Die Zauberflöte, English Touring Opera, 7 March 2014

(sung in English, as The Magic Flute)

 

Queen of the Night (Samantha Hay)
Images: Robert Workman

Hackney Empire

Tamino – Ashley Catling

Papageno – Wyn Pencarreg
Pamina – Anna Patalong
Queen of the Night – Samantha Hay
Sarastro – Andrew Slater
Speaker – Piotr Lempa
Three Ladies – Camilla Roberts, Amy J Payne, Helen Johnson
Monostatos – Stuart Haycock
Two Priests – Henry Manning, Simon Gfeller
Papagena – Caryl Hughes
Two Armoured Men – Adam Tunnicliffe, Maciek O’Shea
Three Boys – Abigail Kelly, Emily-Jane Thomas, Laura Kelly

Liam Steel (director)

James Hurley (revival director)
Chloe Lamford (designs)
Guy Hoare (lighting)

Chorus of English Touring Opera

Orchestra of English Touring Opera
James Southall (conductor)

 

I find myself running out of superlatives to describe the work of English Touring Opera. From what is now a good number of performances of different works, I have attended, I have only had one bad experience – a better proportion than with pretty much any other company. More to the point, though one cannot but consider the shoestring operation, the extraordinary endeavour of bringing opera to towns that would otherwise have none whatsoever, one actually need make no allowances whatsoever. It is a splendid thing to stage works such as Promised End and King Priam, and to stage them so well, but it is perhaps a taller order still to perform a work such as The Magic Flute, whether in London or elsewhere, and in many ways to put both Covent Garden and ENO to shame.

 

Papageno (Wyn Pencarreg), Chorus, Sarastro (Andrew Slater), Tamino (Ashley Catling)

 

I certainly cannot think of a single instance in which ENO’s staging earlier this season proved preferable to this. Where a series of Complicité clichés added up to considerably less than the sum of their whole, here Liam Steel’s production, revived by James Hurley, offers a relatively straightforward, yet far from unimaginative, retelling of the work, engaging with it rather than taking it is an opportunity to do much the same as one might have done with any other piece. Chloe Lamford’s set, which will have to do service on a good number of stages of very different sizes, remains constant in each scene, yet its eighteenth-century presents various opportunities not only for the action to fill it out on stage, but for our minds to make connections between ourselves and the historical period we ourselves imagine. We are enabled rather than dictated to; we ask questions rather than have dubious answers, or more likely evasions, foisted upon us.

 

Just as in 1791, there is trap-door theatricality, but again, just as in Mozart’s time, there is great seriousness too: the order remains mysterious, as it should, rather than being reduced to a gang of Scientologists, or whoever we may be. But Sarastro’s leadership is in no sense unambiguously a good thing. Without – apparently – exaggerating, and without, indeed, adding anything that is not in the text (and let us remember, for the last time, that ‘the text’ includes music as much as words), we feel his cruelty and the very real ambiguities of the work’s presentation of ‘good’ and ‘evil’: a matter of experience, including ours, not of unfounded, frankly ludicrous, conspiracy theories concerning the authorship of the libretto. The Overture, scenically as well as musically, offers us a ‘way in’, a party framing the events to come, whether in Tamino’s head or otherwise, a conga metamorphosing into the serpent that would slay him. We play, as we wish, with a world of fantasy and imagination, and much of the work is ours to do. It is not perfect; I have to go back to Achim Freyer’s celebrated circus-staging for Salzburg to recall a production that satisfied me completely – and even there, my memory may be playing tricks with me – but, oddities such as the presentation of the Three Boys (here played by women) as mechanical dolls aside, there is much to praise and little at which to quibble. Even in that case, the integrative resourcefulness of employing lampshades from the room as their costumes merits a commendation.

Chorus and Tamino

 

The orchestra sounded excellent throughout, beguiling woodwind in particular. James Southall’s conducting was generally convincing, often rather more than that, great sensitivity being displayed at many of the grander and more intimate moments. Mannered double-dotting in the Overture and a breackneck speed at the end of the first act were exceptions – and, by the standards of today, moderate ones at that. In Ashley Catling and Anna Patalong we had a sweet-toned Tamino and Pamina, credible on stage as well as of voice (though, in a rare miscalculation from the production, we have a little too much of them kissing, in a move that merely sentimentalises). Andrew Slater’s conflicted Sarastro made an excellent mark, as did Samantha Hay’s truly excellent Queen of the Night: quite the best I have heard since Diana Damrau. The Three Ladies were a splendid trio, no mere cyphers, but flesh and blood individuals: Camilla Roberts, Amy J Payne, and Helen Johnson deserved great credit for their portrayals. So do their counterparts as the Three Boys: Abigail Kelly, Emily-Jane Thomas, and Laura Kelly. It was difficult not to miss the sound of trebles here, but that is presumably a consideration of touring. Wyn Pencarreg’s spirited Papageno showed himself alert to the sadness as well as to the high spirits, and Caryl Hughes made a perfect foil for him, insofar as the brevity of her role permitted. The Speaker (Piotr Lempa), his Priests (Henry Manning and Simon Gfeller), and the Two Armoured – please, not ‘Armed’ – Men (Adam Tunnicliffe and Maciek O’Shea) all offered gravity and yet also humanity, a balance in keeping both with work and staging. Stuart Haycock’s Monostatos was sharply observed, making the most of his words. If I were to carp, I might point to the smallness of the chorus, but in so estimable a performance, who cares? Above all, there was a true sense of company, an increasingly rare thing today, but which augurs very well for the trials of touring to come.

L'incoronazione di Poppea, English Touring Opera, 9 October 2013

Images: Richard Hubert Smith
Poppea (Paula Sides), Nerone (Helen Sherman)

Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music

Nerone – Helen Sherman

Seneca – Piotr Lempa
Ottavia, La Fortuna – Hannah Pedley
Nutrice – Russell Harcourt
Lucano – Stuart Haycock
Liberto – Nicholas Merryweather
Poppea – Paula Sides
Arnalta – John-Colyn Gyeantey
Ottone – Michal Czerniawski
Drusilla, La Virtù – Hannah Sandison
Amor – Jake Arditti

James Conway (director)

Oliver Platt (revival director)
Samal Blak (designs)
Ace McCarron (lighting)

Old Street Band

Michael Rosewell (conductor)

(sung in English, as The Coronation of Poppea)

 

James Conway’s production of Monteverdi’s final masterpiece, L’incoronazione di Poppea was first performed last November by students from the Royal College of Music. Now it is revived, at the same Britten Theatre, but by English Touring Opera, as part of its Venetian season. It made a still greater impression upon me than last year; whilst the earlier cast had sung well and deserved great credit, the professional singers of ETO seemed more inside their roles, as much in stage as purely musical terms.

 

Conway’s production holds up very well. Its perhaps surprising relocation of the action to a parallel universe in which a Stalinist Russia existed without the prude Stalin – ‘just the breath of his world,’ as Conway’s programme note puts it – provides a highly convincing reimagination of the already reimagined world of Nero. ‘Stalin’s bruising reign convinced me,’ Conway writes, ‘that this was a place in which Nerone might flourish, from which Ottone, Drusilla, Ottavia, and Seneca might suddenly disappear, and in which all might live cheek by jowl in a sort of family nightmare, persisting in belief in family (or some related ideal) even as it devours them.’  And so it comes to pass, from the Prologue in which La Fortuna, La Virtù, and Amore unfurl their respective red banners, setting out their respective stalls, until Poppea’s (and Amore’s) final triumph. Claustrophobia reigns supreme, save for the caprice of Amore himself, here dressed as a young pioneer, ready to knock upon the window at the crucial moment, so as to prevent Ottone from the murder that would have changed everything. Samal Black’s set design is both handsome and versatile, permitting readily of rearrangement, and also providing for two levels of action: Ottavia can plot, or lament, whilst Poppea sleeps. Conway’s idea of Poppea as an almost Lulu-like projection of fantasies in an opera whose game is power continues to exert fascination, and in a strongly acted performance, proves perhaps more convincing still than last time. Where then, the blonde wig had seemed more odd than anything else, here the idea of a constructed identity, designed to please and to further all manner of other interests, registers with considerable dramatic power. The seeping of blood as the tragedy – but is it that? – ensues makes an equally powerful point, albeit with relative restraint; this is not, we should be thankful, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk or some other instance of Grand Guignol. Above all, the Shakespearean quality of Monteverdi’s imagination, unparalleled in opera before Mozart, registers as it must. One regretted the cuts, but one could live with them in as taut a rendition as this.

 

Michael Rosewell’s conducting had gained considerably in fluency from last time. I feared the worst from the opening sinfonia, in which ornamentation became unduly exhibitionistic – I could have sworn that I heard an interpolated phrase from the 1610 Vespers at one point – and the violins were somewhat painfully out of tune, my fears were largely confounded. It is a great pity that we still live in a climate of musical Stalinism, in which modern instruments are considered enemies of the people than the kulaks were, but continuo playing largely convinced and string tone, even if emaciated, at least improved in terms of intonation. For something more, we must return, alas, to Leppard or to Karajan.

 

Moreover, it was possible – indeed, almost impossible not – to concentrate upon the musico-dramatic performances on stage. Helen Sherman’s Nerone displayed laudable ability to act ‘masculine’, at least to the dubious extent that the character deserves it, and great facility with Monteverdi’s lines, even when sung in English. Paula Sides proved fully the equal both of Monteverdi’s role and Conway’s conception. Hers was a performance compelling in beauty and eroticism; indeed, the entwining of the two was impressive indeed. The nobility but also the vengefulness of Ottavia came through powerfully in Hannah Pedley’s assumption, her claret-like tintà a rare pleasure. Michal Czerniawski again displayed a fine countertenor voice as Ottone, engaging the audience’s sympathy but also its interest; this was no mere cipher, but a real human being. Much the same could be said of Hannah Sandison’s Drusilla, save of course for the countertenor part. Piotr Lempa has the low notes for Seneca, though production can be somewhat uneven, perhaps simply a reflection of a voice that is still changing. John-Colyn Gyeantey’s Arnalta was more ‘characterful’ than beautifully sung, but perhaps that was the point. Pick of the rest was undeniably Jake Arditti’s protean Amor, as stylishly sung as it was wickedly acted. The cast, though, is more than the sum of its parts, testament to a well-rehearsed, well-c0nceived, well-sung production of a truly towering masterpiece.     

 

Giasone, English Touring Opera, 4 October 2013

 

(sung in English, as Jason)

Image: Richard Hubert Smith
 

Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music

Giasone – Clint van der Linde

Medea – Hannah Pedley
Isifile – Catrine Kirkman
Ercole – Andrew Slater
Apollo/Demo – Peter Aisher
Deifa – Michal Czerniawski
Egeo – John-Colyn Gyeantey
Oreste – Piotr Lempa

Ted Huffman (director)

Samal Blak (designs)
Ace McCarron (lighting)

Old Street Band

Joseph McHardy (conductor)

 

Once again, one can only applaud English Touring Opera’s sense of adventure – and commitment. Its autumn season comprises three Venetian operas: L’incoronazione di Poppea, Giasone, and Agrippina, all in translation. Francesco Cavalli’s Giasone, or Jason, offered perhaps the most enticing prospect: an opera whose historical importance can hardly be gainsaid, and yet which we rarely have chance to hear. Giasone came more or less in the middle of the astonishing period from 1639 to 1666, in which Cavalli composed no fewer than forty operas. This drama musicale to a libretto by the Florentine poet, Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, their only such collaboration, was the tenth and the most popular of Cavalli’s stage works, indeed the most frequently performed of all seventeenth-century operas. Ellen Rosand’s New Grove entry lists, following the first, 1649 carnival performance at Venice’s Teatro San Cassione, possible performances in Milan as soon as 1649 and 1650 and in Lucca in 1650; moreover, published libretti attest to revivals, as Rosand’s list continues, in 1650 (Florence), 1651 (Bologna), 1652 (Florence), 1655 (Piacenza), 1658 (Vicenza), 1659 (Ferrara and Viterbo), 1660 (Milan and Velletri), 1661 (Naples), 1663 (Perugia), 1665 (Ancona), 1666 (Brescia), 1667 (Naples), 1671 (Rome, as Il novello Giasone, edited by Stradella), 1672 (Naples), 1673 (Bologna), 1676 (Rome, again as Il novello Giasone), 1678 (Reggio), 1685 (Genoa, as Il trionfo d’Amor delle vendette) and 1690 (Brescia, as Medea in Colco). Given that the history of seventeenth-century opera is often far more the history of libretti than music, a surprisingly large number of those performances have bequeathed scores to us. It may even have reached Vienna, and though we know nothing of this particular opera having reached English shores, a score of Cavalli’s Erismena in English translation suggests some degree of knowledge of the Venetian master’s œuvre. Such, at any rate, was the fame of Giasone, that it also became a rare example of an opera inspiring a play rather than the other way around.

 

ETO’s production is severely cut, lasting just over two hours (including an interval), offering slightly less than half of the work, if one judges by the duration (3 hours, 55 minutes) of the recording by René Jacobs (so far as I am aware the only such recording). There were times when I could not help but wonder how much we might have benefited from hearing more, not simply in musical terms, but also in terms of progression of the plot and development of characters. By the same token, however, dramatic continuity was for the most part admirably maintained; one experienced far more than a mere ‘taste’. We should also do well to remind ourselves that the concept of the musical work with respect to the seventeenth century is unstable and problematical. We are not dealing with Tristan und Isolde here. One loses something in translation, too, no doubt, but Ronald Eyre’s version proves admirable: rich in vocabulary, as Anthony Hose’s programme appreciation noted, and in wit.

 

Such would go for nothing, of course, without performances to match. I cannot deny my preference for modern instruments. However, if I may try to leave that upon one side, not least in light of the sad impossibility of today hearing seventeenth-century-repertoire so performed, the Old Street Band offered a generally spirited account, intermittent sourness in the strings notwithstanding. Continuo playing was for the most part colourful without veering into exhibitionism, Joseph McHardy’s direction of ensemble from the harpsichord well-paced and alert both to shifts and continuity in register – that ever-fascinating relationship between aria, recitative, and what comes in between. As Raymond Leppard once put it, Cavalli, ‘of all his contemporaries, never lost sight of the early ideals of recitative as a form of intensely heightened speech which, more than the aria, formed the basis for operatic effectiveness. And at his best, although in a different way from Monteverdi, his arias and ariosos grow out of and merge into the recitative-like jewels set in a crown, but not separate from it.’ And in Rosand’s words, this time in the programme, the arias of Giasone, ‘are specifically justified by the dramatic circumstances: rather than undermining verisimilitude, they promote it.’ Both of those observations fitted very well with my experience in the theatre, no mean feat.

 

The singers must also take a great deal of credit for that. Clint van der Linde pulled off very well the tricky task of portraying a compromised, even at times weak, character without vocal compromise or weakness. Indeed, his countertenor Giasone offered a fascinating blend of vocal strength and character fragility. Hannah Pedley and Catrine Kirkman proved just as successful as his twin loves, Medea and Isifile: credible characters of flesh and blood, emotionally as well as dramatically convincing. The travesty role – always popular in Venetian opera of this time – of Delfa offered another opportunity for a countertenor to shine, in this case Michal Czerniawski. Piotr Lempa displayed to good effect his deep bass as Oreste, though some of his vowels went a little awry. Peter Aisher, a Royal College of Music student, was a late replacement for an ailing Stuart Haycock as Apollo and Demo; he took a little time to get into his stride, the Prologue being somewhat barked, but as time went on, showed considerable musical and theatrical ability.

 

Ted Huffman’s production mostly lets the action speak for itself. I was not quite convinced by the mishmash of styles in terms of designs, whilst appreciating his aim ‘to create a world that is neither classical nor contemporary, but rater an invented world, constructed from recognisable historical elements’. Abstraction might have worked better in that case, for inevitably one begins to wonder why someone is dressed in clothes of a certain period and someone else in those of another. Yet such matters do not really distract, and the conversion of Samal Blak’s set for the first act into that for the second proves both economical and dramatically effective. The decay of Lemnos during the absence of the ‘hero’ and the waiting of his wife is instantly, powerfully conveyed. Stage direction is for the most part keenly observed, the balance between comedy and darker emotion well handled.  Documentation is excellent too, the programme offering a general essay by Guy Dammann, as well as individual pieces on the three operas of the season.

 

ETO’s autumn tour takes in London, Rochester, Snape, Malvern, Crediton, Bath, Harrogate, Durham, Newcastle, Buxton, Sheffield, Warwick, Cambridge, and Exeter. Click here for details.
 

Die Feen, Chelsea Opera Group, 17 March 2013

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Lora – Elisabeth Meister

Ada – Kirstin Sharpin
Zemina – Eva Ganizate
Farzana – Emma Carrington
Drolla – Michelle Walton
Arindal – David Danholt
Gunther – Andrew Rees
Morald – Mark Stone
Gernot – Andrew Slater
Fairy King, Voice of Groma – Piotr Lempa
Harald - Ben McAteer
Messenger - Mario Mansillo

Chelsea Opera Group Chorus (chorus master: Deborah Miles-Johnson)

Chelsea Opera Group Orchestra
Dominic Wheeler (conductor)

 

Wagner’s attempts to have his first completed opera staged were to no avail; the interested reader may consult his autobiography, Mein Leben, for his own account. Eventually staged in Munich in 1888, five years after the composer’s death, it would not be staged in Britain until 1969, under the auspices of the Midland Music Makers Grand Opera Society. The Chelsea Opera Group, as is its custom, gave the work in concert, though I shall be fortunate enough to see Die Feen staged next month in Leipzig. It is a splendid work, far from perfect and at times immature, but far superior to a number of works, and indeed entire œuvres that continue, bafflingly, to hold the stages of many opera houses. For the Wagnerite, and indeed for those with any interest at all in musical history, there is considerable additional pleasure to be derived from the parlour game of identifying both the many influences upon the work and the ways in which it offers a true starting point for Wagner’s subsequent explorations.

 

Let me hand over for a moment to Wagner, writing in Mein Leben:

While I had written [the incomplete, preceding] Die Hochzeit without operatic embellishments and treated the material in the darkest vein, this time I festooned the subject with the most manifold variety: beside the principal pair of lovers I depicted a more ordinary couple and even introduced a coarse and comical third pair, which belonged to the operatic convention of servants and ladies’ maids. As to the poetic diction and the verses themselves, I was almost intentionally careless about them. I was not nourishing my former hopes of making a name as a poet; I had really become a ‘musician’ and a ‘composer’ and wanted simply to write a decent libretto, for I now realised nobody else could do this for me, inasmuch as an opera book is something unique unto itself and cannot be easily brought off by poets and literati.

And so of course, it would continue, Wagner writing all of his own musico-dramatic texts, even though in this instance he reworks – should that not be too modest a verb – Carlo Gozzi. One may trace a multitude other continuities or presentiments, not least the idea of the forbidden question, albeit the other way round from Lohengrin, at least in terms of gender, Ada, the half-fairy, half-mortal, having agreed to marry Arindal, the King of Tramond, with the condition that he never ask her who she is. Die Feen, however, is no tragedy, for, after inevitably having asked the question, had Ada disappear, and followed here to the underworld, where, Orpheus-like (a tribute to Wagner’s beloved Gluck?), he restored her to life with voice and lyre, Arindal gains immortality and joins Ada in the land of the fairies. Immortality would, of course, become a curse or chimera to the later, Feuerbachian Wagner: think of Wotan. Here, however, the trials he must undergo both recall The Magic Flute and presage Die Frau ohne Schatten. That is not, of course, to say that Die Feen itself is a crucial link between Mozart and Strauss, though Wagner certainly is, but rather to remind oneself that so many of the ideas on which German and indeed other dramatists draw are part of common currency, not least that of the resolutely unsentimental fairy tale, as in the present case. And then, there is Arindal’s hallucinatory Wild Hunt, which cannot but make one think of Gurrelieder.

 

I could go on and on about the ‘dramatic’ content, but ought at least briefly to say something in similar vein, if equally selective, about the music. For instance, there is a second-act figure that naggingly anticipates Tristan, and the choral writing certainly at times looks forward to Tannhäuser and Lohengrin.  Looking back, Weber, Marschner, and only slightly less, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schumann loom large in the general music language, this being a more unalloyed ‘German’ opera than either of its two immediate successors, Das Liebesverbot and Rienzi, though the Italian and French influences upon those works have often been exaggerated. But in any case, the broader point is that, for Wagner at this time, standing firmly in a dominant tradition of eighteenth-century German æsthetics, perhaps the key to understanding ‘German art’ was its power of synthesis, overcoming merely ‘national’ styles to progress, in his later Zurich ‘reform’ language, toward the universal.

 

Sadly, this performance was let down severely by the orchestra. Whilst it may not yet possess the Greek choral role of Wagner’s mature music dramas, it is nevertheless fundamental to the drama as a whole. Here, however, the players proved for the most part quite unequal to Wagner’s exacting demands. The first act suffered most, the strings in particular often painful to listen to, each desk apparently playing according to its own unique and highly variable system of temperament. Rhythm was little more of a strong point; indeed, at one point, Dominic Wheeler had to re-start proceedings, a wise split-second decision, which one did not envy him. In the circumstances, his direction of proceedings was not bad at all, though it could not be said that he boasted any especial insights. Ideally this music requires the advocacy of a great Wagner conductor, though very few have deigned to perform it, the late Wolfgang Sawallisch an honourable exception. Still, it seemed as though whatever Wheeler said to the orchestra, or at least to the strings, during the first interval paid off somewhat, for horrors were fewer as the work progressed. However, some truly dreadful woodwind and horn playing marred the beginning of the third act. At least the choral singing, whilst sometimes a little fuzzy and underpowered, stuck for the most part to the right words and notes.

 

There was a degree of tentativeness to some of the solo singing too, again most obviously in the first act, where one sometimes had the impression of relatively early rehearsal run-through. I later had it on good authority, however, that the soloists only received their scores two weeks prior to the performance; if that be true, one may appreciate their predicament, and deplore the situation. If there were often, though by no means always, a sense that greater familiarity with the score would have been of considerable assistance, there were no especially weak links in purely vocal terms. The smaller roles were in general well taken, Mark Stone impressive as the courtier, Morald, and Piotr Lempa splendidly stentorian in the small roles of the Voice of Groma the magician and the Fairy King; I should not be surprised to hear him in the future  as a big-stage Commendatore, even a Fafner.  Kirstin Sharpin’s Ada improved appreciably as the performance progressed; if vocal strength is intermittent at the moment, it is nevertheless present and will doubtless develop. Elisabeth Meister’s voice and dramatic presence are already the real thing; hers was undoubtedly the star turn of the evening. Not only did her voice stand head and shoulders above the others during ensembles, her dramatic commitment as Lora, Arindal’s sister, could be sensed and indeed seen throughout. At his best, David Danholt offered a tenor of impressive heft and no little tenderness. There were, however, times when he seemed a little uncertain and when his contribution petered out, perhaps out of tiredness.

 

Better than nothing, then, especially when nothing is what we have had for far too long. However, a rarity, even when its rarity-value is so thoroughly undeserved, often needs particularly talented advocacy, which in this case was at best fitful. Perhaps, in these circumstances, the cuts were not entirely ill-advised.