Peter Grimes, Royal Opera, 17 March 2022

Royal Opera House

Images: ROH 2022 (c) Yasuko Kageyama
The Boy (Cruz Fitz), Peter Grimes (Allan Clayton)

Hobson – Stephen Richardson
Swallow – John Tomlinson
Peter Grimes – Allan Clayton
Ned Keene – Jacque Imbrailo
Rev. Horace Adams – James Gilchrist
Bob Boles – John Graham-Hall
Auntie – Catherine Wyn-Rogers
First Niece – Jennifer France
Second Niece – Alexandra Lowe
Mrs Sedley – Rosie Aldridge
Ellen Orford – Maria Bengtsson
Bryn Terfel – Captain Balstrode
The Boy – Cruz Fitz
Aerialist – Jamie Higgins

Deborah Warner (director)
Michael Levine (set designs)
Luis F. Carvalho (costumes)
Peter Mumford (lighting)
Kim Brandstrup (choreography)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: William Spaulding)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Mark Elder (conductor)

London has proved fortunate with recent productions of Peter Grimes (and doubtless with older ones too). David Alden’s 2014 production for ENO and Willy Decker’s for the Royal Opera (in its 2011 revival) both had considerable virtues and received performances. This new staging from Deborah Warner and the performances that brought it to life were nevertheless in a class of their own, showing the Royal Opera at the top of its game.

All three productions will have displeased the Campaign for Real Barnacles, and thank goodness for that. Warner takes us into the dark underbelly of a contemporary, down-at-heel seaside town, with neither room nor appetite for prettified nostalgia for an early nineteenth century that never was (and certainly never was in George Crabbe). I thought of a poorer version of Margate, somewhere perhaps in Essex—and lo and behold, had that confirmed in Warner’s programme reference to ‘some of the extremely poor and socially deprived towns of the Essex coast, namely Jaywick Sands’, testament not to any great acuity on my part but to Michael Levine’s sets, Luis F. Carvalho’s costumes, and to the entire ensemble of Warner’s production, sharply, meaningfully choreographed by Kim Brandstrup. There is poverty here, also reckless abandon; there are drugs, alcohol, and sleaze; there is a ‘community’ that rounds on an outsider and in the violence of that rounding discovers a nativist identity and ‘morality’ that chills and kills. It takes back control, polices its borders, and deals with outsiders in a terrifying march of intimidation, fire, and nihilism. This Borough is UKIP, even BNP, country, in which shirtless neo-Nazis mix with dealers such as Ned Keene, one of the more sympathetic townsmen if ultimately untrustworthy on account of his habit; and bigoted, ‘respectable’ rentiers such as Mrs Sedley. It is not, however, an amorphous mass: not everyone is like that, and everyone has his or her own story. Warner takes immense care, as do all of those participating, every member of the chorus clearly directed individually and coming to life both in that individuality and as part of a deadly, group identity. Not only do Grimes and his apprentices—one hauntingly portrayed as a just out-of-touch aerialist vision—have no chance; nor does Ellen Orford, herself a victim of Grimes’s physical violence. ‘The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual.’

 

There is no sign that Grimes is homosexual, or Muslim, or Polish for that matter; but this is undoubtedly the rough justice that would be meted out to him if he were. It is a similar social tragedy to that one sees in parts of Brandenburg or Saxony, doubtless across the world. But it has a particularly English flavour. They do like to be beside the seaside, and they do not like others, with no place to be there, to attempt to join them. Britten’s fraught relationship to England and Englishness, his (partly) thwarted internationalism, and the parochialism of some of his devotees are set in implied counterpoint, but with the work rather than its critics ultimately setting the terms of examination. It is slightly odd—maybe more than that—that, in the contemporary setting, Grimes’s apprentice should be so young a boy, but even that serves to remind us of another aspect of the ‘Britten problem’, which this contemporary Borough would doubtless address with savage, summary justice. 

There could not, I think, have been a better choice to conduct this production than Mark Elder, who led the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, on as fine form as I can recall, as if a man possessed. He clearly believes in every note of the score and, more to the point, revealed all manner of potentialities I had barely imagined were there. Musical processes are clear and generative, indicative of a serious attempt to address the problems of form that so often bedevil Britten’s music in work and performance. An account of titanic clashes and contrasts spanned, on the one hand, screaming echoes of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth and, beyond it, the Mahler of the Fifth Symphony; and, on the other, passages of translucent beauty that seemed to have all the time in the world, yet are fated to be cut short. Elder’s conducting was urgent, even when spacious, whipping up a sequence of storms of fatal consequence that not only framed, but incited, the action on stage. We were reminded that, here, the sea was a thing of danger as well as livelihood, a theatre of cruelty and redress far more than a picturesque landscape.

Another man possessed was Allan Clayton’s Peter. If I say it was the most beautifully sung account of the role I have heard that would unduly delimit its range, though in many respects it certainly was beautiful—and more youthfully vulnerable than the typical craggy old man. This, crucially, was a performance that dug deep psychologically, that suggested profound consideration of dilemmas and traumas faced by the character, and frankly admitted that not all could or should be answered. I could not help but think of Boris Godunov in Clayton’s final scene; the voice is different, as are music, drama, and almost everything else, yet psychological descent and devastation presented tragic parallels across the divide.

Ellen Orford (Maria Bengtsson), The Boy

Maria Bengtsson gave us a profoundly human, refreshingly unhackneyed Ellen Orford, a force for good whose goodness went so cruelly punished. Her ‘Embroidery Aria’ could not have been more touchingly sung, its difficult intervals navigated with ease and in perfect harmony with the orchestra. Jacques Imbrailo’s Ned Keene offered a fascinating study in ambiguity, perhaps beyond mere good and evil. Powerfully and, again, beautifully sung, so much more lay in the acting: a drug-addled hedonist who exerted a mysterious yet undeniable attraction, not an outside as such, yet never quite to be assimilated. Bryn Terfel’s Balstrode may well be the finest opera performance I have seen from him, fully in command of the role and its possibilities, throughout exuding deep humanity and a wisdom that again set him apart without excluding him. Catherine Wyn-Rogers gave us a world-weary yet lively Auntie of experience, Rosie Aldridge a properly vicious Mrs Sedley, more insidious than John Graham-Hall's nicely buffoonish Bob Boles. There were no disappointments in a strong supporting cast, which seemed to grow out of that minutely observed direction of the chorus: a community of individual and mass imperatives. Choral singing was likewise outstanding, the Royal Opera Chorus on better form than I have heard for a long time, fully engaged in portrayal of Britten, Warner, and Elder’s visions (as well, doubtless, as their own).

 

This enthusiasm comes from a place of ambivalence toward the work itself. I am not yet persuaded that swathes of the second act in particular are not a little dull, nor that the influence of Wozzeck at the beginning of the third is not a little too close for comfort, ‘Arias’ still seem to stand out awkwardly from the rest, and so on. If you are going to be influenced, though, you will struggle to find a better source of influence than Wozzeck, and not every opera can attain the perfection of Figaro or Tristan. This was an outstanding night of theatre, strongly to be recommended to everyone: to the Britten devotees who will not give two hoots about my reservations; to fellow Britten-agnostics, who may also find previous reactions challenged; and even to those more hostile, whose road to conversion may have its point of departure. Not to be missed.

L'Etoile, Royal Opera, 1 February 2016

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Images: ROH/Bill Cooper

 

 

Dupont – Jean-Luc Vincent

Smith – Chris Addison
Patacha – Samuel Sakker
Zalzal – Samuel Dale Johnson
King Ouf I – Christophe Mortagne
Siroco – Simon Bailey
Laoula – Hélène Guilmette
Hérisson de Porc-Epic – François Piolino
Aloès – Julie Boulianne
Tapioca – Aimery Lefèvre
Lazuli – Kate Lindsey
Maids of Honour – Lauren Fagen, Katy Batho, Kiera Lyness, Emily Edmonds, Louise Armit, Bernadette Lord 

Mariame Clément (director)

Julia Hansen (designs)
Jon Clark (lighting)
Mathieu Guilhamon (choreography)
Mariame Clément, Jean-Luc Vincent, Chris Addison (new dialogue)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Mark Elder (conductor)

 

Before saying anything else, I must commend the Royal Opera on broadening its repertoire. Anything that leavens a diets of endless Traviatas can only be a good, or at least a better, thing. Moreover, to perform a work that had not previously been given at Covent Garden is a better thing still. Alas, Chabrier’s opéra bouffe did not, on the whole, have a good night, and, although I know it has its admirers – the ‘lighter’ the music, the more militant the admiration tends to be – I really cannot claim to have been won over, at least insofar as I could tell from Mariame Clément’s confused production.

 

Clément never seems to be clear – or at least I was not – whether what we see might be intended ironically or not. Is the cod-mediævalism of the set designs intended to be amusing? I really have not the faintest idea, likewise with respect, more disturbingly, to its orientalism. A post-modern hotchpotch, is, as usual with such presentations, very much the thing, almost daring one to seem too serious, too intellectual, by requesting some degree of coherence. Ambiguity is not necessarily a bad thing, yet few of the metatheatrical possibilities go for anything very much; the creation of new characters and dialogue might be said to be frame the work, but ultimately to little purpose. (I was left with the impression that the purpose was really to create a role, in English, for Chris Addison.) Clément tries too hard, perhaps: there are too many silly things at which to gawp, and which do not cohere. (One might say that of the opera itself, I suppose, but let us at least try to give it the benefit of the doubt, without initially resorting to the disingenuous, ‘well, it’s supposed to be incoherent’.) Spectacle, especially in the French tradition, can be an important tool of drama, but here Wagner’s accusation – yes, I am doubtless too Teutonic by half – of ‘effect without cause’ seems far more just here than it was for Meyerbeer. Only people who think the appearance of a hot air balloon or a large elephant is intrinsically amusing – and there seem to have been many such people, I grant you – will have escaped the feeling of tedium during the lengthy progress of the evening.

 

For the real problem is, of course, that Meyerbeer could – and should – work very well at the Royal Opera House; the great pity of the Royal Opera’s Robert le diable was the director, Laurent Pelly’s inability to take it seriously. (That and, of course, the deadly conducting of the dread Daniel Oren.) A work such as L’Etoile would surely be far better off in a smaller, indeed a much smaller, theatre. Not only would one see the artists on stage, better to respond to their facial expressions, their shrugs, their other gestures; there would be no need to inflate the scenic representation beyond something this slight work can bear. As I said, there is nothing to bring out the protective impulse in certain music-lovers than to dare to express scepticism concerning something that is ‘light’. One immediately becomes humourless, joyless, all the rest of it. It certainly would not help one’s cause with them to point to the Leipzig Gewandhaus and its motto, ‘Res severa est verum gaudium’. But surely it is as ridiculous to claim that all ‘light music’ is good as to claim that all ‘serious music’ is. Palestrina is not Parsifal; I am not sure that L’Etoile deserves to be cherished as, say, the best of Offenbach, or even middling Offenbach. Silliness becomes wearing rather quickly; excellent satire does not.

 

Matters might have been helped, had Mark Elder, however, been a little less ‘serious’. The evening’s progress was fitful, one first-act duet in particular plodding rather than sparkling. Taken on its own terms, the playing of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House was impressive, yet I could not help but think that zippier direction would have helped it along. It was not actually an especially long evening, but it felt like it, the first act less than an hour felt to me considerably longer than its equivalent in Parsifal. And it was difficult, to put it mildly, to feel that as much was at stake.

 

 

The singing was generally good, though, as indeed was the acting. Christophe Mortagne’s King Ouf tilted more towards the latter, but perhaps that is as it should be. Kate Lindsey offered a spirit and, at times, almost touching performance in the role of the pedlar, Lazuli, however tiresome the antics surrounding him/her. Addison and his companion, Jean-Luc Vincent proved good company members, in no sense jealous of the limelight, although I could certainly have done without the former's Sherlock Holmes set-piece. If Simon Bailey’s astrologist Siroco veered somewhat uneasily between French and English, that was really the director’s responsibility. The four visitors, Julie Boulianne, François Piolino, Hélène Guilmette, and Aimery Lefèvre performed well throughout. Alas, neither work nor performance approached the sum of its parts. One may or may not have been supposed to care about the characters, but should one have felt such utter indifference to the action, such as it was?

 

Prom 31 - Coote/Hallé/Elder: Berlioz, Elgar, Grime, and Beethoven, 9 August 2014

Royal Albert Hall

Berlioz – Overture: Le Corsaire, op.21

Elgar – Sea Pictures

Helen Grime – Near Midnight (London premiere)

Beethoven – Symphony no.3 in E-flat major, ‘Eroica’, op.55

Alice Coote (mezzo-soprano)

Hallé

Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

 

One of the most saddening aspects of this year’s Proms has been the insulting disservice it has done to new music. Whoever is responsible for the decision to cut contemporary works from television broadcasts should lose his or her job forthwith; it is difficult to imagine a case in which the BBC has acted more clearly against anything remotely approaching Reithian principles. (For the most informative and thoughtful piece on this issue, I have seen, please visit Classical Iconoclast here.) And so it was, apparently, that despite giving the London premiere of Helen Grime’s Near Midnight, the BBC saw fit not to broadcast it on television, whilst offering the rest of the concert. Not only was the decision wrong, it was foolish, for this probably proved the highlight of the Hallé’s concert under Sir Mark Elder. (Incidentally, does not this ‘Hallé’ rebranding sound silly; whatever was wrong with the Hallé Orchestra?)

 

Near Midnight was the first piece Grime wrote for the Hallé as Associate Composer, as we learned in the composer’s informative programme note. Initially inspired by D.H. Lawrence’s poem, Week-night Service, it shows a composer seemingly born to write for a large symphony orchestra. Indeed, though there is not necessarily much in common in terms of language and musical content, that ease of handling initially put me in mind of Henze, though French composers and perhaps Carter may offer a more revealing comparison. Considerable, but not excessive, use is made of percussion, likewise brass fanfares which act ‘almost like the tolling of bells … important markers in the structure of the piece’. A keen sense of drama and fantasy – and fantasy accomplished – was very well conveyed by orchestra and conductor; so was Grime’s careful pacing, impetus building before subsiding beautifully. Composer, orchestra, conductor, and not least television audience: all are owed an apology by the BBC.

 

The first half had been devoted to Berlioz and Elgar, in what might, barring Near Midnight, have been a classic Barbirolli programme. In the Corsaire Overture, Elder seemed unable to settle upon convincing tempi. The opening was absurdly fast; what followed seemed excessively drawn out, there seeming to be little that connect various sections. However, the orchestra itself was on fine form, no detail being lost, whatever the tempo. That said, when very fast, accented notes tended to be snatched at rather than given their full import: hardly surprising. Not for the first time in the evening, I longed for the late Sir Colin Davis.

 

Alice Coote joined the orchestra for Elgar’s Sea Pictures. Hers was a carefully variegated performance, in many ways admirable, though sometimes she struggled either to make herself heard or at least to make the words heard in the Royal Albert Hall acoustic. Elder ensured that the orchestra did not overwhelm her, offering a magical tapestry of orchestral colour. Whether one can take Alice Elgar’s poetry is a matter of taste, or lack thereof, but ‘Capri’ at least proved a charming musical interlude between ‘Sea Slumber-Song’ and a dignified, if somewhat slow-moving ‘Sabbath Morning at Sea’. ‘Where Corals Lie’ was splendidly free, whilst maintaining a good sense of form. The Hallé was again beyond reproach, as full of colour as if this had been Les Nuits d’été. Again, though, it was difficult to make out a good number of the words. The final song, ‘The Swimmer’ was urgent yet noble, perhaps more operatic than oratorio-like. Again, though, the music is so much better than the poem (this time by Adam Lindsey Gordon).

 

After Midnight followed the interval, Grime’s piece then being followed by the Eroica Symphony. On this showing – and, indeed, on that of his Royal Opera Fidelio – Elder is, alas, not a great Beethovenian. Quoted in the programme, he made wearily predictable ‘authenticke’ remarks, claiming that his work with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment had ‘changed everything: the excitement, the edge, the daring … Comfortable opulence has no place here.’ Yes, of course Furtwängler, Klemperer, et al. were known for that very lack of excitement, edge, and danger, and of course for ‘comfortable opulence’. Likewise more recent Beethovenians as different as the aforementioned Sir Colin, Daniel Barenboim, and Michael Gielen. People say silly things, however, and it does not necessarily invalidate their performances. What was striking, however, was how lacking in excitement, edge, or danger Elder’s performance was.

 

The first movement was fashionably fast, presumably conforming to some metronome fatwa somewhere, but what was more apparent than mere speed was the strange lightness of tone. The Hallé’s performance was well articulated, sometimes excessively so. However, if Elder’s performance were punctilious with respect to the score – as if that were ever more than the starting-point for a performance! – what seemed entirely lacking was any sense of meaning, of why this work and Beethoven’s vision might matter. What ought to be a truly climactic moment, that of recapitulation, passed by almost unheralded – and weirdly un-phrased. Heroism: whither now? Beethoven seemed bizarrely domesticated, certainly far from Wagner’s 1851 vision of this symphony:  ‘the term “heroic” must be taken in the widest sense, and not simply as relating to a military hero. If we understand “hero” to mean, above all, the whole, complete man, in possession of all purely human feelings — love, pain, and strength — at their richest and most intense, we shall comprehend the correct object, as conveyed to us by the artist in the speaking, moving tones of his work. The artistic space of this work is occupied by … feelings of a strong, fully formed individuality, to which nothing human is strange, and which contains within itself everything that is truly human.’ But no, of course, Wagner is wrong, and ‘authenticity’ is right.

 

Perhaps surprisingly, the Funeral March fared better, though only comparatively. It flowed well – which, at whatever tempo, it must – and, despite a swift temp, it did not sound rushed. However, it was often little more than pleasant, which is hardly enough; there was certainly little sign of the composer to whom Wagner referred to as ‘the master who was called upon to write the world history of music in his works’. Withdrawal of string vibrato irritated too. Mendelssohn came to mind in the scherzo, albeit with loud(-ish) interjections; again, Beethoven’s spirit seemed distant. (It is perhaps worth mentioning here Elder’s strange, quite inauthentic decision to use four horns.) The finale went along its way quite merrily, if rather quickly, but with all the metaphysical import of a Toblerone. I was left feeling distinctly nonplussed, and recalling Barenboim’s performance two years previously at the Proms: it might as well have been a different work, and not only on account of the heroism of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

Cooper/LSO/Elder - Strauss and Mozart, 4 May 2014

Barbican Hall

Strauss – Serenade in E-flat major, op.7

Mozart – Piano Concerto no.22 in E-flat major, KV 482

Strauss – Macbeth, op.23

Till Eulenspiegels lustiche Streiche, op.28

Imogen Cooper (piano)

London Symphony Orchestra

Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

 

Strauss and Mozart are anything but surprising bedfellows; indeed, as Strauss’s career progresses, one of the most interesting battles to observe, even to experience, is that between what, for the sake of argument, we might call the twin poles of the Mozartian and the Wagnerian. Mozart is, though, less apparent as an influence in much of Strauss’s earliest music, an exception being the Wind Serenade, op.7, so here we were able to experience Mozart both as complement and contrast. The Serenade received a loving account from Sir Mark Elder; I am anything but a foe of such music-making, but there were occasions when I wondered whether it might have been just a little too loving. That minor reservation aside, there was much to savour, not least the playing from members of the LSO. The introduction certainly presaged – or, in historical terms, followed – Mozart’s serenade writing, beautifully expressed by the colours of the LSO woodwind. There was also, moreover, a fine sense of drama, much as one always experiences in Mozart’s instrumental music. (It was thoughtful of the occupant of L47 in the Stalls not to wait until as late as the second bar to start coughing, still more of her to ensure that second bar was not left out either.) Recognisably Straussian phrases, of which there are a good few, made their point without undue emphasis. Elder’s spacious manner worked well on the whole.

 

Imogen Cooper joined the orchestra for its move from interesting early work to mature masterpiece. Elder opted for a tiny orchestra: only eight first violins, down to three double basses. Sometimes I  felt the lack of strings more than at other times, but there was a slight mismatch with Cooper’s admirably big-boned approach. Hers indeed was a performance of such distinction that I was put in mind of Sir Clifford Curzon’s Mozart. The first movement was taken at a swift tempo but, for the most part, was not too driven. Split violins made their point on a number of occasions. And once Cooper entered the fray, the orchestra proved more yielding too. It was a blessing to hear Mozart treated as Meissen china, whilst at the same time not degenerating into sentimentality or ‘period’ grotesquerie. The pianist’s touch enabled both clarity and warmth. Still more important was the formal dynamism to be heard, especially in the development and recapitulation, which achieved a splendid sense of return.

 

The opening of the slow movement was darkly veiled, yet without asceticism. Splendidly judged by Elder, it sounded akin to the opening of an accompagnato or arioso – which is, in a sense, just what it is. Cooper proved the master – or should that be ‘mistress’? – of the long line, a line which embodied dignified pathos, both strong and tender. If I have a criticism, it is that there perhaps might have been a little more of the ‘tender’, such as one hears with, for instance, Daniel Barenboim, but Cooper’s Classicism had its own justification and impetus. Again, clarity of part writing was a particular virtue: not as an end in itself but as an aid to expression; again, the LSO wind proved ravishing, especially during the episodes. At the end, however, there were certainly passages in which a cushion of a few more strings would have been welcome. Mozart’s finale was given a performance that was spirited, whilst staying on the right side of raucous (just about, in the case of trumpets and drums). Piano virtues were as before: this was a splendidly forthright performance, equally admirable in its chiaroscuro. The central serenade stopped the heart as it must. And the cadenza – by Edwin Fischer, with additions, I think, like that used in the first movement – was magnificently played: initially Beethovenian, prior to melting.

 

There was certainly no shortage of strings in either of the Strauss tone poems performed in the second half: eight desks of first violins, down to eight double basses. Elder gave an eloquent spoken introduction to the unfairly neglected Macbeth. The chance to hear that early work was justification enough for the concert, let alone in so fine a performance as ensued. As the conductor remarked, Strauss here portrays in sound the psychology of two murderers and their interaction, not least through alteration – and not quite co-existence – of meter. It is, he explained, ‘a dark, unremitting, ruthless’ piece, not ‘gorgeous’. I might cavil slightly at the latter, negative part of the claim, for there are moments which might fall under that umbrella, but the general truth holds. The work received a blazing opening; there were shades of Liszt, yes, but once one caught certain turns of phrase, one knew very well the actual identity of the composer. There was a properly frightening – ‘terrifying’ would be too strong – quality to the psychological impulses on display, but there was plenty of phantasmagoria too, not least in Lady Macbeth’s putting on a show: knowing sweetness. Strauss showed himself an ironist even in the mid-1880s. The darkness of the bass line, however, gave the game away, just in case one were in any doubt, and then that darkness encompassed the orchestra more or less completely. Uncertainty of conclusion was not the least of this fine performance’s virtues. The presence of microphones was a good sign. Now, might we also have some Liszt from these musicians?

 

Before indulging in that fantasy, however, I should turn to the final work, Till Eulenspiegel. It received a truly outstanding performance; I am not sure that I have heard a better one. Orchestral excellence is of course here a sine qua non, and there was virtuosity to be heard in abundance, indeed without exception. However, it never sounded as if it were for its own sake – as it does, perhaps surprisingly, from time to time in an older version of this orchestra’s recording with Claudio Abbado. There was once again a real sense of drama, doubtless born of Elder’s long experience as an opera conductor. It was sharp, brilliant, sardonic – and that was possible because the LSO managed both to be playable as a single instrument and to retain its myriad of colours and individual personalities. Narrative and commentary were experienced in equal measure; although ‘scintillating’ may now be a word overused, it seems the right one in this case. Not that any of this incident was at the expense of the longer line, far from it. Above all, however, I felt astonishment once again at the superlative orchestral craftsmanship of Richard Strauss.

Wozzeck, Royal Opera, 31 October 2013

Gerhard Siegel (Captain), Wozzeck (Simon Keenlyside), Doctor (John Tomlinson)

 

Royal Opera House

Captain – Gerhard Siegel

Wozzeck – Simon Keenlyside
Andres – John Easterlin
Marie – Karita Mattila
Child – Sebastian Wright
Margret – Allison Cook
Doctor – Sir John Tomlinson
Drum Major – Endrik Wottrich
First Apprentice – Jeremy White
Second Apprentice – Grant Doyle
Idiot – Robin Tritschler

Keith Warner (director)

Stefanos Lazaridis (set designs)
Marie-Jeanne Lecca (costumes)
Rick Fisher (lighting)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

Rankings may well be stupid, pointless, pernicious, yet any performance of Wozzeck which has not reminded one that it is the greatest of all post-Wagnerian operas has failed. This most certainly did not fail; indeed, it triumphantly succeeded. Moreover, this revival of Keith Warner’s Royal Opera production offered a fascinatingly complementary experience to that of ENO’s Carrie Cracknell staging, seen earlier this year. Whereas the latter restored with a vengeance the social protest and condemnation often mystifyingly absent from stagings of Berg’s opera, Warner concentrates upon more expressionistic, existentialist, experimental matters. Part of me was tempted to wish that both had heeded the other a little more, but another voice inside me cautioned that, as Schoenberg observed, only the middle road does not lead to Rome. It is far better to have a focused, committed, if necessarily partial interpretation than one that drops the excess number of balls it would juggle.  (Not that multivalent operatic staging is impossible. We have only to look at the work of Stefan Herheim – imagine a Wozzeck from him! – to appreciate that.)

 

Perhaps the most strongly abiding memory of Warner’s production and the late Stefanos Lazaridis’s designs is that of the Doctor’s experimental laboratory. We are reminded less of social degradation – though that of course is present in the action, by no means slighted – than of Das Cabinet des Dr Cagliari. The Doctor’s weird fascination in experimentation and curiosity takes upon itself the role of that productive, sadistic, deadly perversion inherent in instrumental reason known to us since Adorno and Horkheimer as the dialectic of enlightenment. (It reaches back to Homer in their book, and now inescapably does so in any non-naïve appreciation of the Western tradition.) Wozzeck ends up in the Doctor’s tank rather than in a lake as such, yet he most likely imagines the latter, and it certainly fulfils the exclamation and/or (scientific) observation, ‘Das Wasser ist blut.’ Modern liberals shy away from, perhaps even stand in ignorance of, Nietzsche, but we do well to heed his warnings against the claims of the natural sciences, if only so as more fully to appreciate the real, as opposed to imagined, benefits they have brought us.

Child (Sebastian Wright)

 

 

The unequal division of the stage, most of it devoted to that cabinet of malevolent grotesquerie, a corner sliced off at the front for Marie’s dwelling serves a dramatic as well as practical end. Marie and her child are hemmed in, on the verge of being expelled beyond the stage: there be dragons? They are invaded too, not least by the raucous, post- and sub-Mahlerian music of the local band. What at first seems as though it makes little sense visually comes to do so, but one needs patience and one’s critical faculties to ensure that it does. There is loss: the brutality and brutalisation of war and barracks life, indeed that of late capitalism in a broader, more depraved sense, does not register as it might, as it did in Cracknell’s production. But we do not have to choose. The final scene is, or should be, controversial, Wozzeck’s child freeing himself from the bed where he has witnessed all manner of sordid misery to move towards the tank, haunted by amplified children’s voices, presumably in his head. It is perhaps a step too far away from the societal underpinning of the work, and the amplification is clumsy, whether deliberately so or otherwise. Yet even that has one think.

 

As so often, the conductor, in this case Sir Mark Elder, took a little while fully to get into his stride. The first act, though pristine, precise, pellucid, did not quite cohere as it might have done – and maybe will in subsequent performances. Yet the rest of the performance incorporated those virtues into a reading that drove the action forward as proper music-drama and yet also highlighted to an extent I cannot previously recall the true miracle of Berg’s closed forms. Whatever the composer might have claimed regarding our not needing to hear them in the theatre, to do so in conjunction with the tragic dramatic thrust, the tension between them heightening rather than detracting from, the drama only opens up possibilities, both reflecting and yet also, in Adornian fashion, criticising the dialectic of enlightenment. Occasional orchestral slips notwithstanding, this was a committed performance from the orchestra, at times as ravishingly beautiful as a fine account of Schoenberg’s op.16 Orchestral Pieces, with great, though never exaggerated, dramatic punch where it was required.

Wozzeck and his tormentors, with Karita Mattila (Marie) and Endrik
Wottrick (Drum Major) cavorting in the background

 

 

Simon Keenlyside follows in the footsteps of Matthias Goerne as a great Wozzeck. (It is interesting to note that both baritones are or have been such fine Papagenos too.) Everything is there: intelligence, albeit cruelly circumscribed and tormented, an agony that is almost Christ-like, and, perhaps most painful of all, an empty, dulled numbness at the close. Keenlyside has done many, many wonderful things, but I am not sure that any of them can have been better than this. Karita Mattila brings an undeniable Finnish accent to her German, but it helps one hear the words: no bad thing. Her performance was as committed as one might expect; it drew one in, had one sympathise almost beyond endurance in the Bible-reading scene. Endrik Wottrich’s Drum Major offered a stronger performance than any I can recall from him, his swagger, in both stage and vocal terms, finely judged indeed. The unmistakeable John Tomlinson made for a splendid Doctor; there was no doubting his understanding and communication of the text. Likewise the wonderful Gerhard Siegel as the Captain, putting his experience as Mime to good use in a performance of duly perverted power. For this was a proper team effort, all of the cast deserving of praise, all of their efforts at the service of Berg’s drama. I emerged duly moved, duly bludgeoned.

 

(BBC Radio 3 will broadcast Wozzeck on 2 December at 7.30 p.m.)

LPO/Elder - Elgar, The Dream of Gerontius, 26 January 2013

Royal Festival Hall

The Dream of Gerontius, op.38

 

Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano)

Paul Groves (tenor)

James Rutherford (bass-baritone)

Choir of Clare College, Cambridge

London Philharmonic Choir

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

This performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius had a great deal to recommend it. However, rather to my surprise, Mark Elder exhibited something of a tendency, especially later on, to sacrifice drama to beauty. Memories of Britten’s incendiary LSO recording continued to linger. The Prelude, like so much else of this account, clearly took after Parsifal. After a slightly bland opening, it blossomed richly, not least thanks to an excellent LPO viola section. (Violas, always at the very heart of the harmony, are far more crucial to the success of a performance than many realise, not least when it comes to Wagnerian and post-Wagnerian repertoire.) Splendidly implacable brass also gave a foretaste of travails to come.

 

Most of the first part proceeded splendidly thereafter. For instance, he chorus, ‘Be merciful,’ had a well-judged cumulative power, though I felt that there were times during Gerontius’s subsequent solo when Elder drove too hard, ringing the soul closer to Verdi than to Wagner. Amends were certainly made at the end of this part, however, when a slight tendency to linger proved entirely apt to the text. There were many details throughout to admire, not least excellent playing, again redolent of Parsifal, from the LPO woodwind. Elgar’s contrapuntal mastery told in Elder’s direction of the Demons’ Chorus; here drive was not at all out of place. The emergence of the ‘great tune’ was carefully prepared in the best sense.

 

Paul Groves proved a fine Gerontius, more at home than he had been in Das Lied von der Erde a few nights earlier. He offered sincerity, intelligence, and an excellent way with words. Perhaps it was too much to hope for the ringing tones of a classic Heldentenor on top of that; perhaps it was inappropriate even. After all, he had a good few ‘heroic’ moments, individually considered, and a degree of strain might well be argued to fit the text well. Sparing use of the head voice proved moving too. Initially I wondered whether something a little ‘more’, however indefinably so, might have been desirable from Sarah Connolly. However, it soon became apparent that consolation was developmental; the arc of her performance was fully considered and all the more powerful for it. ‘Yes – for one moment thou shalt see thy Lord,’ offered perhaps the most radiant singing of the evening, though I might equally have said that of her final solo, ‘Softly and gently, dearly-ransomed soul’. It set me thinking, not for the first time, how much Janet Baker’s repertoire seems to suit Connolly; one would never mistake the voices, but the Fach is clearly similar. (I should love to hear her as the Wood Dove in Gurrelieder.) Moreover, Connolly’s duetting with Groves relatively early on in the second part sounded as close to opera as Elgar would venture, The Spanish Lady notwithstanding. James Rutherford was a very late substitute for Brindley Sherratt, and brought off his parts with great aplomb, rich toned and full of presence. After the words, ‘To that glorious Home, where they shall ever gaze on Thee,’ I almost expected to hear a tenor respond, ‘Amfortas! Die Wunde!’

 

The London Philharmonic Choir and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge were also on excellent form. At the first entry of the Assistants, they sounded very much as the best of the English choral tradition. Evensong did not sound so very far away, though writ large of course. They managed lightness equally well, clearly encouraged by Elder, for instance in parts of the first ‘Praise to the Holiest’, in which elements of earlier Romanticism, Mendelssohn and perhaps Schumann, came winningly to light. A truly ringing conclusion to its successor, with the words ‘Most sure in all His ways!’ was a tribute to conductor, orchestra, and chorus. It was something of a pity that Elder’s caressing way with what followed made it seem a little too much of an anti-climax, but I should not exaggerate, for there was seraphic beauty to be experienced – ironically – from Clare’s Voices on Earth. As I said, there was a great deal to admire. And if Newman’s text may be difficult for some to take, ultimately it was redeemed by Elgar’s music – and by the performers.

Paasikivi/Groves/LPO/Elder - Webern, Schoenberg, and Mahler, 23 January 2013

 
Royal Festival Hall

Webern – Im Sommerwind

Schoenberg – Five Orchestral Pieces, op.16
Mahler – Das Lied von der Erde (with first movement re-orchestrated by Colin Matthews)

Lilli Paasikivi (mezzo-soprano)

Paul Groves (tenor)

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

 

 

The opening to Webern’s Das Sommerwind sounded ‘harmonious’ in more than one sense, seemingly as much Webern’s answer to the Das Rheingold Prelude, an evocation of the most fundamental nature of tonal harmony itself, as something more programmatic, though that would come. Perhaps the Wagnerian antecedent lay in Sir Mark Elder’s emphasis; perhaps it has been there all along, and it had simply not registered so strongly in my experience before. At any rate, it intrigued, invited. Sweet-toned reminiscences of Mahler and Strauss, the latter in Till Eulenspiegel-like good humour, followed, the LPO woodwind principals gratefully taking their opportunity to shine. One would hardly have guessed the composer; indeed, one never would during the course of this piece preceding Webern’s life-changing, history-changing meeting with Schoenberg. Whilst some of the orchestration is already approaching the level of masterly, some is perhaps a little gauche, the instrumentation standing out a little too obviously. (But then, if we are comparing someone to Mahler and Strauss, or indeed the later Webern, the standards are stratospheric.) It was, however, a wonderful opportunity to hear the piece loving performed, with an apt summer glow most welcome in freezing London. This strange, quite uncharacteristic beginning to Webern’s extraordinary orchestral career has received tighter performances – inevitably, for instance, from Boulez – but a more rhapsodic approach does it no real harm. If it lingers, perhaps being the only piece by Webern that outstays its welcome, it nevertheless does not deserve a mobile telephone contribution during its closing bars. Shame upon the perpetrator!

 

The move to Schoenberg’s op.16 Pieces underlined the gulf between a fascinating early work and a towering masterpiece. Elder presented ‘Vorgefühle’ with commendable clarity, even if it emerged a little four-square. It gathered momentum nicely, however, and soon turned magnificently monstrous. Mahler on acid, haunted by ghosts of Brahms: what could be more Viennese than that? ‘Vergangenes’ was languorous, in a state of seemingly perpetual dissolution, yet nevertheless continuing. It seemed at times to prefigure the Klangfarbenmelodie of its successor – a cunningly highlighted link here in performance – and yet the background of a piece such as the First Chamber Symphony, op.9, with its tight-knit motivic writing, was equally apparent. Halluncinatory celesta tones (Catherine Edwards) almost stole the show, but in reality that instrument was only first amongst equals in a London Philharmonic Orchestra on fine form. And my goodness, what an astounding score this is! ‘Farben’ was mysterious, reticent, innig, to employ an indispensable, untranslatable German word. This performance sounded as if it were a laudable attempt to regain something of the piece’s initial revolutionary quality, not through aggression but through a subtler resolution to make us truly listen; Nono, Schoenberg’s posthumous son-in-law, would have understood. There was a true sense of loss when its brief stay was over. ‘Peripetie’ emerged very much in the mould of the first piece, ominously dramatic. Developing variation proved key to our aural understanding of ‘Das obligate Rezitativ’. Occasionally one might have wished for heightened colouristic awareness, especially earlier on, and a richer string tone after the fashion of that great Schoenbergian, Daniel Barenboim, but narration was as clear as in any conventional recitative. Again, we were compelled to listen. We emerged as if from a dream, shaken and uncertain.

 

I wish I had not read the programme first. That is not intended as a criticism of Gavin Plumley’s note, but rather because I wonder how I should have reacted to the first movement, had I not been aware that Colin Matthews had been commissioned by Elder to re-orchestrate it. Would I have noticed? I should like to think so, and am pretty sure that I should have realised that something was awry, or at least different. The difficulties tenors have this with this movement are notorious, and Matthews is quite right to point to Mahler’s tinkering both with other composers’ scores and his own. It sometimes sounded thinner, even shriller, though I think at times that might have been a matter also of Elder’s conducting; it also sometimes sounded restrained, even constrained, as if the fuller scoring were attempting to burst through its reduction. Without hearing Matthews’s work again, or better still seeing the score, I shall leave the matter by saying that I could not help but long for what Mahler wrote, not out of any fundamentalist Werktreue but simply because, vocal difficulties notwithstanding, it simply sounds more ‘finished’ – to me. As it was, the movement remained something of a shout for Paul Groves, though there could be no gainsaying his audible and visible commitment. I wished that Elder would relax a little at times, but that was a matter of degree.

 

‘Der Einsame im Herbst’ revealed first an excellent oboe solo (Ian Hardwick), suffused with melancholic longing, soon joined by equally splendid woodwind colleagues, and then by Lilli Paasikivi, her voice deeper than one often hears today, even in this repertoire. There was more than a touch of the earth-mother to her performance: rather wonderful, I thought. Elder paced the movement well and maintained its flow. Although there were a few instances of instrumental smudging, there was nothing too serious. The final stanza brought true passion, almost operatic, or at least a symphonic-song-shadow – I realise I am in danger here of succumbing to the Wagnerian selige Morgentraum-Deutweise disease – of Mahler’s work in the opera house. Groves contributed a winning, appropriate earnestness to the third movement, almost as if revisiting the Wunderhorn songs of Mahler’s (relative) youth, now invigoratingly set against orchestral chinoiserie and the LPO’s buoyantly sprung rhythms. Both orchestra and Elder were really at their best here, lilt and colour equally impressive.

 

‘Von der Schönheit’, by contrast, suffered from a curious tendency towards the rhythmically distended, making it difficult to discern Mahler’s guiding thread, undeniably incidental beauties notwithstanding. Paasikivi, however, was never less than engaging as a narrative and dramatic guide. Orchestral brashness and Elder’s driven conducting in the middle of the movement had it veer uncomfortably close to Shostakovich. Mahler should sound so much more interesting, so much more variegated, than that. Groves struggled with Mahler’s admittedly strenuous demands in ‘Der Trunkene im Frühling’, though again he threw himself headlong into the great challenge. Elder shaped the structure far more keenly than he had that of its predecessor. Pieter Schoeman’s sweet-toned violin solo was especially worthy of note.

 

The ominous tread to the dark orchestral opening of ‘Der Abschied’ said it all. Mahler’s sparing orchestration sounded close to the ‘real’ Webern’ – as of course it is. The warmth of Paasiviki’s tone would have melted the stoniest of hearts. An unmistakeable echo, both in vocal line and orchestra, of the Third Symphony’s Nietzschean ‘deepness’ of the world was to be heard as the world fell asleep: ‘Die Welt schläft ein!’ If only that had not occasioned a barrage of coughing from certain sections of the audience. Elder exhibited a commendable command of line, though there were times when I wished again that he would relax a little more. As the breeze ran through the shadow of the pines, we heard, however, a truly terrifying stillness, flute set against double basses, as the soloist implored: the pain of harren, of waiting. That line, ‘O Schönheit! O ewigen Liebens-Lebenstrunk’ne Welt!’ came forth with what I can only call exhilarating sadness, poised between the block rejoicing of the Second Symphony – a memory, though perhaps no longer attainable – and Webern’s Klee-like pointillism. The great orchestral interlude that followed was shaped by Elder with great understanding of Mahler the musical dramatist, thereby rendering all the more desolate what was to come. And yet, consolation, when it came, was properly, wondrously earned, not least by Paasikivi. It was Mahlers Verklärung; it was our transfiguration too.

Britten Sinfonia/Elder: Berlioz, L'Enfance du Christ, 8 December 2011

Queen Elizabeth Hall

L’Enfance du Christ, op.25

Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano)
Allan Clayton (tenor)
Roderick Williams (baritone)
Neal Davies (bass)

Britten Sinfonia Voices (chorus master: Eamonn Dougan)
Britten Sinfonia
Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

I have somehow managed to miss Sir Colin Davis’s London performances of L’Enfance du Christ, making it one of the final major Berlioz works I have heard in the flesh. (I hope to rectify the understandable omission of the Messe solenelle when Riccardo Muti conducts it in Salzburg next summer, a performance of the Symphonie funèbre et triomphale remaining.) There was much to enjoy in this performance from Sir Mark Elder and the Britten Sinfonia, though my impression was that much of an often badly-behaved audience enjoyed it more than I did. (The second half was considerably delayed whilst the rest of us were compelled to wait for a gang of braying corporate hospitality beneficiaries from Mills and Reeves solicitors. I should like to think that it was from that group that a friend overheard some people announcing that the work had been composed by Benjamin Britten…)

For me, the problem lay in Elder’s conducting, certainly not in the ever-immediate response of the Britten Sinfonia. On the positive side, Elder imparted drive to the narrative, almost as if this were an opera rather than a dramatic choral work. (Berlioz never termed it an oratorio, though it is commonly and harmlessly thus described today.) I especially liked the ominous orchestral tread from Herod’s Palace, forshadowing the ‘Libera me’ from Fauré’s Requiem. Berlioz’s inimitable nervous energy was present throughout, to considerable effect. And the Ishmaelite trio for two flutes and harp was an utter delight, charmant to a degree, though it seemed quite unnecessary for the conductor to traverse the stage to conduct it. The bassoon timbre, echoing, consciously or otherwise, the music for the Witch of Endor in Handel’s Saul, was spot on for the appearance of Herod’s soothsayers. But the near-absence, certain orchestral rebellions notwithstanding, of string vibrato was a serious problem. The Vibratoverbot was not universally applied, or at least not universally adhered to: I both saw and heard valiant musicians tempt the wrath of the Norringtonian gods. There are so many objections to this practice that it is difficult to know where to start. It is utterly unhistorical, despite the pseudo-historical pleas routinely made for it. At any rate, the contrast between lively, colourful, plausibly ‘French’ woodwind and frankly unpleasant string sound was jarring. Indeed, the poor violins were forced to play for the scene in the Bethlehem stable in a fashion more reminiscent of a scratchy school orchestra than the fine ensemble we all know this to be. It could have been worse for them, I suppose: they might have been members of Norrington’s demoralised Stuttgart orchestra. Afterwards, I noticed a quotation from Elder in the programme: ‘Each particular scene has its own timbre. It is not a rich, twentieth-century sound but rather more restrained with little vibrato in the voices and instruments.’ No justification is made for the claim, let alone the results, but I cannot help wondering why, if every scene has its own timbre, a more-or-less blanket prohibition on vibrato is considered appropriate.

Choral singing was first-rate throughout, the Britten Sinfonia Voices clearly well trained by Eamonn Dougan. The choir’s keenness in the fugue, ‘Que de leurs pieds meurtris on lave les blessures!’ was exemplary, likewise the fine blend of the final a cappella chorus (with narrator), a barrage of coughs notwithstanding. Offstage, the invisible angels impressed equally, though there was something distinctly odd about the sound of the organ; I assume it must have been electronic. That the Shepherds’ Farewell was a little hasty was no fault of the singers.

The vocal soloists all had their strengths too. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sarah Connolly and Roderick Williams proved the strongest: what a joy it was to hear such a melting duet from them in the stable scene, their voices happily uniting deeply-felt expressiveness with Gallic elegance. The French language heard elsewhere was often more of a trial; though Allan Clayton often sang beautifully, especially at the close, the meaning of the words was not always quite so apparent. Whilst Neal Davies had his moments, the power of his projection of Herod’s turmoil – at times, this presages both musically and temperamentally close to Boris Godunov – was often compromised by a tendency to emote excessively. The dryness at the bottom of his range was cruelly exposed from time to time.

In a sense, I have saved the worst until last: a half-baked attempt – Elder’s initiative, I am told – to evoke a sense of ‘community’ prior to the performance. Even some time after the solicitors and their important clients had deigned to join proceedings, we were made to wait a good few minutes whilst Elder and various members of the orchestra walked around on stage, conversing inaudibly in a fashion that would have shamed the most homespun of amateur dramatic societies. A concert scheduled for 7.30 thus began at 7.45. Alas, the only ‘community’ evoked was that of Deborah Warner’s ludicrous ENO staging of the Messiah. There was so much that was good in this performance that it was a real pity for a few aspects to have detracted from it so significantly. Let us hope, then, that London will not have to wait too long for another performance from Sir Colin.

Tannhäuser, Opéra national de Paris, 29 October 2011

Opéra Bastille

Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia – Christof Fischesser
Tannhäuser – Christopher Ventris
Wolfram von Eschenbach – Stéphane Degout
Walther von der Vogelweide – Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Biterolf – Tomasz Konieczny
Heinrich der Schreiber – Eric Huchet
Reimar von Zweter – Wojtek Smilek
Elisabeth – Nina Stemme
Venus – Sophie Koch

Robert Carsen (director, lighting)
Paul Steinberg (set designs)
Constance Hoffman (costumes)
Peter van Praet (lighting)
Philippe Giraudeau (choreography)

Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine
Chorus and Orchestra of the Opéra national de Paris
Sir Mark Elder (conductor)


My visit to Paris took in two German operas with special association for the city and indeed for the Opéra. Lulu, the previous night, received its first full performance at the Palais Garnier. The case of Tannhäuser is, to put it mildly, less unambiguously positive, though one should recall that, whatever the disgraceful scenes at the Salle Le Peletier, it is to Paris that we owe Wagner’s revisions, which render the work a still more fascinating proposition than in its ‘Dresden version’. As is usual for performances of the ‘Paris version’, Wagner’s further modifications for Vienna were followed here, but the crucial work on the opening two scenes had already been accomplished.

Whichever version or conflation is selected, there will remain a problematical element to the work: that is part of its enduring attraction, though it has troubled some, the composer included. Cosima famously recounted on 23 January 1883, just twenty days before Wagner’s death, ‘He says he still owes the world a Tannhäuser.’ Sir Mark Elder seemed most at ease with the new music for the Venusberg, the first act certainly the strongest so far as the conducting was concerned. Perhaps it was his recent experience of conducting Götterdämmerung with the Hallé that led him perceptively to highlight the intimations of that work, Gutrune’s music in particular: both looking forward, then, but also in its harmony recalling – arguably quoting – the opéra comique of Auber, still honoured across town from the Bastille, on the façade of the Palais Garnier. An estimable performance was to be heard throughout from the Paris Opéra Orchestra, the strings golden in almost Viennese style and the woodwind quite delightful, especially during the often lugubrious third act.

If the first act, however, could be heard more or less in a single span, with a nod to its necessary disjunctures, the second and third acts offered more of a bumpy ride in terms of overall direction. There may be a case for bringing to the fore Wagner’s debt to grand opéra, not least in Paris, but the Arrival of the Guests sounded less akin to Rienzi or even to Meyerbeer than to excessively-driven early Verdi. (Is it not in any case more interesting to look to the potential of Wagner’s musical drama than to reduce it to certain murkier aspects of its origins?) There were, moreover, glaring discrepancies between pit, stage, and off-stage brass. Wherever the fault lay, the responsibility is the conductor’s – especially by the final performance of a run. The (marked) tempo change near the end of the act, shortly before we hear the pilgrims, was excessive, coming as a jolt rather than an intensification, the hurtling onward that ensued chaotic in its fraying ensemble. Line frayed too in the third act, though Elder was commendably alert to its wandering hints of Parsifal. There will always remain tensions between the various musico-dramatic components of the work, but they register more meaningfully if a greater, or at least more successful, attempt is made to engender unity – or ‘totality’, as Adorno would doubtless have accused. Such was certainly the case in the Venusberg, the ‘new’ Tristan-esque music sounding involuntarily – that, at any rate was the impression – as a restless critique of Wagner’s earlier thoughts, musical and ‘dramatic’, however false the distinction. Last year at Covent Garden, however, Semyon Bychkov proved more successful in permitting the material to enact its own self-critique, rather than harrying it in the unduly interventionist, sometimes reductionist, fashion Elder favoured here.

There was much to admire vocally. Christopher Ventris, already an accomplished Parsifal in Bayreuth, Paris, London, and elsewhere, showed no evident strain as Tannhäuser. The role is difficult for a number of reasons, not least its lack of a personal voice, Tannhäuser tending more to adapt to the situations in which he finds himself. Ventris proved successful in that respect and many others, shaping Wagner’s lines with sensitivity and projecting them with strength. Sophie Koch was quite magnificent as Venus: probably the best I have ever heard: tonally (and physically) alluring, sweetly seductive and increasingly unhinged, dramatically truthful at no cost to the vocal line, taking full advantage of the greater scope the Paris version offered her. Kundry, rightly, did not seem far away. Nina Stemme, making her Paris Opéra debut, presented a sterling, untiring Elisabeth. Hers was for the most part an ‘old-school’ reading, eschewing the possibility, explored more recently by artists such as Eva-Maria Westbroek (for Bychkov), of a more evidently tempted – and tempting – character. If Elisabeth can probably be more interesting than this, the role is unlikely to be sung with more detailed attention to the text. After a somewhat uncertain start, Stéphane Degout grew into Wolfram’s part: it is doubtless unreasonable to expect anyone to match or even to approach the astounding Lieder-reading of Christian Gerhaher (for Bychkov), though I felt the lack of something that might elevate the character into something more than a stock character and plot device. There were, though, no real weaknesses in the cast, save for an apparently uncredited Shepherd, whose music soon passed into strange bitonal realms. Mention should be accorded to the sweet-toned, intelligently-voiced Walther of Stanislas de Barbeyrac: on this evidence, we are likely to hear much more from him.

What, then, of Robert Carsen’s production, first seen in 2007, now receiving its first revival? (A quarter of a century, incidentally, had passed between the previous production and this, a haunting similarity with this perplexingly unfashionable work’s absence from the London stage.) At its heart lies the substitution, predating that of Katharina Wagner’s Meistersinger, of portraiture for song. Tannhäuser is a painter; the work that bears his name progresses from a host of attempts to paint Venus to the final hanging of his picture in a gallery of celebrated female nudes. (You name it, from Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, predictably, to Manet and Picasso, it is most likely present in reproduction.) It is strongly implied, through a final joint pose, that the final image draws upon both Venus and Elisabeth, though we never actually see Tannhäuser’s Meisterwerk, so that must remain supposition. Substitution of painting for music does no grave harm; perhaps it is intended to appeal to a city especially noted for its sympathy towards the visual arts. Nor, however, does it seem especially warranted: after all, the multitudinous references to song make more sense when actually dealing with Minnesänger. The Konzept is nevertheless carried through coherently and Personenregie is intelligently accomplished: two welcome contrasts with the Meistersinger bei Katharina.

There are moments, though, when Carsen appears to resort to ‘effect without cause’, Wagner’s celebrated accusation against Meyerbeer, which Nietzsche would then unconvincingly turn upon his antagonist. The appearance of Elisabeth in the amphitheatre at the beginning of the second act certainly startles: at a distance of five or six feet from me, I initially thought Stemme was a disruptive member of the audience. (There were certainly many of those too: in a nod to the Jockey Club’s revenge, barely a bar of the third act went uninterrupted by the bronchially assertive, the Song to the Evening Star almost obliterated.) Other characters followed suit, a practice for which there seemed no obvious justification. Occasional subsequent forays in and out of the stalls retained that sense of the arbitrary, heightening irritation. I wonder, too, whether it will some day be possible to see the guests arrive without an invasion of champagne flutes. Elisabeth’s trench coat is another slightly wearisome cliché. Carsen’s is a lively enough production, then, if not entirely innocent of veering towards the merely fashionable; yet it falls considerably short of this director at his dazzling best, for instance, the more convincing theatrical extravaganzas of his Salzburg Rosenkavalier and Munich Ariadne auf Naxos. Perhaps that was the point, a nod to the problematic nature of the drama, but, as with the score, critique proves more convincing if it emerges from within, rather than being imposed from without.