Benvenuto Cellini, English National Opera, 5 June 2014

Coliseum

(sung in English)

Benvenuto Cellini – Michael Spyres

Giacomo Balducci – Pavlo Hunka
Teresa – Corinne Winters
Fieramosca – Nicholas Pallesen
Pope Clement VII – Sir Willard White
Ascanio – Paula Murrihy
Francesco – Nicky Spence
Bernardino – David Soar
Pompeo – Morgan Pearse
Innkeeper – Anton Rich

Terry Gilliam (director, set designs)

Leah Hausmann (co-director, movement)
Aaron Marsden (set designs)
Katrina Lindsay (costumes)
Finn Ross (video)

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: Nicholas Jenkins)

Orchestra of the English National Opera
Edward Gardner (conductor)

 

First, a sigh of relief: in almost every respect, this new ENO staging of Benvenuto Cellini marks a significant improvement upon Terry Gilliam’s ‘Springtime for Hitler’ Damnation of Faust. If that sounds like faint praise, for beating a ‘Holocaust as entertainment’ travesty is perhaps setting the bar unreasonably low, then such is not entirely the intention. Gilliam’s Cellini has its virtues, though for me they are considerably fewer than they seemed to be for the audience at large. It is far from unreasonable to depict anarchy and ribaldry in the Carnival, and indeed during the ‘carnival’ overture – though Gilliam’s reported remark that ten minutes of music are ‘too long for the audience to sit through waiting for the show to begin’ are unworthy of anyone working in opera. There is nothing wrong in principle with ‘staging’ an overture, but the reason should be better than that; if the results are a little over the top, they are certainly superior to the justification.

 

And yet… here and in the Carnival itself we also experience the main problem: Gilliam’s seeming inability to trust Berlioz’s opera, an infinitely more successful work than ignorant ‘criticism’ will suggest. Yes, there is excess, even at times an excess of excess, in Berlioz’s work, but what I suspect Gilliam’s fans will applaud as ‘wackiness’, be it the director’s or the composer’s, is far from the only or indeed the most important facet of the opera. Despite the handsome, splendidly adaptable Piranesi-inspired designs, the plentiful coups de théâtre, the impressive collaboration of set design and video for the forging, etc., etc., what matters most of all – Berlioz’s score and, more broadly, his musical drama – often seems forgotten. Perhaps that also explains the unaccountable cuts, which serve to exacerbate alleged ‘weaknesses’ – many of which turn out to be deviations from the operatic norm – instead of mitigating them.

 

Matters improve considerably after the interval, and there is a genuine sense of dark, nocturnal desperation to the foundry and surroundings at dawn on Ash Wednesday (though there was, admittedly, little sense of the significance or even the coming of that day of mortification). Much of the first act, by contrast, is overbearing and in serious need of clarification. Yes, by all means harness spectacle as a tool of drama, but too often it runs riot in an unhelpful sense; it also encourages a large section of the audience to guffaw, applaud, chatter, make other, apparently unclassifiable, noises, often to the extent that one cannot hear the music. I could not help but think that a smaller budget would have removed a good number of excessive temptations and resulted in something less perilously close to a West End musical. There are the germs, and sometimes rather more than that, of something much better here, but those ‘editing’ Berlioz perhaps themselves stand in need of an editor. The updating to what would appear to be more or less the time of composition, perhaps a little later, does no harm; indeed, it proves generally convincing.

 

Edward Gardner’s conducting of the first act was disappointing, the Overture, insofar as it could be heard, setting out the conductor’s stall unfortunately: excessive drive followed by excessive relaxation. Wild contrasts are part of what Berlioz’s music demands, of course, but there still needs to be something that connects. Throughout, there were many occasions once again to mourn the loss of Sir Colin Davis, whose 2007 LSO concert performance of this work was simply outstanding. The orchestra proved impressively responsive, though, and, once both Gardner and Gilliam had somewhat calmed down, truly came into its own, sounding as the fine ensemble that it undoubtedly is. Gardner is rarely a conductor to probe beneath the surface, but as musical execution, there was a good deal to savour following the (protracted) interval. Choral singing – and blocking – were more or less beyond reproach, a credit to chorus master Nicholas Jenkins and Gilliam’s team alike, as well of course as to the singers themselves.

 

Michael Spyres performed impressively in the sadistically difficult title role, there being but a single example, quickly enough corrected, of coming vocally unstuck. His stage swagger seemed true to Gilliam’s conception, and his vocal style – insofar as one can tell, in English translation – was keenly attuned to that of Berlioz. A few ‘veiled’ moments notwithstanding, especially later on in the first act, Corinne Winters impressed equally as Teresa. ‘Entre l’amour et le devoir’ could hardly have been more cleanly sung in the most exacting of aural imaginations. Nicholas Pallesen revealed himself to be a thoughtful and at times impassioned baritone as Fieramosca, though Pavlo Hunka’s Balducci sounded thin and generally out of sorts. Despite Willard White’s undeniable stage presence, his appearance as the Pope did little to dispel suspicions that, sadly, his voice is now increasingly fallible. Paula Murrihy, however, proved an excellent Ascanio: characterful and attractive of tone in equal measure. There were few grounds for complaint from the ‘smaller’ roles either.

 

ENO’s description of this opéra semi-seria as a ‘romantic comedy’ is puzzling. It is, to be fair fair to Gilliam and all those involved, a description that stands at some distance from their vision too. An opéra comique was originally Berlioz’s conception, but that is a matter of form rather than of sentimentality. We should doubtless be grateful that we were spared a ‘heart-warming’ Richard Curtis version. Nor does it help, of course, that we are subjected to an English translation, which inevitably sounds ‘wrong’ for Berlioz, especially when so apparently deaf to musical line and cadence as this present version. If only ENO would reconsider its stance on a once vexed question, now resolved by the use of surtitles, it could truly transform its fortunes.

 

La Damnation de Faust: Encore

Those who were interested in my Damnation de Faust review might also be interested in reading a response to its Seen and Heard version (essentially the same, minus a few pictures) from Shahla Tarrant, plus my resply to her. It seems that Shahla Tarrant is a regular collaborator with Terry Gilliam; she is also listed amongst the actors in this production, so can justly claim a different perspective upon it. Click here to read what she had to say.

Other interesting pieces on the production may be found as follows:

Classical Iconoclast, with a fuller piece at Opera Today
Jessica Duchen
Simon Thomas (originally here and, in a more general piece, which refers to my review, here)

La Damnation de Faust, English National Opera, 6 May 2011

The Coliseum

(sung in English, as The Damnation of Faust)

All images: Tristram Kenton
As usual, click images to enlarge.

Faust – Peter Hoare
Marguerite – Christine Rice
Mephistopheles – Christopher Purves
Brander – Nicholas Folwell
Soprano solo – Ella Kirkpatrick

Terry Gilliam (director)
Hildegard Bechtler (set designs)
Katrina Lindsay (costumes)
Peter Mumford (lighting)
Leah Hausman (associate director)
Finn Ross (video)

This was, I am afraid, a self-congratulatory car-crash, from beginning to end. Alarm bells rang when opening the programme to reveal images from the Third Reich. Still louder did they ring when perusing an interview between director Terry Gilliam and Edward Seckerson, in which the former’s grasp of German history was revealed to be at best shaky. Take this passage on the origins of the First World War: ‘The Prussians’ mentality overwhelmed the Romantic side, except the Romantic side was always there in the people.’ The most telling sentence, however was the following: ‘I could have approached The Damnation of Faust by reading a great deal about Berlioz but I avoided that.’ Why bother with Berlioz when one can have Gilliam instead?

So far, so bad, but good things can sometimes come from conceptions that do not necessarily deserve them. Not in this case, alas, for what we have is a (car-)crash course in German history according to Gilliam. Having Faust consider Nature and her renewal in a Caspar David Friedrich landscape (Hildegard Bechtler’s designs were throughout impeccable, when judged on their own merits) is not a bad idea at all, worryingly hackneyed though some of those wondrous Friedrich images have become. (I fear a favourite painter may be going the same way as Klimt or Monet: perhaps it is time for a break.) But all that happens thereafter is a series of irrelevant settings that initially speed through history chronologically – the Marche hongroise a dance for Archduke Franz Ferdinand and moustachioed military men from other nations! – before seemingly becoming stuck in the Third Reich. At the initial rate of change, I wondered whether all might culminate in a panegyric to the euro or Angela Merkel’s apotheosis as vision of the Goethian ‘eternal-feminine’. But no, Gilliam clearly always wanted to be in the Third Reich, and doggedly remains there.

It might have worked, but there is barely even an attempt to make the Nazi ‘entertainment’ – and that, I am afraid is very much how it comes across – connect with the work allegedly being staged. In a brief prologue, Mephistopheles informs us that ‘my struggle can be translated as mein Kampf’. You don’t say? If that is as Faustian as one can render the Third Reich, one might as well give up immediately. Incomprehensibly, large sections of the audience dissolved into hysterical laughter: is translation of a simple phrase really that hilarious? Presumably these were the same people who awarded the director an ecstatic ovation at the end: fans of Terry Gilliam, it would seem, rather than people who might have an interest in La damnation de Faust. Auerbachs Keller sports a poster of Lenin, torn down by brown shirts (of whom Brander is one). The flea song is for some reason treated as anti-Semitic propaganda. (Perhaps, again, it might have been made to work, but it is difficult to discern any attempt.) Berchtesgaden appears and later re-appears. For some reason, out-of-date (even for 1930s Bayreuth) images of Siegfried and Brünnhilde are enacted at a cocktail party; Faust beds down with Brünnhilde. According to Gilliam, ‘I knew I had to have Wagner in the production somewhere: so in the narrative we go to Berchtesgaden.’ Further comment seems superfluous; in any case we have swiftly moved on to a racist depiction of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, in which the athletes sport blond (Aryan, you see) wigs. 'Marguerite Oppenheimer' is Jewish, for no apparent reason; her menorah-lit night with Faust takes place against the backdrop of Kristallnacht. Again, Bechtler’s sets are powerful indeed: if only they could have been used for another production, preferably of another work. Jews are deported, Marguerite amongst them. Video trickery that draws attention to itself – however finely accomplished – whisks Faust and Mephistopheles off to a final scene of scarlet kitsch. (That may be partly Goethe's fault: how tiresome Gretchen is, and how relieved one is by her absence from Busoni's Doktor Faust! Nevertheless, the idea that redemption is somehow present in a Holocaust setting is problematical, to say the least.)

I am in no sense opposed to operatic, or other, productions that deal with the period in question, though I should have thought that there were more obvious candidates amongst works than La damnation de Faust. Stefan Herheim’s Parsifal stands, in my experience, in a class of its own, but I was also greatly enlightened by the Cologne Opera’s Capriccio, a powerful production that engaged with the work and its creation (click here to read some related thoughts upon Strauss, with interesting discussion in the comments below). This, however, does no such thing. It veers dangerously close to Springtime for Hitler, albeit without the jokes (or at least the genuine comedy). One could do the same thing with equal justice, or injustice, with or to pretty much any other work, since there is no discernible attempt to engage with Berlioz; it might as well be a Third Reich Barber of Seville. It simply came across as an unholy marriage between a desire to put some Nazi costumes on stage and a racial slur against the Germans, without even a degree of thought having been put into the latter. When Friedrich Meinecke spoke of the ‘German catastrophe’, I do not think it was this sort of catastrophe that he had in mind.

I have said nothing yet about the music, which, sad to say, reflects the apparent priorities of the evening. Berlioz’s score was apparently reduced to the status of a film track to an entirely different drama, such as it was. It was not helped by often lacklustre conducting by Edward Gardner. Gardner’s initially downright insipid reading seemed relatively invigorated after the interval, but Berlioz’s extraordinary nervous energy often went for nothing, sounding closer to Massenet than Berlioz as we have come to know him from a conductor such as Sir Colin Davis. The ENO Orchestra was, however, on very good form, when considered apart from its direction, likewise the choral forces amassed. Christopher Purves’s Mephistopheles stood out amongst the singers. Purves exhibited strong stage presence and, with the odd exception, equally fine vocal presence. Peter Hoare seemed to be trying his best as Faust, but was hamstrung both by his too-youthful-mad-scientist look, and by miscasting. He often struggled, especially at the upper reaches of the range; memories of Nicolai Gedda did not help. Christine Rice proved a solid enough Marguerite, though she could not conceal what was lost by translation into English. (If it must be done, it might as well be done by a Berlioz scholar such as Hugh Macdonald, though I was surprised at the number of forced rhymes: ‘tender’, ‘surrender’, and ‘splendour’, for instance.)

Whether Berlioz’s légende dramatique was a wise choice to stage at all might have seemed more of a question with a more convincing staging. There are, after all, three operas by the composer, but ENO is not alone in its curious desire to stage works that were never intended to be staged. ENO’s own recent Messiah springs to mind. Sometimes that can work; here, alas, Berlioz was never given a chance. I cannot imagine anyone encountering his music for the first time having been encouraged to explore its riches further. There is no harm in principle in staging La damnation de Faust; it has been done many times before, and I should have loved to see, for instance, what La Fura del Baus did with it in Salzburg. (There is a DVD, though I have not seen it.) Next time, however, let it be Sir Colin, the LSO, and the bare walls of the Barbican.