Madama Butterfly, Royal Opera, 14 June 2022

Royal Opera House

Pinkerton – Freddie De Tommaso
Goro – Alexander Kravets
Suzuki – Patricia Bardon
Sharpless – Lucas Meachem
Cio-Cio-San – Lianna Haroutounian
Imperial Commissioner – Dawid Kimberg
Original Registrar – Nigel Cliffe
Cio-Cio-San’s Mother – Eryl Royle
Uncle Yaukusidé – Andrew O’Connor
Cousin – Amy Catt
Aunt – Kiera Lyness
Bonze – Jeremy White
Dolore – Leo Stokkland-Baker
Prince Yamadori – Alan Pingarrón
Kate Pinkerton – Rachel Lloyd

Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier (directors)
Daniel Dooner (revival director)
Christian Fenouillat (set designs)
Agostino Cavalca (costumes)
Christophe Forey (lighting)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus director: William Spaulding)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Dan Ettinger (conductor)

Images: © Yasuko Kageyama

‘In the 21^st century, staging Madama Butterfly poses questions for any opera house. The opera’s essence is a violent collision between two cultures. But how to represent another culture on stage with truth and sensitivity? In reviving Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s classic production, we have involved Japanese practitioners and academic to work towards a Butterfly both true to the spirit of the original and more authentic in its representation of Japan.’

Not perfect, far from it; one could readily pick holes in that section of the programme’s ‘welcome’ statement from Oliver Mears and Antonio Pappano. For instance, t is at least debatable, to my mind rather more than that, that the work’s ‘essence’ is something else entirely. Moreover, if the Royal Opera were honest about it—this would be true of pretty much every opera company on the planet—staging such a work and production did not really ‘pose questions’ until very recently indeed in the twenty-first century. It is good, though, to see the opera world showing some such development, and we should be gracious about that: we all, after all, have a long, long way to go in working towards a more racially (and otherwise) just society.

I do not recall having seen the production before, so cannot comment on how noticeable the changes are. I suspect some of them would have passed me by, had I not been advised what to look for, though that doubtless says more about my (ignorant) standpoint than anything else. Costumes, we read, have undergone modification to make them more of the period in which the production is set, not least in terms of their signification of social status. Make-up has also been modified, in order to appear less caricatured, more ‘natural’ or at least appropriate. This I can see from looking at pictures from previous outings. Otherwise, Leiser and Caurier’s production seems to me ‘classic’ only in the sense of standing firmly in the middle of the road: a degree of abstraction, more as style than concept, remaining essentially realist; no Zeffirelli horror, but nothing to scare the Daily Mail horses either. Christophe Forey’s lighting guides the action, subtly and more starkly. And revival director Daniel Dooner does a good job guiding his forces on stage, although the heroine’s demise proved unfortunate.

 

That final rolling around on stage was an extreme conclusion to a performance from Lianna Haroutounian that was throughout more strong than subtle. I am not sure it was especially in keeping with the avowed intentions of this revision, but it did no especial harm. Ultimately, though, it was difficult to take her seriously enough in the role. Freddie De Tommaso’s Pinkerton also tended towards the broad-brush, albeit with greater attention to detail: a perfectly decent, if not especially illuminating, performance. I presume a pronounced lachrymose tendency in the third act to have been an interpretative decision, just in case one did not loath the character enough; the self-pity did the trick, in any case. Patricia Bardon’s Suzuki was constant and compassionate, very much what one expected—and wanted—to hear. For me, Lucas Meachem’s Sharpless was the pick of the bunch, his thoughtful, variegated performance unquestionably founded in the text. The Royal Opera Chorus was not on its best form, comparisons with Covent Garden’s recent Lohengrin again unfortunate.

 Not nearly so unfortunate, though, as the conducting. In the programme, we also read Mears and Pappano write, ‘We are thrilled to welcome back Dan Ettinger to conduct.’ They could hardly say they had been pained to do so, but leaving out Ettinger altogether would have been preferable. It is difficult to imagine anyone having been thrilled with the results, at any rate. Ettinger’s sole advantage, relatively speaking, was that he was not Daniel Oren: another, frankly atrocious conductor Covent Garden engages with bewildering frequency. This was bad, but perhaps not quite so bad. Quite what it is with some such figures I do not know; maybe it is the demands of artist management companies. Whatever it is, houses should stand firm. For Ettinger’s perverse achievement in ridding most of Puccini’s score, especially an interminable first act, of any interest, let alone drama, was not something any house should welcome. The rest was loud, crude, weirdly devoid of harmonic rhythm, and often simply of harmonic, let alone structural, interest. 

If work and production are to be further re-evaluated, then having someone capable of leading such re-evaluation from the pit would help; enlisting someone capable of holding one’s attention would be a bare minimum. Better still, consider a staging that engages more deeply with the racial and sexual violence, as well as the devastating imperialism, that lie at this opera's heart (or lack thereof).

Die Zauberflöte, Vienna State Opera, 10 December 2019

Sarastro – Ain Anger

Tamino – Andreas Schager

Speaker, Second Priest – Adrian Eröd

First Priest – Peter Jelosits

Queen of the Night – Aleksandra Jovanović

Pamina – Andrea Carroll

Three Ladies – Fiona Jopson, Ulrike Helzel, Zoryana Kushpler

Papagena – Ileana Tonca

Papageno – Rafael Fingerlos

Monostatos – Benedikt Kobel

First Armoured Man – Herbert Lippert

Second Armoured Man – Ryan Speedo Green

Three Boys – Members of the Vienna Boys’ Choir

Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier (directors)

Christian Fenouillat (set designs)

Agostino Cavalca (costumes)

Christophe Forey (lighting)

Beate Vollack (choreography)

 Vienna State Opera Chorus (chorus director: Martin Schebesta)

Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera

James Conlon (conductor)

Something new, Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando, was followed by something old: that most Viennese of operas, Mozart’s Magic Flute. It was premiered in 1791, not at a court theatre—today’s State Opera today’s equivalent—but at the suburban Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden, which had opened in 1787 and had been under the management of Mozart’s librettist, Emanuel Schikaneder, since 1789. Geographically, one should not make too much of that: the Wieden district is but a stone’s throw away, today’s Fourth District, incorporated in 1850. (It includes the Karlskirche, the Naschmarkt, and so on: landmarks many would think of as ‘central’. Gluck lived there, as later would Brahms.) Nor should one necessarily overemphasise the ‘popular’ element: its repertoire was mixed, but it included plenty of Goethe and Schiller. Use of the vernacular was hardly unprecedented either: Joseph II’s plan for a German National Theatre had given the world Die Entführung aus dem Serail, although that transformation of the Burgtheater came to an end shortly thereafter.

Nevertheless, the work’s roots in popular theatre should not, cannot be denied any more than the opportunity afforded by relative freedom of genre: a synthesis of everything from Hanswurst to Bach and, incipiently, onwards to Beethoven. The genre of Singspiel permits that, but it is the element of musical magic, the fully achieved status of Zauberoper that extends beyond historical definition, binding together and sublimating the material both then and now. Successful performance and production need in some sense to further or at least to reflect that. Sadly, such a goal—hardly unreasonable—seems increasingly beyond the realms of possibility. Indeed, Mozart in general often seems to prosper better now at smaller theatres, often in conservatoire productions, rather than at the great houses and festivals of the world that for long did him proud. I wish I could account this evening an exception. Alas—and it saddens me greatly to say this—it often proved tedious, anything but a Zauberoper.

On the face of it, James Conlon’s approach to the musical direction had much to be said for it. A reasonable sized orchestra—if hardly large, more’s the pity—combined with judicious tempi and disinclination to follow ‘period’ fads augured well. How rare it is nowadays to hear ‘Ach, ich fühl’s’ taken at something other than a breakneck tempo. Alas, there was barely a hint of magic, let alone of drama or enlightenment. The orchestra sounded cultivated enough, yet rarely committed, save for some truly euphonious—magical—wind playing. There were, moreover, quite a few false entries and disjunctures between pit and stage. Repertoire performances are or should be the lifeblood of a house such as Vienna: that does not mean, however little the time afforded for rehearsal, that they should descend to or below the level of the merely routine.

The cast fared better, though it was not a vintage evening on that score either. Andrea Carroll’s sincere Pamina was probably the highlight for me: clean of line and winningly instrumental of tone, whilst equally at home with words and their implication. Rafael Fingerlos’s Papageno also impressed, likewise as keenly communicative with words as with music and gesture. I was keen to hear Andreas Schager’s Tamino. It is not every day, indeed barely any day, that one gets to hear a Heldentenor in this role, let alone the world’s reigning Siegfried and Tristan. Alas, compared to, say, Siegfried Jerusalem—I think of Bernard Haitink’s recording—this was a one-dimensional performance, largely lacking in variegation and verbal nuance; it was better heard in solo passages rather than ensembles, during which it could sometimes veer disconcertingly astray. Ain Anger’s Sarastro was more consistent: intelligent and musical, if occasionally a little dry of tone. Aleksandra Jovanović’s Queen of the Night did not quite scale the heights—literally, in her first aria—but nor did she really disappoint. One could not have asked for more from the three outstanding Vienna Boys’ Choir soloists; their counterparts as Three Ladies also performed admirably.

As for Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s production, it is difficult to know what to say. It barely seemed to be a production at all. There was the germ of something metatheatrical: what seemed to be a setting of a rehearsal room, the implication of a stage in front corresponding with the actual Vienna proscenium. That, however, was it. Moreover, the placing of action, such as it was, made a nonsense even of that germ of an idea. Otherwise, there was a melange of largely unattractive costumes, with the singers largely left to fend for themselves. Oh, and a Monastatos in blackface: yes, blackface, in 2019. Whatever reservations someone might have held concerning Neuwirth’s Orlando, then, one realised all the more not only why it was necessary, but what laudable, magical effort had been expended on its advent. Something new, once again, would be welcome.

Hänsel und Gretel, Royal Opera, 23 December 2010

Royal Opera House

(Images: Royal Opera/Johan Persson)

Hänsel – Christine Rice
Gretel – Ailish Tynan
Gertrud – Yvonne Howard
Peter – Sir Thomas Allen
Witch – Jane Henschel
Dew Fairy – Anna Devin
Sandman – Madeleine Pierard
Echo – Kai Rüütel
Angels, Children

Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier (directors)
Elaine Kidd (revival director)
Christian Fenouillat (set designs)
Agostino Cavalca (costumes)
Christophe Forey (lighting)

Members of Tiffin Boys’ Choir and Tiffin Children’s Chorus (director: Simon Toyne)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Rory Macdonald (conductor)

After being appointed Music Director of the Vienna State Opera, Franz Welser-Möst made a remark to the effect – I cannot remember the precise words – that how a house handled a week-day repertory Figaro was just as crucial to its flourishing as a starry new production. Indeed. Whilst the situation at Covent Garden is somewhat different, in that it does not have a repertory system along the lines of many German houses, there is a case to be made that the quality of revivals matters as much as that of more ‘newsworthy’ new productions. One does not necessarily employ quite the same criteria; it depends. And so, this first revival of Hänsel und Gretel, whilst it lacks in some though by no means all cases the star quality of some participants from the first run, may be accounted a considerable success. One does not expect a young conductor to evince the lifetime’s experience of Sir Colin Davis, though Rory Macdonald did an increasingly fine job as the night went on. Likewise, it would perhaps be unreasonable to expect Angelika Kirchschlager and Diana Damrau on every occasion. But if the performance took a little while to settle down, notably assisted in that respect by the appearance of Yvonne Howard and Sir Thomas Allen, the sole survivor from the original cast reprising the role of Peter, this proved an enjoyable and ultimately moving evening.

Part of that is down to the delights of Humperdinck’s score. Derivative it might be, but the fairy-tale Wagnerisms enchant rather than irritate, though the Meistersinger-ish opening scene perhaps remains excessively dependent upon its weightier model. During much of the first act, I felt a slight lack of focus, never damaging, and something that I suspect will soon dissipate once the run of performances beds down. The luxuriance of Sir Colin’s interpretation lingered in the mind. However, as time went on, Macdonald imparted a different quality to the score, marking this out very much as his own reading. Woodwind suggested Mozart and Strauss; indeed, I was at times taken aback at quite how much the score’s textures seemed to presage the latter: hardly Elektra, but perhaps Ariadne.

I do not really have anything to add to what I said about the production last time (click here for the DVD). It works well, and has surprisingly dark moments given that it is at least partly aimed at children. There is proper contrast between the magical dream of Christmas and the industrial scale oven of the Witch’s house. Like a true fairy tale, there is more than tinsel to this Christmas offering. Elaine Kidd’s work as revival director seems assured.

Christine Rice presented a suitably boyish Hänsel, looking as well as sounding the part. Though I find it difficult to warm to Ailish Tynan’s thin tone, this Gretel certainly provided the best performance I have heard from her, and again she acted credibly. The parents, Yvonne Howard and Sir Thomas Allen, both impressed, as one might have expected. I was amazed once again how Allen could make so much out of so relatively little. His diction, vocal presentation, and stage presence once again proved second to none. Anja Silja had assumed the role of the Witch in 2008; I very much liked her portrayal, though some were more affected by its vocal shortcomings. Here, Jane Henschel proved a more than worthy successor. I could not help but think of her wonderful assumptions of the role of the Nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten: a more ambivalent character, to be sure, but perhaps not wholly unrelated. In any case, she combined stage presence and a more secure vocal line than her predecessor. Sir Charles Mackerras was to have conducted; the performance was dedicated to his memory.

Il barbiere di Siviglia, Royal Opera, 4 July 2009

Royal Opera House

Figaro – Pietro Spagnoli
Rosina – Joyce DiDonato
Count Almaviva – Juan Diego Flórez
Doctor Bartolo – Alessandro Corbelli
Don Basilio – Ferruccio Furlanetto
Fiorello – Changhan Lim
Berta – Jennifer Rhys-Davies
Officer – Christopher Lackner
Ambrogio – Bryan Secombe
Notary – Andrew Macnair

Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser (directors)
Christian Fenouillat (designs)
Agostino Cavalca (costumes)
Christophe Forey (lighting)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)
Antonio Pappano (conductor)

This was the best performance I have heard from Antonio Pappano at the Royal Opera House, or indeed anywhere else. I cannot bring myself to be wildly excited by nineteenth-century Italian opera – clearly unlike most of the audience – but this is clearly his thing and he would be well advised to concentrate upon this repertoire. Wagner, Beethoven, and Berg are avowedly not and he would be equally well advised to steer clear of them. The orchestra was on colourful, sprightly form, right from the beginning of the overture, and there was a clear sense of structure throughout. (How very unlike this conductor’s Wagner!) Whatever Rossini’s musical and dramatic limitations, his command of musical form, albeit in a somewhat old-fashioned way, is always apparent, a clear contrast with, for instance, Verdi. There are no depths to be plumbed here but there is a musical story to be old – and told it was.

Moreover, Pappano was extremely fortunate in his cast, which could scarcely have been bettered. Joyce DiDonato proved a heroine in more than one sense. Injuring her leg at some point during the first act, she insisted upon carrying on, despite her pain – and her crutches. Singing of cramp in her foot caused much amusement all round. None of this, however, affected her pinpoint coloratura accuracy, nor as expressive a delivery as Rossini’s style allows: far better to be slightly distanced, which she was not, than to approach the mawkishness of the composer’s dubious successors. Juan Diego Flórez was equally astonishing in his despatch of the technically fiendish demands his part presents. He also showed himself to be a fine comic actor, never seeking the limelight, in spite of a disruptive audience reaction that owed more to the football stadium than to dramatic appreciation. Florez’s voice is not large but he marshals it extraordinarily well. I fell to wondering whether it might be heard to advantage in more satisfying repertoire. Perhaps certain, but only certain, Mozart roles? In any case, the question would appear redundant, since he seems quite happy to devote himself to Rossini and Donizetti.

Pietro Spagnoli substituted for Simon Keenlyside. This Figaro had plenty of stage presence and a good command of musical character too. If not so dominant as might sometimes be the case, this was owed to the strength of ensemble rather than to any deficiency on Spagnoli’s part. Speaking of ensemble, there was at least as much joy to be had from Alessandro Corbelli’s Bartolo and Ferruccio Furlanetto’s Basilio as anyone else. Their native command of Italian paid great dividends, in terms of the natural, unaffected quality of their comedy and verbal response. Jennifer Rhys-Davies proved an equally characterful, indeed rather lovable, Berta, although it seemed a pity that she was made to play her aria for laughs, when a degree of poignancy would have seemed more fitting. The Royal Opera Chorus was on excellent form too.

I could not warm to Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s production, any more than I had the first time around. This, I suspect, is largely because it tries so very hard to be ‘heartwarming’, rather like those dreadful ‘romantic comedies’ that so plague modern British cinema, or, perhaps worse still, the Roberto Benigni film, La vita è bella. The latter’s treatment of its subject matter seems to me to border on the offensive. There is nothing by which to be offended here, but the bright, primary colours, the designs that resemble boxes of sweets and their contents, and the general tone of whimsy: for some of us grumpier souls, it is perhaps all a bit much. More seriously, Rossini’s formalism, the alienating quality his characters might be persuaded to take on, is shunned in favour of crowd-pleasing sentimentalism. Still, the musical performances were without exception of a very high standard.

Hänsel und Gretel, Royal Opera, 9 December 2008

Royal Opera House

Hänsel – Angelika Kirchschlager
Gretel – Diana Damrau
Gertrud – Elizabeth Connell
Peter – Sir Thomas Allen
Witch – Anja Silja
Sandman – Pumeza Matshikiza
Dew Fairy – Anita Watson

Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier (directors)
Christian Fenouillat (set designer)
Agostino Cavalca (designs)
Christophe Forey (lighting)

Tiffin Boys' Choir and Tiffin Children's Chorus
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Sir Colin Davis (conductor)

This is the Royal Opera’s first production of Hänsel und Gretel since 1937: most surprising, given the halo that tends to accompany Humperdinck’s Märchenoper. I had a few niggling, even curmudgeonly doubts during the first act, especially when it came to the passages that sound not so much influenced by Wagner as plagiarised from his works, especially Die Meistersinger. However, as time went on I was much more convinced – and that, I think, should be credited to so excellent a performance.

I can imagine some taking against Sir Colin Davis’s reading of the score but for me this was a very great advantage. He luxuriates in its Wagnerisms; for, although Wagner is not the first composer one thinks of in terms of this conductor, he has had considerable experience, both at the Royal Opera and at Bayreuth. The conclusion to the second act gave a sense of being subsumed, Parsifal-like into heavenly revelation, albeit without any of those troubling doubts one always entertains concerning who or what is being redeemed. With this Hänsel, we had a case of magical dreams, pure and simple. The following morning, as Gretel awoke, there was a nice sense – not overdone, but certainly there – of a miniature Brünnhilde’s awakening. It is all there in the score, of course, lest this sound like superimposition. Many conductors might have taken the music a little more quickly but Davis did not need to do so. Details were made to count, yet always in the context of a sure, loving narrative flow and an unimpeachable command of structure. And, as ever, the members of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House played their hearts out for Davis. Especially lovable were the rapt strings and the almost unbearably beautiful horns: this could have been another orchestra with which Davis has a longstanding relationship, the venerable Staatskapelle Dresden.

There was not a weak link in the cast. Angelika Kirchschlager is a truly wonderful boy Hänsel, as utterly credible as when she plays Octavian. Her every movement betokened a great affinity with the part; vocally, she was every bit as good. I did not think that Diana Damrau, probably the greatest Zerbinetta I have heard, made quite so convincing a girl, but musically I should have little but praise for her. Elizabeth Connell sounded gorgeous in the maternal role of Gertrud, although her diction was not always so clear as that of the rest of the cast. It becomes almost wearisome to say this upon his every appearance, but Thomas Allen yet again proved what a consummate musician and musical actor he is, as Peter. Jette Parker Young Artists Pumeza Matshikiza and Anita Watson both gave excellent performances in the lovable roles of the Sandman and the Dew Fairy respectively, cushioned and seemingly inspired by Davis and the orchestra. And then there was Anja Silja as the Witch. Age has certainly not dimmed her lustre; she remains a truly formidable vocal actress, with no need to ham up the part, presenting a truly nasty old woman of a sort children might actually meet and fear.

In this, Silja was assisted by the production. Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier provided her with a Zimmer frame (which she did not need: we have all met such fraudulent recipients...) and a modern but slightly deranged appearance. This was a credible character, just as Hänsel was a credible boy. Not only had great attention gone into the Personenregie; it worked. There was a true sense of magic when the angels appeared and the children dreamed of Christmas, whilst the industrial ovens of the witch’s house brought a real danger to proceedings. The sets were uncontroversial without cloying – although I did think the space, if not the decor, for the house in the first act looked suspiciously like that for the directors’ Barber of Seville a few years ago. To have the forest, so crucial to the tales of the Brothers Grimm, visibly surrounding every scene was a welcome touch, although more might perhaps have been made of its menace. There was a veritable coup de théâtre in the explosion that followed the trapping of the witch – and the subsequent liberation of the biscuit-children, who sang their song rather well. It is a difficult balancing act, to present something that would work both for children and for adults, but I think that this production and this performance managed to do so.