Les Troyens, Opéra national de Paris, 28 January 2019

Opéra Bastille

Énée (Brandon Jovanovich)
Images: Vincent Pontet / Opéra national de Paris

Cassandre – Stéphanie d’Oustrac

Ascagne – Michèle Losier

Hécube – Véronique Gens

Énée – Brandon Jovanovich

Chorèbe – Stéphane Degout

Panthée – Christian Helmer

Hector’s Ghost – Thomas Dear

Priam – Paata Burchuladze

Greek Captain – Jean-Luc Ballestra

Soldier – Jean-François Marras

Polyxène – Sophie Clasisse

Didon – Ekaterina Semenchuk

Anna – Aude Extrémo

Iopas – Cyrille Dubois

Hylas – Bror Magnus Tødenes

Narbal – Christian von Horn

Mercure, Priest of Pluto – Bernard Arrieta

Créuse – Natasha Mashkevich

Andromaque – Mathilde Kopytto

Astyanax – Emile Gouasdoué

Polyxène – Francesca Lo Bue

Dmitri Tcherniakov (director, set designs)

Elena Zaytseva (costumes)

Gleb Filshtinsky (lighting)

Tieni Burkhalter (video)

Chorus of the Opéra national de Paris (chorus master: José Luis Basso)

Orchestra of the Opéra national de Paris

Philippe Jordan (conductor)

Home now to the greater number of the Paris Opéra’s opera productions, the Opéra Bastille opened, unfinished, with a gala performance on 13 July 1989, the bicentennial eve of the storming of the celebrated prison that had once stood on its site. The amphitheatre then had to wait until March of the following year for its first opera production: Les Troyens by Pier Luigi Pizzi. The appalling goings on, even by Parisian operatic standards, that had led to the dismissal of Daniel Barenboim from the Opéra’s music directorship before he had even begun have, touch wood, long been put behind the institution. At any rate, there could be few more fitting works to celebrate the 350^th anniversary of the Opéra than the crowning masterpiece of the French master the philistine Pierre Bergés of their day spurned as injuriously as they would Barenboim. If it were a pity that Barenboim were not granted the opportunity to set the record straight – imagine! – then it was a nice twist of history that the conductor would be his sometime assistant, now the Opéra’s Music Director, Philippe Jordan.


More importantly, Barenboim’s longstanding artistic collaborator, director Dmitri Tcherniakov, grasped the opportunity to stage and to rethink Berlioz’s opera in a fashion that will surely prove a turning-point in its chequered fortunes. A comparison with Carmen might seem bizarre. However unsuccessful that opera’s premiere, it can hardly be said thereafter to have lacked performances. Few productions, however, can be said to have done anything terribly interesting with Bizet’s opera: Calixto Bieito’s, yes, but also, still more importantly, Tcherniakov’s 2017 staging for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. I shall come a little to what they conceptually have in common; for now, I shall suggest that this most recent staging will prove as important a milestone for Les Troyens as his Carmen is now widely considered to have done for that opera.

Ascagne (Michèle Losier), Énée, Créuse (Natasha Mashkevich), Hécube (Véronique Gens), Priam (Paata Burchuladze), Chorèbe (Stéphane Degout), Polyxène (Francesca Lo Bue)

The division of Les Troyens into two parts, historical, structural, thematic – which is not, of course, to say that it has no other divisions, nor that the two parts do not possess greater unity – is uncommonly clear in Tcherniakov’s production, just as it was, whatever else one might have thought of it, in Philippe Jordan’s conducting. The latter emphasised in the first part, ‘La Prise de Troie’, Berlioz’s debt to and inspiration in Gluck; if only that had been sharper, rather than a somewhat inhibited, woolly-round-the-edges ‘classicism’, then musico-dramatic unity and self-reinforcement might have been achieved. As it was, we had to rely largely on Tcherniakov, who plunges us immediately into a modern, yet still monarchical warzone, very much the concern of a Trojan royal family that yet breeds dissent from within. Rolling news headlines inform and doubtless deform the populace, in a manner we are used to: fact mixed with propaganda, so we are never quite sure what is what, or whether indeed the distinction still pertains. Just as the opening ‘information’, that the siege of Troy has finally been lifted sets the scene for what ensues, so too do Elena Zaytseva’s costumes: sharp and stylish in dress-uniform and trophy-bride fashion. Is there a reality behind the news, behind the clothes? Yes and no. It depends where one looks, what one seeks. I was put a mind a little not only of Tcherniakov’s Tristan but also of Krzysztof Warlikowski’s Iphigénie en Tauride, surely one of the most important Paris productions of the Mortier years. Royal families are a curious thing, especially now; being curious, however, does not mean they wield no power, nor does their pretence that they do not.

 

Créuse, Ascagne, Helenus (Jean-François Marras) Hécube,Polyxène, Priam Chorèbe, Andromaque (Mathilde Kopytto), Cassandre (Stéphanie d'Oustrac)

However, politics of a broader, still baser kind gnaws at the monarchy’s foundation. Just as the war ranging offstage – with occasional threatening forays onstage – is both dynastic and, in a sense not so different from the nineteenth century’s or our own, national, so our alleged hero looks both ways. Énée appears to be compromised by relations with the Greeks. We know from his thoughts – relayed on film – that he fears Priam’s foolish pride in not negotiating with them will lead to everyone’s downfall. We see Énée (apparently) welcome them once they are in the city and it is perhaps too late, yet also then take up the fight once against them. We also see his wife, Créuse, in a silent role, take her life in shame at what they have done, her suicide note relayed to us – who are ‘we/us’? – on screen. Are we being lied to, though? Who is dispensing this ‘news’, both on stage and on film?

Cassandre

Cassandre’s truthfulness speaks for itself, though. Just as none will listen to her onstage, no one in the audience will doubt her. That is partly to be attributed to a performance truly powerful in its verbal and musical integrity from Stéphanie d'Oustrac, but also to Tcherniakov’s direction. He places the prophetess cursed by incredulity around her in a position of alienation. She distances herself and is distanced, even despised – most clearly of all by Priam, whose casual violence during Laocoön’s obsequies once again renders the personal political, and vice versa. (The atrocity itself, only reported, had nevertheless, in modern war-media style, proved both hyper-real and hyper-unreal.) When Cassandre ventures outside the glitzy and austere throne room – venue of military high command and Hello photo-shoot alike – so as to speak, to sing to the cameramen outside, she captures the attention of all spectators at once. She speaks to camera, she distinguishes with effortless style between recitative and aria, relating them too. It is a feminist moment, but in d'Oustrac’s hands, it was equally a masterclass in lineage from Gluck and Mozart. Film speaks of her unconscious, her childhood memories, her words and notes show alignment with them rather than the deception, the display, the death elsewhere. Where Laooön’s final rituals are a state event, the bravery of Cassandre and her virgins is the real thing – as, again with seeming uniqueness, had been her love for Stéphane Degout’s Chorèbe and his for hers. Indeed, the latter’s truthfulness and romantic ardour could not have contrasted more strongly with the tortured machinations of Brandon Jovanovich’s complex, quite outstanding Énée. Ghost, fire, parafin, immolation: all seem real rather than hyper-real. But who, ultimately, knows…?

For when we move to Carthage, things are both very different and yet ultimately the same. Tcherniakov’s Carmen took us to an expensive game of psychotherapy for Don José; his Troyens now moves to a war victims’ centre for ‘rehabilitation’, whatever that might (or might not) be, role play a common element. Is that not, after all, what singers, what opera, what drama do every day – generally whilst playing with the idea that they are not? Where are the boundaries, beyond the walls of the psychotrauma units on- and offstage? Again, as in Carmen, games of identity play themselves out, again not ever quite as one expects. Didon is lauded as Queen of Carthage. We and Énée initially see her acclaimed, an agent of his therapy, dressed in the very same yellow as Créuse. We may even occasionally wonder whether the latter’s suicide were real; is this therapy for a couple traumatised by betrayal on personal and political stages alike? Probably not, ultimately, although the possibility tantalises. The staging, despite or indeed on account of its specificity of direction in the moment, remains open: adaptable to our standpoints, as well as the characters’, the director’s. As Jordan at last summoned greater Romantic fire from the orchestra – still rather less than some of us might have liked – the work opened up in a fascinating way, at least to those open for it to do so. The path shown by therapists Anna and Narbal – elegant of line as of gesture in fine, collegiate performances from Aude Extrémo and Christian van Horn – infuriated onstage and off. Parts of an audience whose behaviour was often, even by opera house standards, truly appalling, erupted prior to the fifth act, booing only obliterated by one fascist’s interminable hurling of verbal abuse. Cries of ‘Silence!’ only served to encourage, so it seemed, until Jordan momentarily defused matters by holding up a white cloth from his baton in the pit.

Narbal (Christian van Horn), Didon (Ekaterina Semenchuk), Énée, Iopas (Cyrille Dubois), Anna (Aude Extrémo)

Transformation of identities in set-pieces such as the Royal Hunt – is that not precisely what the music portrays, indeed incites? – has led inexorably to moments of violence onstage too: for instance, at the close of the fourth act, Didon’s throwing the table across the stage in anger. Whilst we have mostly been following Énée’s story – Berlioz and Jovanovich alike ensuring that – we suddenly become aware of another. And if we are human, we feel the guilt that, to be fair, this Énée displays too, whatever his decision. By bringing plot mechanics, emotions, trauma into the open – not unlike, say, the framework of the Centre Pompidou – Tcherniakov and his cast highlight their manipulation, both passive (by other forces, be they of Fate or something more human) and active (of the therapy group, of the audience). Worlds collide; lies and truths alike multiply, courtesy not least of dedicated performances from Jovanovich and Ekaterina Semenchuk. Elegant simplicity of response from Cyrille Dubois (Iopas) and Bror Magnus Tødenes (Hylas) in their big moments served also to highlight the dramatic contrast of complexity elsewhere. We might sometimes wish to hear beautiful airs, beautifully sung – who does not? – but we know, or should know, that there is far more to musical drama than that. Didon ultimately loses out in more ways than convention might ever have imagined. Does she reprise Créuse's final sacrifice in a formal and dramatic recapitulation? Has she not been preparing that role all along? Jovanovich’s portrayal of trauma and caprice may endure longer in the memory, but is that not in itself testimony to our ‘values’, our exaltation of ‘heroism’?

What of that most elevated – or enervated – of truths, Werktreue? Cuts in the theatre are hardly the end of the world. Whilst I should happily see the opera complete, I can live, as here, without much of the fourth-act ballet music (which, if memory serves me correctly, was included complete at Covent Garden in 2012, with less than convincing choreographic results). There are more fidelities, greater fidelities than are dreamt of in dull literalists’ philosophy. Such fidelities will more often than not be unleashed by infidelities, be they in love, in war, or in art. That is very much the story of Les Troyens and of Tcherniakov’s engagement with it; it should also be the tale of our engagement with both. What form that takes, or does not, is up to us. The greatest sadness, however, would be if, playing the role of heirs to Bergé and his patronising anti-modernism, we did not so much as try.

Prom 11: Les Troyens - Royal Opera/Pappano, 22 July 2012

Royal Albert Hall

Cassandre – Anna Caterina Antonacci

Chorèbe – Fabio Capitanucci
Enée – Bryan Hymel
Didon – Eva-Maria Westbroek
Narbal – Brindley Sherratt
Anna – Hanna Hipp
Ascagne – Barbara Senator
Priam – Robert Lloyd
Hécube – Pamela Helen Stephen
Ghost of Hector – Jihoon Kim
Panthée – Ashley Holland
Hélénus – Ji Hyun Kim
Greek Captain – Lukas Jakobski
Trojan Soldier/Mercure – Daniel Grice
Iopas – Ji-Min Park
First Soldier – Adrian Clarke
Second Soldier – Jeremy White
Hylas – Ed Lyon

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Sir Antonio Pappano (conductor)

Image: BBC/Chris Christodoulou

Hearing The Trojans in concert at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Proms was, for me at least, a much happier experience than when it laboured under the crowd-pleasing would-be-musical-comedy served up by David McVicar’s production for the Royal Opera. (I wrote about my experience of the latter here, so shall try to restrain myself from rehearsing my criticisms. For a very different standpoint, from one who admired McVicar’s staging, read Anne Ozorio’s review for Opera Today.)

Speaking to a few members of the audience who had also attended both, I was clearly not the only person to have found conductor and soloists liberated by the concert hall. Sir Antonio Pappano’s conducting still has its problems, but he makes Berlioz sound less like Verdi than he does Wagner, and, as at Covent Garden, his reading gathered strength as it went on. Even the first act, where sometimes he appeared to think that he was conducting Aida, had stronger, more idiomatic moments.  The very opening was far too fast, breathless rather than jubilant, the Trojans opening ‘Ha! Ha!’ sounding as if they were hyper-ventilating. However, the transformation of mood signalling the arrival of Cassandre was very well handled, doubtless informed by plenty of theatrical experience yet without the encumbrance of inadequate scenic presentation. The disquieting weirdness of the orchestra throughout her recitative and aria painted a thousand words. Likewise, the terrible, ominous tread of the march and choral hymn, ‘Dieux protecteurs de la ville éternelle’  - the irony of the words properly telling – was compellingly presented, far more in touch with the inheritance of Gluck’s obsequies than had previously been the case. It was a pity, then, that the ensuing Wrestlers’ Dance reverted to Verdian type. Cassandre’s aria, ‘Non, je ne verrai pas la deplorable fête’ was conducted as if Pappano had a bus to catch, but thereafter things settled down, off-stage – or rather arena – brass sounding utterly resplendent in the act finale. One might have had quibbles here and there, but save for an unfortunate lapse of tension towards the end of the fourth act – it really must be maintained here, lest the Berlioz nay-sayers have their day in court over alleged ‘longueurs’ – there was much to enjoy, not least a vividly pictorial Royal Hunt and Storm, suffused also with erotic longing.

Of course, those of us who have heard Sir Colin Davis conduct the opera will never forget the experience: a performance far more alert to Berlioz’s formal imperatives, in which never, not once, did the dramatic, Gluckian tensian sag, but sadly, it is not logistically possible for every performance one hears to emanate from the hands of the world’s greatest Berlioz interpreter. The best stomachs, to misquote Voltaire, are not necessarily those that reject all food. Pappano more often than not did a good job, considerably better than at the staged performance I saw. And the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House played magnificently throughout, even on the occasions when its direction proved a little misguided.

The major problem with a number of the sung performances remained the level not only of French pronunciation, but French style. The latter is not monolithic of course, and it is no bad thing to have preconceptions challenged, but singing Berlioz as if he were Verdi simply does not pass muster, especially if pronunciation is all over the place. (Incidentally, the lack of comment by many writers on this crucial aspect should really be a matter for concern. If English-language critics simply cannot hear when the French language is being distorted, even butchered, they should probably leave Berlioz well alone.) There was a broad spectrum, of course: two singers who again covered themselves in glory were Ed Lyon as Hylas, his song deceptively simple and touching, and Anna Caterina Antonacci as Cassandre. If there were times when the orchestra threatened to overwhelm the latter’s voice, it never did, and that struggle is surely expressive of the drama. Relieved of McVicarisms, Antonacci channelled all of her musico-dramatic energies into a searing portrayal of the doomed prophetess. Even as a little boy reading the ancient legends, Cassandra was for me a figure of empathy; here, her predicament and nobility of spirit were searingly portrayed in a performance that would have nothing whatsoever to fear from comparison with Davis’s Petra Lang. Ironically, Eva-Maria Westbroek’s Didon, if hardly an epitome of French style, came alive far more dramatically than on stage. There was now a proper sense of a woman scorned, of righteous fury. Bryan Hymel’s Enée, however, continues to lack not only correct, or even feasible, pronunciation, but also refulgence of tone. If only, Jonas Kaufmann had been fit to sing. At times, alas, Hymel sounded like a parody of Jon Vickers Perhaps others can more readily overlook the odd mispronunciations, also a characteristic of Fabio Capitanucci’s Chorèbe, but they surely ought at least to have difficulties with the strangulated tone and the crude, Verdi-like delivery. Vignettes were often well taken. Ji-Min Park’s Iopas was sung beautifully, if one could ignore the lack of ease with the language. And small though the part may be, Pamela Helen Stephen’s Hécube somehow managed blood-curdlingly to capture the attention, as she and others recoiled at the death of Laocoön.

Aside from the second act finale, when the women experienced slight intonational problems, the choral singing was excellent too. Not quite a match, perhaps for Davis’s London Symphony Chorus – is there a chorus anywhere that has sung more Berlioz? – but impressive nevertheless.  As an introduction to Berlioz’s extraordinary opera, this could hardly have failed to impress. Even for those of us who have known Les Troyens for a while, it remained an inspiring, if in some respects flawed, experience. Both the Proms and the Royal Opera should be congratulated for their efforts in bringing the work to a wider audience.

Les Troyens, Royal Opera, 8 July 2012

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Cassandre – Anna Caterina Antonacci

Chorèbe – Fabio Capitanucci
Enée – Bryan Hymel
Didon – Eva-Maria Westbroek
Narbal – Brindley Sherratt
Anna – Hanna Hipp
Ascagne – Barbara Senator
Priam – Robert Lloyd
Hécube – Pamela Helen Stephen
Ghost of Hector – Jihoon Kim
Panthée – Ashley Holland
Hélénus – Ji Hyun Kim
Greek Captain – Lukas Jakobski
Trojan Soldier – Daniel Grice
Iopas – Ji-Min Park
First Soldier – Adrian Clarke
Second Soldier – Jeremy White
Hylas – Ed Lyon

Sir David McVicar (director)

Leah Hausman (associate director)
Es Devlin (set designs)
Moritz Junge (costumes)
Wolfgang Göbbel (lighting)
Andrew George (choreography and movement)

Royal Opera Chorus and Extra Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Sir Antonio Pappano (conductor)

It would be difficult not even to feel a little grateful for one’s first opportunity to see The Trojans in the theatre. By the same token, save for the very fact of that experience, it would be difficult to come up with a single instance in which Sir Colin Davis’s 2003 Proms performances were not superior. The Royal Opera’s new production is alleged to have some connection to the Olympic Games; the only connection I can think of is of large sums of money being ill-advisedly spent.

The chief villain here, for the performances are certainly not without merit, is the director, Sir David McVicar. Whether the knighthood has gone to his head, whether he is overworked, or whether he simply has no interest in Berlioz’s opera, something has gone terribly wrong here. Or perhaps better, nothing has gone right. Some of McVicar’s earlier work was very good indeed – I think especially of his Turn of the Screw for ENO – but more recently, it has been difficult to discern much beyond bread and circuses, an alleged theatrical imperative ‘to put on a show’, ‘to entertain’, taking precedence over any tedious requirements to have an idea or two. (In an opera of the scope and length of The Trojans, a dizzying three might be thought advisable.)

There is, I suppose, a ‘concept’ of sorts, namely setting the work – though would one know, if one were not told? – at the time of the Crimean War. Yet that is it, and I cannot for the life of me work out what the mere setting – an old, increasingly tired McVicar updating to the time of composition – tells us about the work, nor even what The Trojans tells us about the Crimean War. The set for the first part looks like something designed for a West End musical, doubtless testament to a great deal of skill on the part of Es Devlin, but to what end? There is, of course, a great deal of ‘theatrical’ busy-ness, unnecessary extras all over the place, children in particular making an unpardonable noise over the score, as if the cast were not large enough already. As for the horse and the bizarre iron man at the end, there is something quite repellent about the resort to pointless and doubtless extremely costly ‘special effects’; the ghost of Francesca Zambello’s hapless Don Giovanni, which we had all believed put out of our misery for good, is summoned in the silly use of fire at the end of the second and fifth acts with respect to the two ‘machines’. McVicar seems to have far more in common with Meyerbeer’s ‘effect without cause’ – at least if one believes Wagner – than with Berlioz’s world of fantasy, let alone the nobility inherited from Gluck. Indeed, I cannot imagine an approach less suited to an heir of Gluck. As for the mismatch between pseudo-realism and the requirements of myth, it was well-nigh impossible so much as to discern that the problem had even registered with those responsible. Carthage is vaguely ‘ethnic’. Perhaps the intention – I am being charitable – was to criticise orientalism; what we see instead is as clear an instantiation of orientalism as one could imagine, ‘exotic’ pageantry a poor substitute for sympathy, let alone engagement. Even theatrical expertise is thrown out of the window in the fifth act, when, following the departure of Enée, Didon’s outpourings take place in front of a dismal curtain, to enable extensive scene-changing to take place. And then, there are the horrors of Andrew George’s choreography. I am not sure I have ever seen anything quite so catastrophically inept, certainly nothing so insultingly unfitted to a musico-dramatic masterpiece, as the all-purpose writhing on the floor to which the ladies – and we – were subjected. I can readily imagine greater dramatic tension in a ladies’ sewing circle than George and McVicar were able to summon up for the followers of Cassandre. It seemed of rather more interest to them, if hardly of any greater dramatic import to us, to ensure that comely male dancers would display more flesh with their every appearance.

Singing, may the gods be thanked, fared better. Pick of the bunch was for me Anna Caterina Antonacci’s Cassandre. I can imagine others thinking differently and thinking her portrayal over-acted. However, the wild intensity of her account, seemingly quite dissociated from the trivia elsewhere on stage, pointed to the possibilities another production might have brought. Had a director been serious about engagement with an Oriental ‘Other’ and its strange – to us – world of prophecies and rituals, Antonacci’s Cassandre would have been the perfect place to start. Eva-Maria Westbroek’s Didon was heartfelt, sympathetic, accomplished, if not quite on the level of some past assumptions of the role. Hanna Hipp, after a slightly uncertain part, grew in stature as Anna, the heroine’s sister; there are a voice and a stage presence here with great potential to go far. Ed Lyon has little to do as Hylas, but what he does, in that gorgeous fifth-act song, is delectable to a degree; there was also a sense of French style here far from ever-present elsewhere. Brindley Sherratt’s Narbal and Ji-Min Park’s Iopas made impressive contributions, the former an excellent demonstration of strength in a character role. Likewise, the stars of Pamela Helen Stephen and Robert Lloyd shine brightly if briefly as the royal pair of Hécube and Priam. Lloyd’s French, both linguistically and stylistically, put to shame the dismal efforts of Fabio Capitanucci as Chorèbe. (French is a notoriously difficult language to sing, but I cannot recall hearing worse than that.) Bryan Hymel’s Enée fared little better in that respect, sorry though one felt for him in a situation when everyone was doubtless ruing the absence of Jonas Kaufmann. His tone was often dry, often strangulated, but there were moments when something freer emerged, even if the style sounded far more appropriate to nineteenth-century Italian repertoire than to Berlioz.

For much of the first part, the same could have been said of Sir Antonio Pappano’s conducting, despite the magnificent efforts of the orchestra. Indeed, the emphasis on display, seemingly ignorant of or uninterested in the legacy of Gluck, fitted all too well with McVicar’s production, and was often mercilessly hard-driven. There was undeniable skill, yet it was misplaced. However, from the third act onwards, and particularly during the fourth, Pappano showed himself far more sensitive to the delicacy that is at least as much a hallmark of Berlioz’s orchestral writing as his grander statements. The enchanted love-music at the close of the fourth act was, if not a match for Sir Colin’s performances, ravishing on its own terms.  The chorus, if on occasion a little rough-hewn, was for the most part a powerful music and dramatic presence.

Alas, the strengths of many of the musical performances could not distract one from the emptiness of the staging. Were it not for the half-hearted ‘updating’, the mindlessness of the production might have ‘Made for the Met’ stamped upon it. As it is, Vienna, Milan, and San Francisco will have to share the co-production woes of this crowd-pleasing extravaganza. (By the way, someone should inform McVicar that Mercury’s wings should be on his helmet or his shoes, not his back.) Is it not time perhaps for someone who has become almost a house director at Covent Garden to be used a little more sparingly? Imagine what a director – Stefan Herheim, for instance – more willing to engage with a work’s intellectual concerns and context might have done with The Trojans, and then ask whether this glorified pageant, with 'movement' that travelled so far beyond embarrassing that English vocabulary has yet to catch up, were more deserving of association with the vulgar, hubristic nonsense of the Olympics than with the fantastic subtlety of Berlioz.