Eugene Onegin, HGO, 8 November 2024

Jacksons Lane Arts Centre

Images: © 2024 Laurent Compagnon 

Eugene Onegin: Ambrose Connolly
Tatiana: Nicola Said
Lensky: Martins Smaukstelis
Olga: Katey Rylands
Prince Gremin: Wonsick Oh
Mme Larina: Erin Spence
Filipyevna: Hannah Morley
Zaretsky: Conall O’Neil
Monsieur Triquet: Quito Clothier

Director: Eleanor Burke
Associate director: Finn Lacey
Designs: Emeline Beroud
Lighting: Trui Malten
Movement: Alex Gotch
Fight director: Rich Gittens

HGO Chorus and Orchestra

Oliver Cope (conductor)

Eugene Onegin (Ambrose Connolly)

HGO’s new Eugene Onegin is not only one of the most impressive productions I have seen yet from the company; it is one of the most impressive of the work I have seen for quite some time too. It would be easy to dwell on what it is not: it is not a lavish big-house staging with big ‘names’; it has a tiny one-to-a-part orchestra; and so on. That focuses attention in different ways, to a certain extent intrinsically: one hears things differently in arrangements, of course, an intriguing case in point being the way one perceives the band almost diegetically during the ball scene. Acting at close quarters offers a very different, in many ways more intense experience too, visually and aurally; one learns much from the detail of facial expressions that would be missed by the greater part of an audience elsewhere Yet none of that would count for very much at all, were it not for the excellence of staging, performances, and ensemble. Almost as if one were attending a performance of, say, Schoenberg’s Society for Private Musical Performances, one begins to wonder whether one needs the ‘original’ experience at all. There is room for both, of course, and must be; HGO’s raison d’être is to offer singers at the start of their professional careers opportunities to sing in full-scale, interesting productions before London audiences. Yet it is testament on this occasion to the success of this first night, that I did not feel remotely troubled by having missed Covent Garden’s new staging and having gone to this instead. 

Eleanor Burke’s staging sets the work maybe 30 or 40 years ago: it could be just before or just after the fall of socialism, or whatever it is, but that is not really the point. Even in the final act, skilfully evoking with, as elsewhere, minimal resources, what might be some sort of St Petersburg art show, founded in new prosperity (for some), again the point is not so much political as the passing of time. Time and regret are crucial to the work, of course, as to the production. There is nothing pretty, let alone prettified, about the countryside in which this opens; one can well imagine its protagonists would feel some relief on leaving it—save if, like Lensky, they were dead; or, like Tatiana and Onegin, they endure other miserable fates.

 

These are lonely people, trying to pretend otherwise, trying to make their way in the world, and relying on various crutches – alcohol, drugs, sex, and above all each other – to do so. That again, does not in itself become the point, but rather contextualises the drama and permits it to emerge. Another such crutch lies in literature and in the world of art more broadly. Onegin initially hands Tatiana a book, later returned to him. She writes her letter in it, and that appears to mark some stage in growing up as well as more obvious awakening. Whether ultimately it helps them make sense of themselves and their situation is perhaps questionable, though. Tragedy lies in the consequences of what they do there and then; they cannot always simply learn from their mistakes, since it will often be too late.

 

Olga (Katey Rylands), Tatiana (Nicola Said)

For once, one does not find everything, or indeed anything very much, a metaphor for Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality. The strong direction gives the overt drama a new lease of life and one believes in these characters as themselves, Lensky and Olga as much as Onegin and Tatiana, the troubled community in which they grow up too, different characters sketched intriguingly, becoming a chorus when called upon, yet clearly having lives, problems, and personalities of their own. The most real connection – at least before it is all too late – may still lie between Onegin and Lensky, but the devastation felt by both, again realising that they too have destroyed what they had, something that cannot be put back together, seems very much to be what it overtly seems to be. That does not mean other paths might not be or have been followed. A splendid cabaret turn from Quito Clothier’s Monsieur Triquet – very well sung too – acts as a beacon of fascination, awakening, and perhaps liberation for the assembled company. What happens when he and Onegin disappear after the ball, returning for the duel, could doubtless be read in another way. Again, I am not sure that is the point, though, and it has not granted them neither enlightenment nor fulfilment. It merely points the way to the pill-induced disorientation, laced with probably unsatisfactory sexual experimentation, Onegin suffers in his time of wayfaring on the way to St Petersburg: a metaphor for whistling one’s life away, as much as the thing itself. 

M. Triquet (Quito Clothier)

Ambrose Connolly and Martins Smaukstelis presented a contrasted and complementary pair as Onegin and Lensky, dark and blond, introvert and extrovert, brooding and apparently fun-loving, capable of shocking, volatile exchange in the whirlwind transformations of the ball, here Tatiana's disastrous eighteenth birthday party. Onegin’s flirtation with Olga, cruelly mocking Lensky, can rarely have felt so overtly real, Smaukstelis in turn seeming to retreat in collapse to his childhood. This was accomplished by excellent acting and singing, their Russian (insofar as I can judge) matching their command of vocal line. Moving unmistakeably, yet not without regret, from girl to woman, Nicola Said’s Tatiana likewise matched dramatic, verbal, and ‘purely’ musical qualities to a degree that would have impressed on any stage. Katey Rylands illuminated Olga’s particular path, first fun-loving and yet ultimately as nagged with doubt and regret, to complete an outstanding central quartet. A Prince Gremin will almost always stand out, his aria such a Tchaikovskian gift. That does not negate the moving excellence with which Wonsick Oh presented it; far from it. Erin Spence’s Mme Larina and Hanna Morley’s Filpyevna were entirely convincing in their new setting, unquestionably more than stock characters; so too were Conall O’Neill’s dark and dangerous Zaretsky, and the broader chorus out of which he stepped.

Lensky (Martins Smaukstelis)

Oliver Cope’s musical direction was equally crucial to the evening’s success of the evening. To conduct such a performance is at least as stiff a test as with full orchestra; Cope passed with flying colours, as did his band of soloists, whose cultivated chamber playing metamorphosed seemingly without effort into statements, clashes, and tragic entanglements of full-scale Romantic emotions. Interplay between public and private was located above all here in the orchestra, not least given the fruitful scenographic limitations on such a stage. Pacing and balance were well judged, in the service of an excellent musicodramatic continuity impossible to divorce from what was unfolding ‘onstage’. Clearly a consequence of dedicated, intensive collaboration, all was more than the sum of its considerable parts. Highly recommended.

Le nozze di Figaro, HGO, 5 November 2021

Jackson’s Lane Theatre

Figaro – Louis Hurst
Susanna – Shafali Jalota
Count Almaviva – Thomas Chenhall
The Countess – Camilla Harris
Cherubino – Esme Bronwen-Smith
Don Basilio, Don Curzio – Martins Smaukstelis
Doctor Bartolo – Hector Bloggs
Marcellina – Becca Marriott
Antonio – Owain Evans
Barbarina, Second Bridesmaid – Astrid Joos
First Bridesmaid – Phoebe Smith
Chorus – Anna Simmons, Angela Yang

Julia Mintzer (director)
Benjamin Anderson (assistant director)
Carmine de Amicis (choreography)
Charles Ogilvie (set designs)
Ruben Cameiro (costumes)
Jancy Dancinger (sound and lighting design)
Ben Poore (dramaturgy)

HGO Chamber Orchestra
Thomas Payne (conductor)

Images: Laurent Compagnon

HGO (formerly Hampstead Garden Opera) has been one of the musical heroes of the pandemic. Last year, it brought opera back to London with Holst’s Savītri; this year, it was one of the first to bring it back again, with Cavalli’s L’Egisto. Now, in a new production from the director of Savītri, Julia Mintzer, and in a return to the company’s ‘home’ at Jackson’s Lane Arts Centre in Highgate, we have perhaps the most beloved opera, most central to the repertoire of all: The Marriage of Figaro. 

It used to be said that one could not go wrong with Figaro, at least in terms of staging. Don Giovanni was the director’s graveyard, largely because directors ignored its theology and treated it with one-sided psychological realism. Latterly, though, a good few stagings have shown it is possible to make just as much a mess of its predecessor. Not this one, though, far from it; its path proves thoughtful, surprising, and in the best sense provocative. Had I been asked during the interval where it was heading, I should never have guessed. There was a welcome dose of matters that lie beyond individual rationality—the socio-political and what I think we can call the Freudian. That did not come, however, at the expense of the basic necessities of character delineation and development, whose expression is of course the achievement not only of the production team but of the young artists on stage too. What matters is how things come together—and they came together very well.

Initially, we seemed to have a more or less conventional updating to an English country estate of the early twentieth century, which dating became clearer, as the work progressed, to the time of the Great War. As soon as one truly watched and listened, though, it became clear that this was far from conventional. An eye for period detail, creditable in itself, also suggested haunting by the past—perhaps even by the broader Enlightenment project that had led there and of which this opera may be considered part. The Count’s injuries—we see him either with cane or transported by sedan chair—would seem to have been sustained in prior action, relived a little too enthusiastically by the guard (Antonio) on the estate. Figaro, as his valet, shared in some of that haunting too. The Countess mourned her youth, of course, but may also have been mourning a civilisation that has collapsed and yet which all onstage, in their way, continue manically to celebrate. Laudanum helped, or probably did not—but was widely available to all. 

And so, the delirium of war, when it came, was both a natural development and that which has most been feared. The strobe lighting chaos it wrought at the close of the third act—marriage ceremonial itself—is psychological as well as political, throwing up the characters, their affections, and their impulses, and seeing where they land. The fourth act worked out some at least of the consequences. Its final scene needed to celebrate similarly: both as reasoned necessity and as something that, like the final number of Cosí fan tutte, rang hollow and yet true. English titles generally offered straightforward translation, sometimes supplemented by updating and commentary: perhaps in some sense also visualising workings of the unconscious. 

The score, slightly cut beyond the norm, was presented with commendable alertness and cultivation by a small band of soloists (two violins, viola, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, timpani, and synthesised harpsichord) in an arrangement by Jonathan Lyness, conducted by Thomas Payne. Tempi were often, though not always, brisk, yet eminently capable of flexibility too, the Countess’s final words given notably slowly (indeed, as we shall see, tragically). There were a few occasions when instrumentalists and singers drifted apart, but Payne ensured that they came back together quickly. There seemed every reason to expect minor first-night infelicities to be ironed out later in the run.

 

Heading the cast were a fine Count and Countess Almaviva. Thomas Chenhall as the former was proud, virile, and crucially wounded within and without. His third-act aria proved uncommonly successful in conveying the crucial seria element to the Count’s musical identity. Camilla Harris’s Countess truly had one sit up upon her vocal appearance—what wonderful cunning on Da Ponte’s part to save his trump card until the second act—in a performance as beautifully sung as it was intelligently presented. Louis Hurst’s Figaro and Shafali Jalota’s Susanna were keenly observed throughout, properly animating the entire action from within. As Cherubino, Esme Bronwen-Smith captivated though force of personality and similar attention to detail. Martins Smaukstelis did likewise as Basilio, an intriguingly chameleon-like portrayal, boasting notable ease in Italian as well as a finely expressive face. The very different, more diffident impression presented by his Don Curzio confirmed the individuality of portrayal. All the cast contributed, though, to a fine ensemble performance very much greater than the sum of its parts. Hector Bloggs and Becca Marriott carved out a Bartolo and Marcellina of genuine depth, no mere buffa caricatures. Owain Evans and Astrid Joos made much of their roles as Antonio and Barbarina, as even did the Bridesmaid (Phoebe Smith) and additional chorus members (Anna Simmons and Angela Yang).

Could there, then, yet be emancipation, even liberation? Perhaps, if only in the moment. A nice touch, pregnant with meaning, was the Countess assuming Susanna’s (presumed) soubrette voice, a mere caricature, to Susanna’s horror. There remained a social gulf between them. Basilio’s final leap into the arms of Antonio suggested other possibilities, not least in the wake of wartime chaos. That said, the weight of past, present, perhaps even future could not be disregarded. Long after the final chord, one remained haunted by the devastation on the Countess’s face following her closing (false) benediction. In this Freudian Figaro, God is dead, which calls into question her words of forgiveness and implicit redemption and is certainly not the case with Mozart and Da Ponte. If, however, they can still offer something in the moment, as well as recognition that things are never quite so straightforward as schematic explanations of human behaviour would have us believe, the work and its authors, above all Mozart, remain productive and provocative as ever.

L'Egisto, HGO, 5 June 2021

The Cockpit

Egisto – Martins Smaukstelis
Climene – Astrid Joos
Lidio – Alex Pullinger
Clori – Caroline Taylor
Hipparco – John Holland-Avery
Amore – Helen Lacey
Semele, Bellezza, Hora Seconda – Charity Mapletoft
Venere, Dedra, Hora Quarta – Oliva Carrell
Dema – Emily Kyte
Volupia, Didone, Hora Terza – Helen Daniels James
La Notte – Laurence Gillians

Marcio de Silva (director, lighting)
Madeline de Barrié (assistant director)
Christian Hey (designs)

HGO Baroque Orchestra

Marcio da Silva (music director)


HGO (formerly Hampstead Garden Opera) led the way after the first lockdown with opera’s return to London, in the guise of an outdoor performance of Holst’s Sāvitri at Lauderdale House. Five miles or so away, at Marylebone’s Cockpit Theatre, it proved if not quite the earliest, then one of the earliest, to return to the fray this time round, with Francesco Cavalli’s (and Giovanni Faustini’s) L’Egisto of 1643.


The second of Cavalli’s collaborations with Faustini, L’Egisto proved influential and popular beyond Venice, travelling to Naples and many other nascent centres of opera across the Italian peninsula. It even travelled with Cavalli to Paris, to be performed in 1646 at the behest of Cardinal Mazarin, determined yet frustrated in his every attempt to establish Italian opera on a permanent basis in the French capital. (Mazarin would later commission Cavalli’s Ercole armante for Louis XIV’s marriage to Maria Theresa of Spain, though neither opera nor théâtre à machines was ready in time. It would be performed two years later, in 1662, Cavalli’s Xerse quickly substituted—and highly popular.) The renaissance in Cavalli’s fortunes, if not quite initiated by Raymond Leppard, then nonetheless incalculably in his debt, saw L’Egisto among the earlier Cavalli operas to return to the stage, Leppard realising the work for Santa Fe in 1974 and Scottish Opera eight years alter. Marcio da Silva, acting both as stage and music director, now gives a reading for our time, doubtless less lavish than Leppard’s, but our moment is hardly one given to lavish operatic presentation. Rightly or wrongly, it tends to favour ‘original instruments’ and a less ‘interventionist’ approach than what Jane Glover described, in her review of Leppard’s score, as ‘look[ing] upon the surviving material rather as a lump of modeller’s clay, which he [Leppard] moulds skilfully into shapes which he knows will please modern audiences. In so doing, he departs from original practice, often quite violently.’


There was certainly no such violence here, whether in the pit or on stage. Given in the round, the boundary was not in any case entirely distinct, though there was no dramatic mixing of function to match that combination of roles in our dual director’s case. The ebb and flow of the score and its realisation—or whatever we want to call it—by Marcio da Silva and Cédric Meyer very much complemented the scenic action, presented in some ways simply, yet far from neutrally. A small yet colourful band—harpsichord, organ, lute, baroque guitar, two violins, gamba, cello, two recorders, and sparingly employed percussion—did not suggest, at least not in this small, socially distanced theatre, that Cavalli’s music cried out for more. Rather, it furnished a crucial harmonic backdrop of imagination, against which the human voice could be heard and human gesture seen. If I cared less for the folk-like excursions now expected in early opera performances of a certain school, they were rare and clearly relished by the players, whose pleasure it would be churlish unduly to begrudge. With Sebastian Gillot, assistant music director, at the keyboard, much was possible and realised in aural tapestry, but also much was offered in support to the singers, the continuo ensemble flexible enough to be reinforced with a minimum of fuss where necessary.


A staging that relied on distance, on separation, and on mischief and anguish in their wake was doubtless developed with our current predicament in mind, yet fitted very well with a plot in which two couples, separated, must find, recognise, and learn to love one another again (though do they?) The passing of a single day, respecting the old dramatic unities, is symbolised by the passage of the sun above (this Egisto a descendant of Apollo, not the Aegisth we know from Elektra). Curtains of separation that could be seen through, or not, did much that was necessary. Singing to and past each other, touching or, more often, failing to do so, spoke to us clearly yet far from clinically. Touches of blood-red brought colour with dramatic impact predicated on an overall economy of means. Elements of cross-dressing reminded us of where Cavalli, much to Leppard’s sorrow, ended up: ‘plots … of such a ridiculous complexity that it is doubtful if anybody could ever have known, or cared, what was happening on the stage once the disguises had got under way’. But with Faustini, as Leppard remarked in the liner notes to his recording of L’Ormindo, Cavalli ‘responded to the best libretti with his best music’.


To make it so, of course, requires not only sensitive continuo realisation but also sensitive—and dramatic—vocal artistry. Here a number of singers excelled, showing considerable stage gifts too. Martins Smaukstelis was first among equals as Egisto, wounded, external heroism and inward anguish expressed by all manner of subtle gradations. Astrid Joos as Climene and Caroline Taylor as Clori offered complement and contrast in their soprano roles, expression lying very much within the precision of their performances. Helen Lacey’s Amore schemed and sulked by turn, vocally and visually. This was, however, very much an ensemble piece, with all involved, musical and directorial teams alike, contributing to the musico-dramatic whole. Recommended—even without the bonus of drinks brought to your seat. There are two, alternating casts; I saw the second.