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| Images: ROH/Bill Cooper |
Royal
Opera House
Archbishop – Alan Ewing
Deaconess – Agnes ZwierkoKing Roger – Mariusz Kwiecień
Edrisi – Kim Begley
Roxana – Georgia Jarman
Shepherd – Saimir Pirgu
Kasper Holten (director)
Steffen Aarfing (designs)Jon Clark (lighting)
Luke Halls (video)
Cathy Marston (choreography)
John Lloyd Davies (dramaturgy)
Royal Opera Chorus and Extra Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Sir Antonio Pappano (conductor)
At last, Szymanowski’s masterpiece, King Roger, has reached Covent Garden. With one, sadly predictable, exception, it receives excellent treatment too. What a joy it is to see staged here a work, which, like Janáček’s bizarrely ignored operas, is no longer than it need be, and so handsomely repays attention in every minute of its mere ninety. (Incidentally, placing an interval after the second act was surely a mistake; this is a work considerably shorter than Salome or Elektra, and nothing was gained by having to step outside for half an hour.)
Kasper Holten’s production is
relatively straightforward, but none the worse for that. Save for gentle
costume updating to the time of composition, it is difficult to imagine self-styled
‘traditionalists’ having anything much to worry about. A gigantic King Roger’s
head, in different states, inhabits the centre of the stage. Are we to
understand that the conflict between Apollo and Dionysus is entirely within his
head? Probably not; surely there remains some important element of the social.
However, a reminder that this is, amongst other things, his conflict is no bad thing. Oppressive, patriarchal Orthodoxy
surrounds the realm of the personal in the first act.
In the second, the head turns
around so as to reveal, if not strictly
speaking, the inner palace courtyard of the libretto, then something pretty
close: royal quarters, in which books – is that, ultimately, whence these
dangerous ideas come? Nietzsche, perhaps? – are prominent. In the basement are
writhing bodies, refugees from Tannhäuser’s
Venusberg – which, in terms of the work, musically as well as conceptually, is
very much what they should be. Cathy Marston’s choreography did little for me,
I am afraid, but having recently endured again the absurdly excessive dance of Sasha Waltz’s Tannhäuser, there was
relief for me to be had in lesser intrusion.
The third act, rightly,
presents ruins, both social and personal. The head has been destroyed under
whatever new dispensation it is the Dionysian Shepherd offers. Not for the
first time, I thought of Henze’s The
Bassarids in Christof
Loy’s Munich production. The dangers of this brave new world are clear,
for, not only have the erstwhile faithful blindly followed their new master,
they blithely throw a few surviving books upon the pyre. To destroy culture is
cheap, as inconoclasts from Alexandria to Rupert Murdoch to ISIS have known all
too well; the cost is crippling. Mere hedonism is not the way forward; the
blinding light at the end – here as simple and as striking as in Mariusz
Treliński’s production, which I saw in Edinburgh in 2008 – shows that
another path for Roger, and for us, will not be easy; it may not even be right.
We need, however, to try. If, sadly, as in Treliński’s staging, Szymanowski’s
overt homoeroticism is played down, then there are other ideas well worth
pondering: not hammered home, for such tends not to be Holten’s way of
operating, but more open-ended, which seems quite apt for the work and, in
particular, for its unresolved, perhaps irresolvable, conclusion. After all, the
final C major chord is no more convincing as affirmation than that in Elektra; the Shepherd’s strains remain.
Antonio Pappano’s conducting proved
somewhat disappointing, although he certainly seemed aware of the difficulties
of balance within the orchestra and for the most part steered a judicious
enough path in that respect. However, if not so bedevilled by stopping and starting
as his Wagner, Pappano’s account nevertheless seemed incapable for the most
part of rising above the indifference of mezzo piano, to misquote Pierre
Monteux. The orchestra here is defiantly post-Wagnerian, at least as much a
character as anything we see on stage; here, despite some truly excellent
playing, Pappano reduced it to mere accompaniment. There was too much of a
tendency to meander, too: a hostage to fortune to those who would claim
Szymanowski’s world amorphous. It is not, but it requires a more comprehending
conductor to present to full advantage its golden tapestry in motion.
Choral singing, however, was
excellent, from, to quote Stephen Downes’s excellent programme note, that ‘majestic,
awe-inspiring chorus’ onwards. Indeed, in that’ Byzantine Sanctus sung in harmonies that evoke archaic primitivism and power,’
the basses – a sizable extra chorus had been enlisted – offered a highly
convincing impression of their Eastern European confrères. Weight and sensitive
diction were, throughout, shown to be anything but opposing tendencies. Renato
Balsadonna and his singers deserve great credit, not least for discretely posing
the question of to what extent we might consider this work a staged oratorio.
It is a tendency rather than an identity, but a worthwhile tendency to raise,
especially given the subject matter.
The cast was excellent too.
At its heart stood Mariusz Kwiecień’s Roger. Although an ailing Kwiecień
sounded – if only relatively – a little tired at the end of the second and
third acts, that in no way detracted from the thoughtful heroism of his
portrayal. It is a role with which, of course, he has a lengthy association;
indeed, on this occasion, it seemed made for him, so close were his identification
and projection of the King’s conflicting voices. This was certainly not a
Roger, even when unwell, who stood in need of Pappano’s quenching the fires of
Szymanowski’s orchestra. The rest of the cast seemed no more in need of that.
Saimir Pirgu offered an alluring, properly dangerous, ultimately yet prematurely
triumphant Shepherd, whom many would have followed. The alterity of his
Lydian-inflected music, deliberately non-developmental, ‘an enclosed, complete
and self-referential musical system’ (Downes), made its dramatic point
strongly, even without the overwhelming orchestral contribution that might have
been present. Georgia Jarman’s Roxana certainly seemed clear why she was doing
so, yet not without affection for her consort; one sensed that she would like
to have included him. Her second-act aria was as ravishingly sensual as anyone
might decently – or indecently – have hoped. Alan Ewing, Agnes Zwierko, and Kim
Begley all distinguished themselves in the smaller roles. Old Szymanowski hands
and newcomers alike should hasten to the Royal Opera House.
