Médée, English National Opera, 15 February 2013

The Coliseum

(sung in English, as Medea)

Médée – Sarah Connolly

Jason – Jeffrey Francis
Créon – Brindley Sherratt
Créuse – Katherine Manley
Oronte – Roderick Williams
Nérine – Rhian Lois
Cléone – Aolfe O’Sullivan
Arcas – Oliver Dunn
Corinthian/Jealousy – John McMunn
Italian Woman/Phantom II – Sophie Junker
Corinthian/Argive – Jeremy Budd
Cupid’s captives – Aolfe O’Sullivan, Sophie Junker, John McMunn
Sons of Médée and Jason – Ewan Guthrie, Harry Collins

Sir David McVicar (director)

Bunny Christie (designs)
Paule Constable (lighting)
Lynne Page (choreography)

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: Jörn Andresen)

Orchestra of the English National Opera
Christian Curnyn (conductor)

 

Médée was Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s sole work written for the Académie Royale de Musique, the legacy of Lully’s operatic monopoly having died hard. Though not a popular hit, unlike, say, Alcide and Didon, the theme of Thomas Corneille’s libretto and Charpentier’s response thereto almost certainly proving too much, too ‘immoral’ for many Parisian sensibilities, the opera certainly proved a critical success upon its first performances in December 1693. Sébastien de Brossard, priest, music theorist, and composer, went so far as to describe it as ‘the one opera without exception in which one can learn those things most essential to good composition.’ Louis XIV, erstwhile avid Lulliste, was impressed, complimenting Charpentier personally upon the opera, whilst the king’s brother, Philippe, Duke of Orléans, ‘Monsieur’, and eldest son, Louis, the Grand Dauphin, both attended several performances. Though hailed by the critics on its first outing, Médée seems to have received no further performances at the Paris Opéra after 1694.

 

Does it deserve better this time? Yes, I have no doubt that, even if Rameau were unaware of it – the evidence seems tantalisingly unclear – that it is nevertheless not only a fine tragedy in its own right but, in retrospect, a crucial stepping stone on the teleological path that takes us not only to Rameau but to Gluck, and thence of course to Mozart, Berlioz, and Wagner. Alas, the cast was left to shoulder the burden on its own on this occasions, receiving scant support from either the pit or the staging. So whilst some excellent singing will doubtless have won a few welcome converts to the cause of tragédie lyrique, much of what was seen and a typically perverse conception of so-called ‘period style’ from the conductor – do conductor and director ever stop to consider how irreconcilable their stances are with each other? – will also have had many wonder what the fuss was about. My enthusiasm for the work was certainly not shared by a couple of friends to whom I later spoke; given the circumstances, I cannot say that I blame them.

 

The lion’s share of the responsibility should be lain at the door of Sir David McVicar. Taking up the recent tendencies in his stagings and extending them, at times to the point of absurdity, what we witnessed was a camp monstrosity, relocated to the 1940s for no apparent reason, save to permit an endless display of military uniforms, secretarial staff, and the dancing boys and girls within them. A point might well have been made about war and wartime exigency, but it was not; the updating seemed merely a matter of arbitrary ‘colour’. The nadir was perhaps reached with the arrival on stage of a large pink aeroplane at the end of the second act, whilst Cupid darted around as a nightclub singer, an unfortunate reminiscence, even if unintentional, of the recent ENO Giulio Cesare.

 

Spectacle could perfectly well have been harnessed to dramatic effect, just as it might have been in late seventeenth-century France; however, it was not. I was put in mind of Wagner’s furious accusation in Opera and Drama against Meyerbeer; opera had degenerated into an ‘outrageously coloured, historico-romantic, devilish-religious, sanctimonious-lascivious, risqué-sacred, saucy-mysterious, sentimental-swindling, dramatic farrago’. The only moments of real drama emerged as if by default, the endless comings and goings on stage thinning out for a while, and Charpentier’s music just about emerging on its own terms. When that happened, however, it did not last for long, the brief moment of concentration upon Médée in the third act giving way to the bizarre appearance of hellish creatures who, in a non-mythological context, seemed more like writhing refugees from a second-rate episode of Dr Who than tragic figures of dread. The dance routines, however well executed, seemed tone-deaf to Charpentier’s music and quite unaware of the dramatic role that dance should play in this repertoire. Some time immersed in a seventeenth-century manual, if only to reject its prescriptions, might have been well spent.

 

If opera is held to be mere ‘entertainment’ – and not very entertaining entertainment at that – then there seems little case for public subsidy at all; if treated more seriously, more daringly, more provocatively, more shockingly, then it justifies itself handsomely as public discourse. German houses tend to understand that. Our London houses show some understanding of that from time to time; if only McVicar, undoubtedly a master of his craft in terms of having singers and actors do what he would, might shed the disturbing anti-intellectualism that has pervaded so much of his recent work and go beyond mere crowd-pleasing spectacle. Rightly or wrongly, the Prologue was omitted entirely.

 

Christian Curnyn’s conducting will doubtless be lauded in certain quarters. There was a far from unimpressive ebb and flow to it, the boundaries between air, chorus, and recitative properly brought into question, even dissolved. That undoubted achievement could readily have formed the basis of a fine performance. The great pity, however, just as in Giulio Cesare last autumn, was ‘period’ obsession: puritanical elimination of vibrato, refusal to allow the strings to sing, indeed to sound like orchestral sings as opposed to members of a village folk band, and what sounded very much to me – I could not see the pit – like employment of different, so-called ‘Baroque’ bows. There were moments, especially solo moments, when the ENO strings seemed to regain control, but they really should not have to play with both hands metaphorically tied behind their backs. If we are to have the rare, priceless advantage of modern strings, then for goodness sake let them be used. The blend with recorders was often problematic, as it always tends to be; modern flutes would have been a far better choice. Trumpets and a variety of drums alleviated the worst of the vibrato-less tyranny.

 

What of the singers? The Mercure galant enthused of Marie Le Rochois, a veteran of Lully’s 1686 Armide, to which score and libretto make reference and allusion on numerous occasions:
 

The passions are so vivid, particularly in Médée, that when this role was but declaimed it did not fail to make a great impression on the listeners. Mlle Rochois, one of the best singers in the world and who performs with warmth, finesse and intelligence, shone in this role and made the most of its beauties. All of Paris is enchanted...

How would Sarah Connolly match up? Very well indeed. There were moments earlier on when I wondered whether the role was quite suited to her voice, some of its richness lost on account of the range. However, from the point of her summoning the spirits onwards, such doubts were triumphantly banished. The part became Connolly’s, in dramatic and musical terms equally; there was no doubt about where one’s sympathies lay, however horrific her crime. Katherine Manley’s Créuse offered an excellent foil, necessarily a poor second to Médée, yet beautifully sung and acted, and capable of eliciting a degree or two of sympathy herself. Likewise Roderick Williams’s typically subtle, intelligent portrayal of Oronte, though as in every case, one could not help but wonder what he might have sounded like in French, Christopher Cowell’s English translation making a good stab at an impossible task. Brindley Sherratt’s Créon offered a well-judged blend of hubris and haplessness. Many of the singers in smaller roles shone too, for instance Rhian Lois and Aoife O’Sullivan as the confidantes of Médee and Créuse. Choral singing was excellent too. The sole fly in the ointment was Jeffrey Francis’s quite unheroic Jason. There may be a good case for deconstruction of heroism in this case, but there needs to be a degree of construction in the first place. The role sat unhelpfully for his voice, but stage presence was lacking too.

 

Three cheers are certainly due to ENO for this foray into pre-Ramellian tragédie lyrique. Would it not be a wonderful thing to hear some Lully next? Or indeed, to move forward to Gluck? Let such further explorations, however, be the province of a director who would take form and drama with but a modicum of greater seriousness.

Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, English National Opera, 24 March 2011

Young Vic Theatre

(sung in English, as The Return of Ulysses)

Penelope (Pamela Helen Stephen)
Images: Johan Persson

L’Humana Fragilità, Pisandro – Iestyn Morris
Il Tempo, Antinoo – Francisco Javier Borda
La Fortuna, Minerva – Ruby Hughes
Amore, Melanto – Katherine Manley
Penelope – Pamela Helen Stephen
Ericlea – Diana Montague
Eurimaco – Thomas Walker
Ulisse – Tom Randle
Minerva – Ruby Hughes
Eumete – Nigel Robson
Iro – Brian Galliford
Telemaco – Thomas Hobbs



Benedict Andrews (director)
Börkur Jónsson (set designs)
Alice Babidge (costumes)
Jon Clark (lighting)
Sean Bacon (video)

Members of the Orchestra of the English National Opera
Jonathan Cohen (conductor)

Minerva (Ruby Hughes) and Ulisse (Tom Randle)

ENO has hit form again, offering my best operatic experience since Elektra last summer in Salzburg. And with Monteverdi: I should hardly have expected it, not least since my prejudices lie very much against contemporary performance practice and translation of his libretti from Italian. The intimate, verging upon claustrophobic, space of the Young Vic was doubtless crucial: a proper rather than merely fashionable experience of theatre ‘in the round’, which could never have worked in the Coliseum.

Though in a literal sense it would be quite true to say that I had travelled over the course of two evenings from musical drama of the present day (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s new opera, Kommilitonen!) towards the early days of opera, the statement might be found misleading, for this was a thoroughly modern Monteverdi we encountered. Kommilitonen! proved enjoyable but also a little dated. Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, as one of the two surviving late operas by Monteverdi, already stands quite distinct from his first, L’Orfeo, let alone from slightly earlier works by other composers. The dramatic orbit of Ulisse and L’incoronazione di Poppea almost inevitably puts one in mind of Monteverdi’s contemporary, Shakespeare; both dramatists remain strikingly modern, not least when contrasted with many of their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century successors. Purcell notwithstanding, one must look to Gluck and then to Mozart to find a musical dramatist fully worthy of the honour of heir, if unwittingly so, to Monteverdi. Yet, if Poppea still shocks to the core, its devastating psychological realism placed in the service of a truly amoral, (quasi-)historical tale, its Homeric predecessor has struggled somewhat to escape its shadows. ENO’s decision to devote its now-annual excursion to the Young Vic to Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, or The Return of Ulysses (to his Homeland), was therefore welcome indeed – and must surely have convinced any doubters that this is a work fully worthy to be ranked with its more celebrated sibling. As ever, there remained the problem of translation into English, but this translation, Christopher Cowell’s, was much better than most of those recently foisted upon us: it respected Giacomo Bodoaro’s libretto after Homer, for which many thanks.

Three suitors (L-R: Iestyn Hughes, Samuel Boden, Francisco
Javier Borda), Penelope, and Minerva

The Prologue makes it quite clear that this is a contemporary drama. Human Frailty is abused, Abu Ghraib style, by Time, Fortune, and Cupid, the evidence gloatingly captured on camera. I was reminded of Barrie Kosky’s Iphigénie en Tauride for Berlin’s Komische Oper; perhaps the resemblance is not entirely coincidental, for director, Benedict Andrews, also Australian, divides his time between Sydney and Berlin, and works at the Schaubühne Theatre. During this abuse, we see Penelope’s parallel agonies on screen, Sean Bacon’s excellent video footage permitting us still-closer-up attention to detail, often but not always that of Penelope. As the Prologue comes to an end, Ithaca’s palace comes into our view – and will never leave it. A stylish, modern apartment (or hotel room?), encased by glass that is smeared by a series of depredations, it is Penelope’s prison: the ever-visible space for the ‘life’ of a ruler’s wife. Börkur Jónsson’s set designs are first-rate, drawing us in and yet repelling us at the same time. Maids fuss and conspire – whom can she trust? – whilst sharply-suited dressed political suitors roam. The tie pins give them away, though: we know that none would be able to string the bow of Ulysses. These cowards, brutal if ultimately ineffectual, pleasure themselves with no thought of Penelope as a woman. In what seemed to me a rare miscalculation, she appears to respond briefly to them physically as they offered their gifts. Perhaps her acts are intended as a trap, but they jar with her constancy and do not seem to lead anywhere.

Suitors, Ulisse, Iro (Brian Galliford), and Melanto
(Katherine Manley)

Some scenes are missing, of course: one cannot help wondering what the sea-music for nereids and sirens was like, likewise the ballet of the Moors. To augment the ravages of time, the director introduced large cuts, the remaining score running – according to the programme, though I did not check – for two-and-a-quarter hours, three acts compressed into two parts. Neptune, Jupiter, and Juno disappear completely. As so often, we seem uncomfortable allotting the gods their role. Minerva remains, though, adopting Penelope’s form and availing herself of the suitors, she perhaps seems more the trickster than Ulysses; is she a goddess at all? Apart from the musico-dramatic loss in itself, there are dramatic consequences, for we miss out on Neptune’s crucial emphasis upon ‘ritorno’ (‘return’). Andrews’s emphasis, however, seems quite different: this is less the story of Ulysses’s return, or rather still less than is often the case, and more Penelope’s tale. However, it works: there is no claim that this was a definitive Ulisse, but it was a powerful musico-dramatic experience.

Moreover, at the end, the balance shifts once again. Reminding us of the images of war that have permeated the drama throughout, not least on the apartment television screen (war in the Mediterranean? surely not…), we suffer Ulysses’s pain upon return: the lack of a role, the rejection, and of course, the bloody revenge he inflicts upon those who have defiled his home, captured on film, just like the initial abuse of the Prologue. After that, his extended shower scene attempts to cleanse, but the only hope, and it may prove vain, lies with Penelope; whatever the beauties of the final duet, the future is uncertain. Cuts may have reshaped the drama but ultimately they did not distort it.

Eurimaco (Thomas Walker), Iro, Penelope, and
Antinoo

Jonathan Cohen led members of the ENO Orchestra with great dramatic flair. I might hanker after Raymond Leppard, or, better still, Hans Werner Henze’s extraordinary Mediterranean realisation, but this was not hair-shirt Monteverdi, puritanism that would be quite at odds with his Renaissance/Early Baroque world - as a celebrated former Ulisse noted in an interview he gave me not so long ago. The musicians may have been relatively few in number, but a large band was not necessary in the Young Vic; again, the Coliseum would have been another matter. The continuo group was varied. Rebecca Miles’s recorder added variety to the one-to-a-part strings during certain ritornelli, whilst the introduction of Daniel Jamison’s bassoon brought just a hint of Henze’s earthy pagan reimagining.








Penelope and Ulisse (final scene)

If ever a role were made for Dame Janet Baker, it was that of Penelope, though it is hard to imagine Pamela Helen Stephen’s great predecessor in this particular production. It is to Stephen’s credit that she very much made the role her own; I only mention Baker since she would have been an inevitable reference point for many. What Stephen lacked in refulgence and sheer nobility of tone, she made up in dignity – and misery – of stage presence. We felt her pain in anything but the modern, debased, sentimental way. Tom Randle is such an intelligent musical actor that it would be easy to take him for granted, but one hardly could on this occasion. The complexities, some of them dark indeed, of Ulysses’s character were searingly portrayed, without the slightest hint of melodrama. Thomas Hobbs made an interesting Telemachus, vulnerable – including memories of the accursed Helen – and scarred by his experience, not least that of ‘rescue’ by Ruby Hughes’s ambiguous Minerva, another fine portrayal. Katherine Manley and Thomas Walker played dangerous, erotic – and utterly convincing – games as Penelope’s maid, Melanto, and her lover, Eurymachus; their lust, for power and for pretty much everything else, was an ongoing reminder of the real (godlike?) forces at play. My only regret concerning Diana Montague’s Ericlea was that she did not have more to sing: what a pleasure it was to hear Montague again, and to share in so faithful – in every sense – a performance. It was an equal pleasure to welcome back long-standing Monteverdian Nigel Robson, who provided a moving portrayal of the honest shepherd, Eumaeus. Brain Galliford’s childish, yet nevertheless sinister, parasite, Irus offered splendid contrast, though the strange scene of his demise, in which Monteverdi’s speech-rhythms seem (at least) to presage Mussorgsky and Janáček, offered pathos too. A ghastly trio of suitors completed the cast, Francisco Javier Borda, Iestyn Morris, and Samuel Boden, all throwing themselves wholeheartedly into Andrews’s – and Monteverdi’s – vision. I was especially taken by the finely shaped tenor of Boden and the icy clarity of Morris’s counter-tenor.

This, then, strikes me as essential theatre for anyone who can still acquire a ticket. Three cheers to all concerned!