company with financial resources far more limited than our great opera houses, stages Pelléas, all the more so when it does so with such success. Once again, then: hats off to English Touring Opera!

 

Debussy’s opera is given in an arrangement for chamber ensemble by Annelies van Parys. One could, if one wished, spend the time wishing that one had the Berlin Philharmonic and Karajan, but that would seem a pointless pursuit. What strikes, with respect to a sound that is decidedly un-Karajan-like, although no closer, say, to Abbado, Boulez, or, for that matter, Désormière, is how much it convinces on its own terms. Balances are different, and perhaps not always at their optimum, wind instruments inevitably coming more to the fore without the cushion of massed strings. By the same token, however, solo strings sometimes evoke the Debussy of his chamber music, not least the String Quartet. One hears lines differently and yet, at some level, the same. Malevolence still stretches its fungal tentacles; elegance that is never ‘just’ elegance remains (as so often, when speaking about this work, one is tempted to lapse into French, and say demeure instead).

Two scenes are omitted entirely: a pity, perhaps, although I missed them far less than I should have imagined. Director James Conway takes the radical step of reintroducing words in spoken form at the end of the first ‘act’ (part way through the third). Golaud’s warning to Pelléas in some ways chills all the more for being spoken. Perhaps that is founded on the knowledge of what we ‘should’ be hearing, perhaps not, but I found it an elegant and dramatic solution.

In such circumstances, it is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to distinguish too strongly between instrumentation and performance. However, the playing of the Orchestra of English Touring Opera seemed to me throughout as alert and as sensitive as anyone could reasonably have expected, perhaps more so. What was being asked of these solo musicians was no mean task, and they played with the excellence we have come to expect. Jonathan Berman’s conducting was another strength. If I say that, for the most part, I barely noticed it, I do not mean that negatively. The ebb and flow of Debussy’s score rather seemed – and ‘seemed’ is surely the operative word here – to take care of themselves, with only occasional awkward corners, which may well be smoothed as the run progresses. One would not expect such a performance to be a ‘conductor’s performance’ as from those great names of the past I mentioned earlier; this was more a matter of subtly enabling and, yes, leading a company effort. In that and much else, it proved a great success.

Conway’s production emphasises, especially in the designs of Oliver Townsend and lighting of Mark Howland, the suffocation of the fin-de-siècle environment from which Pelléas springs. Light use of video (Zakk Hein) enhances rather than distracts. Characteristic wallpaper and costumes remind us that the castle here is as important a ‘character’ as it would be some years later in Bluebeard’s Castle, an opera which owes much to Debussy’s example. Longing for escape in nature and, perhaps, Tristan-esque oblivion may be vain but it is no more real for that. It is striking how much can be done with a single set and clever, well-achieved shifts of lighting: what will clearly be a necessity for touring here takes on unifying, escape-denying, imaginative virtue of its own. There seems, moreover, a hint at least of the road to the Poe opera Debussy would never complete.

I really have nothing but praise for the singing. The cast worked very well together, more than the sum of its parts, which in itself was considerable. At chronological extremes, Michael Druiett and Lauren Zolezzi convinced as ancient Arkel and young Yniold. Arkel’s ambiguity – what really is the nature of his fondness for Mélisande? Is that even the right question to ask – came through very strongly; so too did the boyishness of Zolezzi’s portrayal. Geneviève’s letter-reading generally makes a fine impression; that is no reason not to praise it again when it does, as it did with Helen Johnson. Susanna Hurrell’s Mélisande seemed to hark back in its light, bright quality to early assumptions; she achieved, for me, just the right balance between what might be self-assertion and discomfiting willingness – inability to do anything else? – to act as a blank canvas for male projections. In her first scene, I thought of Kundry; later, I found myself thinking of Lulu. Jonathan McGovern’s Pelléas initially came across with striking, almost but not quite child-like naïveté, and developed into something that was perhaps no more grown-up, but equally striking in its self-absorption: more pathological than one often sees, and all the more intriguing for it. The wounded masculinity of Stephan Loges’s powerfully-sung Golaud, quite contrasting in timbre, was a singular dramatic achievement both in its vocal essence and its dramatic consequences.  ‘Perhaps no events that are pointless occur,’ Arkel says. If a production has succeeded, one’s reply will most likely be ‘perhaps’. And indeed it was.

Pelléas et Mélisande will be performed again in London on 3 October, and will travel to Buxton, Malvern, Durham, Harrogate, Cambridge, Bath, Snape, and Exeter. For more details from ETO, click here.
 

 

La bohème, English Touring Opera, 14 March 2015

Images: Richard Hubert Smith

Hackney Empire

Rodolfo – David Butt Philip

Mimì – Ilona Domnich
Marcello – Grant Doyle
Musetta – Sky Ingram
Schaunard – Njabo Madlala
Colline – Matthew Stiff
Benoît – Adam Player
Alcindoro – Andrew Glover
Pa’Guignol – Dominic J. Walsh
Soldier – Gareth Brynmor John

James Conway (director)

Florence de Maré (designs)
Mark Howland (lighting)

Children from St Mary’s and St John’s Church of England Schools, Hackney
Chorus and Orchestra of English Touring Opera
Michael Rosewell (conductor)

 

I am not sure that I have seen and heard so well-integrated a production of La bohème in the theatre. Yes, it is over-exposed, but one cannot accuse English Touring Opera of conservative repertoire choices in general, and much of the country in any case has far less variety than London is. (For what it is worth, it is quite a relief to see some opera in East London: in this case, at the splendid Hackney Empire.) There is no translation: Puccini in any language other than Italian starts at a grave disadvantage. One might have thought the same about a small orchestra, but no. I was astonished quite how full a sound Michael Rosewell drew from his forces, not least from the strings: doubtless partly a matter of a helpful acoustic, but only partly. Rosewell’s conception began in relatively Classical style, but that that was an interpretative decision rather than a response to necessity became ever clearer following the interval. This was not, of course, the Vienna Philharmonic under Daniele Gatti, but no one would expect it to have been; such a performance would in any case hardly have been conceived for smaller theatres. And if the presence of Wagner were less than one often hears, Wagner – and Puccini – can cope with that.  

 

David Butt Philip proved himself an ardent, Italianate Rodolfo, so communicative with the text that the surtitles would almost have been superfluous, even for a newcomer to the work. That point regarding delivery of the words held for pretty much the entire cast, which worked very well indeed as an ensemble, as if its members had already been performing together for weeks. Ilona Domnich was a properly engaging Mimì, feminine yet never sentimentalising, her vocal performance increasingly encompassing tragic proportions. Sky Ingram’s characterful Musetta duly stole the second-act show, Grant Doyle’s Marcello giving very much as good as he got in their sparring. Matthew Stiff and Njabulo Madlala offered fine support as the other Bohemians, the nonchalance of their student existence more powerfully conveyed than I can recall. Adam Player and Andrew Glover put in notable turns as Benoît and Alcindoro: neither weak nor merely passable links here. Choral singing and acting, both from adults and children, impresses throughout.

 

James Conway’s production seems well set up to withstand the ordeals of touring, but is far more than that. It liberates the imagination and yet at the same time informs it. The ludicrous extravaganzas of luxury outsize garrets have no place here. Instead, Florence de Maré’s designs and the interactions of the characters within them have us think about memories – of the work, of the nineteenth century, of our lives, of those we have known – and respond to them. As the designer put it, ‘Bohème is certainly influenced by the quality and style of photography during the late 19^th century; there’s a real sense of playfulness and performance amongst those experimenting with a new artistic medium. … We wanted this opera to look and feel like a memory; some areas of the stage have the vivid surrealism of a dream whereas others are hazily devoid of detail.’ Crucially, that comes across without having read the interview (which I only did later). The Paris of Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon) comes to life but also to death, Schaunard's demise apparently impending; the perils as well as the 'progress' of art in an age of reproduction inform the trajectory of the drama. As Conway observes, ‘we have not tried … to join the dots between these four brief scenes of shared youth’. The music, to an extent, does that, but the scenic quality, not entirely unlike that of Eugene Onegin, remains an important aspect of the construction. Touches such as the puppet show of ‘Pa’Guignol’ add to the anti-Romantic menace without overwhelming. Stefan Herheim’s brilliant production (available on DVD), easily the greatest I have seen, has one entirely rethink the work; Conway’s ambition is lesser in scope, yet finds itself just as readily fulfilled.

L'incoronazione di Poppea, English Touring Opera, 9 October 2013

Images: Richard Hubert Smith
Poppea (Paula Sides), Nerone (Helen Sherman)

Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music

Nerone – Helen Sherman

Seneca – Piotr Lempa
Ottavia, La Fortuna – Hannah Pedley
Nutrice – Russell Harcourt
Lucano – Stuart Haycock
Liberto – Nicholas Merryweather
Poppea – Paula Sides
Arnalta – John-Colyn Gyeantey
Ottone – Michal Czerniawski
Drusilla, La Virtù – Hannah Sandison
Amor – Jake Arditti

James Conway (director)

Oliver Platt (revival director)
Samal Blak (designs)
Ace McCarron (lighting)

Old Street Band

Michael Rosewell (conductor)

(sung in English, as The Coronation of Poppea)

 

James Conway’s production of Monteverdi’s final masterpiece, L’incoronazione di Poppea was first performed last November by students from the Royal College of Music. Now it is revived, at the same Britten Theatre, but by English Touring Opera, as part of its Venetian season. It made a still greater impression upon me than last year; whilst the earlier cast had sung well and deserved great credit, the professional singers of ETO seemed more inside their roles, as much in stage as purely musical terms.

 

Conway’s production holds up very well. Its perhaps surprising relocation of the action to a parallel universe in which a Stalinist Russia existed without the prude Stalin – ‘just the breath of his world,’ as Conway’s programme note puts it – provides a highly convincing reimagination of the already reimagined world of Nero. ‘Stalin’s bruising reign convinced me,’ Conway writes, ‘that this was a place in which Nerone might flourish, from which Ottone, Drusilla, Ottavia, and Seneca might suddenly disappear, and in which all might live cheek by jowl in a sort of family nightmare, persisting in belief in family (or some related ideal) even as it devours them.’  And so it comes to pass, from the Prologue in which La Fortuna, La Virtù, and Amore unfurl their respective red banners, setting out their respective stalls, until Poppea’s (and Amore’s) final triumph. Claustrophobia reigns supreme, save for the caprice of Amore himself, here dressed as a young pioneer, ready to knock upon the window at the crucial moment, so as to prevent Ottone from the murder that would have changed everything. Samal Black’s set design is both handsome and versatile, permitting readily of rearrangement, and also providing for two levels of action: Ottavia can plot, or lament, whilst Poppea sleeps. Conway’s idea of Poppea as an almost Lulu-like projection of fantasies in an opera whose game is power continues to exert fascination, and in a strongly acted performance, proves perhaps more convincing still than last time. Where then, the blonde wig had seemed more odd than anything else, here the idea of a constructed identity, designed to please and to further all manner of other interests, registers with considerable dramatic power. The seeping of blood as the tragedy – but is it that? – ensues makes an equally powerful point, albeit with relative restraint; this is not, we should be thankful, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk or some other instance of Grand Guignol. Above all, the Shakespearean quality of Monteverdi’s imagination, unparalleled in opera before Mozart, registers as it must. One regretted the cuts, but one could live with them in as taut a rendition as this.

 

Michael Rosewell’s conducting had gained considerably in fluency from last time. I feared the worst from the opening sinfonia, in which ornamentation became unduly exhibitionistic – I could have sworn that I heard an interpolated phrase from the 1610 Vespers at one point – and the violins were somewhat painfully out of tune, my fears were largely confounded. It is a great pity that we still live in a climate of musical Stalinism, in which modern instruments are considered enemies of the people than the kulaks were, but continuo playing largely convinced and string tone, even if emaciated, at least improved in terms of intonation. For something more, we must return, alas, to Leppard or to Karajan.

 

Moreover, it was possible – indeed, almost impossible not – to concentrate upon the musico-dramatic performances on stage. Helen Sherman’s Nerone displayed laudable ability to act ‘masculine’, at least to the dubious extent that the character deserves it, and great facility with Monteverdi’s lines, even when sung in English. Paula Sides proved fully the equal both of Monteverdi’s role and Conway’s conception. Hers was a performance compelling in beauty and eroticism; indeed, the entwining of the two was impressive indeed. The nobility but also the vengefulness of Ottavia came through powerfully in Hannah Pedley’s assumption, her claret-like tintà a rare pleasure. Michal Czerniawski again displayed a fine countertenor voice as Ottone, engaging the audience’s sympathy but also its interest; this was no mere cipher, but a real human being. Much the same could be said of Hannah Sandison’s Drusilla, save of course for the countertenor part. Piotr Lempa has the low notes for Seneca, though production can be somewhat uneven, perhaps simply a reflection of a voice that is still changing. John-Colyn Gyeantey’s Arnalta was more ‘characterful’ than beautifully sung, but perhaps that was the point. Pick of the rest was undeniably Jake Arditti’s protean Amor, as stylishly sung as it was wickedly acted. The cast, though, is more than the sum of its parts, testament to a well-rehearsed, well-c0nceived, well-sung production of a truly towering masterpiece.     

 

L'incoronazione di Poppea, 27 November 2012, Royal College of Music,

Ottone (Bradley Travis)

Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music

Poppea – Katherine Crompton

Nerone – Annie Fredriksson
Ottavia – Fiona Mackenzie
Drusilla – Hanna Sandison
Seneca – David Hansford
Arnalta – Matthew Ward
Ottone, First Kinsman – Bradley Travis
Lucano, Second Kinsman – Peter Kirk
Nutrice – Angela Simkin
Liberto, Littore, Third Kinsman – Luke Williams
Fortune – Filipa Van Eck
Virtù – Soraya Mafi
Amore – Joanna Songi
First Soldier – Vasili Karpiak
Second Soldier – Michael Butchard

James Conway (director)

Oliver Platt, Sandra Martinovic (assistant directors)
Samal Blak (designs)
Ace McCarron (lighting)

Ottavia (Fiona Mackenzie)

Royal College of Music Opera Orchestra

Michael Rosewell (conductor)

James Conway’s new production of what is surely one of the three greatest operas of the seventeenth century, and perhaps the greatest of all, L’incoronazione di Poppea, is a splendid affair: intelligent conceived , tightly directed, and resourcefully designed by Samal Blak. Conway’s words in the programme should be drilled into anyone who opines on staging, whether in print, on the Internet, or in the theatre: ‘The question of what “period” to set it all in is not the beginning or the end of the process, but an historically informed decision somewhere in the middle. Sadly, this is certainly the decision that seems to exercise people most.’ There is no reasoning with those who scream ‘why is not set in x at the time y?’ as soon as anything is depicted that does not conform to their unimaginative, unhistorical and generally quite vulgar sense of hyper-realism. If only we had pictures, or other evidence, of the costumes and backdrops employed in Venice’s Teatro SS Giovanni e Paulo, I am sure they would find themselves in an irresolvable quandary. Should those be replicated, or should we have something recognisably of Rome in AD 65? I doubt very much that any set of designs would be able to accomplish both. Conway’s setting was imaginative and worked in theatrical terms. Apologising ‘to those who anticipated togas, or 17^th century Venice,’ and we should note the operative or, he says that he considered ‘Tudor Terror, but too much reading about the revolutionary ego and Stalin’s bruising reign convinced me that this was a place ... from which Ottone, Dusilla, Ottavia and Seneca might suddenly disappear, and in which all might live cheek by jowl in a sort of family nightmare, persisting in belief in family (or some related ideal) even as it devours them.’ And so it came to pass, a fine young cast conveying its conviction in the concept.

 

Katherine Crompton (Poppea) and Annie
Frederiksson (Nerone)

Yet, as we saw Conway remark, the time and place are not in themselves the most important matter. The sense of relative claustrophobia, of arbitrary imperial caprice, of the intertwining of sex and high – or low – politics was far more important than the admittedly handsome designs, whether of costume or sets. (The latter were crucial in another way, though, permitting a great deal of observation from outside and sudden secret intimacy.) Perhaps the most radical step, however, had nothing to do with where the opera was set at all. It was the depiction of Poppea less as the typical sex kitten than as an almost Lulu-like projection of fantasies ‘far more damaging than she’.

 

That reversal, or at least re-evaluation, seemed to me to work better after the interval in the second and third acts than in the first, where one felt something of a lack in her character. But perhaps the fault lay with me and the time it took to accustom myself to the new understanding. I think it was also, though, a matter of Katherine Crompton working her way into the role of the anti-heroine. The blonde wig and somewhat frumpy costume of the first act did her no favours; indeed, she looked at that point more like Grayson Perry than aspirant empress. Moreover, her vocal performance took a while to blossom too. Once the first act was over, however, idea and portrayal were captivating – and convincing. Much the same could be said of Annie Fredriksson’s Nerone. Perhaps the most impressive members of an impressive cast were Bradley Travis’s Ottone and Fiona Mackenzie as a beautiful, wronged but also wronging Ottavia: a far more complex character than one would ever guess from hearing the astounding lament, ‘Addio Roma’ out of context – as one often does. Travis offered an Ottone as handsome of voice as of uniformed figure; his conflict was credible, tormenting and, through expressive artistry very much became ours. Hanna Sandison’s Drusilla also offered complexity of character, whilst Matthew Ward’s nurse in drag, Arnalta, offered not only a degree of Shakespearean comic relief but the proper degree of homespun wisdom – or is it nonsense?

 

Hannah Sandison (Drusilla)

From where I was seated I could not see the pit, so am not entirely certain whether the instruments were ‘old’ (which, in our Alice in Wonderland world generally seems to mean new, but alleged replicas). The strings, a small band, certainly did not sound modern, but they had more than a hint of the ‘modern, but played in “period” style’ to them: more Harnoncourt than the extremist fringe. That is of course as much a matter of performance as of hardware, and Michael Rosewell’s direction tended to steer a not entirely convincing ‘third way’. There was certainly none of Leppard’s – let alone Karajan’s – tonal refulgence; indeed, string sonority was often unpleasantly thin. But nor was there the lightness, after a fashion, of Renaissance, as opposed to later Baroque, instruments. Continuo playing picked up after the interval; the first act alternated a little too often between heavy harpsichords and hesitant theorbo. Recorders were occasionally employed, to good effect. But the singing and production were the thing – and they were in most respects impressive indeed. Those unable to make these RCM performances may be interested to know that the production will be revived for English Touring Opera in autumn 2013.

 

Matthew Ward (Arnalta)

For what it is worth, that most frustrating of final duets, ‘Pur ti miro,’ – one desperately wants it to be by Monteverdi, since it is so ravishingly beautiful and moving, even though one’s head tells one that it is not – sounded rather different from the rest of the score, as if by a later or younger composer, which it almost certainly is. Someone, or rather several people, had clearly done something right, to engineer that effect, much as one might have wanted to wish it away.

 

Performances continue on 28 and 30 November, and 1 December, the second and fourth performances offering partly different casts.