Orpheus/L'Orfeo, Komische Oper, 16 April 2022

(sung as Orpheus in German translation by Susanne Felicitas Wolf)

Orfeo – Dominik Köninger
Euridice – Josefine Mindus
Amor – Peter Renz
Sylvia/Proserpina – Maria Fiselier
Plutone, Caronte – Tijl Faveyts
Figures of Orpheus and Eurydice – Alexander Soehnle, Helen Schumann
Dancers - Meri Ahmaniemi, Martina Borroni, Ana Dordevic, Zoltan Fekete, Michael Fernandez, Paul Gerritsen, Claudio Greco, Marcel Prét, Tara Rendell, Lorenzo Soragni

Barrie Kosky (director)
Katrin Lea Tag (designs)
Katharina Tasch (costumes)
Ulrich Lenz (dramaturgy)
Otto Pichler (choreography)
Alexander Koppelmann (lighting)

  
Chorus (chorus master: David Caevlius) and Orchestra of the Komische Oper

Matthew Toogood (conductor)

Amor (Peter Renz), Orpheus (Dominik Köninger)
Images: Iko Freese / drama-berlin.de

Barrie Kosky’s advent as Intendant of the Komische Oper in 2012 was marked by a twelve-hour ‘Monteverdi Trilogy’, in which the three extant Monteverdi operas were given in new productions and in newly composed realisations by Elena Kats-Chernin (also new German translations by Susanne Felicitas Wolf). Avid Monteverdian, especially in non-‘period’ guise, though I be, I was unable to attend, but have tried to make up for that since. I saw Poppea five years later, in 2017; five years, after that, comes Orpheus/Orfeo. If I must wait another five for Ulisse, so be it, but I hope to have opportunity a little sooner.

Orpheus, as one would expect, was originally seen first. Although I was surprised how well Poppea adapted to German translation—testament, doubtless, to Wolf’s work, as well as to collaboration with Kosky and Kats-Chernin—this probably did still more so. It seemed, if anything, more conceived as a new whole. (Or perhaps I was more receptive. Who knows?) At any rate, Kats-Chernin’s opening suggests more powerfully something new, rising from a stable yet uncertain bass, to take in yet also go beyond Monteverdi (including leaving, with great regret, some elements of an acknowledged masterpiece). The sound-world in general speaks of the Mediterranean—all its shores, not just the north-west—though in more popular vein than, say, Henze’s extraordinary realisation of Ulisse. This, one might say, is Monteverdi for the Komische Oper rather than for Salzburg.

Orpheus, Eurydike (Josefine Mindus)

 

Kats-Chernin deploys a splendid array of continuo instruments (accordion, bandoneon, cimbalom, the ancient djoze, and double bass). Apparently, some listeners were unhappy with the use of accordion in particular, lamenting its lack of decay, which they associated, not entirely unreasonably, with continuo playing. It did not trouble me; quite the contrary, I found it atmospheric and duly flexible. I should also point doubters (on principle) to Monteverdi’s own use of organ, including the reedy regal, for Hades. Otherwise, we have six first violins, four seconds, two double basses, two flutes/piccolos, two clarinets, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, percussion (including vibraphone), celesta, and synthesiser; and, from the auditorium, used in sparing yet quite spectacular fashion, two antiphonal funeral bands (two bassoons; two horns, two trombones, tuba, and percussion; and two horns, two trumpets, bass trombone, tuba, and percussion). It is ‘interventionist’, I suppose. Whatever would be the point, especially in Orfeo, with its meticulous instrumentation, of not being so? But, with hints of a liminal electronic world, yet still rooted in worlds of Monteverdi and, one can fancy, of Thrace, it challenges us to locate ourselves and our responses within a lush, almost overgrown visual world prior to civilisation.

Kosky’s staging is, as one might expect, still more exuberant: literally, at times, all-singing, all-dancing. The energy of the opening wedding festivities must have come across as a powerful statement of intent, as well as a great deal of fun; it still does now, also as a fine testament to his years as Intendant. There are no inhibitions here, and somehow even fewer as time goes by. The sheer physicality and sensuality of by no means explicit portrayal, centred on Dominik Köninger’s sensationally sung, danced, and acted Orpheus (also a fine Nerone in Poppea) is impossible to resist. Amidst nymphs, fauns, a whole cosmogony of ancient-modern life, everyone can find his, her, or their part. One can see and more or less feel the sweat on their bodies, prior to tragedy and then again prior to what may or may not be apotheosis. La Musica becomes Amor/Cupid, signalling less a move away from the primacy of music as acknowledgement of its greater powers. Peter Renz I recognised from Poppea; he did a similarly characterful job here, and is clearly a crucial thread running between the three.

 

It is not Apollo, but a woman—Sylvia (Maria Fiselier), albeit singing Apollo’s words—who beautifully calls Orpheus to the stars. I am not quite sure why; at the time, I simply assumed it was, for some reason, a female Apollo. Contrast with Tijl Faveyts’s dark-hued bass (Pluto/Charon) is also heightened. It does no harm, though, and perhaps reflects a greater surrounding fluidity, to which all contribute, ambiguous puppet figures of Orpheus and Eurydike included. The latter’s return to Hades is accomplished in moving vocal terms by Josefine Mindus, as well as by a finely conceived—and executed—moment of stage decision, returning her to those depths from which she had never quite risen. In that connection, what happens at the close is interesting, Orpheus re-entering, at Cupid’s behest, the pool into which he had descended to find his love in Hades. Perhaps this is not, after all, the after-life he has been promised. Happy Easter.

Lamento d'Arianna, Ariadne auf Naxos (Prologue), and Witch (world premiere), Royal Academy Opera, 23 March 2022

Susie Sainsbury Theatre, Royal Academy of Music

Arianna – Sophie Sparrow
Prima Donna – Josi Ann Ellem
Composer – Bernadette Johns
Zerbinetta – Kathleen Nic Dhiarmda
Dancing Master – Liam Bonthrone
Tenor – Ryan Vaughan Davies
Wigmaker – Jacob Phillips
Music Master – Will Pate
Officer – Samuel Kibble
Lackey – Wonsick Oh
Major Domo – Michael Ronan

Jane – Bernadette Johns
Agnes, Troll 3 – Julia Portela Piñón
Interrogator 1 – Wonsick Oh
Interrogator 2 – Ryan Vaughan Davies
Wandering Minstrel, Executioner – Will Pate
Sarah, Sun Witch – Sophie Sparrow
Little Miss Manifest, Troll Mum – Nina Korbe
Green Death Witch – Kathleen Nic Dhiarmada
Troll 1 – Marcus Dawson
Troll 2 – Samuel Kibble

Polly Graham (director)
April Dalton (designs)
Jake Wiltshire (lighting)
Hayley Egan (video)

Ensemble singers and actors
Royal Academy Sinfonia
Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor)

Sarah (Sophie Sparrow)
Image: Craig Fuller

Commissioning a new opera for its 200^th anniversary, and then staging and performing it with such excellence, are laudable things for the Royal Academy of Music to have done. If only, alas, the world premiere of WITCH, music by Freya Waley-Cohen and libretto by Ruth Mariner, had shown us a superior work than it did. The problem lay at least as much, probably more, with Mariner’s libretto, weirdly devoid of dramatic intent, let alone achievement, but it would be difficult to make claims for Waley-Cohen as a musical dramatist either. 

What is WITCH ‘about’? A bullied teenage girl alone in her bedroom, save for a giant rabbit (I don’t know either), finds solace and ultimately takes action through discovery of a coven of witches on the Internet. Despite attempted disruption by a group of online trolls, they manage to cast a ‘penis hex’ on the world—shouting ‘Hex in the City!—which (here, I quote the programme) ‘aims to cleans the world of toxic masculinity and goes viral’. Meanwhile, another story is sketched—barely sketched, let alone anything more—of a sixteenth century Scottish witch; it may have been discovered by the teenagers online, or may have been referred to entirely independently. That was not clear (at least to me). As the late Anna Russell might have said, ‘I’m not making this up, you know.

The problem is not the worthy intent; doubtless these are issues that could, indeed should, be treated dramatically, though whether an opera is the best place to do so may remain an open question. Perhaps a documentary or, indeed, one of the TikTok-style videos screened in Polly Graham’s inventive, often brilliant staging would be a better place to start. (I remain unsure whether casting a ‘penis hex’ is the most obviously efficacious remedy, but what do I know?) There is little or no attempt to create character, still less character development. There is no dramatic grit, let alone ambiguity. It is essentially a school assembly talk writ large, feeling as though it goes on for ever, though it actually extends for ten minutes or so more than an hour. Waley-Cohen’s contribution has some of what one might consider to be the essentials: different sound worlds for the two centuries, which begin to collide (far more so than in the preachy libretto); a keen ear for musical process, albeit one that struggles, perhaps understandably, to align itself dramatically; and a definite move towards culmination as the ‘hex’ is cast. Set against that, there is likewise little in the way of musical characterisation; vocal writing is often ungrateful to no evident end; and the dramatic function of the orchestra, though vividly present, remains uncertain throughout. I suspect something less inert could have been made out of this, but a series of workshops combined with a few periods of reflection and revision would have been necessary. 

Ryan Wigglesworth led the excellent Royal Academy Sinfonia in an incisive account, as well paced as the work would permit. Pulsating with colour, it had me wonder whether an orchestral piece, perhaps with film, might have been a better option. The orchestra was certainly put through its paces, having earlier given a bright-eyed account of the Prologue to Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, albeit one in which Wigglesworth sometimes seemed a little too inclined to follow the singers, lessening dramatic tension. Given with a wonderful, preceding performance of Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna, directed from one of three theorbos by Elizabeth Kenny with great understanding and infinite flexibility, it was unclear what either was doing alongside WITCH. Connection in general mistreatment of women seemed implied, but surely the Opera rather than the Prologue would have made that point better. (There were doubtless musical reasons for not attempting that.) 

It was also surprising that no real attempt seemed to be made to connect Monteverdi and Strauss. Graham’s direction of each taken in separation had much to commend it, save the strange, distracting cries (‘witch’-like?) emitted at one point by Ariadne’s companions in the Monteverdi. The Lament was otherwise focused and powerful, due in no part to Sophie Sparrow’s stylish and richly expressive performance. Strauss proved full of incident, a cue to plenty of character creation (retrospectively showing up its successor all the more), though there was considerably less in the way of Hofmannsthal. In that connection, some dialogue was delivered so deliberately that translation into English would probably have been the better option. The flashing screens and general stage incident of Witch went a long way to contribute interest otherwise lacking, signs of what might have been—and, who knows, may still be. 

As a showcase for young singing talent, this triple-bill achieved more. Sparrow did much to engage our sympathy not only as Arianna but also as Sarah who became a Sun Witch. Her counterpoart Kathleen Nic Dhiarmada (Green Death Witch) presented an unusually sympathetic Zerbinetta, having us engage with her as a human being rather than metadramatic cipher. (This was, after all, only the Prologue.) Bernadette Johns’s Composer, if sometimes lacking in verbal accuracy, likewise engaged us keenly in her character’s emotional trials, the production’s feminist idea here seeming to be that this was actually a woman in trousers, rather than a ‘trouser role’. It was impossible to know how the rest would have turned out, but Will Pate’s Music Master, Liam Bonthrone’s Dance Master, and Ryan Vaughan Davies’s Tenor all suggested great promise for the Opera that never came. Pate and Johns, moreover, suggested greater emotional depth as the sixteenth-century pair of Wandering Minstrel and Jane than otherwise emerged from Witch. In truth, almost every sung performance impressed. If only half the dramatic material had been stronger…

Salzburg Festival (2) – L’incoronazione di Poppea, 22 August 2018

Haus für Mozart

Poppea (Sonya Yoncheva), Nerone (Kate Lindsey)
Images © Salzburger Festspiele / Maarten Vanden Abeele

Poppea – Sonya Yoncheva

Nerone – Kate Lindsey

Ottavia – Stéphanie d’Oustrac

Ottone – Carlo Vistoli

Seneca – Renato Dolcini

Virtú, Drusilla – Ana Quintans

Nutrice, First Friend of Seneca – Marcel Beekman

Arnalta – Dominique Voisse

Amore, Calletto – Lea Desandre

Fortuna, Damigella – Tamara Banjesevic

Pallade, Venere – Claire Debono

Lucano, First Soldier, Tribune, Second Friend of Seenca – Alessandro Fisher

Liberto, Second Soldier, Tribune – David Webb

Littore, First Consul, Third Friend of Seneca – Padraic Rowan

Mercurio, Second Consul – Virgile Ancely

Solo Dancer – Sarah Lutz (Needcompany)

Chroreographic collaboration – Paul Blackman (Juxtapoz)

Jan Lauwers (director, designs, choreography)

Lemm&Barkey (costumes)

Ken Hioco (lighting)

Elke Janssens (dramaturgy)

Bodhi Project and Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance

Les Arts Florissants

William Christie (musical direction)

Solo dancer (Sarah Lutz), Lucano (Alessandro Fisher), Dancer (Sam Huczkowski), Nerone (Kate Lindsey)

Jan Lauwers’s first opera production may be accounted a significant success: alive to theatre, its possibilities and impossibilities, its illusions and delusions. I heard a good few objections – nothing wrong with that in itself, of course – which, sadly and revealingly, seemed to boil down to that perennial bugbear of ‘too much going on’. By definition, ‘too much’ of something will be a bad thing – although sometimes, perhaps, bad things are required. Few of the characters in L’incoronazione di Poppea, even Seneca a somewhat compromised and therefore all the more credible exception, evince scruples in that or any other respect. Sometimes we, sometimes they too, need to ask why, or at least seem to need to do so. It does not, then, seem entirely unreasonable, nor out of keeping with the spirit of this extraordinary work, to attempt something similar. It is, at any rate, likely to prove more enlightening than simply complaining that ‘too much is going on’. ‘Have you ever seen a Frank Castorf production?’ I was tempted to ask.

In a programme note, Lauwers pertinently mentions Shakespeare, who never fails to come to my mind when contemplating the last two operas of Monteverdi: ‘Shakespeare too employed a form of timeless anti-psychology in his work. Just as the English bard offers no explanation at all of why Lady Macbeth is so “bad”, the protagonists in L’incoronazione di Poppea are also simply “bad”.’ There is much to object to in the claim itself – not least the disregard for an audience that would have known very well what historically would become of Nero and his newly crowned empress – yet it does well not only to point us to Shakespeare, but also to provide a way into what seems to me perhaps the fundamental claim, or way of making a claim, of both production and work. For, as Iain Fenlon points out in his excellent note, the Accademia deli Incogniti, whose members included Monteverdi’s librettist, Francesco Busenello, held that the ‘public world, the world of politics, was principally about the exercise of power. … under these circumstances, the prime obligation of the citizen was that of self-preservation’. Crucially, their published writings, ‘often fiercely sceptical in tone,’ were often ‘designed to illustrate both the incompatibility of words and deeds, and the impossibility of explaining human actions in terms of a single norm or principle’. There are obvious conflicts and materials for conflicts here, such as can make for excellent drama – and here do.

It is here that the dancers really come in – and indeed the instrumentalists. (At least if we are starting where we have started; as ever in opera, had we started somewhere else, we should have taken a different path.) Like staging itself, sometimes they mirror the action, but more often they offer related, alternative paths: a ‘why’, a ‘what if…’, whether for particular singers to whom they might implicitly or explicitly be paired, or for the company as a whole. Not for nothing is this a performance founded on the director’s own Need[for]company. They complete the company too, providing tableaux vivants that may or may not be static, perhaps most memorably of all during the hours of Poppea’s sleep.  ‘Like a Renaissance painting’ has been a phrase much mocked recently, the reasons too obvious once again to rehearse; here, however, as with Shakespeare, the enlistment of, say, Caravaggio seems real and enriching. As some of the opera may (or may not) be from the ‘workshop of Monteverdi’, production, performance, reception too likewise partake – surely always they will – in other workshops.

Ottone (Carlo Vistoli), Poppea, Arnalta (Dominique Visse), Ensemble

Much of that seems particularly well suited to the world of imperial Rome and its court. Access is always a question in such situations – and so it is here. Access for whom and with whom? We have contemporary versions: a filmed, even ‘reality television’ transition from the Prologue has us observe, participate in the orgiastic goings on. Throughout history, what has been more pornographic, in any number of senses, than the desire not only to watch but also to write such ‘stories’? Is that not part of what Poppea is? All the while, even whilst we are caught up in its detail, in enjoyment thereof, we, like the selected dancer-in-rotation as focal wheel of fate (Fortuna), know how things will turn out – even if we have forgotten. That is certainly not the least of things that we, like our real or imaginary original Venetian audiences, bring to the dramatic table. Observation and understanding of court life, ours or ‘theirs’, will always be partial: that is part of the puzzle, the game.

Ana Quintans (Drusilla), Ensemble

So too is the score, such as it is, here more foundation – yet what a foundation! – than script for a musical performance. So too, also, are the musicians. There are many ways to perform Monteverdi; anyone who tells you otherwise is either disingenuous or uncomprehending. This way, however, worked uncommonly well: both ‘in itself’ and, more importantly, for this particular staging and concept. To quote Lauwers again, ‘the first thing he,’ that is William Christie, ‘said to me was that there wo[uld]n’t be an orchestra, but a group of soloists, and that he did not wish to adopt a focal position as conductor’. An outstanding group of soloists, then, founded upon a rich in hue continuo group, grounded upon that all important bass line, was essentially conducted – insofar as the term has meaning here – by the singers, by their action and its scenic-vocal instantiation. In Christie’s own words, ‘The roles are reversed.’

Poppea and Ottone

Whatever the ‘priority’, and its surely the collaboration that matters more, the singers proved excellent indeed in exploration of the endless subtleties of Monteverdi’s recitar cantando. Sonya Yoncheva’s Poppea was such that one could hardly imagine it otherwise – that despite the wealth of alternatives suggested by dance and gesture. Her seductive, knowing yet unknowing character was keenly matched with the darker Nerone of Kate Lindsey, their blend as erotic as, more erotic than, anyone would have a right to imagine. Stéphanie d’Oustrac perhaps exaggerated – for my taste, anyway – the rhythmic freedom of her final ‘number’, but hers was an intelligent portrayal, which reminded us that, in many ways, this character is just as bad as those who have wronged her. (Might she not too have been Lady Macbeth?) Carlo Vistoli’s Ottone hit just the right note: erotically ‘pure’ of tone, providing quite a different form of allure, yet one just as potent. He too, whilst engaging our sympathy, questioned whether he should have done. Ana Quintans’s rich-yet clear-toned Drusilla did so effortlessly – at least seemingly so – even if, again, she perhaps should not have done. Renato Dolcini offered an unusually youthful Seneca, thought-provokingly so. If I found the crudity of tone of Dominique Visse’s (excessively?) high camp Arnalta something of a fly in the ointment, there are not un-Shakespearen arguments to say that such is all part of life’s rich tapestry. Otherwise, company was truly the thing; I should end up merely rewriting the cast list were I not to stop here. For stopping here is just what L’incoronazione di Poppea does; we were beguiled, enthralled, yet never sated. Like Nerone, Poppea, their world.

L'incoronazione di Poppea, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, 10 December 2017

Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Images: Bernd Uhlig
Nerone (Max Emanuel Cencic), Poppea (Anna Prohaska)

Fortuna – Niels Domdey

Fortuna, Damigella – Narine Yeghiyan

Virtù – Artina Kapreljan

Amore, Valletto – Lucia Cirillo

Amore – Noah Schurz

Nerone – Max Emanuel Cencic

Ottavia – Katharina Kammerloher

Poppea – Anna Prohaska

Ottone – Xavier Sabata

Seneca – Franz-Josef Selig

Drusilla – Evelin Novak

Liberto, Lucano – Gyula Orendt

First Soldier, Lucano – Linard Vrielink

Second Soldier – Florian Hoffmann

Tribune – David Oštrek

Nutrice – Jochen Kowalski

Arnalta – Mark Milhofer

Eva-Maria Höckmayr (director)

Jens Kilian (set designs)

Julia Rösler (costumes)

Olaf Freese, Irene Selka (lighting)

Mark Schachtsiek, Roman Reeger (dramaturgy)

Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin

Diego Fasolis (conductor)

The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is now reopen for good. That re-reopening, as it were, has taken place with two new productions of two favourite works of mine: Hänsel und Gretel (which I shall also review shortly) and L’incoronazione di Poppea. I wish I could offer a wholehearted welcome to this production of Poppea, not least as my final instalment in rather a wonderful Monteverdi year, the highlight of which was surely an RIAS Kammerchor Vespers, conducted by Justin Doyle (see also interview here). Eva-Maria Höckmayr’s production offers, alas, little in itself, almost a non-production, whilst the musical performances were somewhat mixed.


Let us start, however, with the good news, which was very good news indeed. In what I believe was her first role in a Monteverdi opera – madrigal performances and much other early music notwithstanding – Anna Prohaska truly shone in the title role. She can certainly act, and did, called on, like much of the cast, to be onstage for an almost absurd proportion of the evening. There was, then, no doubting her stage presence; but nor was there any doubting her vocal presence. Never forced, ever audible, increasingly imbued with darker, richer tones than I recall when first hearing her, without any sacrifice to clarity and cleanness of line and words, Prohaska surely offered a performance that would have made anyone wish to hear her again, whether in Monteverdi, Nono, or somewhere in between. Her Poppea, moreover, was no one-dimensional schemer, no mere sex-kitten, although she certainly offered plenty in the way of allure and manipulation; this was a woman reclaiming a woman’s role, certainly not apologetic, yet unwilling simply to have as a male projection – be that Monteverdi’s, Giovanni Francesco Busenello’s, ours – might have her act.

Seneca (Franz-Josef Selig), Nerone

Her leading men, as it were, also offered intelligent, multi-dimensional performances. Max Emanuel Cencic’s Nerone was occasionally a little on the squawky side, yet only occasionally. Otherwise he judiciously, even provocatively, balanced the character’s vanity and sexual allure, for if Poppea is to be more than merely a male projection, then surely the other characters, male and female, need to come more into their own. Ottone is, more often than not, a thankless role – almost a Don Ottavio for the seventeenth century. Xavier Sabata, though, gave him depth and greater ambition and nastiness of his own than one often encounters – without that diminishing his helplessness in the arms of Fate. Jochen Kowalski, who has had a long, distinguished career not only as a countertenor, but as a countertenor in Berlin, tended, alas, to suggest that that career should probably draw to a close. Perhaps it was just an off-night, but here he was barely capable of singing countertenor at all, proving more successful when giving up that good fight to sing instead as tenor. He still had stage presence; for the most part, that was all.

Rather to my surprise, Katharina Kammerloher’s Ottavia proved variable, less sure – or indeed beautiful – of line than most performances I have heard from her. Franz-Josef Selig, as ever, offered a thoughtful performance as Seneca, alert to the character’s irritating side – not only as seen through the eyes, or heard through the ears, of Nerone and Poppea. Evelin Novak’s Drusilla impressed too, as did Mark Milhofer’s deliciously camp – yet crucially, eminently musical – Arnalta. Gyula Orendt rose above his announced ailment to give notable performances, which doubtless could have been finer still, as Liberto and Lucano. Most of the smaller roles were well taken, often by members of the company. Quite why children were engaged to double the gods in the Prologue I have no idea; moreover, whilst it is certainly a tall order to ask children to sing Monteverdi at all, let alone on stage, the audience probably deserves to hear voices that are vaguely capable of remaining in tune.

Poppea, Ottone (Xavier Sabata),
Amore (Lucia Cirollo)

Diego Fasolis made heavy, unvaried weather of the score. Many current ‘Early Music’ clichés were present, including the irritating addition of ‘colourful’ percussion. It was a relatively large band for Monteverdi in all: nothing wrong with that in principle, but it did have me wonder why we were hearing period instruments. I do not think I have heard a more dully conducted account, closer to a failed attempt to copy Nikolaus Harnoncourt than to something livelier, whether at the ‘period’ or – one can but hope – the Leppard end of the spectrum. Might it not, moreover, have been an occasion to look to a composer’s realisation of the score, say Krenek’s or Dallapiccola’s, or to commission a new one? The Staatskapelle Berlin would certainly have been a vocal sight for sore ears, much of what we heard resembling – although it certainly is not – acres of dullish recitative. Why, moreover, in this version credited to Fasolis and Andrea Marchiol, did we hear material interpolated from elsewhere, such as L’Orfeo? It was hardly ‘authentic’, in any sense, offering little more than a longer evening. Poppea is not a short opera; here it felt far longer than it should.

As for Hockmayr’s production, I struggled for the most part to find one, beyond a cursory nod to a threadbare metatheatricality that has degenerated into mere fashion. From Jens Kilian, a single, undeniably impressive golden set, with intriguing geometrical possibilities – circular and otherwise – promises much, as does Julia Rösler’s ‘punkish Renaissance-Baroque’ costumes, Nerone and Poppea perhaps more, yet not entirely, contemporary (to us). I had the sneaking impression, though, however erroneous, that the singers had largely been left by Hockmayr to get on with it. There is, at least for me, no obvious concept, other than the characters being all as bad as each other: hardly original, and actually rather dull. Yes, they all have their flaws; neither Ottone nor Ottavia is a paragon. There is surely room for greater differentiation, though, differentiation which need not lead to moral judgement. And so, in the final scene, Poppea’s sudden trauma at her elevation, unforgettably portrayed by Prohaska, seems to come out of nowhere. Likewise the frankly silly twist that has Nerone wander off with Lucano. Yes, of course the two are close, and will remain so, sexually and otherwise: the orgy has shown us that. But surely to have Nerone already opt so obviously for another rather than to remain omnivorous seems little more than an unprepared cop out. Perhaps Hockmayr had thought this all out and either it did not come across very clearly, or I was missing something. Perhaps.

Musikfest Berlin (6) – RIAS Chamber Choir/Doyle - Monteverdi Vespers, etc., 16 September 2017

St Hedwig’s Cathedral and Pierre Boulez Saal




Photographs from General Rehearsal: Matthias Heyde

Monteverdi: L’Orfeo: Toccata

Plainsong: Introit, ‘Stabant juxta crucem’
Monteverdi: Missa ‘In illo tempore’
with Salomone Rossi: Sinfonia grave in G minor, Monteverdi: Adoramus te, Christe
 

Monteverdi: Vespro della Beata Virgine

interspersed with Salomone Rossi: Sinfonia IX in F major, Sonata XII sopra la
Bergamasca in G major, Canzon per sonar a 4 in G major; Biagio Marini: Sonata in Eco, in G major, Sinfonia ‘La Giustiniana’ in G minor; Rossi: Sinfonia in G minor; Plainsong: Antiphon, ‘Nolite me considerare’

Dorothee Mields, Hannah Morrison (sopranos)

Thomas Hobbs, Andrew Staples, Volker Arndt (tenors)

Andrew Redmond, Stefan Dreximeier (basses)

RIAS Chamber Choir

Capella de la Torre

Justin Doyle (conductor)

A day of Monteverdian delights, which, for me, at least will surely prove the highlight and climax of his 450^th anniversary year. First, I interviewed conductor Justin Doyle about this and, more broadly, his work as new Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the RIAS Chamber Choir. Then to the Bebelplatz nearby, to St Hedwig’s Cathedral, Prussia’s first Roman Catholic church following the Reformation, the land given by Frederick the Great expressly for that purpose. (Toleration is, or at least was, easier when one was probably an atheist. How things have changed, eh, Richard Dawkins…) There under its great dome, modelled on the Pantheon, we heard the Missa ‘In illo tempore’. Then around the corner to the Pierre Boulez Saal, first for a talk by Silke Leopold, followed by a performance of what remains the composer’s most celebrated work, collection, call it what you will: the Vespers of the Blessed Virgin, published in 1610 along with the Mass, and dedicated to Pope Paul V.

 

The composer’s first opera – the first great opera – L’Orfeo stands in many ways behind the collection. A modified version of its celebrated opening Toccata may be heard in the opening number – or whatever we want to call it! – of the Vespers. And so it would be here, of course. However, it was a nice surprise here also to hear it played from the cathedral gallery, almost as a call to worship or at least to listening, prior to the Plainsong introi, ‘Stabant iuxta crucem Jesu mater eius’. It sounded, the acoustic notwithstanding, far livelier – and not only in speed – to the rather dutiful account heard earlier in the festival from John Eliot Gardiner. We were, if so inclined, thereby reminded both of the Christianity of Orfeo and the theatricality of Monteverdi’s church music, all the world both a stage and a church. During the introit, the choir took their places beneath the organ pipes, facing the altar, ready for the Mass itself. A flowing ‘Kyrie’, accompanied by both organ and orchestra, benefited from the warmth of the acoustic, as did the ‘Gloria’, which ended with a fine, unexaggerated sense of jubilation. The performing style throughout sounded both suited to and shaped by the particular acoustic of the building: something one might have hoped would go without saying, yet in many performances, alas not. As Monteverdi’s prima prattica counterpoint unfolded, natural, almost unassuming, one realised that the move, never complete, to the seconda prattica was not all gain; no step in musical, or other, history ever is. I loved the imploring quality of the close, ‘Miserere nobis’, to the motet, Adoramus te, Christe, enough to have one feel one should be kneeling. Yet it was the lack of theatricality for its own sake that perhaps spoke most clearly: a trust and belief in the power and, yes, genius of Monteverdi’s music.

 

For the Vespers, in the very different setting of the Pierre Boulez Saal, the performance unfolded on different – physical – levels. Once again, the instrumental call to worship, to listen, to whatever it might be, was made from the first gallery, with the tenor injunction, ‘Deus in adiutorium meum intende!’ heard from the level above. The choir itself and, for the most part, the instrumental ensemble was at ‘ground’ level. In general, the home of the overtly, traditionally ‘sacred’ liturgical music, whereas the more ‘secular’ – and yes, I know the distinction is essentially false – concertos would be heard, at least in their solo parts, from above. The two seraphim, ‘Duo Seraphim’, were heard from higher still: a return, perhaps, to less unambiguous distinction between sacred and profane. Or one could simply experience such distinctions as experiments in spatial awareness. Who is to say what they ‘are’, whether in Monteverdi, in Gabrieli, or indeed in Boulez and Stockhausen?  At any rate, a distinction such as that brought home in the ‘Laudate pueri’ between choral sopranos and the soloist above was meaningful, verbally and musically.

 

The ‘collection’ becomes a ‘work’ in performance – or can be heard to do so, even when, as here, it was joined by instrumental pieces from Monteverdi’s colleagues, Salamone Rossi (Mantua) and Biagio Marini (Venice). It seemed almost to encompass the rest of Monteverdi’s work too: not just Orfeo at the opening (and in the Magnificat’s reminder of Orpheus in Hades), but the courtly, madrigalian soprano duetting of ‘Pulchra es’. Or is it later opera, even Poppea, of which we hear a fortelling? It need not be either or, and certainly was not in practice; sopranos Dorothee Mields and Hannah Morrison would clearly have been comfortable in any or all guises. ‘Swing’ might be an anachronism too far, not least since it perhaps misleads; what one needs above all is security of rhythm and metre. Nevertheless, it was a joy to hear something approximating to it in the cries of ‘Jerusalem’ from ‘Laetatus sum’. Likewise the contrasting plaintive quality, again never unduly exaggerated, never disruptive, later on. Here and elsewhere, Doyle and the Choir, well trained, and thus able to unleash its abundant musicality, offered readings that were not only thoughtful but delightful.

 

So too with the tenor seraphim, Thomas Hobbs and Andrew Staples; again, rightly or wrongly, I could not help but think of the world of Poppea. Gender is a complex matter in Monteverdi; after all, it is also a tenor who sings ‘Nigra sum’ (and very well he did so too). The tenor echo (Staples) from the heavens in ‘Audi coelum’ beautifully complemented Hobbs from the gallery below: distant, different, yet changing too, according to the demands of the text. There is almost an endless variety of ways to perform this music, but everything here had been thought through, not so as to limit but so as to enable spontaneity and, yes, drama in performance. When the choir responded, ‘Omnes hanc ergo sequamur…’, to what it had heard, it was almost as if a prayer were being answered, yet the mystery of grace remained. There are no easy answers here, musical or theological. An instrumental response seemed just the thing in turn, a fruity bassoon (sorry, dulcian) from the Capella de la Torre ensemble delighting in turn.

 

Following the interval, an instrumental invitation to dance-cum-worship was extended, leading us in to the extraordinary ‘Sonata sopra sancta Maria’. Female members of the choir reappeared, whilst the soloists appeared lightly lit (and lightly conducted) in what one might have taken for alcoves, mediating apparitions of saints themselves. Responses might be heard from all over, just as in the church or the world themselves. Stockhausen could eat his heart out – and most likely would have done. The ‘Ave maris stella’ sounded as a hymn in more than name, blossoming into something akin to a presentiment of a Bach chorale prelude, and even beyond, to Classical variation form. As for the closing ‘Magnificat’, I am not sure that it is not an even finer setting than Bach’s – and became even less sure here. This might not be a ‘work’ in the modern sense; if so, so much the worse for the modern sense. Whatever the truth of that, this was a crowning glory, in which, so it seemed, everything came together, greater than the sum of its parts. As an encore, we were treated to an aural glimpse of ‘what happened next’: Cavalli’s Salve regina, almost Schubert to Monteverdi’s Mozart, with none of the stiffness that often befalls performance of music that is far more difficult than it might often look or sound.

 

Interview with Justin Doyle: from Monteverdi to MacMillan with the RIAS Chamber Choir

From General Rehearsal for the Monteverdi Vespers in the Pierre Boulez Saal
Images: Matthis Heyde

For his first concerts as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the RIAS Chamber Choir, Justin Doyle finds himself very much in at the deep end: dual-venue performances of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers of the Blessed Virgin (at the Pierre Boulez Saal) and the Missa ‘In illo tempore’, with which it was published (just around the corner, at St Hedwig’s Cathedral). ‘Finds himself’, one might ask, or was he pushed? I was lucky enough to be able to do so, on the lunchtime in between the first, Friday evening performances, and the second ones on Saturday afternoon (the latter to be reviewed shortly).

 

Doyle first spoke enthusiastically about the ambitions of the Musikfest Berlin, of which these concerts were part, and admitted that he would not necessarily immediately have chosen to perform the Vespers in the Boulez Saal. ‘It was their idea,’ he said, ‘but a very interesting one.’ Not the least of its difficulties, for such a performance, is its oval shape. What might seem to be a circle – like, say, the basilica for the Mass – is not. When I attended the first half of the General Rehearsal on the Thursday afternoon, it was, Doyle told me, the first time that the performers had been in that space, and certain changes had to be made concerning seating; sometimes, he had found himself unable to make eye contact with the performers. For a performance involving quite a bit of moving around, matters were thus complicated further. Rehearsals involve a great deal other than merely rehearsing. In this case, too, it involved speaking to performers, radio engineers, and various others, in a language other than his own ‘With no voice too,’ I learned, adding only to my admiration. (Yes, I know that others must do the former all the time, yet for us Englishmen and –women, it often comes far less easily.) ‘Everyone in the choir speaks English,’ of course, ‘but I made a conscious decision, even though it was twenty-four years since I’d done German at school, that it breaks down a barrier and it shows a degree of humility’: something, it might be added, for which conductors are not always renowned.

 

I went on to ask which edition he was using: an especially fraught question in the case of this work – or rather, as I would doubtless correct any of my students, ‘collection’, itself a distinction that gets to the heart of the problems, as well as the opportunities. ‘It’s from OUP: Jeffrey Kurtzman,’ a performing score made, it might be added, after considerable time studying the questions as well as the sources. That, at least was the score the choir was using, but Doyle had clearly made a thorough investigation of his own: not only because he said so, but because he spoke so clearly, intelligently, and informatively concerning what he had done. He had consulted every edition and more than that: ‘There are not a lot of stones I haven’t turned over in the last six months. And I keep going back to the same stones and having another look, and changing my mind. Between the General [Rehearsal] and yesterday, I changed a lot.’ What sort of thing? Presumably not who was singing or playing what, and when? No, but quite a few changes, not least on account of the venues, with respect, for instance to the cadential fermatas. ‘Are they actually stop fermatas?’ Does, for instance, ‘the sound need to go somewhere? And there’s nowhere for the sound to go.’ The partbook, for example, tells us something different from the Chorstimmen.’ Kurtzmann ‘lets you into his decisions, but … doesn’t box you into a corner. His notes are very useful and his book is exemplary. He shows his own ambivalence about certain performing decisions and his reasoning is always sensible.’ Just, then, what is needed for a particular performance in a particular – especially a rather unexpected – performing space.

 

Katharina Bäuml, the leader of the instrumental ensemble, Capella de la Torre, had also contributed, however. ‘She produced the instrumental parts, because we decided to do quite a lot of colla parte’ playing, that is (usually), when conductor and/or instrumentalist should follow the tempo and indeed rhythm of the vocal soloist(s). That made a nice contrast, Doyle thought – and such had been my experience in the rehearsal – with the use of only organ for the ‘Laudate pueri’. Monteverdi ‘says solo voices and organ,’ he explained, ‘but it’s a bit up for grabs quite what that means’. The way in which the movement could build, then, into something more than that meant that it could mirror ‘what the concerti do, starting with one solo voice, then two, three, and so on’.

 

‘As a collection, that’s clearly part of what he’s trying to do. But is it a structure as well?’ A bit like in the Selva morale e spirituale, I suggested. ‘Exactly. And that’s how collections tend to work. But this is full of very interesting touches. The first concerto is “Nigra sum”,’ which of course is a man singing “I am black and beautiful”, a female text. It’s a very similar text, but not quite the same, as that to the antiphons to several Marian feasts. Is it “filia Jerusalem” or “filiae Jerusalem”? Is it a “black but beautiful daughter of Jerusalem”? Or is it “black but beautiful, o ye daughters of Jerusalem”? Decisions like that: is it “a” or “ae”: do you go with the liturgical partbook or another source or possibility? … So we produce our own instrumental parts.’

 

That reminded me of something I had been intending to ask following something I had observed in rehearsal, and which I had long wondered about when it came to conducting the work. How difficult is it to handled the metrical changes involved and yet, as Doyle had put it during that rehearsal, immediately for the performers to ‘lock in’ to a new tempo? A case in point would be the ‘Sonata sopra Sancta Maria. ‘It’s not really that difficult. But we were all quite new to the space. The trick is always to prepare. I’m not actually beating like a normal conductor; it’s much more waft here, because you don’t want to get in the way too much here either. With respect to the tactus, it’s a down and an up. Is it cut-C or C? If you look at the part books, the partis generalis often has a cut-C; the others have C. Maddening! So if you go the Roger Bowers route,’ for which, see his Music and Letters article, ‘it cannot quite work – it’s interesting, but ultimately it must have broken down, because the part books didn’t match each other. So it tells me that the organist is being reminded that it’s a quicker tactus: as simple as that. If you go through the Magnificat, all those different sections sort of all work with the same tactus. Whether it’s a one- or a half-tactus, you’ll hear the difference, of course.’ I shall not even attempt to write out the musical demonstration he gave me, but it unquestionably convinced. ‘As long as you’re doing the maths three bars earlier, you will be fine, with preparation. And I can show it. But by last night, we’d prepared so that I could more or less stop conducting it. Get them singing and then abdicate.’

 

How much, then, of a distinction is there here, or should there be here, between choir and soloists? Should one think of them separately at all? ‘I’ve always thought of it as an eight-voice piece, not unlike Andrew Parrott says. Elsewhere, I’d probably do it with individual voices, because there’s not a lot for the individual soloists to do, the ladies in particular. Or I could have done it by giving solos to individual members of the choir, but that puts a lot of pressure on them to be major soloists in the same concert, and I thought then that I wouldn’t have the dramatic [spatial] possibilities. So to have extra bodies does help.’ That said, all the members of the choir would be capable of it, and indeed here they had a mixture: the third tenor, Volker Arndt, for instance, would be stepping out of the choir (very successfully) from time to time. Moreover, the ‘warmth and the luxury feel’ of a German choir, partly born of the greater rehearsal time available by comparison to an English choir, helped further dissolve any distinction. ‘It goes in deeper,’ as opposed to the traditional English ‘shortcut’ of sightreading and minimal rehearsal. Not that he wanted the tenors to sound the same: Arndt, Thomas Hobbs, and Andrew Staples all had different voices, but they would complement each other.

 

Ultimately, though, decisions would always come down to the following sensible principle: ‘Work out what Monteverdi would have done. Work out whether that was his ideal, or just what had to happen. Did he, for instance, have double reeds? Probably not. Or rather, he would have had them in Mantua, but not in the cathedral. And then whether they played in Venice or not; certainly for the festivals they had them. But if he had had players who could play as well as this, would he have used them more? And would he have used more singers if he had had them? And this is a RIAS Kammerchor concert. They can pretty much do everything.’

 

We closed, doubtless predictably on my part, by talking a little about the man whose name – and example – adorns the hall: Pierre Boulez. Boulez never conducted the Vespers, but thought very highly of Monteverdi – who would not? – and planned at one point to conduct the work as part of his opening concert season for a reformed Paris Opera (a project that, sadly, never came into being). He also spoke fondly of having heard Roger Désormière rehearse the work. I asked Doyle whether he could imagine what Boulez might have brought to the work, almost certainly conducting it on modern instruments, and certainly with a high modernist aesthetic. Would his own approach have anything in common with this imaginary performance, not that it need do so? Doyle had always had the regret of having had to turn down the opportunity to assist Boulez with the BBC Singers for a Prom, ‘because I was on honeymoon. Everyone has regrets, but that would have been a very short marriage, I think, otherwise. I think, though, given this room, and given that this is a festival concert, I think he would have done something quirky. I’ve put in sandwiches of vocal and instrumental movements, so there’s a nice logic to it. He wasn’t mathematical – well he was, but he wasn’t only that – but he was precise. And I have an instinctive drama about me, I think, which can sometimes be a little bit crazy, but I also have to plan a lot. And the more you plan, the more you can release that drama.’ Rather than be merely arbitrary? ‘Precisely. Never just whimsy: planned whimsy. So I think Boulez would rather have liked this, especially with the pre-concert concert [the Mass], in a different space, making use of what is different, as well as what they have in common.’ Why, I asked, could we not have more of his programming too: Machaut and Webern, Bartók and mediæval coronation music? ‘We can – and we will,’ I was assured.

 

With that in mind, and our time almost up, Doyle pointed me to the choir’s debut concert early next year in the Großer Saal of Hamburg’s new Elbphilharmonie. Playing with the Ensemble Resonanz: the Choir, under his direction, will perform Bach, Victoria, Henze, and James MacMillan. If only the website did not already read ausverkauft…

 

 

Musikfest Berlin (1) – Monteverdi, L’Orfeo and Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, 2 and 3 September 2017

Philharmonie

Orfeo – Krystian Adam

La Musica/Euridice – Hana Blažiková

Messenger – Lucile Richardot

Proserpina – Francesca Boncompagni

Caronte/Plutone – Gianluca Buratto

Speranza – Kangmin Justin Kim

Apollo – Furio Zanasi

First Shepherd – Francisco Fernández-Rueda

Second Shepherd/First Spirit/Echo – Gareth Treseder

Third Shepherd – Michał Czerniawski

Fourth Shepherd/Third Spirit – John Taylor Ward

Second Spirit – Zachary Wilder

Nymph – Anna Dennis

Ulisse – Furio Zanasi

Penelope – Lucile Richardot

Minerva/Fortuna – Hana Blažiková

Telemaco – Krystian Adam

Eumete – Francisco Fernández-Rueda

Iro – Robert Burt

Eurimaco – Zachary Wilder

Melanto – Anna Dennis

Giove – John Taylor Ward

Giunone – Francesca Boncompagni

Ericlea – Francesca Biliotti

Amore – Silvia Frigato

Umana fragilità – Carlo Vistoli

Tempo, Neptune, Antinoo – Gianluca Buratto

Pisandro – Michał Czerniawski

Anfinomo – Gareth Treseder

Rick Fisher (lighting)

Isabella Gardiner, Patricia Hofstede (costumes)

Elsa Rooke, John Eliot Gardiner (directors)

Monteverdi Choir

English Baroque Soloists

John Eliot Gardiner (conductor)

I am delighted, for the first time to be able to attend – and indeed to report from – the Berliner Festspiele and, in particular, from the Musikfest Berlin. How I rued having neither the time nor the money to be here for its Schoenberg year in 2015. Still, Monteverdi is the focus, if not quite so strongly so, in this, his anniversary year, so how could I resist? (One of the things that first drew me to the music of Alexander Goehr was his twin reverence for Schoenberg and Monteverdi; at last, I had found someone – I now know there are many more of us – for whom the two could stand as equal gods.) And so, although not quite the opening of the festival, the opening of my festival came with the first two of the three surviving operas of Monteverdi, L’Orfeo and Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. L’incoronazione di Poppea will also be given; that I heard in a rather different setting and realisation, at the Komische Oper earlier this year.

John Eliot Gardiner has, of course, for several decades been a byword for English ‘authenticity’ – or whatever it is called now. (Somehow I doubt he childishly defines as ‘HIP’, which certainly reflects well upon him, but who knows?) But has he really? The curious thing about much of what I heard here was how curiously dated it sounded. I am the last person to complain about that in some ways; so far as I am concerned, there are many ways to perform great music well. Yet, if claims to ‘authenticity’ – and yes, I use the word in slightly baiting fashion – have always been dubious, to say the least, here we seemed to have entered a strange twilight world in which, certain yet only certain aspects of instrumental ‘hardware’ aside, any authenticity was to a world of ‘1970s Early Music’. Fair enough, if that is your thing – it certainly seemed to be, for many people in an enthusiastic audience – yet perhaps not quite what was said or implied ‘on the tin’.

What struck me about much of the singing – especially, yet not only, from the Monteverdi Choir as choir – was that it sounded very ‘English choral scholar’, even when it was not. In some ways, I sympathise with a degree of resistance to an all-purpose ‘Mediterranean’ approach to this music, which has no more to do with Monteverdi than any other of the phantasms of ‘correctness’ that have haunted performances of his music over the year. There is something troubling about the claim that Italian – in what meaningful sense was or is Monteverdi ‘Italian’, at least as we might understand the 'nation' today? – musicians will always know best here, or still worse, have the music ‘in their blood’. We all need to go beyond petty nationalism here. On the other hand, the whiteness of tone here really tended too much, at least for me, towards the bland. It was all very well-drilled – arguably too much so – yet sounded for all the world, and despite the presence of female voices, more like something one might have expected from David Willcocks and King’s College Choir than an operatic performance, ancient or modern. I’m not aiming for anything fundamentally different,’ Gardiner claims, quite truthfully, one might say, ‘than I was back in 1964.’ That seems to me rather a sad way to approach performance, be it of Monteverdi or Stockhausen. Gardiner’s strange habit of conducting all the recitatives seemed to attest to a control-freakery that is perhaps not the best claim to ‘authenticity’, or more important, towards drama.

Another curious feature, especially in L’Orfeo, but also in quite a few sections of Ulisse, was quite how slow Gardiner’s speeds tended to be. Again, I am hardly someone to insist on breathless tempi, quite the contrary. Yet, in a performance of the first opera that lasted twenty minutes longer than had been advertised, I missed some expressive variation of tempo; ‘expression’ was conveyed rather more through somewhat arch dynamic contrasts. The orchestral forces used were large and somewhat ‘modern orchestral’ by today’s standards. Orfeo employed six violins, four violas, a cello, a viola da gamba/lirone, a double bass, two recorders, three cornetts/trumpets, five baroque trombones, dulcian, harp, harpsichord/organ, regal, and four chittarones/baroque guitars; Ulisse had more or less the same, minus the dulcian, the trombones, and one of the cornetts, and with a second harpsichord. The orchestral sound tended to be fuller – not only on account of instruments used – in Orfeo, but that is as much a matter of the nature of the work as anything else. And the playing of the English Baroque Soloists was excellent; too often in this music, what one hears is painfully out of tune. Not here: all was greatly assured throughout. I could not help but wonder, though: why not actually use a modern orchestra, given the general ‘smoothness’ – the sort of thing Gardiner et al. would surely decry in, say, Karajan – of approach? Indeed, Gardiner decries in the programme the ‘indulgence of Raymond Leppard’. I should say this was a great deal more indulgent, and a great deal less dramatic – in any sense. The Philharmonie is a large hall; just imagine how wonderful it would be to hear in a more genuinely recreative approach, the Berio Orfeo or the Henze Ulisse, there. After all, what could be more ‘inauthentic’ than performing Monteverdi in a space such as that?

The semi-staging seemed of another, non-'early' era too. ‘It was not a matter of not fully staging the work, but that there seemed to be at the very least implied resistance towards a fuller acceptance of opera as staged, fuller drama – Regietheater, if you must, although the term remains problematical, at least to me. Pretty-ish costumes, especially in Orfeo, somewhat dated body language and contrived interaction: that was about it. Moreover, I had the strong impression that was all Gardiner, credited with co-direction, wanted. Drama, though? Perhaps not so much, and I say that as someone who has found concert performances of the Ring some of the most intensely dramatic experiences of all. Then, looking in the programme afterwards, I read: ‘I have a natural antipathy to the proscenium arch as the only way to present opera. It carries baggage with it, a certain preconception on the part of the audience that the eye should dominate over the ear, and that to me is limiting.’ Straw men, anyone? ‘I think,’ Gardiner continued a little later, ‘an audience’s imagination, once stimulated, is infinitely richer than anything a clever stage director can come up with.’ Maybe it is, but might one not say the same about anything a conductor, clever or otherwise, can come up with? In that case, should we not just all sit at home and read a score (of whatever edition)?

There was more to enjoy in the solo singing, although that tendency towards blandness was not entirely absent there either. Indeed, Orfeo in particular sounded more akin to an oratorio than an opera, of whatever age: the genres are far from distinct, of course, yet even so. There were two serious disappointments: an almost painfully out of tune countertenor, Kangmin Justin Kim, as Speranza in Orfeo, and a strangely miscast – or so it sounded – Lucile Richardot as Penelope. Not everyone can be Janet Baker, of course; indeed, no one else can be. Yet Richardot seemed hardly to possess the higher notes required, sounding merely petulant –hardly Penelope’s thing – above a richer lower, yet highly restricted, range. Her Ulisse, Furio Zanasi, sounded somewhat old, even wooden, some of the time, yet had stronger, more expressive moments too. He made little impression, however, as Apollo, and again gave the impression of having been miscast. Encountering the tenor of Krystian Adam, though, was almost worth the price of admission alone. It is not a big voice, but nor did it need to be. Adam showed manifold clarity, agility, and tenderness in his performances as Orfeo and Telemaco. I certainly hope to hear more from him. Zachary Wilder and Anna Dennis imparted a greatly needed injection of ‘Mediterranean’ chemistry to Ulisse, as Eurimaco and Melanto. In both operas, Francisco Fernández-Ruedo stood out as a tenor not only mellifluous but musico-dramatically astute; his Eumete in particular often proved quite heart-rending. There was definitely a sense of the vocal performances as offering more than the sum of their parts; it was a pity, then, that the framework within which they had to operate was not more conducive to the modernity – and antiquity – of the composer.