Carmen, Opera Holland Park, 10 June 2022

 

Carmen – Kezia Bienek
Don José – Oliver Johnston
Escamillo – Thomas Mole
Micaëla – Alison Langer
Frasquita – Natasha Agarwal
Mercédès – Ellie Edmonds
Zuniga – Jacob Phillips
Moralès – Jevan McAuley
Le Dancaïre – Themba Mvula
Le Remendado – Mike Bradley

Cecilia Stinton (director)
takis (set designs)
Johanne Jensen (lighting)
Isabel Baquero (choreography)

Children’s Chorus from Cardinal Vaughan School
Opera Holland Park Chorus (chorus director: Richard Harker)
City of London Sinfonia
Lee Reynolds (conductor)

Image: Ali Wright

 
Carmen was the last opera I saw before the end of the world. Not necessarily what I would have chosen; for many of my friends it was Fidelio, whose absence from my truncated Beethoven Year I regretted deeply. But then none of us chose pandemic, lockdown, death, misery, and the rest. It was good, though, to have opportunity to exorcise another pandemic ghost, albeit in different guise. Cecilia Stinton’s new Holland Park production has little in common with Martin Kušej’s staging at Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden; nor did Lee Reynolds’ traversal of the score, in his own, skilful, new reduction correspond to my memories of Daniel Barenboim. 

Different strokes…? Doubtless, yet I could not help but regret the lack of rethinking, especially in staging. There are half-hearted nods to a feminist turn, which in context come across more as odd than enlightening, for ultimately what we see is highly conventional, permitting of little to say other than what it is not. We lacked, thank goodness, Francesca Zambello’s notorious donkey; otherwise, this was a ‘period’ tale, in uniforms and frocks. It all looks a bit like a school play. Dmitri Tcherniakov’s radical decentring of Carmen could not be more distant; the unremitting intensity of Calixto Bieito’s much ‘straighter’ retelling in Franco’s Spain seems a world away too. There is some ‘colourful’ dancing and other musical comedy-style ‘business’. Children hand around postcards advertising Escamillo’s fight. Don José elicits strikingly little directorial interest, but it would be difficult to say any of the characters was fully treated. And that, bar a peculiar role reversal at the opening, is more or less it. It seems odd that anyone might need a course in orientalism at this stage, but there we are.

Reynolds’s conducting had none of Barenboim’s revisionism either, yet proved more compelling than the staging. The City of London Sinfonia was on sharp form, clearly in sympathy with its conductor’s carefully gauged balance of drive and lyricism. If I missed the sense of numbers contributing to a sum greater than their parts, that is often the case here; and I realise, especially in the ‘authentic’ opéra comique version, that I could readily be accused of wanting to turn the opera into something (more Austro-German, Nietzsche forbid) than it is. Reynolds and the orchestra supported the cast and led the action where necessary and appropriate. No one could or should reasonably have been disappointed, save for the inevitable reductions in scale of a chamber orchestration. Even then, different balances—not least, more prominent woodwind—had one reconsider one’s position on the work: no bad thing, given its ubiquity. 

Kezia Bienek fully inhabited the title role, insofar as the production permitted. Hers was a Carmen, quite rightly, not inclined to take any prisoners, yet far from one-dimensional. Vocal delivery was well centred on the text as a whole (that is, words and music) and stage presence fitted the bill splendidly throughout. If the staging seemed rather to leave Oliver Johnston to fend for himself, he proved well able to do so, giving us an intelligently sung Don José. Thomas Mole’s dark tone was just the thing for Escamillo, in another intelligent reading. Micaëlas rarely disappointed, but that is no reason not to celebrate Alison Langer’s performance, beautifully and touchingly sung. A fine supporting cast and excellent performances both from the Opera Holland Park Chorus and pupils of Cardinal Vaughan School compensated in good measure for what I—though not, I think, the audience as a whole—perceived as lack of ambition in the production.  

May Night, Royal Academy Opera, 7 March 2016

Ambika P3, University of Westminster

Levko – Oliver Johnston

Ganna – Laura Zigmantaite
Kalenik – Alex Otterburn
The Headman – Božidar Smiljanić
Headman’s Sister-in-law – Katie Stevenson
Distiller – William Blake
Pannochka – Alys Roberts
Clerk – Dominic Bowe
Stepmother/Rusalka – Helen Brackenbury
Brood-Hen/Rusalka – Iúnó Connolly
Raven/Rusalka – Marvic Monreal

Christopher Cowell (director)

Bridget Kimak (designs)
Jake Wiltshire (lighting)
Mandy Demetriou (choreography)

Royal Academy Opera Chorus (chorus master: Richard Leach)

Royal Academy Sinfonia

Gareth Hancock (conductor)

 

And so, eight days in which I shall see no fewer than four Russian musical works for the stage began, with a true rarity, Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night. As ever, Royal Academy Opera’s programming refreshes: last term we had The Marriage of Figaro, as far from a rarity as one might imagine, but in one of the best performances I have ever seen or heard, now an opera that would surely have Rimskyites and the simply curious determined to come. Which am I? More the latter, I suppose, although the composer certainly intrigues me. There is a materialist emptiness to much of his music I sometimes find problematical, but there is no denying, alongside an undeniable datedness (not always a bad thing, by any means), Rimsky’s mastery of colour, his legacy for twentieth-century music (above all Stravinsky), and many other strengths. Of the two operas I had previously seen staged, I much preferred The Tale of Tsar Saltan to The Tsar’s Bride, although the latter work clearly has its advocates. On the basis of my admittedly limited experience, the Orientalist and the supernatural Rimsky seem to me much more interesting than the merely realist. (Leave that to Mussorgsky and his towering masterpieces!) Characterisation does not appear to be a strength; where Rimsky can summon up a dazzling peacock, he seems – can one blame him? – less thrilled by the prospect of a group of peasants. Or maybe one needs to be Russian, or at least have first-hand familiarity with the language, to appreciate Gogol.

 

Such, at any rate, was my experience of by May Night too. Although I was grateful indeed to hear the work, especially performed so well, it was really in its third act that it came into its own for me, although there are certainly individual numbers, perhaps especially the choral ones, beforehand which prove arresting or at least interesting earlier on. At one point, I felt The Firebird calling; that, I thought was what I had been hoping to hear. Elsewhere, I felt a little too often that numbers were about to flower like Tchaikovsky, but never did. However, once the rusalki came along in the third act, the composer seemed far more in his element (or at least mine). There, the air of orchestral fantasy and magic – even if the Beckmesser in me might have queried quite so much use of the harps – proved a delight and incited the hero, Levko, to quite his loveliest music too, against that supernatural setting which would save the day for him once back home. The evening never looked back.

Christopher Cowell’s production makes the most of that. The water nymphs take over the stage, extending themselves and their realm physically as well as – well, if not quite metaphysically, for that seems alien to Rimsky’s world-view, then imaginatively. Choreography (Mandy Demetriou) and lighting (Jake Wiltshire) do excellent work in this transformation. But the production accomplishes a great deal beforehand too. Updating to the 1920s gives us a sense of where Russia – or, indeed, the Ukraine, where this is set – was heading, of the challenges of industrialisation more than hinted at in the setting of a distillery and its transformation, and sheds new light upon the relationship between village community and outside direction.  Striking designs by Bridget Kimak and students from Rose Bruford College frame the action splendidly, and work very well with the setting: the Ambika P3 bunker in Marylebone. I was surprised not just at the extraordinary visual transformation, but also at the fine acoustic results too.

As ever, a Royal Academy production offers a showcase for young singers, and once again, they performed very well indeed. Our pair of thwarted and finally united lovers, Oliver Johnston as Levko and Laura Zigmantaite as Ganna, truly excelled. Zigmantaite’s performance was graceful, flexible and grateful of voice, with a splendid vocal flowering at the close. Johnston’s was little short of sensational. The beauty of his voice was matched note for note by idiomatic command. His third-act aria, ‘Sleep my beauty,’ was ravishing: something that would have commanded the attention on the most celebrated of stages, all the more so for its lack of grandstanding. Its wistful sincerity was palpable. Everyone, however, played his or her part. Božidar Smiljanić’s bumbling, scheming Headman was a fine comic portrayal, likewise Alex Otterburn’s hapless Kalenik. Katie Stevenson similarly raised smiles as sister-in-law – one suspects that covers a multitude of sins – to the Headman. Alys Roberts made the most of her opportunity to steal hearts as the nymph, Pannochka, drawing us in to find her plight and rescue credible and affecting.

If the orchestra got off to a surprisingly rocky start in the Overture, it soon settled down. Earlier on, there were occasions when I thought a few more desks of strings would not have gone amiss. (When, after all, would that not be the case?) But as time went on, such thoughts vanished from my mind, and was able fully to enjoy a lovingly (post-)Romantic performance, thoughtfully directed by Jane Glover’s successor (in September) as Director of Royal Academy Opera, Gareth Hancock. Tempi were persuasive; the orchestra spoke without ever overwhelming the singers. Choral singing was very impressive too. As so often, I was left in no doubt that we shall hear more from many of these excellent young artists. This was, of course, a wonderful opportunity for them, but equally for us.

 

 

 

Intermezzo, Garsington Opera, 6 June 2015

Images: Mike Hoban

(sung in English)

Garsington Opera House

Robert Storch – Mark Stone

Christine – Mary Dunleavy
Anna – Ailish Tynan
Franzl – Louis Hynes
Baron Lummer – Sam Furness
Notary – Benjamin Bevan
Notary’s Wife – Sarah Sedgwick
Stroh – Oliver Johnston
Commercial Counsellor – James Cleverton
Legal Counsellor – Gerard Collett
Singer – Barnaby Rea
Fanny – Alice Devine
Marie – Elka Lee-Green
Therese – Charlotte Sutherland
Resi – Anna Sideris

Bruno Ravella (director)

Giles Cadle (designs)
Bruno Poet (lighting)

Garsington Opera Orchestra

Jac van Steen (conductor)

 

Hats off to Garsington for championing once again some criminally neglected Strauss. I overheard someone there opine, ‘Of course, you can understand why it isn’t done very often.’ Well, only if you take as given the increasingly untenable assumptions some ‘major’ opera houses trumpet concerning their audiences – and perhaps not even then. That Birmingham Opera can sell out Stockhausen immediately and that the Royal Opera House – by any standards, a different animal – can sell out operas by Benjamin and Birtwistle puts paid to lazy talk and should put paid to lazy programming, though does so far less often than should be the case. If one takes as one’s core lazy listeners, consequences will follow; if one leads, and especially if one acts upon widespread thirst for modernist repertoire, broadly conceived, other, better consequences will do so. Strauss, it might be countered, is a different matter again, and perhaps he is. But he is hardly unpopular, and if many people have not heard Intermezzo, despite a recent staging at Buxton, then grant them an opportunity such as Garsington has.

An excellent performance was given by the Garsington Orchestra – only once, early in the second act, did I sense a little tiredness – under the baton of Jac van Steen. The conductor’s deep knowledge and understanding of the score, of its post-Ariadne idiom, of its opportunities and challenges had been displayed in my interview with him; it was displayed just as clearly here. Everything was in its place, as it must be; Strauss at his most unsparing allows no room for error. The orchestral interludes put me a little in mind of the ‘closed forms’ of Busoni and Berg, whilst very much retaining their own character. It was perhaps most of all, though, Strauss’s economy, which yet never denies his love of musical proliferation, that shone through. Not a note is wasted; nor was it in performance.

The cast proved persuasive advocates too. Mary Dunleavy’s vocal security was matched to a subtle reading of Christine’s character that extracted her from the realm of patronising, even misogynistic caricature: no mere ‘shrew’ here, but a credible woman of strengths, weaknesses, above all agency. Mark Stone made a powerful impression as her husband, perhaps the closest of all Strauss came to a self-portrait. (The creator of the role wore a mask so as to make him resemble the composer all the more closely. As Norman del Mar observed, this was a ‘striking volte-face after Strauss’s anxieties over the Young Composer in Ariadne’.) One could have taken dictation, verbal as well as notational, from most of his crystal-clear performance: Lied writ large in the best sense. Sam Furnes’’s Baron Lummer offered a well-judged mixture of vocal allure and immaturity of character. Ailish Tynan’s perky Anna proved just the right sort of knowing, informed servant. In a fine company performance, other singers to stand out included Oliver Johnston’s finely sung – and acted – Stroh, Gerald Collett’s equally impressive Legal Counsellor, and Benjamin Bevan’s honourable Notary. Everyone, however, made a considerable contribution.

Bruno Ravella’s production takes the work seriously, on its own terms, and succeeds accordingly. Giles Cadle’s resourceful set moves us in and out of a Garmisch-style villa, modern (to Strauss), without being avant garde. There is always a strong sense of who everyone is, and why he or she is acting in the manner we observe. The card game is, as the conductor observed to me, wonderfully, knowingly realistic; such understanding could hardly be feigned. The crucial element of communication and its speed – the telephone, the telegram, Strauss’s pace of conversation delivery – offered an excellent example of musical performances and production acting as one.

One can speak of the plot being trivial, if one wishes. (I suppose one can speak about anything if one wishes, so that was an especially meaningless claim!) But some of that seems to be snobbery; would we think differently, were these gods, or indeed from another class, ‘higher’ or ‘lower’. In his original Preface, replaced when the score was published, Strauss not unreasonably claimed to break genuine new ground in the variety of everyday life he had brought to the stage; Hindemith and Schoenberg would follow suit in Neues vom Tage and Von heute auf morgen. Still more to the point, though, (high) bourgeois domesticity matters to those involved in it; it certainly matters to the little boy caught at the centre of marital dispute and potentially breakdown, as countless children, sleepless with worry at raised voices downstairs, will tell you. (Young Louis Hynes deserved great credit for his portrayal of that difficult role, here rendered more difficult still.) Now Intermezzo is not essentially ‘about’ that, although I think it is more concerned with it than, say, Elektra is; but a subtle yet perceptible shift in that direction from the production did no harm in opening up the work.

Only one gripe, really: it was a great pity that the opera was sung in English, and that Andrew Porter’s translation was the version used. Given surtitles, there really is no need; Strauss really does not sound right in translation, still more so as here, when odd words remained in German, the contrast jarring. Moreover, accents tended to slide – or at least to slide more noticeably to an English ear. But, as ever with Strauss, in the battle of Wort with Ton, there was little doubt which would emerge victorious. This was a far from insignificant victory over Strauss’s critics, Garsington’s latest estimable contribution to a hero’s after-life.