Das Rheingold, English National Opera, 18 February 2023

Coliseum

Images: Marc Brenner
Rhinemaidens (Eleanor Dennis, Katie Stevenson, Idunnu Münch)

Woglinde – Eleanor Dennis
Wellgunde – Idunnu Münch
Flosshilde – Katie Stevenson
Alberich – Leigh Melrose
Mime – John Findon
Wotan – John Relyea
Fricka – Madeleine Shaw
Freia – Katie Lowe
Froh – Julian Hubbard
Donner – Blake Denson
Erda – Christine Rice

Loge - Frederick Ballentine  
Fasolt – Simon Bailey
Fafner – James Creswell

Richard Jones (director)
Stewart Laing (designs)
Adam Silverman (lighting)
Sarah Fahie (movement)
Akhila Krishnan (video)

Orchestra of the English National Opera
Martyn Brabbins (conductor)

 

Nibelheim

Like the Biblical cosmos, that of the Ring offers more than one creation myth, not necessarily entirely consistent with one another. Therein lies the dramatic rub. Richard Jones’s new production of Das Rheingold brings the second creation myth to the fore before the first, the generatio æquivoca of the Prelude, is heard—at least for those mature enough not simply to laugh uproariously at the mere sight of a naked man. (Disruptive audience members who seemed throughout, without evident justification, to believe they were watching Carry on Rhinegold may have been better advised to stick to Donizetti, but doubtless we should ‘respect their choices’.) What the primæval figure does is the thing: he carries wood hewn from a tree across the stage, the wood diminishing in size (and distancing itself from life) in proportion to the civilised clothes he acquires. The World-ash tree and Wotan’s act of ecopolitical violence against it are placed centre-stage—and then, E-flat… 

A hallmark of Jones’s staging throughout is indeed the clarity of its narration. Where Keith Warner’s late Royal Opera staging clearly had ideas, many extremely worthy on paper, the director struggled, so it seemed, to bring them to visual clarity (not to be confused, necessarily, with simplicity) and much seemed confused rather than complex. There may not be much in the way of conceptual complexity; this will not, it seems, be a Ring that changes our conception of the work. But it – the Rheingold, anyway – is as well shaped as Martyn Brabbins’s conducting of the score, both (greatly to my surprise) transformed out of all recognition from the miserable preceding excursion for Die Walküre. The Rhinemaidens’ amoral hedonism is evoked by their fitness wear and activities, a cruel contrast with a clearly unfit Alberich. The golden cyber-child they guard – not very well – is the Rhinegold, original state and potential for capitalisation imaginatively conveyed. And, as throughout, the deed of violence in its theft furnishes a due moment of dramatic horror. It is straightforward rather than reactionary, but in many ways none the worse than that; it certainly compares favourably with the listless soap-opera inconsequentiality of Valentin Schwarz at Bayreuth last summer.

Alberich (Leigh Melrose)

Objects, a crucial, far-too-often overlooked aspect of Wagner’s drama are well dealt with too. The spear, hewn in turn from the ash-wood, appears properly centre-stage. Those new to the drama will see that it is important and be aided in understanding why; more experienced Wagnerites will connect it with the rest of the action and ideas of their own. The Tarnhelm and ring, as well as the hoard more generally, are likewise clearly represented and, just as important, their role in the drama is clearly delineated. Nibelheim’s essential basis as a modern factory is immediately apparent – excellent sound design helps beforehand, in bringing the sound of its anvils immediately before our ears – and Alberich, transformed out of all recognition into a horrifying dictator of modern capital, wields his capitalist ‘whip of hunger’ (George Bernard Shaw) over Nibelung kinsmen with immediate and clear effect. His further transformations, courtesy of the Tarnhelm, again make their point starkly: first, he truly is, as he tells them, ‘everywhere’, his forms multiplying in surveillance and punishment (sorry, ‘incentivisation’); second and third, metamorphoses into dragon and toad are handled simply and without any of the attendant usual confusion. (Again, quite why some engaged in bellyaching laughter at the moment of Alberich’s capture, I cannot imagine. Strange, at best.)

Erda (Christine Rice), Erda (John Relyea)

The final scene makes for powerful dramatic cumulation, well supported by keen Personenregie. Erda’s appearance in pyjamas, keen to resume her sleep, sand of time spraying from her hands, makes a number of important points without fuss; so too does another point of violence, Wotan kissing her—and seemingly changing all. Schoolgirl Norns in attendance may (or may not) know. Freia’s deep affection for Fasolt, in the light of his for her, is  moving, not least on account of deeply sympathetic performances from Katie Lowe and Simon Bailey. That Freia, as well as Loge, wishes to dissociate herself from the entrance into Valhalla is also genuinely moving, as indeed is the mounting of the gold to hide her form in the giants’ removal lorry. Rainbow lighting evokes Froh’s bridge with a delightful sense of the aesthetic that is yet not spectacle for its own sake. When furious, desperate Rhinemaidens, heard offstage, return to the stage to demand return of their gold, Wotan battens down the fortress hatches. The die is cast—as Loge, his bag packed, knows only too well. 

Loge is always a character well-placed to steal the show. Frederick Ballantine’s quicksilver portrayal certainly did that, securely poised on what might otherwise be a tightrope between personability and tales of political alienation. Key to his success, and to that of many other cast members, was crystal-clear diction, enabling the truths of John Deathridge’s excellent new singing translation to hit home with force – the truth that Wagner requires us to think for ourselves, his text a springboard rather than our dramatic destination not the least of them. John Relyea’s Wotan captured, in another strikingly mature portrayal, so many of the nuances and contradictions in the god’s complex, world-winning (perhaps) personality.

Loge (Frederick Ballentine), Alberich

Leigh Melrose’s Alberich was, quite simply, spellbinding. The shift from repressed dwarf to would-be world-dictator owed much to costumes and make-up, but was ultimately his. We sympathised, though not too much; the erotic urge (liebesgelüste, Wagner’s lower case) Wagner noted in Alberich’s case in a letter of 1851 was already a menace. We cowed, with the Nibelungs. And we felt, through his work and the orchestra’s, the ominous power of the curse. Indeed, every member of the cast contributed to this overall success. Madeleine Shaw’s uncommonly sympathetic Fricka, Christine Rice’s surprisingly deep-toned Erda, James Creswell’s contemptuous Fafner, among them. This trio of Rhinemaidens, for instance, would aurally adorn any house. 

The innermost core of Wagner music drama lies, we all know, in the orchestra, his Greek chorus. ENO here likewise had little to fear from the most august of comparisons, not that one felt compelled to draw them. For a signal virtue of this Rheingold was that one sensed how all aspects had come together as so much more than the sum of their considerable parts; had the production been different, so would the singing, and so on. Brabbins’s collegial, structurally comprehending – and communicative – conducting presented itself above all as an enabler of dramatic action and was well experienced as such. I can only imagine orchestral and sung contributions will go from strength to strength over the course of this run.

Donner (Blake Denson), Froh (Julian Hubbard), Wotan, Fricka (Madeleine Shaw)

What a difference, then, fifteen months make, and how great a pleasure it is to report so. When ENO’s new Ring opened in November 2021, oddly with its second instalment rather than its first, neither staging nor performance induced much enthusiasm. Now, at a time of existential concern for the company’s future, its presentation of Das Rheingold proves in most respects a triumph: a vindication for those fighting the philistine atrocities perpetrated by the Arts Council – sorry ‘Arts Council England’ – and the ‘government’ it all too readily serves. Roll on England’s Götterdämmerung, in more than one sense.

LPO/Gardner - Haydn and Bartók, 6 November 2021

Royal Festival Hall

Haydn: Symphony no.90 in C major, Hob.I:90
Bartók: Bluebeard’s Castle

Ildikó Komlósi (soprano)

John Relyea (bass)

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Edward Gardner (conductor)

Image: Mark Allan

Intelligent programming, this, the C major of Haydn’s Ninetieth Symphony prefiguring one of the most jaw-dropping moments in all opera, indeed in all music: Bluebeard’s revelation of his kingdom in all its glory as the Fifth Door of his castle is flung open. There is ultimately greater difference, of course, than similarity between Haydn’s exploration of his Classical tonal universe and his tricks with our ears and expectations, and Bartók’s grandiose use of a C major chord as luminous, associative tonal centre; yet that in itself could be understood and, more important, perceived to be the point.

A broadly germinal introduction to Haydn’s first movement proclaimed just such a voyage of exploration. Under Edward Gardner, the LPO sounded lively and variegated, if also a touch hard-driven. For better or worse, such is the way of much Haydn performance today, perhaps an excessive if understandable reaction to clichés of geniality. More important was the strong sense of motivic development, not only in the ‘development’ section itself, but also in a recapitulation sounding on the cusp of Beethovenian second development. In that context, I could live with certain ‘period’ affectations, which did little harm, save for sometimes obscuring, more so later in the symphony, a longer term sense of line. 

The second movement flowed as one would expect in such a reading, its stern contrasts traced not without yielding. Again, Haydn’s score was finely articulated and variegated, albeit sometimes at that expense of traditional line, though with a welcome mystery to the course it would take (again prefiguring Bartók?) Solo lines, for instance flute (Juliette Bausor) and cello (Kristina Blaumane) were without exception very well taken. Gardner presented the minuet nicely on the cusp of one- and three-to-a-bar, its symphonic nature and individuality relished and communicated. A dainty reading of the trio, led by Ian Hardwick’s fine solo oboe, was given to a smaller ensemble, the return of full orchestra for the minuet’s reprise grandly moving. The finale blazed like fireworks outside (this was the sixth of November). Arguably, it too was a little hard-driven, though Gardner’s tempo had a sense of rightness, and the general yet particular character of a Haydn finale was undeniably present. The false ending caught out many—understandably. 

Following the interval, music emerged—not as in the Haydn’s introduction, yet in a way that could perhaps be associated with it—from words, from bardic verse, in the guise of the recorded spoken Prologue to Bluebeard’s Castle. The orchestra spoke, it seemed, doubtless in part testament to Gardner’s operatic experience, especially with orchestral recitative. Song, ineffably Bartókian rhythm, equally ineffable post-impressionist harmonies, and of course Bluebeard and Judit took centre (aural) stage. There was a sense of awe, of wonder, and of foreboding to our first encounter with the castle—listed by Bartók as a ‘character’—that never left us. Ildikó Komlósi’s request for the keys because she loved Bluebeard chilled, as shifting orchestral colours reoriented and disoriented us as equally helpless spectators to Fate’s progress (and regress). ‘Because I love you’: terror spoke, above all through the orchestra. All the while, John Relyea as Bluebeard remained implacable, until he too bowed, with a hint of brokenness, to what seemed to be—but is it?—the inevitable.   

Treasures glistened, eliciting audience wonder; likewise at timbre and tonality when, at the Fourth Door, the sun finally shone in, Bluebeard’s garden revealed. There was blood on the flowers’ petals, though, and we felt it. The opening of the Fifth Door would, in a half-decent performance, send shivers down the spine at any time, yet now, after all this waiting, it truly felt as though the symphony orchestra, here underpinned by organ (Richard Gowers) had returned in all its glory. Relyea was magnificently ecstatic beholding and introducing his kingdom. Judit, however, knew already that the game was up. The sheer horror we heard in the orchestra as the Seventh Door was opened, Bluebeard’s former wives present, Judit now bound to join them, was only furthered by the tenderness that followed. There was something beautifully elegiac, not entirely un-Straussian, to Bluebeard’s introductions here: not quite regretful, for he was certain, but resigned. The final, wordless climax told us night would now last forever.

Robert le diable, Royal Opera, 21 December 2012

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Robert – Bryan Hymel

Bertram – John Relyea
Raimbaut – Jean-François Borras
Alice – Marina Poplavskaya
Isabelle – Sofia Fomina
Alberti – Nicolas Courjal
Master of Ceremonies/First Chevalier – David Butt Philip
Herald/Second Chevalier – Pablo Bemsch
Prince of Granada/Third Chevalier – Ashley Riches
Priest/Fourth Chevalier – Jihoon Kim
Isabelle’s Lady-in-waiting – Dušica Bijelic

Laurent Pelly (director, costumes)

Chantal Thomas (set designs)
Jean-Jacques Delmotte (costumes)
Duane Schuler (lighting)
Claudio Cavallari (video)
Lionel Hoche (choreography)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Daniel Oren (conductor)

 

Having been out of London for almost the entire run of Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable, the only possibility was for me to catch the final performance. For once, I was very glad to have cast a fulsome number of pennies the way of the Royal Opera House. This was by any standards an important yet neglected work, by a crucially important yet all-but-ignored composer: just the sort of thing of which we should be seeing more on the Covent Garden stage. Frankly anything would be better than yet another outing for La triviata. (The cancellation of Oberon last season in favour of extending still further the number of performances of that most nauseating of operas still rankles almost beyond words.) I was vaguely aware of the criticism Robert received whilst I was away, and was unsurprised to discover how uninformed most of it was. A typical example, from a journalist I recently had the misfortune to hear mindlessly yet tirelessly haranguing the Artistic Director of the Salzburg Festival for having programmed Gawain rather than a Britten opera (as a ‘contemporary’ work!), may be read here. (Given the critical acuity with which that writer approached the most recent staging of Gawain at Covent Garden, one can understand why he might have wished to spare himself such undue challenge once again. One can certainly only continue to marvel that anyone is willing to pay him for writing such drivel.) People are perfectly at liberty not to like this work, indeed to criticise it as harshly as they feel necessary, but one would hope for a little more intelligence in the act.

 

No one – one hopes, even at that lowly critical level – would deny Robert its historical importance, staged one hundred times at the Paris Opéra within three years of its 1831 premiere and by 1835 seen at seventy-seven houses in ten countries. Meyerbeer’s influence on Wagner, to name but the most important example, runs deeper than most suspect; it was certainly not difficult, especially as the score progressed, to hear presentiments of The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin, as well as the more obvious Rienzi (‘Meyerbeer’s greatest opera’, in Hans von Bülow’s truthful quip.) Echoes of Der Freischütz are increasingly evident too, and not just in the more overtly ‘demonic’ third act, Weber himself of course heavily influenced by French and Italian music. Originality might not always be Meyerbeer’s strongest suit – what seemed either to be a quotation or direct plagiarism from Beethoven’s Symphony in the final act made me smile, though if one is going to steal, doing so from Beethoven shows good taste – yet claims of incompetence seemed to me wildly clear of the mark. Even in cut form – would it really have hurt to have retained an extra half-hour’s worth of music? – there are at the very least competent pacing and structure. (Contrast that with many works that bafflingly continue to hold the stage!)  And that despite the undeniable dramaturgical weakness of Raimbaut’s disappearance from the plot, a consequence of the move from originally-planned opéra-comique, in which his relationship with Alice loomed considerably larger, to grand opéra.

 

However, what struck me most of all was how untrue all the claims about alleged ‘unmemorability’ were. If tunes were your thing, you could hear a good few, and there was much more to nourish too, not least a good deal of attractive woodwind writing. The cello line highlighting the self-serving nature of Bertram’s apparent gallantry towards Alice in their third act duet struck me as a revealing dramatic touch, and that is but one example. Yes, there are examples of music that tend towards inconsequentiality or straightforward inappropriateness, but for me at least, they were surprisingly few. If the treatment of religion in the fifth act reduces it to little more than vaguely exotic ‘colour’, than Meyerbeer and Scribe are not alone in that failing; we suffer far worse from Gounod much more regularly. The theme of damnation, moreover, seems to me more interestingly handled than in many treatments; with Robert, one feels a true conflict in his choice between Heaven and Hell, their causes pleaded by Bertram and Alice respectively. There is no need to exaggerate; this is no Damnation de Faust; nor does Meyerbeer approach the compositional interest of Berlioz, let alone Wagner. Yet he pens a far more interesting, if uneven, score than anything by Verdi or Donizetti, whom houses inflict upon us with mind-numbing frequency. I doubt, however, that anything could redeem the third-act ballet: one of the most preposterous things I have ever seen, a cloister bacchanale for nuns risen from their tombs. Even if it had been handled more convincingly than here, Lionel Hoche’s embarrassing choreography, replete with strange noises, presumably intended as ‘erotic’, very much hailing from the school of Andrew George (as witnessed most recently in the dreadful McVicar Troyens.) If only we had had Calixto Bieito, perhaps the scene might have stood a chance. Perhaps, I repeat.

 

Where the Royal Opera performance truly fell down was in both the stage direction and the conducting: a very real problem for a work so little known and so easy to consign once again to the dustbin of history. Laurent Pelly’s production would doubtless have apologists praising its ‘whimsy’, most likely irritatingly prefaced by the offensive stereotype ‘Gallic’. It hovers uncertainly between sending up the work – not, I think, a course that would work, but it should at least be pursued with consistency – and attempting to take it a little more seriously. The multi-coloured, cartoon-like designs (Chantal Thomas) of the first two acts give way to something a little more plausible, though nowhere near the grand opéra spectacle one probably needs here. Either that, it seems, or a thorough-going deconstruction. Most insulting however was the unbridled kitsch of cardboard cut-out jaws of Hell and angelic heavenly clouds in the final act; if a director cannot manage better than that, then he ought to leave the work to someone who can.

 

Daniel Oren’s conducting served Meyerbeer equally badly. Entirely lacking in direction, let alone fire, this was listlessness to a degree so advanced that one almost suspected deliberate sabotage. (Alas the result was not interesting enough to justify the charge.) The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House often sounded, reasonably enough, uninspired, though there were many passages in which the musicians rose above the confines of such deathly conducting. What I suspect this music really needs is either the theatrical fire and brimstone of a Riccardo Muti or an approach that would bring to the fore its German roots and implications; in that case, the likes of Christian Thielemann or even Daniel Barenboim would perfectly fit the bill. (Thielemann is about to conduct Rienzi, so it is perhaps not an entirely absurd suggestion.) A third-rate Kapellmeister is unlikely to attract many converts.

 

The singing was often very good indeed, though, imparting more of a sense of the work’s potentialities than one might have expected. Bryan Hymel was not the strongest of links, alas, but his Robert at least benefited from stamina. Unfortunately, a combination of painful French and still more a lack of French style, singing his lines as if they were Puccini, severely compromised the title role. Otherwise, Marina Poplavskaya turned in by far the strongest performance I have heard from her. Intonational difficulties seemed to have been banished. Her coloratura put Hymel to shame. And she did her best, pretty successfully on the whole, to present Alice as a convincing character rather than the cardboard cut-out to which the production attempted to reduce her (and everyone else). Sofia Fomina, a singer entirely new to me, offered a ravishing performance as Isabelle, the Sicilian princess. Tone and line were impeccable throughout. John Relyea was at least equally impressive as Bertram, devilish darkness very much his thing. His French was a distinct improvement upon most of the cast too. (Do language coaches not instruct their charges that there is a great deal more to the admittedly difficult task of singing in French than just about mustering school-boy pronunciation?) Choral singing was as excellent as one has come to expect from Renato Balsadonna’s Royal Opera Chorus.

 

Where, then does Meyerbeer stand? Lower than he ought to, I think. Even Wagner, for all the ungrateful abuse he hurled Meyerbeer’s way, would sometimes acknowledge his stronger points. This is not a great work, but nor does it deserve the abuse heaped upon it by people of rather lesser standing than Wagner. I certainly cannot begin to understand how they can endure, even praise, nineteenth-century operas twenty times more trivial and yet react in the way they have to Robert le diable. Is this a mere case of me faire avocat du diable? If so, not to a great extent; I was genuinely interested by what I heard. Whatever Meyerbeer deserves, and I think he deserves considerably more than we grant him, he deserves neither Oren nor Pelly. Nor, I am sad to report, does he deserve a truly horrendous audience, spluttering, chattering, dropping things, laughing uproariously at nothing whatsoever. Who are these people, why do they bother attending at all, and whither might we return them?

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.