Elektra, Semperoper Dresden, 15 December 2014

Semperoper

 

Elektra – Elena Pankratova

Chrysothemis – Manuela Uhl

Klytämnestra – Jane Henschel

Orest – Markus Marquardt

Aegisth – Jürgen Müller

First Maid – Constance Heller

Second Maid – Stephanie Atanasov

Third Maid – Christa Mayer

Fourth Maid – Roxana Incontrera

Fifth Maid – Nadja Mchantaf

Overseer – Sabine Brohm

Young Servant – Simeon Esper

Old Servant – Tilmann Rönnebeck

Orest’s tutor – Matthias Henneberg

Confidante – Andrea Ihle

Trainbearer – Christiane Hossfeld

 

Barbara Frey (director)

Muriel Gerstner (set designs)

Bettina Walter (costumes)

Gérard Cleven (lighting)

Micaela von Marcard (dramaturgy)

 

Chorus  of the Saxon State Opera (chorus master: Wolfram Tetzner)

Staatskapelle Dresden

Peter Schneider (conductor)

 

Almost anything would have been an anti-climax following the Semperoper’s Rosenkavalier the previous day, but, odious comparisons aside, there was still something disappointing to the experience of so routine an Elektra as my final instalment of Strauss Year. Barbara Frey’s production was new earlier this year, but frankly it already looked far more old and tired than Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s staging of the next Strauss-Hofmannsthal collaboration, which had first been seen in 2000. There really did not seem to be very much to it at all. Few set designs for Elektra have in my experience looked radically different. Here there is less granite, whether literal or figurative, than often, but the action still unfolds in what appears to be a royal palace and household that have seen better days. An inscription referring to royal justice hangs pregnantly, ironically, over proceedings, but alas little of what we see lives up to our anticipations. Perhaps there was simply not enough rehearsal for a repertory performance; there was definitely a sense of the performers being left to fend for themselves. Odd touches, such as child actors appearing on stage during the Recognition Scene, so as to remind us that Elektra and Orest last saw each other when children, really add nothing. One would have to have been taking very little notice at all not to have grasped that dramatic point already.

 

Lothar Koenigs was apparently ill, and had been replaced by the veteran replacement-conductor, Peter Schneider. Again, there was a strong sense of lack of rehearsal. Schneider’s vague, listless direction of the score suggested a run-through rather than a performance in any emphatic sense. The Staatskapelle Dresden could doubtless not put on a bad performance of Strauss if it tried, but by its standards, it was hardly on form. There was a distinct lack of focus, too much of Pierre Monteux’s ‘indifference of mezzo forte’; again, the contrast with the Rosenkavalier was glaring. When the full force of the orchestra seemed finally to be unleashed, at the very close, it seemed too little, too late.

 

Elena Pankratova was the best reason to have heard this performance. She probably needed more help in terms of stage direction, but her vocal performance was generally strong, speaking of a strong musico-dramatic commitment throughout. This was indeed a musical performance, not a house of horrors exhibition of screaming. Manuela Uhl’s Chrysothemis offered gleaming sound, though her intonation wavered a little too often. Jane Henschel is a fantastic singing-actress, but here she erred too much for me on the side of caricature. Again, perhaps stronger direction, both stage and musical, would surely have helped create something more.  Markus Marquardt proved a sadly wooden Orest, but Jürgen Müller offered an uncommonly well-sung Aegisth. Not a vintage evening, then, not even close; but I should forgive almost anything for that Rosenkavalier.

 

Peter Grimes, Royal Opera, 21 June 2011

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Peter Grimes – Ben Heppner
Ellen Orford – Amanda Roocroft
Captain Balstrode – Jonathan Summers
Swallow – Matthew Best
Mrs Sedley – Jane Henschel
Auntie – Catherine Wyn-Rogers
Ned Keene – Roderick Williams
Hobson – Stephen Richardson
Rector – Martyn Hill
Bob Boles – Alan Oke
First Niece – Rebecca Bottone
Second Niece – Anna Devin
Dr Crabbe – Walter Hall
Boy (John) – Patrick Curtis

Willy Decker (director)
François de Carpentries (revival director)
John Macfarlane (designs)
David Finn (lighting)
Athol Farmer (choreography)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Sir Andrew Davis (conductor)


London is doing well by Britten at the moment: Christopher Alden’s outstanding ENO production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is now joined by a fine Covent Garden revival of Willy Decker’s Peter Grimes. There was, I recall, indignation in certain quarters upon the production’s first London outing in 2004 – it was first seen at La Monnaie – but it is now difficult to imagine why. One would have to be a paid-up member of the Campaign for Real Barnacles to object to John Macfarlane’s powerful designs, which are hardly abstract in conception. Costumes are inoffensively in period, contributing to the sense of the Borough’s stifling bigotry and hypocrisy, the scarlet of the evening dance bringing out into the open the real interests of those erstwhile clad in monochrome. I suspect that hostility must have emanated from the quarters of those who are now outraged by Alden’s reimagining A Midsummer Night’s Dream: generally of an older generation, wishing to confine Britten to the safe, unthreatening pigeonhole of an ‘English composer’, when it is his demons that make him most interesting.

Claustrophobia and provincial small-mindedness are very much the order of the day in all aspects of Decker’s staging. (We, alas, know only too well the consequences of harrying outsiders, of hysterical accusations, of cynical pleas to ‘law and order’; it was a sad irony that this production opened on the very same day that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announced wholesale capitulation to the tabloid press in terms of reductions in prison sentences.) The Established Church becomes a powerful presence, not least in terms of the Cross carried by the witch-hunters. We are also reminded that Bob Boles, as a Methodist, has a dissenting edge to him, protesting rightly at the practice of buying apprentices from the workhouse. Unpalatable though many of their views may have been, Evangelicals would after all take a lead in a great deal of nineteenth-century social campaigning. Assent to the norms of the Borough is enforced congregationally both at the beginning of the first act and in the final scene. Even Ellen Orford raises her hymn sheet at the last, to complete a closing of ranks: a final, chilling unanimity, in which the true villain of the piece, the Borough, emerges tragically triumphant.

Sir Andrew Davis made a welcome return to the pit, summoning up as visceral and intelligent an account of the score as I can recall. Doubtless this will be anathema to the elder Brittenites, but I found it a more moving condemnation even than Britten’s own recording. The orchestra was on splendid form throughout, clearly responding with enthusiasm to Davis’s dramatic impetus, the brass in particular searing. There remain weakness in what is after all Britten’s first opera – Paul Bunyan is a rather different kettle of fish – but I cannot imagine them being better papered over than here. The sooner Britten shed outmoded taints of Verdi – the thin ‘Embroidery Aria, for instance – the better. Talk of Berg often seems like special pleading, but the reminiscences of Wozzeck – and Mahler – at the evening dance for once seemed real enough, a telling correspondence with Berg’s tavern scene, even if the latter’s music remains on an entirely different compositional level. I have never, moreover, heard the introduction to the second act sound so Stravinskian, the tightness of rhythm recalling the Russian master’s anti-symphonic ‘symphonies’. Britten only gains by relation to continental developments: those who would confine him to visions of an Aldeburgh that never was do him nothing but harm, and would do well to remember his fervent desire to study with Berg.

What, then, of the vocal performances? Ben Heppner’s portrayal of the work’s anti-hero is powerful indeed. The flawed vocalism will doubtless dismay many: it certainly would me, if this were Tristan or Siegfried, but somehow it seems to matter less in so damaged a role as this. There is certainly vocal power, though unpredictably so: more Jon Vickers than Peter Pears, if without the former’s steely determination. One also needs to overlook, and I can imagine many being unable to do so, what are sometimes severe difficulties not only with respect to intonation but concerning wholesale pitching of lines, the entry to the Boar Inn the ultimate case in point. No, this is not a musical performance on the level of the three recently deceased artists to whom the present revival is dedicated: Robert Tear, Philip Langridge, and Anthony Rolfe Johnson. But it moved me nevertheless, since it exhibited such sympathy with Grimes’s predicament. Moreover, I was surprised by the improvement in Heppner’s acting. Partly it is a matter of his somewhat awkward stage presence chiming with the demands of the role, but it is not only that. He puts what might be a disadvantage to good use, intensifying the lumbering quality, ever a loner. Amanda Roocroft also suffered from vocal insecurities, especially at the top, but by the same token also threw her dramatic all into the role of Ellen. Her goodness not only shone through, but seemed credible rather than sentimental. This is clearly an artist who requires careful casting, her recent Meistersinger Eva an unfortunate mistake, but there was much to admire on the present occasion.

A number of other assumptions stood out, none more so than Roderick Williams’s excellent Ned Keene: ever attentive to words and musical line, with finely judged, disconcertingly ambiguous stage presence. Balstrode seems to me a quintessential Thomas Allen role, but Jonathan Summers evoked a powerful human presence that was far from disgraced by the comparison. Alan Oke’s Boles captured well the air of the righteous fanatic, without ever resorting to mere caricature. Catherine Wyn-Rogers made for an unusually subtle portrayal of Auntie: nothing was ever straightforward with her kindliness or her slight brashness. Again, there was no need for caricature, and one could not help but respond to the warmth of her voice. Her ‘nieces’, Rebecca Bottone and Anna Devin both made strong impressions too, their proper air of grotesquerie never allowed to proceed too far. Then there was Jane Henschel’s wonderfully malicious Mrs Sedley. Somehow even the American accent did not jar, granting an air of Angela Lansbury to the crime addict’s already potent brew of Frau ohne Schatten Nurse and Anne Widdecombe. I could not take my eyes off her. Once again, there was a credible air of character rather than caricature, for which some of the praise must surely be accorded both to Decker and to revival director, François de Carpentries.

For there was certainly nothing of the routine to this revival. Even when something went wrong, a failure in a stage motor necessitating alterations to the second-act scene changes, the reworking was accomplished so professionally that I have to admit I did not notice, only learning of the difficulty afterwards. Finally, no praise is high enough for the magnificent contribution of the Royal Opera Chorus, as trained by Renato Balsadonna. Weight, intensity, diction, stage performance: all of these were irreproachable. Britten was well served indeed. And, just as Theodor Adorno in 1951 urged the necessity to defend Bach from his puritanical ‘devotees’, so should we, even those of us sometimes ambivalent in our response to the music of Benjamin Britten, defend him from his.

Katya Kabanova, Opéra national de Paris, 1 April 2011

Palais Garnier

Katerina Kabanova – Angela Denoke
Marfa Kabanicha – Jane Henschel
Varvara – Andrea Hill
Boris Grigoryevich – Jorma Silvasti
Vanya Kudrjas – Ales Briscein
Tikhon Ivanich Kabanov – Donald Kaasch
Saviol Dikoy – Vincent Le Texier
Kuligin – Michał Partyka
Glacha – Virginia Leva-Poncet
Feklucha – Sylvia Delaunay
Woman – Marie-Cécile Chevassus
Man – Ulrich Voss

Christoph Marthaler (director)
Joachim Rathke (co-director)
Anna Viebrock (sets, costumes)
Olaf Winter (lighting)
Thomas Stache (choreography)
Stefanie Carp (dramaturgy)

Chorus of the Opéra national de Paris (chorus master: Patrick Marie Aubert)
Orchestra of the Opéra national de Paris
Tomáš Netopil (conductor)


For the third and last of my operatic nights in Paris, I remained with the Opéra national de Paris, but moved across town from the Bastille to the Palais Garnier, famously ‘in the style of Napoleon III’. Christoph Marthaler’s production of Katya Kabanova was on the menu. The Paris Opera had not staged Katya until as recently as 1988, in Götz Friedrich’s production, though the Belgrade Opera (!) had presented it in 1959 at the Théâtre des Nations, and the Opéra-Comique had offered a French-language version in 1968. Marthaler’s production was first staged at the Salzburg Festival in 1998, and came to the Palais Garnier in 2004, moving from one Gérard Mortier stronghold to another; it is encouraging to note that Nicolas Joel has not turned his back on every aspect of Mortier’s rule. It is also worth noting that it took Mortier to bring The Cunning Little Vixen to the Paris Opera: I saw the first, rather wonderful production only three years ago! The longtime neglect of Janáček, whether in France, Britain, or elsewhere, is truly baffling, yet it persists, giving all the more reason to be thankful for this Katya.

Images: Christian Leiber

I am not sure why Marthaler’s production has been performed at the Garnier rather than the Bastille; Friedrich’s, apparently, moved to the latter on revivals. Whether this were the intention or no, the contrast between the Garnier’s preposterously lovable extravagance – music almost seems beside the point – and the mise-en-scène was stark indeed. I can hear some readers groaning at the mere mention of a drab Eastern European apartment block, here powerfully evoked by Anna Viebrock’s set designs, but the test is whether the setting works. For the most part, I think, it does. The original Ostrovsky play, The Storm, and the opera are both set in a mid-nineteenth-century Russian provincial town, but the ‘provincial’ is more to the point than the ‘mid-nineteenth-century’, and even that could, I imagine, readily be translated into the suburban. The closed moral world of the apartment block’s inhabitants and their hypocrisy are searingly portrayed, choral hymn singing emanating and visible from one of the flats above. Indeed, one of the great virtues of this production is a chance to observe some of the goings-on elsewhere, whether from the ‘virtuous’, the potentially sympathetic (the violin soloist, not in the orchestra, but practising at his window), or the drunk (comedian, Ulrich Voss, whose shouting and staggering at the beginning of the third act will not have been to all tastes). Their uniform turning away as Katya’s torment moves her toward suicide is simple, powerful, and terrifying. There is, perhaps loss in that we never reach the Volga, yet claustrophobia is heightened by Katya drowning herself in the block’s courtyard fountain. I also found it a little confusing that characters exited through what appeared to be a wardrobe (this is hardly Narnia!), but not to worry.

Tomáš Netopil led the orchestra with considerable verve, although tension was not always maintained as it might be. The sheer orchestral delight and dramatic fervour of a conductor such as Sir Charles Mackerras is not his – yet. Angela Denoke was suffering from some ailment, according to an announcement made prior to the performance. I should never have been able to tell, for hers was a powerful portrayal indeed. Katya’s goodness shone through, yet never in an unbelievable way; one also knew that this was a woman, and a woman with needs. I believed in every word and every note she sang. Andrea Hill and Ales Briscein make for a winning couple as Varvara and Kudrjas, bright of tone and manner, though Varvara’s dancing threatens to irritate after a while, however much it may be intended dramatically to distinguish her from the stifling ‘morality’ of her environment. Not every performance was so impressive, though. Donald Kaasch passed muster as Tikhon, but sometimes sounded vocally as opposed to dramatically weak. (It did not help, moreover, that he looked more like the Kabanicha’s husband than her son.) Jorma Silvasti’s Boris lacked necessary allure: one needs to have some sense of what might attract Katya to him.

However, as so often, the Kabanicha threatened to steal the show, yet creditably did not quite do so. What a truly appalling character she is! We do not, it is true, know what has made her like that; whether it was something akin to what Katya herself suffers must remain speculation, though one cannot help but wonder. Be that as it may, her viciousness seems almost unparalleled in all opera. Jane Henschel quite made the character her own, no mere caricature, all the more malicious for presenting a properly sung portrayal. Interestingly, she will be singing Mrs Sedley at Covent Garden later this season: the more vicious the society... Her outdoor exhibitionism with Vincent Le Texier’s nasty Dikoy points up the hypocrisy nicely; she knows exactly what she was doing when she waves at the neighbours. Once they have withdrawn to her apartment, a quick spurt from the water fountain suggests that all is over as quickly as one might expect. The selfishness of the character is almost ritually enhanced by periodic retreats into her bedroom, where she will turn on the television or listen to the radio, eat some chocolates, lie down on the bed, and play with a squeaky toy. Production and performance work in tandem.

I was in two minds as to the delivery via loudspeakers of the choral singing at the end being. The effect was alienating, but I am not quite sure that gain outweighed loss. More importantly, however, I was profoundly moved by the performance as whole, once again marvelling at what a masterpiece this is. Marthaler will soon be directing more Janáček, in the guise of The Makropulos Case at this year’s Salzburg Festival, a production to which I look forward greatly. For those interested, his production is available (with Denoke and Henschel) on DVD; I have not seen the performance.

Hänsel und Gretel, Royal Opera, 23 December 2010

Royal Opera House

(Images: Royal Opera/Johan Persson)

Hänsel – Christine Rice
Gretel – Ailish Tynan
Gertrud – Yvonne Howard
Peter – Sir Thomas Allen
Witch – Jane Henschel
Dew Fairy – Anna Devin
Sandman – Madeleine Pierard
Echo – Kai Rüütel
Angels, Children

Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier (directors)
Elaine Kidd (revival director)
Christian Fenouillat (set designs)
Agostino Cavalca (costumes)
Christophe Forey (lighting)

Members of Tiffin Boys’ Choir and Tiffin Children’s Chorus (director: Simon Toyne)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Rory Macdonald (conductor)

After being appointed Music Director of the Vienna State Opera, Franz Welser-Möst made a remark to the effect – I cannot remember the precise words – that how a house handled a week-day repertory Figaro was just as crucial to its flourishing as a starry new production. Indeed. Whilst the situation at Covent Garden is somewhat different, in that it does not have a repertory system along the lines of many German houses, there is a case to be made that the quality of revivals matters as much as that of more ‘newsworthy’ new productions. One does not necessarily employ quite the same criteria; it depends. And so, this first revival of Hänsel und Gretel, whilst it lacks in some though by no means all cases the star quality of some participants from the first run, may be accounted a considerable success. One does not expect a young conductor to evince the lifetime’s experience of Sir Colin Davis, though Rory Macdonald did an increasingly fine job as the night went on. Likewise, it would perhaps be unreasonable to expect Angelika Kirchschlager and Diana Damrau on every occasion. But if the performance took a little while to settle down, notably assisted in that respect by the appearance of Yvonne Howard and Sir Thomas Allen, the sole survivor from the original cast reprising the role of Peter, this proved an enjoyable and ultimately moving evening.

Part of that is down to the delights of Humperdinck’s score. Derivative it might be, but the fairy-tale Wagnerisms enchant rather than irritate, though the Meistersinger-ish opening scene perhaps remains excessively dependent upon its weightier model. During much of the first act, I felt a slight lack of focus, never damaging, and something that I suspect will soon dissipate once the run of performances beds down. The luxuriance of Sir Colin’s interpretation lingered in the mind. However, as time went on, Macdonald imparted a different quality to the score, marking this out very much as his own reading. Woodwind suggested Mozart and Strauss; indeed, I was at times taken aback at quite how much the score’s textures seemed to presage the latter: hardly Elektra, but perhaps Ariadne.

I do not really have anything to add to what I said about the production last time (click here for the DVD). It works well, and has surprisingly dark moments given that it is at least partly aimed at children. There is proper contrast between the magical dream of Christmas and the industrial scale oven of the Witch’s house. Like a true fairy tale, there is more than tinsel to this Christmas offering. Elaine Kidd’s work as revival director seems assured.

Christine Rice presented a suitably boyish Hänsel, looking as well as sounding the part. Though I find it difficult to warm to Ailish Tynan’s thin tone, this Gretel certainly provided the best performance I have heard from her, and again she acted credibly. The parents, Yvonne Howard and Sir Thomas Allen, both impressed, as one might have expected. I was amazed once again how Allen could make so much out of so relatively little. His diction, vocal presentation, and stage presence once again proved second to none. Anja Silja had assumed the role of the Witch in 2008; I very much liked her portrayal, though some were more affected by its vocal shortcomings. Here, Jane Henschel proved a more than worthy successor. I could not help but think of her wonderful assumptions of the role of the Nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten: a more ambivalent character, to be sure, but perhaps not wholly unrelated. In any case, she combined stage presence and a more secure vocal line than her predecessor. Sir Charles Mackerras was to have conducted; the performance was dedicated to his memory.

Die Frau ohne Schatten, Deutsche Oper, 13 December 2009

Photo: Marcus Lieberenz im Auftrag der DEUTSCHEN OPER BERLIN
(Kaiserin: Manuela Uhl; Amme Doris Soffel; Geisterbote: Stephen Bronk)

Deutsche Oper, Berlin

The Emperor – Robert Brubaker
The Empress – Manuela Uhl
The Nurse – Jane Henschel
Barak – Johan Reuter
The Dyer’s Wife – Eva Johansson
The Spirit-Messenger – Stephen Bronk
Voice of the Apparition of Youth – Yosep Kang
Voice of the Falcon, Guardian of the Threshold of the Temple – Hulkar Sabirova
Voice from Above – Katharine Tier
The One-Eyed – Simon Pauly
The One-Armed – Hyung-Wook Lee
The Hunchback – Paul Kaufmann
Maidservants – Hulkar Sabirova, Heidi Stober, Julia Benzinger
Children’s voices and unborn voices – Hulkar Sabirova, Heidi Stober, Julia Benzinger, Stephanie Weiss, Fionnuala McCarthy, Katharine Tier
Guards’ voices – Ben Wager, Lucas Harbour, Krzysztof Szumanski, James J. Kee

Kirsten Harms (director)
Bernd Damovsky (stage and costume designs)
Andreas K.W. Meyer (dramaturge)
Christian Baier (artistic production manager)

Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus master: William Spaulding)
Children’s Chorus of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin (chorus master: Dagmar Fiebach)
Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin
Axel Kober (conductor)

I had previous reason to admire Axel Kober’s conducting in the Leipzig Opera’s marvellous triple-bill of Schoenberg’s one-act operas, Moderne Menschen. Arguably every bit as great a challenge, Die Frau ohne Schatten proved just as successful under Kober’s baton. Well shaped and with a clear sense of the structure, this was a reading which, if it did not quite match the sensational account I heard a good few years ago from Christoph von Donhányi at Covent Garden, had nothing to fear from most recorded competition, and was certainly superior to Gustav Kuhn in Paris. There were a few shaky moments, especially during the first ten minutes or so, when it sounded as though the orchestra was settling down, and occasionally afterwards from the brass. On the whole, however, the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper proved fully equal to Strauss’s demands. The sheen of its strings, sometimes more Viennese, sometimes darker – rather like Strauss’s score, one might say – and the character of its woodwind section were especially worthy of mention. Whatever Strauss’s notorious criticisms of Schoenberg’s Op.16 Orchestral Pieces, they did not sound so very far away. For, poised between the previous sound-worlds of Elektra and Rosenkavalier, with something of the Alpine Symphony about it, and possessed of a magical, fantastical expressionism very much of its own, one of Strauss’s most truly extraordinary scores was truly able to resound. If the grinding dissonances immediately prior to the final resolution were not nailed in quite the way one hears on Christian Thielemann’s Vienna recording of the orchestral fantasy, I have never heard anyone else, even Karl Böhm, achieve that – and a purely orchestral performance is a different matter in any case. This was a distinguished musical account.

The singing, however, was considerably more variable. Robert Brubaker’s Emperor improved as time went on, though his tendency to sharpness and indeed to shouting was never quite surmounted. Strauss wrote a cruel part, but there it is. Brubaker, however, was vastly preferable to Eva Johansson as the Dyer’s Wife. Awkward on stage, she managed the right notes from time to time, the right vowels even less so. She also exhibited a curious tendency – certainly more curious in her part than his – simply to stand and shout. Manuela Uhl occasionally struggled as the Empress, but an announcement had been made concerning her indisposition; in any case, she more often proved perfectly equal to the composer’s demands. Given the circumstances, this was a creditable assumption. Jane Henschel was predictably fine as the Nurse – what a wonderful, ambiguous role this is – but such excellence should not be taken for granted. Strange links with the spirit world were very much in evidence in her portrayal. Johan Reuter’s fine form as Barak might also have been expected, but again, remains equally worthy of praise. Carefully observant of words and music, he penetrated to the lovable heart of the dyer’s character.

Intendant Kirsten Harms’s production did not seem quite to add up. There was nothing especially wrong with it, and Bernd Damovsky’s stage designs were often rather striking, but I am not sure that someone relatively unfamiliar with what can sometimes seem a rather baffling drama would have found a way in here. Robert Wilson in Paris could perhaps be judged to have over-simplified Hofmannsthal’s layers of symbolism, though I rather enjoyed that production. Taking more of a ‘line’, almost any line (within reason), might not have been a bad idea in this case, though. The work benefits from a degree at least of help. Still, there was a great deal to savour from the conductor, orchestra, and much of the singing. Die Frau may have its flaws, but there are sections as great as anything Strauss wrote, music that was here largely heard to considerable advantage.

Elektra, Royal Opera, 8 November 2008

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Elektra – Susan Bullock
Chrysothemis – Anne Schwanewilms
Klytemnestra – Jane Henschel
Orest – Johan Reuter
First Maid – Frances McCafferty
Second Maid – Monika-Evelin Liiv
Third Maid – Kathleen Wilkinson
Fourth Maid – Elizabeth Woolett
Fifth Maid – Eri Nakamura
Overseer – Miriam Murphy
Young Servant – Alfie Boe
Confidante – Louise Armit
Trainbearer – Dervla Ramsy
Orest’s tutor – Vuyani Mlinde
Aegisth – Frank von Aken
Old servant – Jeremy White

Charles Edwards (director, set designer, and lighting)
Brigitte Reiffenstuel (costumes)
Leah Hausman (choreography)

The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renata Balsadonna)
Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

This is my third Elektra within a year, having also seen productions in Berlin and in Munich. To think that I once worried about the effect that too much Mahler might have upon me! As with Mahler, albeit unnervingly without the catharsis, deepening knowledge of the work has served only to heighten my fascination and admiration. The Royal Opera’s revisiting of Charles Edwards’s production – Edwards rightly dislikes the term ‘revival’, although in some cases, it can sadly be all too appropriate – has much to commend it, as did the two German performances.

Edwards’s sets give an excellent impression of the corruption and depravity of Mycenae. It is not excessive, which must be a temptation, and is therefore all the more powerful. Antiquity and the early twentieth century – a little after the time of composition – are both suggested without being fetishised. Whatever Elektra is ‘about’, it is certainly not about historical ‘accuracy’; indeed, given how closely Hofmannsthal follows Sophocles, it is remarkable how little of the latter’s politics remain. And although the activity of archaeology is perhaps suggested by the bust of Agamemnon – chillingly kissed by Elektra – and by signs of digging, there is no dry archaeological positivism to the scene, which stands dialectically related to the dancing on a volcano of the 1920s. Had they not learned from the War (whether Trojan or Great)? Of course not. Violence is endemic though not unduly exaggerated. (David McVicar could have learned a great deal from this before his sensationalist Salome, as he could have done from Edwards’s intelligent rather than arbitrary suggestions of the interwar years.) The treatment of the Fifth Maid – a fine portrayal from Eri Nakamura, a Jette Parker Young Artist – by the other maids and Miriam Murphy’s splendidly horrifying Overseer really sets the scene for what is to come. The degrading – fatal? – punishment that follows horrifies still more. What helps to make this so powerful is the partial restoration of the political that Edwards so successfully achieves. He reminds us throughout that this is not simply a madhouse but the palace of Mycenae. We see from time to time other members of the household and the effect that the degeneration of the ruling house has upon the ruled, most crucially of all in the final bloodbath, in which the palace wall is lifted to reveal the carnage that has been unleashed, the latest – and, we must hope, the last – instalment of Thyestes’s curse upon the house of Atreus. This is not of course the only way to present Elektra but it is an interesting and valid route to take.

Sir Mark Elder’s reading stood distant from the blood-and-gore, priapism-a-minute approach of Sir Georg Solti. We heard a great deal of detail in the score, including some delectable woodwind lines, impeccably played by an orchestra on top form. The baleful Wagnerian brass sounded, rightly, as if it had originated in Fafner’s lair. Dance rhythms surfaced throughout, reminding us that Elektra is not only the high watermark of Strauss’s expressionism but also paves the way for Der Rosenkavalier (which is, in turn, a far nastier opera than nostalgics could ever understand.) There were times, however, when I thought that a little more menace, violence even, would not have gone amiss. One can tend towards the analytical without the occasional loss to the dramatic that we heard here. In Strauss, Christoph von Dohnányi is an example in this and so many respects, although Semyon Bychkov also impressed during the production’s initial run. In a generally well-paced account, the crucial Recognition Scene dragged somewhat, lessening the dramatic release upon the realisation of Orest and Elektra that they have finally been reunited. That said, it was a treat to hear the final scene develop rather than scream throughout. Even necrophiliac orgies of destruction need to gather pace. Moreover, the musical echoes here of the final scene of Tristan can rarely have registered so clearly.

The cast was impressive, not least in the smaller roles, all of which were well characterised, as well as well directed. Johan Reuter started somewhat anonymously as Orest – although, I suppose, he is anonymous to Elektra at this point – but his portrayal acquired greater strength. Frank von Aken was no Siegfried Jerusalem, to whose cameo we were treated last time; by the same token, he was no mere caricature in the role of Aegisth and he acted well, disturbingly well. Jane Henschel not only spitted malevolence and terrifying, jubilant hysteria, the latter upon the news of Orest’s death. She also imparted a sense of vulnerability, of the humanity that must at one time have existed in Klytämnestra. This made the sheer evil displayed at her last both shocking and credible. Anne Schwanewilms made a sympathetic Chrysothemis, as she had previously. One could forgive the occasional occlusion of the words – inevitable to some extent – given her beauty of tone and security of line. And Susan Bullock was a fine Elektra. She fully inhabited the role musically and dramatically, her fine diction and intonation permitting a more sophisticated portrayal than the screaming harpy of caricature. Desperation and damage, resilience and revenge: one understood how all of these feelings and more arose from the murder of her father, and beyond that from the terrible feud between the two sons of Pelops. In this, as in so much else, Bullock’s Elektra and Edwards’s Elektra were at one: at the service of Strauss and Hofmannsthal, yet nevertheless, and indeed consequently, engaged in imaginative recreation.