Bevan/BBC SO/Wigglesworth - Berg and Debussy, 4 April 2025

Barbican Hall

Berg: Three Pieces from the Lyric Suite
Debussy, arr. John Adams: Le Livre de Baudelaire
Berg: Der Wein
Debussy: Nocturnes

Sophie Bevan (soprano)

BBC Symphony Chorus (chorus master: Neil Ferris)

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor)

Not the least of Pierre Boulez’s legacies, in London and across the world, is programming such as this. It may be difficult for us now to realise – given the disappointing size of the Barbican audience, less difficult than we might have hoped – but a concert of Berg and Debussy would not so long ago have seemed daring, even reckless. Boulez, one might say, created the ‘modern’ orchestral repertoire. There is some exaggeration in that. He did not do so alone, even in his generation: musicians such as Michael Gielen played crucial roles too. They had forerunners too, conductors such as Hans Rosbaud and Hermann Scherchen, as well as successors. Boulez’s time at the BBC was nonetheless pivotal for London musical life; his more general example was of incalculable significance. Hearing this concert just a few days after the Barbican and BBC’s Total Immersion event for Boulez’s centenary extended the celebration—and the homage. 

Boulez would surely have appreciated the clarity of the BBC SO strings in the three movements from Berg’s Lyric Suite, and indeed throughout, under Ryan Wigglesworth’s leadership. The ‘Andante amoroso’ started polished, directed, and cool, though not cold, its temperature rising without ever sounding Romantic. Whilst string orchestra versions of quartet music have a tendency to sound smoothed over, less radical, in their new, orchestral guise, the second movement here was an exception, especially in its scurrying, heard with impressive unanimity. One was drawn in to listen, in a manner not dissimilar to Webern or Nono. Wigglesworth and the orchestra fashioned a fine interplay between texture and harmony. The ‘Adagio appassionata’ dug more overtly deep, emanating from the world of Wozzeck and Lulu—as if a staging post between them, which in a way it is. The Zemlinsky quotation (‘Du bist mein Eigen’) was poignant, meaningful, and generative: far more than mere quotation. 

John Adams’s 1994 orchestration of Debussy’s Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire (minus the fifth, ‘La Mort des amants’) varied in its proximity to what the composer might have done. There is nothing wrong with that; it was always skilful and inventive on its own terms. The opening ‘Le Balcon’ did not sound especially Debussyan in that respect. Hearing it after Berg, its twists and turns sounded more Germanic than one might have expected. At any rate, Sophie Bevan communicated Baudelaire’s words with great clarity, shaping them, as Wigglesworth did the orchestra’s, unobtrusively yet to excellent effect. There was languor, but not too much, motion and overall shape well balanced. ‘Harmonie du soir’ was similarly evocative; it seemed at times to move closer to a Debussyan, as well as a Wagnerian (above all Tristan) orchestral and particularly string sound. Pelléas hovered in the wings vocally for the final two, the charged language another connection in ‘Le Jet d’eau’. The opening scoring of ‘Recueillement’ seemed again to come from a Wagnerian world, violas, cellos, and harps, paving the way for woodwind and voice to combine in flesh and desire for its transcendence.     

Baudelaire spanned the interval, twinned in the second half with Berg for Der Wein, which many will know from Boulez’s recording with Jessye Norman. Pelléas-malevolence persisted and mutated in the first poem, ‘Die Seele des Weines’, all the more so given Wigglesworth’s deliberate tempo. The opening, wandering bass line sounded as if Fafner had made his way onto the stage as Lulu’s new amant. (There is an idea for an opera—or perhaps not.) This was a rich vinous soul indeed, redolent of the French Wagnerism of a subsequent generation to the poet: the Revue wagnérienne, perhaps. Bevan once more span the line and worked the text with alchemy inherent in a fine vantage, matched note for note by the BBC SO. A riotous opening to the central ‘Der Wein der Liebenden’ subsided to suggest a world, as it is, very much post-Das Lied von der Erde, which persisted to a dark, yet ambiguous climax in ‘Der Wein des Einsamen’. 

Back to Debussy to close, for Nocturnes, colours variegated to permit, if not quite every shade between rare primaries, then a good few nevertheless. Enchantment and ambiguity characterised ‘Nuages’, its musical parameters kept in fruitful, shifting balance. Allemonde malevolence gave way, at least momentarily, to fluted rays of sun. Colour was well and truly switched on for ‘Fêtes’, over which a celebrated maître had left an unforgettable visual and musical BBC performance to haunt memories and even proceedings. Wigglesworth was not inflexible, by any means, but rather ensured that relative flexibility was always directed towards a goal. Even in the Barbican, whose acoustic can hardly be accused of accentuating the mysterious, ‘Sirènes’ offered a more distant form of seduction than Der Wein. It flowed beautifully, and not without a little menace, in a full-blooded account from orchestra and voices alike. This was not a Debussy painted in pastel shades; it sounded all the better for that.

Bevan/ASMF/Wigglesworth - Wigglesworth, Mozart, and Ravel, 6 August 2021

St Martin-in-the-Fields

Ryan Wigglesworth: Piano Concerto: ‘Notturno’

Mozart: Piano Concerto no.12 in A major, KV 414/385p
Ravel: Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé
Mozart: Concert Aria: ‘Ch’io mi scordi di te … Non temer, amato bene’, KV 505

Sophie Bevan (soprano)
Ryan Wigglesworth (piano/conductor)

Academy of St Martin in the Fields

The ASMF’s concerts at the church in which it was born and from which it takes its name were rare musical beacons during the few occasions last autumn when performance and attendance at performance were possible. The two concerts I was able to attend—maximum audience of thirty, for reasons best known to whichever eminent statesman was then making such decisions—meant a great deal to me. Here stood another in that line, albeit in slightly brighter times. Ryan Wigglesworth joined the Academy as both pianist as conductor, with Sophie Bevan the soprano soloist for the last two items. 

First, though, we heard some of Wigglesworth’s own music, the ‘Notturno’ from his Piano Concerto. According to the composer, this movement, in which chamber orchestra is reduced to strings and harp, ‘is a kind of fantasia on a Polish folk song I first heard sung, movingly, around a late-night campfire’. That I only learned after the event, but heard, following a (relatively) long string introduction, a piano solo, clear and directed (combining well in retrospect with music by Mozart and Ravel), sometimes in dialogue with harp, which seemed to set up material for subsequent variation and development. There was, I felt, a sense of lament, or at least of bitter-sweet lyricism. Henze with an English accent was one thought that came to mind, though perhaps that said more about me than anyone or anything else. I should certainly be intrigued to hear the rest of the work.

Without a break, the players moved into the first of Mozart’s two A major Piano Concertos, no.12. Wigglesworth’s direction may have been on the brisk side by historical standards, but not really by those of our own time. Most important, it yielded. The ASMF offered, as is its wont, cultivated and variegated playing. There was to be heard from all fine, seemingly instinctive senses of line and fun, inextricably interlinked. The opera house was rightly an inspiration but form, quite rightly, was communicated as of the concert hall. This is a concerto readily underestimated, but it was not here. If, in the slow movement, I occasionally missed the cushion of a larger number of strings, I should stress ‘occasionally’. For there was no gainsaying the excellence of playing, nor this movement’s role as the emotional heart of the work. Songful yet ever-developing, it was sometimes blighted by a mysterious high-pitched electronic sound from somewhere in the building (I presume), yet was never obliterated. The finale was keenly responsive and endlessly surprising: the spirit of Haydn, perhaps, yet unquestionably directed by Mozart, whose cadenzas were employed with great imagination by Wigglesworth.

I think that may have been the first time I had heard the Mozart concerto in the flesh: testament to just how narrow the benighted ‘repertoire’ has become, even in the case of its most widely acknowledged geniuses (if we may still use the word). It was also the first time I had had opportunity to hear Ravel’s Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, save on record. Why do we not hear them constantly? Who knows? This, at any rate, was a performance to savour. Thinned down to a delectable chamber ensemble, the Academy offered opening string quartet harmonics that, whilst perfectly in keeping with Ravel’s style and language seemed to peer across to Schoenberg and perhaps even forward to Ligeti. Etched like waves, they prepared the way for the vocal line to sail. In the second part of this first song, ‘Soupir’, a French vision of Vienna emerged from the string quartet. And what harmonies there were to be heard, not least from voice against, or rather with, piano. ‘Placet futile’ sounded a little more operatic, even before the vocal entry. Inviting, sensuous, and knowing in its mock-innocence, such qualities were both added to and questioned by Bevan in a garden of distinctly sunnier delights than Pierrot lunaire, whose ghost unavoidably hovers here. The instrumental introduction to ‘Surgi de la croupe et du bond’ seemed to long for something beyond: temporally or geographically, maybe even both. The ‘Asie’ of Shéhérazade? It unfolded, pli selon pli.

Finally, Mozart’s ‘Ch’io mi scordi di te … Non temer, amato bene’, KV 505. The opening recitative was well handled by all, the following aria slightly static at first but increasingly dramatic as it progressed, so perhaps that was a deliberate strategy. It benefited from fuller-throttled operatic treatment than anything heard previously, not only from Bevan on superlative form, but from the Academy and Wigglesworth. Here, if only in concert, was a true successor to Idomeneo from the seria-deprived (though never quite, as is sometimes claimed, seria-starved) Vienna of Joseph II. It made for a resounding, resplendent culmination to a wonderful concert.

The Winter's Tale, English National Opera, 27 February 2017 (world premiere)

Coliseum

Hermione (Sophie Bevan), Mamillius (Zach Roberts), Leontes (Iain Paterson)
Images: Johan Persson

Leontes – Iain Paterson

Hermione – Sophie Bevan
Perdita – Samantha Price
Polixenes – Leigh Melrose
Florizel, Court Official – Anthony Gregory
Paulina – Susan Bickley
Antigonus/Shepherd – Neal Davies
Camillo – Timothy Robinson
Mamillius – Zach Roberts
Two Guards – Geraint Hylton, Michael Burke
Servant – Paul Napier-Burrows
 

Rory Kinnear (director)

Vicki Mortimer (set designs)
Moritz Junge (costumes)
Jon Clark (lighting)
Imogen Knight (movement)

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: James Henshaw)

Orchestra of the English National Opera

Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor)

New work is the lifeblood of any opera company, any orchestra, any theatre, any artistic institution worth its salt. We all love what Pierre Boulez called the Museum; perhaps we love it too much. That is not going to change. There is, though, nothing unhealthier than a reverence for the past – or rather for a ‘traditionalist’ recreation of a past that never was – which excludes enthusiasm for the present. We shall make mistakes in the present; no sane person would ever deny that. Whilst there is every reason to try to minimise them, we should never do so with over-zealous caution. We certainly should not replace them with n^th revivals of some hideous – or even non-hideous – ‘revival’ of La traviata. Apart from being wrong in itself, it would kill so many of the achievements of the present and future it is our duty to nurture.

ENO Chorus

One such is Ryan Wigglesworth’s new opera, The Winter’s Tale, here receiving its world premiere. How will it fare in the future? Who knows? That is not our concern. What I can say is that it emerged on its first night as a highly accomplished operatic debut, given splendid advocacy from all concerned with its production and performance. A more detailed analysis, of whatever variety, must await proper study of the score (for which, many thanks to ENO and Schott!) Wigglesworth paces the action very well, though, and his own adaptation of Shakespeare for the libretto works equally well. Indeed, I find its focus upon the action – something mentioned by director Rory Kinnear in a programme article, suggesting a strong, deep collaboration, of which there is evidence in abundance – especially well suited to a reworking of the tale as opera. Having recently examined a fine doctoral thesis on modern Shakespearean opera and Tippett’s The Knot Garden, I hope that this new instalment will, in the best sense, extend and even challenge some of its discussion, as any new contribution should. One of the potential problems of Shakespearean opera, as well as the oft-mentioned inherent musicality of the words as they stand, seems to me (as I had actually been discussing with a friend the previous evening) the complexity of the plot or, better, the number of sub-plots. There is, for instance, no Autolycus; we can probably all live, for one evening at least, without his snapping up of unconsidered trifles. Here, the narrative assumes an almost Attic tragic inevitability – there is some of that in the play, of course, but it is, fascinatingly, one of several competing tendencies there – which has long, with good reason, been thought conducive to successful opera. (Cue Straussian cries of ‘Agamemnon’ in your head.)

 

It is difficult and, I am sure, undesirable, to try to separate Kinnear’s staging, or indeed the cast’s performances from that. (Is not such unity of dramatic purpose what opera is supposed to be about? Yes, we can deconstruct it and often should, but deconstruction implies construction in the first place. And yes, it is perfectly possible for different aspects to be saying or doing different things at the same time, but again, usually in the service of a greater whole, however fragmented it might be in (modernistic) practice.) For instance, whereas the jealousy of Leontes can sometimes seem unmotivated, or at least abrupt, here the tyrannical tendencies of the king and their close alliance to his suspicions are reinforced scenically, musically, and performatively. Iain Paterson’s portrayal of his changing moods (redemptive transformation in the third of the three acts included) was imbued with the confidence suggested by a role he might have been singing all his life. Sophie Bevan’s not entirely dissimilar journey, from the lightness of a woman undeniably attracted to Polinexes, through savagely wronged consort, to miraculously transfigured voice as statue come-to-life at the close, brought emotional weight and dramatic credibility to Hermione. Polinexes, in the excellent hands and voice of Leigh Melrose, offered another, equally crucial tragic strand. Binding these strands together, nascent yet also fully formed in the first act, is Kinnear’s production – not only his first of opera, but his first in the theatre at all – provides a crucial politico-military setting (Moritz Junge’s costumes here crucial too), statues already representative of power, might, and all manner of repression; it also provides space for these characters to work out their fates.

 

Florizel (Anthony Gregory), Perdita
(Samantha Price)

Wigglesworth’s score – his conducting too, no doubt – binds this dramatic opening still more closely together. Structurally, it made excellent sense even on a first hearing (as I said, detail will have to come later, once I have studied the score); there are none of the formal deficiencies that so bedevil, say, much of Britten’s excessively lauded writing (The Turn of the Screw perennially excepted). What Britten could do – indeed seemingly could not fail to do – was set English words; so can Wigglesworth, albeit without the preciousness. Vocal lines move between arioso and, for instance, in the case of almost Hans Sachs-like depression for Leontes, something approaching a more traditional aria. But much of the real action is in the orchestra. Here, I think we hear Wigglesworth’s finest achievement: he knows what the orchestra can, even should, do in opera – and does it. Interludes play a dramatic role, just as they might in exalted predecessors such as Wagner or Debussy; they do not merely fill time. Harmonies and harmonic rhythm sound as integral parts of the drama, not merely ‘expressive’ thereof. Glistening instrumental strands prove illustrative, characterful, yet also musically (and musico-dramatically) generative. If I thought occasionally of a line from Henze here, or Tippett there, and so on, that was no more than a matter of coincidence, of me finding my aural feet, as it were; the use to which phrases were put in the larger scheme of things seemed entirely Wigglesworth’s, indeed the work’s, own.

 

Moreover, the contrast between the closed, seemingly inward-gazing intensity of the musical language of the first act and the pastoral joy, soon occluded by the intrusion of Polinexes (I thought, however inappropriately, of a post-Janáčekian sound world threatened, even conquered, by grinding, post-Bergian musical processes), was apparent for all to hear. So too was the different world again, a world yet seemingly born of dialectical synthesis and/or progression, of the third act. Ghosts from the past seemed to appear musically, transfigured, with a magic whose benign quality needed to be proved rather than merely asserted.  Crucial to that outcome, far from unambiguous, were excellent performances from Anthony Gregory’s youthful, hopeful Florizel, Samantha Price’s heartfelt Perdita, and a commanding assumption of the role of Paulina by Susan Bickley: again, a focus for unity that needed to be won, not merely assumed. With excellent performances from the rest of the cast, the orchestra, and, anything but least, the outstanding ENO Chorus – its threatening presence during the Queen’s trial redolent, perhaps, of a Mussorgskian operatic tradition, although never hidebound by it – The Winter’s Tale received a baptism of which all should be proud indeed.

 

Der Rosenkavalier, Royal Opera, 17 December 2016

Royal Opera House

Images: © ROH. By Catherine Ashmore

Die Feldmarschallin, Fürstin Werdenberg – Renée Fleming

Der Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau – Matthew Rose
Octavian – Alice Coote
Herr von Faninal – Jochen Schmeckenbecker
Sophie – Sophie Bevan
Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin, Noble Widow – Miranda Keys
Valzacchi – Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
Annina – Helene Schneidermann
Police Inspector – Scott Conner
The Marschallin’s Major-domo – Samuel Sakker
Faninal’s Major-domo – Thomas Atkins
Italian Singer – Giorgio Berrugi
Milliner – Kiera Lyness
Innkeeper – Alasdair Elliott
Notary – Jeremy White
Animal Seller – Luke Price
Doctor – Andrew H. Sinclair
Boots – Jonathan Fisher
Noble Orphans – Katy Batho, Deborah Peake-Jones, Andrea Hazell
Marschallin’s Lackeys/Waiters – Andrew H. Sinclair, Lee Hickenbottom, Dominic Barrand, Bryan Secombe
Mohammed – James Wintergrove
Leopold – Atli Gunnarsson
Hairdresser – Robert Curtis
Baron Ochs’s Retinue – Thomas Barnard, Dominic Barrand, Nigel Cliffe, Jonathan Fisher, Paul Parfitt, Bryan Secombe
Musicians – Andrew Macnair, Andrew O’Connor, Luke Price, Alexander Wall
Coachmen – Thomas Barnard, Nigel Cliffe, Jonathan Coad, Christopher Lackner

Dancers, Actors, Child Singers

Robert Carsen (director)

Paul Steinberg (set designs)
Brigitte Reiffenstuel (costumes)
Robert Carsen and Peter van Praet (lighting)
Philippe Giraudeau (choreography)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: William Spaulding)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Andris Nelsons (conductor)

If Der Rosenkavalier subtly counsels us against nostalgia, walking us through our own constructionism and that of others, layering further experience and memory, real, imagined, or more likely, somewhere in between, this new Royal Opera production unwittingly offered something of a countervailing argument. As we are now so wearily aware, the United Kingdom’s cultural inferiority and isolation are likely only to increase over the coming months, nay years, of Maying. Very few will care; of them, many will decamp to what was once quaintly known as ‘the Continent’; others will not unreasonably seek a degree of refuge in other, actually better times. Only the truly ignorant, of culture and of history, would hold out any hope for this miserable island’s prospects, having ‘taken back control’. Likewise, for all the gloss we saw, far less often heard, on stage, only those ignorant of operatic life ‘abroad’, and indeed in earlier years here in London, would fail to feel, at best, regret.  

 

Trailed unofficially as Renée Fleming’s farewell to the Covent Garden stage, the production suggested that it was not before time. Fleming has never been much of an actress, although she retains an undeniable presence. (Big, expensive costumes doubtless help, especially in the third act, but it is not just that.) There were, to be fair, moments in which she danced along to the (somewhat fitful) waltzes in the first act, but otherwise, there was little beyond generalised and sometimes downright inappropriate facial gestures. Her inability not only to project but even to sustain her lines, hardly helped by perversely dragging tempi from Andris Nelsons whenever she set foot on stage, made for a sad experience indeed, however much the fans may have oohed and aahed at her wardrobe.

 

The Marschallin (Renée Fleming), Sophie (Sophie Bevan)

Nelsons was at least as much at fault. He has conducted the opera before, but it often did not sound like it, the performance suggestive of a superior run-through, even sight-reading. Having opened in strangely aggressive fashion, he ground the first act to a halt. Once the Marschallin’s retinue had been dispersed, the remainder felt like an act, and a tedious one at that, to itself. Whether he were responding to Fleming, or somehow trying to highlight her aurally, I do not know; it certainly did not work. Too often, phrases were simply left hanging, even disintegrating. If the second act and earlier sections of the third – infernal cuts notwithstanding – marked a great improvement, listlessness was again the order of the day, as we drew ever so gradually to a close. Time was – yes, I know stopping the clocks will not help us – when the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House could sound not unlike one of its great ‘Continental’ cousins. Perhaps it still can, under, say, Semyon Bychkov. However, it is now well-nigh impossible to ignore the long musical decline of the house since the departure of Bernard Haitink. There were a good few moments of glorious sheen, but there was a good deal of scrappiness too. Viennese idiom, such as it was, too often sounded forced. Go to Dresden, to Berlin, to Munich, even, on a good day, to Vienna, go indeed to many a smaller German theatre, to hear what this score and others can sound like. And listen to a conductor such as Christian Thielemann, almost always at his best in Strauss, to hear how infinite flexibility can, indeed must, be married to a sense of the whole; or listen to the great conductors of the past, to Karajan, to Krauss, to Kempe, to the Kleibers, perhaps even, if feeling truly adventurous, progressing to a conductor whose name did not begin with ‘K’.

 

What of the rest of the cast? Alice Coote’s Octavian was a bit of a loose cannon (with apologies to the extravagant World War One recreations chez Faninal). At her best, she offered a spirited, rich-toned performance; at other times, there was a distinct lack of focus. Whether the relative lack of refinement dramatically were Coote’s or director, Robert Carsen’s idea, it was not, I am afraid, a good one. Matthew Rose’s Ochs was much better: less the boorish oaf, more the slightly, but only slightly, past-his-sell-by-date country cousin, who could still summon up a soupçon of charm when he made the effort. Sophie Bevan’s Sophie was very much in line with (welcome) contemporary fashion: her own woman, with agency, no mere annoyance. Her vocal performance was not bettered and rarely approached by others on stage. All, however, should be thanked for their excellent diction; Hofmannsthal’s words could always be clearly discerned. (That goes for Fleming too.)

Ochs (Matthew Rose)

 

Jochen Schmeckenbecher’s Faninal seemed oddly subdued, at least vocally; I wondered whether he would have been happier in a smaller house. It was a pity to hear coarseness creeping into Giorgio Berrugi’s rendition of the Italian Singer’s aria, but the many, many ‘smaller’ roles were generally well taken, Perhaps the most noteworthy for me were Helene Schneidermann’s cleverly scheming Annina, Alasdair Elliott’s outrageous Innkeeper as transvestite Master/Mistress of Ceremonies, and Scott Conner’s calm, confident Police Commissioner. (One might well understand why the Marschallin departed with him rather than with Faninal, although I am not sure that it made a great deal of dramatic sense here.)

 

Carsen’s production is a frustration, and not only because it runs dangerously close to his earlier staging, for the Salzburg Festival, although divergences often intrigue; such layering of reception is surely not inappropriate for such a work. However, the first and second acts seem – not in a knowing way – to rely too much on former glories, coming across as attempts to make a former, sharper production look different. (Did those I heard loudly praising Carsen know his earlier production? I have my doubts.) Designs from Paul Steinberg and Brigitte Reiffenstuel, however impressive in themselves, are made to do too much of the work. The note of ambiguity concerning where, or rather when, we are during the second act, is, however, an excellent touch. Are we gearing up for war, uniforms and indeed the aforementioned weaponry ever-present? Or, are we to understand from the field medical assistance afforded Ochs, that we are now in its midst? The trench movements of Ochs’s retinue (on leave?) certainly suggest so. Alternatively, might this be an imagined future from the Marschallin’s comfortable 1911?

 

The third act sets its impressive seal on such ruminations, or at least the first half of it does. Initially, it too seems as though it might follow earlier Carsen too closely, but wisely, no attempt is made to replicate the extraordinary Salzburg visual spectacle of multiple brothel rooms (nor, indeed, the horse). We seem to have moved, or imagined ourselves, into the 1920s, to a world in which sexual ‘decadence’ and ‘depravity’ (for those of a ‘Brexit’ disposition, in any case) run riot, whilst still recognisably, increasingly so, a projection from where we began (and indeed may still 'be'). Octavian’s, or rather Mariandel’s, forwardness, is perhaps the most intriguing development. Where she ‘should’ be a (relatively) innocent victim, here this ‘virgin’ promises to take Ochs to places he may never have dreamed of, or at least would rather not have done. The already fascinating sexual politics of the opera take another twist, such as would surely have shocked the straitlaced Benjamin Britten, who apparently disapproved of its ‘lesbianism’ (!)

Alas, the rest of the act, whether knowingly or otherwise, simply offers relative withdrawal, as it were. A large stage and a large bed are its focus, Octavian and Sophie rather unnecessarily beginning to further their acquaintance. The parallel created with the opening scene need surely not be presented with quite such heavy-handedness.At the very close, it seems as though we shall truly return to Salzburg, where a gunshot frighteningly heralded the coming of war. (That production stayed where it was, rather than peering into the future, as Carsen does here.) The reappearance of cannons, seemingly pointed at a drunken Mohammed, suggest something similar, but instead they misfire (perhaps an all too telling metaphor), soldiers falling bathetically to the ground themselves, and the liveried servant continues along its way. I think I can discern a point being made here, but it is not made very clearly.

Mohammed (James Wintergrove)

 

Another baffling aspect relates to, what seems to be a kleindeutsch rather than an Austrian setting. (The message of the paintings we see, visual art so often a Carsen device, is ambiguous.) I am afraid I found myself baffled by visual references to the ‘other’ Kaiserreich and its successor republic. The antics of the tavern seem very much of Weimar. Even the Grecian frieze of the Faninal mansion looks more Berlin than Vienna. (To my, perhaps vulgar eyes, it does not look so very nouveau riche, more akin to a Wilhelmine museum room.) Is a point being made about Strauss’s native Bavaria, perhaps even Strauss himself, having made the ‘wrong’ choice? If so, it remains obscure. There is, all considered, simply too much that is either too obscure or too obvious, suggestive, rightly or wrongly, of an unwelcome degree of directorial haste.

 

In many respects, then, this proved a missed opportunity, laced with tantalising hints of how much better things might have been – might still be, if only they/we were to get our act together. It could have been far worse; perhaps it might improve during the run; and yet… It was, one might say, a ‘soft Brexit’ Rosenkavalier, albeit with hints of our Poundland Fürstin Resi’s ‘red, white, and blue’ variety. Note to directors: do not, under any circumstances, accept my Konzept. It will neither end nor even start well.

 

Oedipe, Royal Opera, 23 May 2016

Images: ROH/Clive Barda

Royal Opera House

Theban High Priest – Nicolas Courjal

Shepherd – Alan Oke
Theban Woman – Lauren Fagan
Créon – Samuel Youn
Laïos – Hubert Francis
Jocaste – Sarah Connolly
Tirésias – John Tomlinson
Oedipe – Johan Reuter
Phorbas – In Sung Sim
Mérope – Claudia Huckle
Watchman – Stefan Kocan
Sphinx – Marie-Nicole Lemieux
Antigone – Sophie Bevan
Thésée – Samuel Dale Johnson

Àlex Ollé (La Fura dels baus) and Valentina Carrasco (directors)

Alfons Flores (set designs)
Lluc Castells (costumes)
Peter van Praet (lighting)

 

 

 

After the opening night of the first ever staging of George Enescu’s Oedipe in this country, I can say without the slightest hesitation that this will prove the most important event of the Royal Opera’s season. How, after all, could it not? I probably should be more cautious, given that it was my first hearing of the work, but it sounded very much as if it were the composer’s masterpiece to me. Indeed, my initial reaction was much akin to my hearing works – perhaps not entirely dissimilar, but not especially similar either – such as Szymanowski’s King Roger and Busoni’s Doktor Faust for the first time. Whilst others become enraged or, occasionally, enraptured by what Katie Mitchell might have done to a piece of drivel by Donizetti, a work surely quite undeserving of her talents as a director, the rest of us owe the Royal Opera and all concerned with this production a heartfelt vote of thanks. I should eagerly go again, if only I could make any of the dates work; I urge you, if you have not yet seen and heard the production and can, not to hesitate.

Sphinx (Marie-Nicole Lemieux) and Oedipe

First and foremost is the work itself. To my shame, I know little of Enescu’s music; he is one of those composers I have long been intending to ‘get around to’, but until now, have not really done so. He is known at least equally well as a conductor, violinist, and perhaps even as teacher, but unlike, say, Furtwängler, whose compositions are interesting yet hardly essential, Enescu was first and foremost a composer. One might actually draw another comparison with Busoni: unquestionably one of the greatest pianists of all time, yet with music (unforgivably ignored in this 150^th anniversary year) that will remain a still greater testament.

 

Jocaste (Sarah Connolly) and Oedipe (Johan Reuter)

The compositional language and structure intrigue. One might, I suppose, call the latter traditional; it is certainly not experimental. This is a four-act opera with ‘conventional’ yet highly powerful, well-crafted narrative (let us not forget Edmond Fleg’s libretto here), which stands in something of a Wagnerian tradition, but is certainly not overwhelmed by it. Likewise the vocal writing, which owes something to Wagner, or perhaps better to (post-)Wagnerism, but no more than Strauss does, and probably less. As Jim Samson puts it in his excellent programme note (the ROH programme is of particularly high quality on this occasion): ‘On the surface, Enescu’s vocal writing appears similar to the kind of quasi-recitative characteristic of many post-Wagnerian operas, but on closer inspection it reveals its motivic credentials as a characteristic component of the closely unified thematic substance. The composer himself referred to a “single flow of ideas”.’ So did it unquestionably sound in this outstanding performance – yes, there was no difficulty in ascertaining that upon a single hearing – from Leo Hussain. Not only did Hussain draw out playing from the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House of a quality of which we know it capable, but which has not always been heard recently, save for under a small number of visiting conductors such as Semyon Bychkov; his pacing and palpable understanding of the way the music and the musical drama work would have had one believe he stood at the helm of a work central to the repertory. Clearly it should be, but opera houses, alas, too often know better.

In the musical language, one hears strong French elements too: Debussyan and Ravelian elements (I even thought of Vaughan Williams at times), or at least parallels, albeit within a more Germanically-structured framework. Enescu’s use of voices within the orchestra almost as if they were vocal and not just orchestral commentary is striking, as his handling of choral forces. Samson again captures the former tellingly, speaking of an idiom ‘caught somewhere between Mahler’s fragmentation and Debussy’s variegation of the late-Romantic orchestra’. Not a note seems to be wasted, moreover; in this retelling of Sophocles, which involves a good deal of material implied or spoken of in the original tragedies, yet never seen on stage, the use of music not only to serve drama but as drama inevitably has one, once more, thinking of Wagner.

 

So too does the staging. If characterisation of the particular flavours and styles of each act, within an overarching framework is achieved with great musical success, Hussain’s conducting is complemented by a typically imaginative production from La Fura dels baus. The initial coup de théâtre haunts one’s experience throughout the performance, and indeed thereafter, the finely detailed, hieratic stage curtain melting, during the Prelude, into the ‘real thing’. A tableau vivant is what we see and static, tableau-like music – quite unlike that of Stravinsky’s inimitable ‘opera-oratorio’, which in any case yet lay in the future – was what we heard too. Interaction and support were indeed the hallmarks of production and performance throughout. The dialogue between certain archaisms – not really musical, but perhaps hinted at by the music, oboe and harps bringing to my mind Birtwistle’s later evocations of Greek antiquity – are always convincing, yet never entirely predictable. I am not entirely sure, or indeed at all sure, why the Sphinx lived within an apparently crashed aeroplane, but that offered nevertheless senses of wonder and of surprise, as well as of revelation. After all, the story is propelled by things and people not being quite what they seem to be (as well, of course, as having been condemned by Fate to do precisely what they have been ordained to do). Oedipus, in Enescu’s conception, is more Everyman than unapproachable hero; in that, he is ‘modern’ and so do we see him here. Likewise his fickle people and the treacherous army-man, Créon. It is, however, less heavy-worn conceptual communication than a fine sense of narrative theatre which, above all, animates what we see, Jocaste’s emergence, every inch the film star, from the city of Thebes is a case in point.

 

Oedipe

Covent Garden assembled an impressive cast too, considerably more than the far from inconsiderable sum of its parts. Johan Reuter’s assumption of the title role again had one believe this was a central, heroic, repertory performance. Each part of the hero’s life, from the beginning of the second act – the first celebrates his birth and quickly follows celebration with the desperate expulsion of this son to Laïos to Jocaste – to the end of the fourth has one experience an Oedipe both different and yet familiar. A lifetime was convincingly, powerfully portrayed, with fine command both of musical style and of verbal response. Sarah Connolly certainly exhibited those qualities in her Jocaste, with acting to match; her voice, however, sounded thinner than I can recall. It did not really detract from the performance, but I should like also to hear a richer voice in the role. John Tomlinson did his usual thing, and did it, as usual, very well, in the role of Tirésias. There was no gender-bending here, but the honesty and integrity of the poor, blind prophet shone through, in a role that generally fitted well the singer’s present range. Samuel Youn made for a suitably nasty, civilised Créon: what an unsympathetic character he is, and yet how necessary to the drama! I was less convinced than many seemed to be by Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s Sphinx; I heard her words less often than was ideal, although the timbre of the voice seemed well-suited to the role. From the rest of an excellent line-up, Nicolas Courjal’s authoritative High Priest, Sophie Bevan’s beautifully sung and beautiful-of-heart Antigone, and Samuel Dale Johnson’s calmly commanding Thésée stood out to me.

 

Tirésias (John Tomlinson)

 

Choral singing was, save for those hieratic scenes, of a very high quality, for which temporary chorus master, Genevieve Ellis deserves great credit. Sadly, the visually arresting quality of the tableau did not transfer so well into vocal terms; a friend suggested to me at the interval that the chorus members could not hear each other very well. Still, the scenes on the ground, as it were, benefited greatly from artists who could act as well as sing. Collaboration with La Fura dels baus seems definitely to have inspired them. As an audience-member, it certainly inspired me. This, I should repeat, is an important achievement indeed, not to be missed.

Idomeneo, Royal Opera, 19 November 2014

Royal Opera House

 

 

Idomeneo – Matthew Polenzani

Idamante – Franco Fagioli

Ilia – Sophie Bevan

Elettra – Malin Byström

Arbace – Stanislas de Barbeyrac

High Priest – Krystian Adam

Voice of Neptune – Graeme Broadbent

 

 

Martin Kušej (director)

Annette Murschetz (set designs)

Heide Kastler (costumes)

Reinhard Traub (lighting)

Leah Hausman (dramaturgy)

 

 

Royal Opera Chorus

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Marc Minkowski (conductor)

 

Image: ROH/Catherine Ashmore

 

Poor Idomeneo! Katie Mitchell more or less destroyed this magnificent yet fragile opera when she staged it for ENO. Here, when the Royal Opera at last returned to it, the musical performances proved sadly lacking, from the top down – or, better, from the pit upwards. The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House deserved much, much better; so of course did Mozart. Save for some bizarrely out-of-tune trumpets, the fault lay not with the players, who indeed seemed anxious to mitigate the worst of Marc Minkowski’s incompetence. When permitted to play, the strings sounded warm and variegated and the woodwind often beautiful indeed – if hardly what one would have expected under Sir Colin Davis. But Minkowski seemed concerned not only to hurl every ‘early musicke’ cliché in the would-be treatise at Mozart but also to withdraw it not very long later. And so, the Overture opened in all-too-predictably driven fashion before suddenly being pulled around in sub-Harnoncourt, even Rattle-like, fashion. The strings were left alone for a while then suddenly prevailed upon to withdraw vibrato, especially at the beginning of the second act, and still more grievously during the atrociously-conducted ballet music. It quickly became apparent that Minkowski had no sense whatsoever of harmonic rhythm; may God, Neptune, or Anyone Else preserve us from inflicting his jejune flailing around upon the symphonic Mozart. (Doubtless he already has; in which case, we should protect ourselves from having to hear it.) Whatever possessed Covent Garden to entrust this work to him? As for the nonsensical exhibitionism to be heard from the fortepianist...
 

Then there was the casting. Franco Fagioli’s Idamante offered some of the worst singing I have ever heard on this hallowed stage. If incomprehensible – in what language was he singing?! – out-of-tune squawking were your thing, you would have been fine; the rest of us were left wondering why on earth a female soprano, a mezzo, or a tenor had not been engaged. (That was not the only questionable textual decision to have been made.)  Malin Byström certainly seemed to possess dramatic conviction; it is a pity she showed herself more or less incapable of holding a musical line. I am all for ‘big’ voices in Mozart, but they should at the very least be able to sing in tune. Sophie Bevan offered some beautiful moments as Ilia, though she too proved surprisingly thick with her vibrato at times, especially during the first act. Matthew Polenzani was a decent enough Idomeneo when he didn’t confuse Mozart’s style with that of Puccini. (Listen to Francisco Araiza for an object lesson here.) Although a little wayward, Krystian Adam’s reading as the High Priest seemed dramatically justified in the context of the production. Stainslas de Barbeyrac’s Arbace generally impressed, although some strange vocal colourings left me wondering quite why so many had been singing his praises quite so ardently. Sadly, and much to my surprise, the chorus was too often all over the place – and not just in terms of where it was asked to stand. What is usually a great strength of Royal Opera productions proved decidedly ragged.
 

Martin Kušej’s staging, on the other hand, proved a more genuinely provocative experience, certainly superior to Mitchell’s in every respect. (That, I admit, would hardly have been an onerous challenge.) A certain sort of opera-goer disdains challenge and questioning, whether to himself or to the work. So much the worse for him – or her. There were irritants, including the well-nigh unforgivable inclusion of rain (visual and sounding) during the Overture and again later in the first act. But I really cannot imagine how anyone could reasonably object to an era ravaged by war looking like – well, an era ravaged by war. Likewise, surely anyone sentient would at least question claims of enlightened absolutism, even if some might think the militaristic regime of Idomeneo goes a little ‘too far’. (I certainly do not think so.) More fundamentally, though,  Kušej’s’s concept of an island in thrall to a manufactured cult of Neptune works very well – and genuinely has one think, should one be so inclined, about issues of individual and mass agency. If Idomeneo and, at the end, Idamante is not in control, then who is? How might the wrath of the crowd be harnessed, and by whom? How does our lot compare with theirs? If not so well thought-through as, say, Hans Neuenfels’s now-classic staging of Lohengrin, some of the same ‘experimental’ questions presented themselves. The stasis of the final ballet scenes – leaving aside Minkowski’s miserable effort – might initially seem perverse, and in some senses it is, but a series of tableaux presenting ‘where we are now’, and suggesting that it equates to ‘where we were before’ actually turns out to possess considerable dramatic power. A rethinking of some elements – even just that horrible rain – would strengthen an interesting production, which was apparently booed by the usual suspects on opening night. Alas, a far more desperate need would remain for a different conductor and cast – but that can and should be arranged.

 

Siegfried, Royal Opera, 7 October 2012

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Mime – Gerhard Siegel

Siegfried – Stefan Vinke
The Wanderer – Bryn Terfel
Alberich – Wolfgang Koch
Fafner – Eric Halfvarson

The Woodbird – Sophie Bevan

Erda – Maria Radner
Brünnhilde – Susan Bullock 

Keith Warner (director)

Walter Sutcliffe (associate director, first assistant director)

Stefanos Lazaridis, Matthew Deely (set designs)

Marie-Jeanne Lecca (costumes)
Wolfgang Göbbel (lighting)
Mic Pool, Dick Straker (video designs)
Claire Gaskin, Michael Barry (movement) 

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Sir Antonio Pappano (conductor)

 

It has been something of a disappointment not to have been able to attend the Royal Opera’s present revival of Wagner’s Ring in its entirety. (Incidentally, would journalists, publicists, et al., kindly take note that this ` is not, repeat not, called The Ring Cycle. By all means refer to The Ring, the Ring, The Ring of the Nibelung, Der Ring, Der Ring des Nibelungen, the Ring cycle, etc., etc., but never The Ring Cycle. That admonition counts for more, should you belong to the organisation claiming to perform a non-existent work.) I have seen it before, most recently in 2007 (see here, here, here, and here.) Nevertheless, I am immensely grateful to the reader who, unable to attend, most generously offered me his ticket for Siegfried. Moreover, I have today managed both to secure a return for Götterdämmerung and to take a Rheingold standing ticket off the hands of someone who can no longer go, so who knows? Dropping in at this stage is a different experience from experiencing Siegfried in its proper place, so what I say should be read hedged with necessary qualifications.

 

Keith Warner’s production underwent a degree of de-cluttering before the first complete cycles in 2007. My memory is too hazy to be able to say with any degree of certainty how different, if at all, the staging is this time around. What I can say is that I liked it better. The ‘educating Siegfried’ action during the first Act Prelude is apposite to the story; if it is not what one hears from the orchestra at that time, then one could equally well argue that one does not have to have, say, Fafner scenically represented, since one can hear him anyway. Last time, I wondered about the aeroplane; this time, I ceased to do so and simply thought it an arresting image. Direction of the singers was a great strength for much of the evening, a particular highlight for me the Beckettian exchanges between Alberich and the Wanderer (even though the latter proved somewhat lacking vocally, of which more below.) The forest scenes have magic to them, the green grass a crucial hint of Nature apparently unsullied – though the animals on trolleys remain a bit of a problem, technically as well as visually. I recall the dragon being more outlandish, but that may be a trick of the memory; at any rate, the visual representation worked, its red eyes fixing themselves in the more recent memory. If I cannot help suspecting that the contrasting minimalism of the third act might suggest budget restrictions rather than an æsthetic decision, it is only really the final scene that seems a cop out: no fire, too much happening behind a screen, and, perhaps most surprisingly, less than convincing Personenregie or at least execution thereof.  Use of a little video seems pointless.

 

Sir Antonio Pappano has grown as a Wagner conductor. The first times these dramas were staged, individually, the results from the pit were well-nigh catastrophic. In 2007, we had progressed to competence, if hardly greatness; the same could be said of 2012. The dreadful stopping and starting that had so disfigured Pappano’s initial efforts  seems to have been properly sorted out. If the orchestra in this particular drama seemed less a dramatic participant – Wagner’s Greek Chorus – than it had in 2007, at least the first two acts flowed nicely enough. Pappano seemingly remains content, however, to assume the role of ‘accompanist’. Sadly the first scene of the third act – the peripeteia of the Ring as a whole – was underwhelming, with little sense of anything, let alone something truly world-shattering, at stake. Much of the rest of that act dragged too. Pappano’s performance was not bad, but one hopes for a little more than that.

 

There was much better news when it came to Siegfried himself. (How surprised I am ever to find myself writing that!) Stefan Vinke fully justified the high hopes I had from having heard him as Lohengrin and Parsifal in Leipzig, sounding quite rejuvenated after a couple of recent lacklustre London performances in concert. Just about anybody would be preferable to  John Treleaven in 2007, yet Vinke was better than merely preferable; his was probably the most impressive Siegfried I have heard in the flesh as opposed to on record. There was no sign of flagging, despite the cruel demands Wagner places upon his tenor. Words were clear and meaningful; phrases were well turned. And this was a credible dramatic portrayal too, Warner’s belief, however misguided, that acting should trump singing, at least paying dividends in the results achieved here on stage. This Siegfried was more human than one generally finds; too often, one ends up wishing that Mime would succeed in his plot. In the present instance, however, one felt sympathy for the boy’s plight, without doubting his ‘natural’, unconscious strength and the problems that might entail.

 

Gerhard Siegel proved an excellent foil to Vinke’s Siegfried. Siegel can certainly do the wheedling, but he never resorts to mere caricature. (Wagner was adamant that Mime should be nothing of the sort.) This Mime was possessed of a fine, often powerful, voice, and all the more credible for it. Wolfgang Koch’s Alberich was dark, disillusioned, equally attentive to words and music. Alas Bryn Terfel’s Wanderer was disappointing. His intonation was dubious, to say the least, upon his first act entrance, and though that problem cleared itself up after a while, Terfel signally failed to impart due gravitas to the role. Strange, attention-seeking mannerisms – for instance, a very peculiar ‘effect’ upon the singing of the word ‘Wurm’ during the second act – irritated, More serious was the apparent lack of dramatic, philosophical underpinning to the words enunciated with careful – too careful? – clarity. One does not have to have read Feuerbach and Schopenhauer to sing Wotan, but one needs to seem as though one might at least consider doing so. During the pivotal scene with Erda, this Wanderer seemed more a bit of a madman than someone preparing to renounce the Will. Sir John Tomlinson’s extraordinary, Lear-like portrayal of 2007 was preferable in every respect.

 

Sophie Bevan presented a keenly-voiced Woodbird, but the other two women were less impressive. Susan Bullock gave the impression that her voice was simply not ample enough for Brünnhilde and that she was therefore having to try too hard. The result was too often a mixture of the timid and the tremulant, and the acting was not much better. Maria Radner’s Erda similarly lacked presence, whether vocally or in stage terms; she seemed miscast.

 

A gripe concerning practicalities: I am all for having decent length intervals, so that if one wishes to have a drink, one does not have to return to the theatre immediately after having fought one’s way to the front of the queue, but an hour and a quarter between the second and third acts, for a performance beginning at 3 p.m.? Had it been a ‘supper interval’, however irksome, it would have been understandable, but I cannot imagine many would have wished to dine at a quarter past six. All that was achieved was to spin out the running time to an entirely unnecessary six hours and ten minutes.