King Roger, Royal Opera, 1 May 2015



Images: ROH/Bill Cooper

Royal Opera House

Archbishop – Alan Ewing

Deaconess – Agnes Zwierko
King 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.

 

Don Giovanni, Royal Opera, 14 February 2014

 

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Leporello – Alex Esposito

Donna Anna – Malin Byström
Don Giovanni – Mariusz Kwiecień
Commendatore – Alexander Tsyambalyuk
Don Ottavio – Antonio Poli
Donna Elvira – Véronique Gens
Zerlina – Elizabeth Watts
Masetto – Dawid Kimberg

Kasper Holten (director)

Es Devlin (set designs)
Luke Halls (video)
Anja Vang Kragh (costumes)
Bruon Poet (lighting)
Sine Fabricis (choreography)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Nicola Luisotti (conductor)

 

When, a fortnight ago, this production of Don Giovanni opened at the Royal Opera House, it seemed to have created uproar. Whilst I should have liked to go without hearing anything about it, that seemed well-nigh impossible in this case. From some of the comments, one would have thought that the love-child of Frank Castorf and Hans Neuenfels had been delivered – not that I should necessarily have minded that at all. I can only assume that half the audience must have been made up of a UKIP convention, having somehow found time to rest its collective eyes from perusing the latest pensées of Jan Moir and Melanie Phillips. What I saw was not only a thoughtful, intelligent, coherent staging, but actually if anything rather a ‘traditional’ one.

 

The premise of Kasper Holten’s production is interesting, yet hardly ‘difficult’. Don Giovanni is not merely imagining his story, but in a sense writing it. Though not identical, there is perhaps some kinship here with Holten’s Copenhagen Ring, in which Brünnhilde discovers ‘her’ story. In any case, the idea is not thrust in one’s face, and one could probably leave it to one side, should one wish. Was it, then, the projections which so offended? It is difficult to understand how or why. Aside from inscribing the names of some of Giovanni’s conquests upon the walls, they simply offer an elegant solution to the problem of shifting scenes. Doubtless this might have been accomplished through multiple scene changes, but the sense of an unchanging framework – Giovanni’s ego? – transformed according to circumstance, whim, and narrative would thereby have been lost. Perhaps most dramatically – in a true rather than sensationalist sense – this was accomplished through the creation of a labyrinth, not at all inappropriate to Mozart’s second-act music, straining as it is towards the Second Viennese School, Berg in particular. (Doubtless UKIP would not like that, but then it would probably be happier with the collected works of Eric Coates – or perhaps Dame Vera Lynn.) The great sextet works splendidly, characters compartmentalised, confused, attempting yet failing to make their ways out, agency of their own undermined by the central character’s control – but is it control? – of the narrative. The shift of the action to the nineteenth century might worry some, I suppose, but it is hardly Calixto Bieito – his still the best staging I have seen in the theatre of this work – and  added a layer of reminiscence to the conception of narrative, itself perhaps reminiscent of Holten’s Onegin as well as his Ring. These, I hesitate, are my readings; they may well not have been the director’s, but that openness to reading seems to me in itself a virtue of the staging.

 

I have one major reservation, concerning the ending. Not the Stone Guest Scene and its aftermath as such: they are well handled, leaving Giovanni on stage alone to cope with the existential devastation of his own creation, that issue of ‘creation’, be it of the self, of others, of narrative, an important point throughout. The ‘moral’ is sung from the pit, whilst he breaks down, Hell being the ‘written’ voices in his head. In this context, I can understand why Holten might have considered cutting the first part of the scena ultima; it indeed makes some sense in terms of his concept. It should probably, however, have been reconsidered. Contrary to the nonsense one spectacularly uninformed journalist – I wrote to him to point this out, but he did not dignify me with a response – was spouting, there is absolutely no precedent for this in Mozart’s own practice, such as we know it. For it was not the case that the scene was omitted entirely. (That may have happened in Vienna in 1788; we simply do not know.) Nor did the performance adopt the possibility of a cut within the scene, running from ‘Ah! certo è l’ombra che m’incontrò!’ to ‘Resti dunque quel birbon’, there being four ‘new’ bars, marked Andante, to facilitate that transition. Rather it sounded as if, in recorded music terms, we had simply skipped a track. In a production that often shows itself alert to the score as well as to the text, this was a pity – but a revival will offer occasion to reconsider. There is also the matter of the typical dreadful conflation of Vienna and Prague versions earlier on: regrettable, certainly, but sadly typical of most stagings. It really is time for directors and, still more conductors, to stand up to singers, audiences, whoever else might be longing for extra arias, however heart-rendingly beautiful, and say no; the drama must come first.

 

I had also been led by many to believe that something outlandish was to be offered by Nicola Luisotti. Now this was not Barenboim or Muti, let alone Klemperer or Furtwängler. But it was for the most part a well conducted, stylish performance. There were occasions when tension sagged, sadly more than a little during the oddly fire-less – and I do not mean to invoke the unlamented Francesca Zambello here! – Stone Guest Scene. But there was a sense of a greater whole, tempi were mostly sensible, and there was the most part a welcome degree of flexibility. Mozart’s music was certainly not harried. The strings played sweetly, the woodwind players often magically euphonious. Even when Luisotti took decisions from which I might have dissented, for instance, in reducing the strings for ‘Ah, fuggi, il traditor!’ there was discernible reason for his choice, likewise for his adding harpsichord to the mix here. It was clearly an attempt to highlight the kinship with Handel, even if some of us think that is better left to speak for itself.

 

As for the much-exaggerated continuo madness: well, I should prefer a modern piano to a fortepiano, but I can see no particular harm in offering fortepiano and harpsichord. They offered not only variety but also difference of response to situation, and if Luisotti’s fortepiano playing sometimes drew attention to itself a little too much, I have heard far worse. A strange switching between major and minor – yes, I suppose one could say that it is characteristic of the work as a whole – did little for the end of one recitative, and its deployment there seemed oddly arbitrary, but again, I have heard worse.

 

Mariusz Kwiecień shone in the title role: masculine, effortlessly seductive – it was, after all, his character’s imagination running riot – and unabashedly sexy. It would have been difficult, most likely impossible, for anyone to resist his call. Certainly his womenfolk did not, could not, and that was as much a matter of detailed attention to the libretto as to the musical line, operatic alchemy properly in evidence. Alex Esposito proved an alert, quicksilver Leporello. Malin Byström’s Donna Anna, clearly loving every minute of her seduction, could be somewhat wayward vocally; at its best, however, it was a powerful assumption, which placed the role and its emotional confusion firmly in the Romantic camp of ETA Hoffmann. Véronique Gens seemed to be having something of an off-day as Donna Elvira, one of her recitatives problematical in terms of intonation, though ‘Mi tradì’ itself recovered nicely. Elizabeth Watts was a perky, strong-minded Zerlina, full of her own seductive gifts, as was shown in her interaction with Dawid Kimberg’s contrastingly bluff Masetto. Antonio Poli displayed a sweet-toned tenor as Don Ottavio, though his intonation wandered a little at times. The Commendatore, as sung by Alexander Tsymbalyuk, made his mark well, whilst remaining integrated into the production’s dramatic framework. Choral singing was excellent throughout.

 

Sadly, the biggest problem lay with the audience. If UKIP moral outrage were less in evidence, boorish behaviour certainly remained. The bar is low, I admit, but this must have been one of the worst-behaved audiences I have yet encountered in the house. Coughing levels suggested a tuberculosis epidemic. Those I could see all around me made no effort to stifle their outbursts; I shall be fortunate indeed if I have not succumbed myself by this evening. Their chattering was, if anything, worse still, likewise the sweet-wrapper opening, and the strange, quite un-erotic groping I was compelled to witness in front of me. But the nadir came when the Catalogue Aria had to pause for a minute whist a gang of morons applauded in the middle.  Luisotti should, admittedly, have pressed ahead, but the fault was not really his. How difficult is it to understand that the first rule of attending a performance, and indeed of social interaction in general, should be to show consideration for others? This is not a matter of some mysterious ‘concert etiquette’, as contrarians would have it; it is what any decent human being would do, whether on a train, in a bus queue, or at the opera. Perhaps we need to move to a Stasi-like system in which behaviour is monitored and miscreants are barred from the premises…

Le nozze di Figaro, Royal Opera, 31 May 2010

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Figaro – Erwin Schrott
Susanna – Eri Nakamura
Count Almaviva – Mariusz Kwiecien
Countess Almaviva – Annette Dasch
Cherubino – Jurgita Adamonytė
Bartolo – Robert Lloyd
Basilio – Peter Hoare
Don Curzio – Christopher Gillett
Marcellina – Marie McLaughlin
Barbarina – Amanda Forsythe
Antonio – Nicholas Folwell
Bridesmaids – Glenys Groves, Kate McCarney

David McVicar (director)
Tanya McCallin (designs)
Paule Constable (lighting)
Leah Hausman (movement)

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

Covent Garden’s present run of The Marriage of Figaro opened with an evening of true wonders, let down by some other aspects. Let me get the latter out of the way: first, a good or rather a bad part of the audience. How I weary of having to ask this, but is it impossible for people simply to behave in a fashion that does not detract from others’ experience? One almost grows inured to low- or even intermediate-level coughing, but the hayfever season was well marked by an epidemic of sneezing. Chatter, mobile telephones, banging, bracelet jangling, unwrapping of sweets: all and more were there. And if to applaud within acts infuriates, to do so before a number has even concluded is unforgivable. Lesser composers do not deserve this; Mozart certainly does not.

David McVicar’s production has its moments, but already looks a bit tired. The hyperactive army of servants continues to irritate, nowhere more so than during the overture, where Mozart should surely be left to speak for himself. I no more understand the updating to c.1830 than I did on previous encounters. One might make a case – though I suspect that it would be easier to do so in writing than on stage – for a production that looked back fifty years, engaged in a dialogue with the ancien regime, and considered the world of the Restoration in which the Bourbons remembered everything but had learned nothing. This, however, does not seem to do so; it merely moves everything on half a century and continues in relatively light vein. The feudalism of the Almaviva estate, especially the droit de seigneur, was exaggerated at the time of writing, quite deliberately so. If, as here, it seems to be central to the production, then it is difficult to make sense of a temporal relocation. This work is historical in a way that Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte are not; updating needs a point that is lacking here. The arrival of a dog on stage when the Count rushes back from hunting is a cheap trick, guaranteed to make the sentimental coo, but with as little dramatic point as the transformation of Don Basilio into a Danny La Rue de ses jours. (Camping it up does not go so far as that in Barrie Kosky’s dreadful Berlin production, but it remains unwarranted by words or music.) And the concentration on a mute serving girl at the end irritatingly reprises a McVicar trick of taking a minor or even invented character and, for reasons uncertain, thrusting him or her into the limelight. Naaman in Salome and Mohammed in Der Rosenkavalier are two further examples.

Sad to say, the female singers were mostly disappointing. Annette Dasch made for a bland Countess – which is surely not what this most wonderfully sophisticated of Mozart’s women should be. There was nothing especially wrong, other than excessive tremulousness in ‘Dove sono’, nor was there anything with which truly to empathise, let alone to adore. My thoughts wandered to the image and sound of Kiri Te Kanawa in the beautiful filmed production from Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, conducted exquisitely by Karl Böhm. Eri Nakamura seemed simply to have bitten off more than she could chew as Susanna. There was a transformation of sorts from a thin-toned soubrette in the first two acts to inexpressive excess of volume during the latter two, but personality, whether vocal or stage, was notable only through its absence. Her Italian was as unidiomatic as I have heard. Jurgita Adamonytė’s Cherubino was perfectly adequate, but little more: one longed for Christine Schäfer, originally slated for the role. Marie McLaughlin, however, made a fine Marcellina. It was a pity to lose her aria, the ‘traditional’, regrettable cuts being made. It was a matter of great sadness, though, to witness Robert Lloyd’s Bartolo fail to keep up with the orchestra, both in his vendetta aria and in ensembles. Let us hope that this was just an off-day.

And yet… there were two stellar performances from Erwin Schrott as Figaro and Marius Kwiecien as the Count. Both are artists – and actors – of extraordinary charisma. Testosterone levels registered during their confrontations might well have exceeded all previous records. Never have I felt so keenly the fury of Figaro’s ‘Perché no?’ immediately prior to the third act finale. The Count’s frustrations of his valet had finally pushed him too far; I thought he might kill his master. For the chemistry between the two baritones was something special indeed, their relationship far more credible than any other. Kwiecien possessed the stage as to the manor born, the dark arrogance of his vocal portrayal enhanced by his physical presence. And the slipping away of his authority, supplanted by the upstart Figaro, was if anything all the more impressive in its astonishing subtlety. But victor, of course, there could only be one: Schrott left one in no doubt that this was ultimately Figaro’s show. Try as I might, I could not summon up a single reservation – and, to be frank, I have no inclination to do so. Whether it be his ease with the Italian language, the diction of extraordinary and meaningful clarity, not least in his daring sashays into parlando delivery, the beauty of his legato tone, the smouldering sexuality, or the equally extraordinary vulnerability displayed in his fourth-act aria, this Figaro had it all. Schrott’s is an assumption every bit the equal of his astounding Don Giovanni.

Greatness was present on stage, then, and also in the pit. Sir Colin Davis’s previous conducting of this production in 2006 marks one of the highlights of my operatic experience, unsurpassed and unsurpassable. My enthusiasm on this occasion was slightly tempered by a slightly staid quality to the opening of the first act, but I suspect that I should never even have noticed this from another conductor. I was unconvinced, moreover, by the need for harpsichord continuo during the orchestral recitatives, but nor was it a matter of great import. For warmth and dramatic flow proved second to none thereafter, likewise the sheer sensuous delight of Mozart’s orchestral genius. Nothing was rushed, and yet the score pulsated with life. (Nikolaus Harnoncourt is quite right to bemoan the current fad for performing Mozart as fast as possible, quite right to suggest that the music ends up sounding like Rossini. The only problem is that Harnoncourt’s own musical response to the ‘problem’ is generally so perverse.) Silken strings, beguiling woodwind, cruelly ravishing horns of cuckoldry: one could not have wished for more, and no praise would be high enough for the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, which put not a finger wrong. This is what Mozart performance, the most difficult and yet rewarding task in the world, should sound like. Davis’s structural command was likewise as impressive as any I have heard, enough to silence once and for all the doubters who claim that sonata forms cannot be aurally perceived in theatrical performance. Try telling that to anyone who listened to – as opposed to merely heard – this rendition of the Act Two finale. And to hear the world stop for the moment of forgiveness at the end, with no disruption to the structure of the act, was an object lesson in operatic direction. Truly one has to go back to Böhm or Erich Kleiber to hear Mozart conducting of such distinction. One could forgive a great deal, if not quite the selfish audience contingent, for such an opportunity.