The Monstrous Child, Royal Opera, 21 February 2019 (world premiere)

Linbury Theatre

Hel (Marta Fontanals-Simmons)
Images: Stephen Cummiskey/ROH 2019

Hel – Marta Fontanals-Simmons

Angrboda – Rosie Aldridge

Loki – Tom Randle

Modgud – Lucy Schaufer

Baldr – Dan Shelvey

Odin – Graeme Broadbent

Nanna, Thora – Elizabeth Karani

Actors and Puppeteers – Laura Caldow, Stuart Angell

Timothy Sheader (director)

Paul Wills (designs)

Howard Hudson (lighting)

Ian William Galloway (video)

Josie Daxter (movement)

Sound Intermedia (sound design)

Aurora Orchestra

Jessica Cottis (conductor)

The Royal Opera House’s choice of work for the first new production in the splendidly redesigned Linbury Theatre – not unreasonably, it seems to have lost ‘Studio’ from its name – is, perhaps, a declaration of intent; it may certainly be received as such. Not only is it a new work; it is billed specifically as ‘our first opera for teenage audiences’. Following somewhat in the line of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Coraline – last year’s premiere for children – Gavin Higgins’s The Wondrous Child, to another libretto by a children’s author, this time Francesca Simons, seems to me to have a good chance of prospering not only in that specific role, but also more generally. It is certainly a successful first opera – from the Linbury, from Higgins, from Simons, and indeed from the production team and performers, without which any single effort would likely come to naught. Opera, we were reminded, is above all a company effort – which should, of course, include the audience too. Let us hope, then, that plenty of teenagers were among those who were able to secure tickets before the run sold out; and/or that further tickets will be released, as often happens in practice.

Baldr (Dan Shelvey)

Many – though perhaps not so many of us on the first night – will doubtless come to the opera through Simons’s book ‘of the same name’, as Peter Cook and Dudley Moore might have had it. Not that there is anything of ‘Little Miss Britten’ here; for not only is the plot drawn from Norse mythology, from the myth of Hel, goddess of the dead; the libretto is distinctly on the Anglo-Saxon and perhaps even the Norse roots of the English language. Had his English been better, Wagner might have lauded the lack of Latinism. The immediacy, not to mention the ‘earthiness’ of some of the vocabulary make particular sense in a primaeval realm – and will surely appeal to teenagers of all ages in the audience too. To a certain extent, staging and score work with that, performances perhaps still more so; they also recall (to us), however, consciously or otherwise, that we are no more Anglo-Saxons than we are Norse gods. The false immediacy of which Wagner could occasionally – very occasionally – prove guilty in theoretical, though never dramatic, writing stands always in need of puncturing in our modern condition. That is not a value judgement, simply an observation.

Simons knows that as well as Higgins, as well as by director, Timothy Sheader and his team. And so, we are reminded by the puppetry in the first half of the staging, actors and singers lightly detached – this is not The Mask of Orpheus, nor does it try to be! – from their characters in some cases, as well as by Hel’s narration of that first part, the later character recounting the deeds of the child-puppet her, that even in – particularly in – a drama dealing with (supposedly) eternal gods, time plays a mediating role. Again, Wagner of all musical dramatists could have told us that – and does. Higgins offers much in the way of readily associative and memorable leitmotifs in his score, as well as plenty of ‘atmosphere’ and ‘action’, after a fashion that would surely make sense to teenagers – and others – accustomed to the ways of film scores, without ever sounding ‘like’ film music. Video and electronic sound help us shift between locations, for instance from the gods realm in the skies to the place of Hel’s banishment, from which she will bring about the end of the gods’ rule.

Angrboda (Rosie Aldridge)

Leaving aside the (understandable) exaggeration about what opera ‘is’, for it can be any number of things, one knows what Simons means when she writes in the programme: ‘It took me a while to understand how different writing a libretto is to writing a novel. Opera is much more direct: people say what they think – repeatedly. Opera is so heightened, it really is the perfect way to express the emotion and epic sweep of myths about gods and giants, love and hate, as well as a young girl’s journey towards creating her own life.’ To my mind – and increasingly on reflection – Simons and Higgins achieve this with great success here. Pacing is different too; the analogy Simons draws with a picture book – ‘the words need to allow space for the illustrations’ – is interesting. Again, one senses a true collaboration: between librettist and composer, of course, but also with the production team and performers.

Marta Fontanals-Simmons gave a fine performance as Hel: half human, half corpse. Never sentimental – she does not want mere pity – she involved us in her plight, her hopes, her decision through sheer force and variety of vocal personality. Rosie Aldridge and Tom Randle impressed and (not a little) repelled as her parents: those who cursed her and ultimately the world by bringing her into it. Lucy Schaufer proved typically compassionate as the giantess Modgud, keeper of the bridge to Niflheim and the dead. Odin, king of the gods, received a sharply observed performance from Graeme Broadbent, taking us plausibly from hauteur to downfall. Dan Shelvey’s Baldr, as carefree and compassionate in tone as the lovelorn Hel thought him, offered a performance both delightful and moving. The Aurora Orchestra and Jessica Cottis could hardly have offered surer advocacy in the pit.

Die Fledermaus, English National Opera, 30 September 2013

Coliseum

(sung in English)

Gabriel von Eisenstein – Tom Randle

Rosalinde – Julia Sporsén
Frank – Andrew Shore
Prince Orlofsky – Jennifer Holloway
Alfred – Edgaras Montvidas
Dr Falke – Richard Burkhard
Dr Blind – Simon Butteriss
Adele – Rhian Lois
Ida – Lydia Marchione
Frosch – Jan Pohl

Christopher Alden (director)

Allen Moyer (set designs)
Constance Hoffman (costumes)
Paul Palazzo (lighting)

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: Martin Fitzpatrick)

Orchestra of the English National Opera

Eun Sun Kim (conductor)

 

 

Champagne is constantly evoked in the libretto of Die Fledermaus, an all-too-ready explanation for the events that have taken place or are to follow. As Prince Orlofsky sings, ‘Champagner, König aller Weine! Hoch die sprudelnde Majestät und ihre Untertanen!’ or, as Frank ruefully comments, ‘Der verdammte Champagner!’ We could have done with a few more bubbles here, especially following the interval.

 

The ultimate question, then, is: what is it that falls a little flat? It is not always easy to put one’s finger on it; by the same token, there are a good few things to admire, so it is perhaps better to put off that question a little longer. As implied above, the first act is on the whole rather fun and indeed much of the rest of the production makes one think. (That is a red rag to the bull of a certain self-satisfied variety of opera-goer, let alone operetta-goer, but who cares?) Christopher Alden’s staging quite rightly does not take the easy road; if one is going to plead the cause for the defence, especially in a case such as this, then one needs to dig beneath the surface. The Overture presents both the gigantic version of Eisenstein’s pocket watch, which will haunt the staging throughout, and figures of bats themselves, before we see the bat. (Incidentally, should ENO not call the operetta, The Bat, rather than employing a German title?) As the performance progresses, we realise that the surrealistic occurrences may not be just that; Rosalinde’s marital bed, one of many handsome designs by Allen Moyer, conjures up fantasies that prefigure Freud, but they are the stuff of the drama itself, not something superimposed. Indeed, the blurring of boundaries between what is ‘dreamed’ and what is ‘real’ is one of the strongest features of Alden’s production. It takes us forward so that, in his words, ‘the ponderous nineteenth-century Victorian bedroom of Act I cracks open to let the fresh air of Act II’s 1920s-ish celebration of loosening up, freedom, and creativity.’  Except, and I suspect this may be where I part company from many others, the problem is not that the production goes too far; I am not sure that it goes far enough. One does not really feel what Alden describes. If there were an ‘orgy’, as I had heard it described prior to the performance, then somehow my friend and I managed to miss it. A little more abandon would not have gone amiss. ‘The reactionary crackdown on subversive degeneracy in Act III’s prison’ likewise does not really come off. Indeed, it seems tacked on, the Nazi thuggishness of Frosch an all-too-easy card to play, a card which, moreover, seems uncertain as to whether it be intended parodically. The alarming overacting of Jan Pohl in the role would seem out of place on just about any stage, or indeed in a 1970s situation comedy; but here, when more subtle expectations have originally been set up, it seems all the more striking a misjudgement, presumably on Alden’s part.

 

I confess to initial scepticism about the idea of Johann Strauss in English, but if translation must be done, then Daniel Dooner and Stephen Lawless did a fine job indeed, a striking contrast with the previous ENO effort for Fidelio (David Pountney). Whilst all was going well, there was genuine wit to be savoured – and the later problems certainly did not lie with this accomplished translation. Eun Sun Kim’s conducting of the score proved varied. It began in mercilessly hard-driven fashion, but calmed down, and if sometimes it felt more observed than felt from within, there were passages in which the rhythmic lilt was winningly conveyed. For that, of course, the orchestra itself deserves credit too. Yet one could never quite kid oneself that this was the ‘real thing’, a slippery concept, and in repertoire such as this, dangerously amenable to all manner of unpleasant, völkisch interpretations. Perhaps, however, and this goes for the contribution of the cast as well, performances will sound more at ease with themselves as the run continues.

 

There was much to enjoy from the cast, Tom Randle predictably subtle, no mere caricature, as Eisenstein, and Julia Sporsén an attractively-voiced Rosalinde. Andrew Shore displayed considerable comic as well as musical gifts as Frank. Jennifer Holloway offered vocal depth as Orlofsky, though many of her words were quite incomprehensible, partly no doubt a result of the thick, allegedly ‘Russian’ accent she was obliged to adopt. I continue to find the idea that ‘regional’ or ‘foreign’ accents are intrinsically hilarious at best questionable, but it seems to have become a staple of such events, doubtless as a substitute for genuine comedy. Likewise, if Edgaras Montvidas’s Alfred and Rhian Lois’s Adele tilted too much towards such caricature – probably not their fault at all, certainly jarring with the more interesting aspects of this conflicted production – they offered considerable vocal rewards, as did Lydia Marchione as Ida. Richard Burkhard’s Falke had some problematic moments vocally; Simon Butteriss offered a Dr Blind as camp as (presumably) requested by the director. Choral singing was generally of a high standard. It was, though, that elusive sense of ‘company’ that was perhaps most lacking. Again, that may rectify itself in subsequent performances.

 

I wonder, though, whether the principal problem lies with the work itself. Of course, one does not expect it to be Parsifal or Saint François d’Assise; even so, it remains rather thin stuff: better than Lehár, no doubt, though otherwise, Offenbach’s wit, style, and satire seem preferable in just about every respect, and perhaps transfer better to a modern, international house. Granted, this is a very difficult genre to get ‘right’; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf claimed to find it trickier than opera. Is it really worth the trouble, though? Perhaps it is better off left to the ‘traditional’ likes of the Volksoper, though Alden et al. certainly merit thanks for trying something more provocative. Given ENO’s puzzling neglect of Richard Strauss – surely a work such as Intermezzo ought to be right up its street – it would probably be better advised to transfer its allegiance to him for the next few Strauss outings. Once a decade or two seems about right for Johann.

Wozzeck, English National Opera, 11 May 2013

The Coliseum

(sung in English)

Wozzeck – Leigh Melrose
Marie – Sara Jakubiak
Captain – Tom Randle
Doctor – James Morris
Drum Major – Bryan Register
Andres – Adrian Dwyer
Margret – Claire Presland
First Apprentice – Andrew Greenan
Second Apprentice – James Cleverton
Madman – Peter van Hulle
Marie’s Child – Harry Polden

Carrie Cracknell (director)
Ann Yee (choreography)
Tom Scutt (set designs)
Oliver Townsend, Naomi Wilkinson (costumes)
Jon Clarke (lighting)

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: Martin Handley)
Orchestra of the English National Opera
Edward Gardner (conductor)

 

If a production, and I include musical as well as staging elements here, has one more strongly confirmed in one’s judgement that Wozzeck is not only the greatest opera of the twentieth century but one of the greatest from any century, then it has accomplished its principal goal admirably. The first night of ENO’s new production unquestionably achieved that, reminding one yet again how paltry most operas, whenever they were written, seem when placed anywhere near Berg’s shattering drama. Tears certainly came to this reviewer’s eyes more than once during the third act, only to be superseded by a numb sense of utter horror at the child’s future prospects, or rather lack thereof, in the final scene as music and drama so chillingly came to their celebrated halt: no conclusion, simply the most abject desolation.

 

Carrie Cracknell’s contemporary – to us – production may not encompass everything suggested by Berg’s work, but most sensible people would agree that a single interpretation need not; it is perfectly possible to concentrate upon certain ideas, and to leave others for another time. There may be losses entailed in that course of action – for me, the Doctor’s experiments sat somewhat oddly, some might even say nonsensically, with the rest of the action – but there will be gains too. We are in a barracks town, suffering from disorder both social and, in Wozzeck’s own case, post-traumatic. The wretched vision – is it only his? Or is it real? – of a coffin draped in the Union flag, its pallbearers, and a soldier in action hammers home the point (some might say a little too heavily, but I was won over). The squalor of Marie’s council flat tells its own tale, as does the centrality, somehow greater than one generally senses, of the tavern to this town’s horrible, hopeless life. Though not a barracks town, and Aldershot or somewhere might have been a better example, something about the portrayal suggested a certain, perhaps rather dated, view of a northern city such as Hull.

 

The odd thing about Wozzeck, set against such a backdrop, is that he seems less ill, more philosopher. There is of course an element of that in the opera in any case, but it is brought out more strongly here. Madness gives way to ‘Hamlet in Hull’, who eventually resolves, with a greater degree of calculation than one might expect, to kill Marie and then himself; we seem more to be in the realm of EastEnders perhaps, as Marie’s flat floods – there is no lake as such – and turns partly red. One also senses more strongly than usual that this is one level the story of a crime, explicable yes, but still a murder, one that led, of course, to a celebrated trial. (The city museum in Leipzig to this day has a fascinating section of its permanent exhibition on the original case as well as Büchner and Berg.) Violence hits home too, whether that of Wozzeck’s crime, that of the Drum-Major’s vile abuse of him, or that simply endemic to society both particular and general.  

 

Designs are properly ghastly, enhancing claustrophobia and the town’s desolate tackiness. The former quality hits home all the more strongly given the excellent decision to have all locations present on stage at once, sometimes used and/or lit, sometimes not; there is no escape from what becomes very much a community drama in the most negative sense.  There is perhaps a sense that this was conceived more as a piece of spoken theatre, or at least closer to that tradition than might in principle be ideal, but on those terms, it works very well, Richard Stokes’s exemplary translation contributing powerfully to the drama, without drawing undue attention to itself.

 

I was fascinated by Edward Gardner’s conducting of the score. Gardner’s method is certainly not what I have become accustomed to, nor what I am ultimately likely to favour, but the well-nigh neo-Classical bent imparted to Berg’s closed forms brought revelations of its own. Rarely if ever can the inner workings, the ‘constructed’ quality, of Berg’s score have been lain so bare. The ENO Orchestra, a very few, quite forgivable, slips aside, followed his direction admirably indeed. There was certainly hyper-Romantic, expressionistic loss, especially earlier on, yet the final Interlude retained most of its horrifying impact; at last, it seemed, there was opportunity properly to cut loose. As an additional standpoint, quite distinct from those offered by great interpreters such as Abbado, Boulez, Böhm, and Barenboim, this musical narrative of mechanisation briefly wrenched into human subjectivity, if only in death, had me thinking in various ways not only about the score but about the drama as a whole.

 

Leigh Melrose made a wonderfully human hero, as starkly opposed to such mechanisation as to the barbarity of his social conditions. The aforementioned ‘Hamlet’ quality of philosophising and indecision was at least as much his accomplishment as the production’s, not quite so ‘intellectual’ as Fischer-Dieskau’s controversial portrayal, but complex in a different and not entirely unrelated fashon. Marie is a very difficult role to bring off convincingly; ideally, one needs to be Waltraud Meier, but what to do if one is not? Too much of the whore and not enough of the angel, or the other way around? Sara Jakubiak managed the tricky balance very well, soaring moments of radiance pitted against the grime of quotidian existence. Tom Randle was, as usual, excellent beyond the call of duty as the Captain, he and James Morris as the Doctor offering exemplary clarity of line and diction, as well as fully inhabiting their flawed characters. (We should, of course, remember that their flaws are in large part also to be attributed to the viciousness of society; Wozzeck and Marie are not the only victims.) Bryan Register’s thuggish Drum Major horrified in the best sense, whilst Adrian Dwyer and Clare Presland offered finely-etched portrayals of the ‘other’, surviving couple, Andres (perhaps his wheelchair proved a cliché too far?) and Margret. Presland’s crazed, dramatically truthful moment in the tavern limelight proved a powerful moment in its own right, presaging Wozzeck’s deeds yet also offering an alternative. Peter van Hulle offered another example of truth in madness, the hallowed tradition of the Fool cast in new light. Harry Polden – how one felt for him, cowed under Marie’s kitchen table as she entertained the Drum Major in her off-stage bedroom! – and the other children had us shiver, shudder, turn in righteous anger against the wickedness of a society, our society, which we know will perpetrate the same horrors upon them. Who cares? Certainly not our political class; yet do we? Truly? Wir arme Leut’...   

Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, English National Opera, 24 March 2011

Young Vic Theatre

(sung in English, as The Return of Ulysses)

Penelope (Pamela Helen Stephen)
Images: Johan Persson

L’Humana Fragilità, Pisandro – Iestyn Morris
Il Tempo, Antinoo – Francisco Javier Borda
La Fortuna, Minerva – Ruby Hughes
Amore, Melanto – Katherine Manley
Penelope – Pamela Helen Stephen
Ericlea – Diana Montague
Eurimaco – Thomas Walker
Ulisse – Tom Randle
Minerva – Ruby Hughes
Eumete – Nigel Robson
Iro – Brian Galliford
Telemaco – Thomas Hobbs



Benedict Andrews (director)
Börkur Jónsson (set designs)
Alice Babidge (costumes)
Jon Clark (lighting)
Sean Bacon (video)

Members of the Orchestra of the English National Opera
Jonathan Cohen (conductor)

Minerva (Ruby Hughes) and Ulisse (Tom Randle)

ENO has hit form again, offering my best operatic experience since Elektra last summer in Salzburg. And with Monteverdi: I should hardly have expected it, not least since my prejudices lie very much against contemporary performance practice and translation of his libretti from Italian. The intimate, verging upon claustrophobic, space of the Young Vic was doubtless crucial: a proper rather than merely fashionable experience of theatre ‘in the round’, which could never have worked in the Coliseum.

Though in a literal sense it would be quite true to say that I had travelled over the course of two evenings from musical drama of the present day (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s new opera, Kommilitonen!) towards the early days of opera, the statement might be found misleading, for this was a thoroughly modern Monteverdi we encountered. Kommilitonen! proved enjoyable but also a little dated. Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, as one of the two surviving late operas by Monteverdi, already stands quite distinct from his first, L’Orfeo, let alone from slightly earlier works by other composers. The dramatic orbit of Ulisse and L’incoronazione di Poppea almost inevitably puts one in mind of Monteverdi’s contemporary, Shakespeare; both dramatists remain strikingly modern, not least when contrasted with many of their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century successors. Purcell notwithstanding, one must look to Gluck and then to Mozart to find a musical dramatist fully worthy of the honour of heir, if unwittingly so, to Monteverdi. Yet, if Poppea still shocks to the core, its devastating psychological realism placed in the service of a truly amoral, (quasi-)historical tale, its Homeric predecessor has struggled somewhat to escape its shadows. ENO’s decision to devote its now-annual excursion to the Young Vic to Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, or The Return of Ulysses (to his Homeland), was therefore welcome indeed – and must surely have convinced any doubters that this is a work fully worthy to be ranked with its more celebrated sibling. As ever, there remained the problem of translation into English, but this translation, Christopher Cowell’s, was much better than most of those recently foisted upon us: it respected Giacomo Bodoaro’s libretto after Homer, for which many thanks.

Three suitors (L-R: Iestyn Hughes, Samuel Boden, Francisco
Javier Borda), Penelope, and Minerva

The Prologue makes it quite clear that this is a contemporary drama. Human Frailty is abused, Abu Ghraib style, by Time, Fortune, and Cupid, the evidence gloatingly captured on camera. I was reminded of Barrie Kosky’s Iphigénie en Tauride for Berlin’s Komische Oper; perhaps the resemblance is not entirely coincidental, for director, Benedict Andrews, also Australian, divides his time between Sydney and Berlin, and works at the Schaubühne Theatre. During this abuse, we see Penelope’s parallel agonies on screen, Sean Bacon’s excellent video footage permitting us still-closer-up attention to detail, often but not always that of Penelope. As the Prologue comes to an end, Ithaca’s palace comes into our view – and will never leave it. A stylish, modern apartment (or hotel room?), encased by glass that is smeared by a series of depredations, it is Penelope’s prison: the ever-visible space for the ‘life’ of a ruler’s wife. Börkur Jónsson’s set designs are first-rate, drawing us in and yet repelling us at the same time. Maids fuss and conspire – whom can she trust? – whilst sharply-suited dressed political suitors roam. The tie pins give them away, though: we know that none would be able to string the bow of Ulysses. These cowards, brutal if ultimately ineffectual, pleasure themselves with no thought of Penelope as a woman. In what seemed to me a rare miscalculation, she appears to respond briefly to them physically as they offered their gifts. Perhaps her acts are intended as a trap, but they jar with her constancy and do not seem to lead anywhere.

Suitors, Ulisse, Iro (Brian Galliford), and Melanto
(Katherine Manley)

Some scenes are missing, of course: one cannot help wondering what the sea-music for nereids and sirens was like, likewise the ballet of the Moors. To augment the ravages of time, the director introduced large cuts, the remaining score running – according to the programme, though I did not check – for two-and-a-quarter hours, three acts compressed into two parts. Neptune, Jupiter, and Juno disappear completely. As so often, we seem uncomfortable allotting the gods their role. Minerva remains, though, adopting Penelope’s form and availing herself of the suitors, she perhaps seems more the trickster than Ulysses; is she a goddess at all? Apart from the musico-dramatic loss in itself, there are dramatic consequences, for we miss out on Neptune’s crucial emphasis upon ‘ritorno’ (‘return’). Andrews’s emphasis, however, seems quite different: this is less the story of Ulysses’s return, or rather still less than is often the case, and more Penelope’s tale. However, it works: there is no claim that this was a definitive Ulisse, but it was a powerful musico-dramatic experience.

Moreover, at the end, the balance shifts once again. Reminding us of the images of war that have permeated the drama throughout, not least on the apartment television screen (war in the Mediterranean? surely not…), we suffer Ulysses’s pain upon return: the lack of a role, the rejection, and of course, the bloody revenge he inflicts upon those who have defiled his home, captured on film, just like the initial abuse of the Prologue. After that, his extended shower scene attempts to cleanse, but the only hope, and it may prove vain, lies with Penelope; whatever the beauties of the final duet, the future is uncertain. Cuts may have reshaped the drama but ultimately they did not distort it.

Eurimaco (Thomas Walker), Iro, Penelope, and
Antinoo

Jonathan Cohen led members of the ENO Orchestra with great dramatic flair. I might hanker after Raymond Leppard, or, better still, Hans Werner Henze’s extraordinary Mediterranean realisation, but this was not hair-shirt Monteverdi, puritanism that would be quite at odds with his Renaissance/Early Baroque world - as a celebrated former Ulisse noted in an interview he gave me not so long ago. The musicians may have been relatively few in number, but a large band was not necessary in the Young Vic; again, the Coliseum would have been another matter. The continuo group was varied. Rebecca Miles’s recorder added variety to the one-to-a-part strings during certain ritornelli, whilst the introduction of Daniel Jamison’s bassoon brought just a hint of Henze’s earthy pagan reimagining.








Penelope and Ulisse (final scene)

If ever a role were made for Dame Janet Baker, it was that of Penelope, though it is hard to imagine Pamela Helen Stephen’s great predecessor in this particular production. It is to Stephen’s credit that she very much made the role her own; I only mention Baker since she would have been an inevitable reference point for many. What Stephen lacked in refulgence and sheer nobility of tone, she made up in dignity – and misery – of stage presence. We felt her pain in anything but the modern, debased, sentimental way. Tom Randle is such an intelligent musical actor that it would be easy to take him for granted, but one hardly could on this occasion. The complexities, some of them dark indeed, of Ulysses’s character were searingly portrayed, without the slightest hint of melodrama. Thomas Hobbs made an interesting Telemachus, vulnerable – including memories of the accursed Helen – and scarred by his experience, not least that of ‘rescue’ by Ruby Hughes’s ambiguous Minerva, another fine portrayal. Katherine Manley and Thomas Walker played dangerous, erotic – and utterly convincing – games as Penelope’s maid, Melanto, and her lover, Eurymachus; their lust, for power and for pretty much everything else, was an ongoing reminder of the real (godlike?) forces at play. My only regret concerning Diana Montague’s Ericlea was that she did not have more to sing: what a pleasure it was to hear Montague again, and to share in so faithful – in every sense – a performance. It was an equal pleasure to welcome back long-standing Monteverdian Nigel Robson, who provided a moving portrayal of the honest shepherd, Eumaeus. Brain Galliford’s childish, yet nevertheless sinister, parasite, Irus offered splendid contrast, though the strange scene of his demise, in which Monteverdi’s speech-rhythms seem (at least) to presage Mussorgsky and Janáček, offered pathos too. A ghastly trio of suitors completed the cast, Francisco Javier Borda, Iestyn Morris, and Samuel Boden, all throwing themselves wholeheartedly into Andrews’s – and Monteverdi’s – vision. I was especially taken by the finely shaped tenor of Boden and the icy clarity of Morris’s counter-tenor.

This, then, strikes me as essential theatre for anyone who can still acquire a ticket. Three cheers to all concerned!

Fidelio, Opera Holland Park, 5 July 2010

Leonore – Yvonne Howard
Florestan – Tom Randle
Rocco – Stephen Richardson
Marzelline – Sarah Redgwick
Jacquino – Nicky Spence
Don Pizarro – Phillip Joll
Don Fernando – Njabulo Madlala
First Prisoner – Peter Kent
Second Prisoner – Henry Grant Kerswell

Olivia Fuchs (director)
Jamie Vartan (designs)
Colin Grenfell (lighting)
Clare Whistler (choreography)

Opera Holland Park Chorus
City of London Sinfonia
Peter Robinson (conductor)

Olivia Fuchs’s production of Fidelio earned plaudits upon its first outing in 2003; though I did not see it then, it remains just as relevant and disturbing today. Guantánamo Bay references, brought out both in the stage direction and in Jamie Vartan’s excellent designs, need to be hammered home just as much as they did then. The United States may have a new administration and this country may have a new government, but the camp of infamy remains open for business and the war criminals who led us into Afghanistan and Iraq have never been tried. Even if some resolution had been reached, one would not need to look far to find equally urgent cases: Burma, Gaza, Tibet, let alone the domestic prisons of our own countries, cynically packed with unfortunate souls who have no reason to be there, solely in order to keep the likes of the Daily Mail happy – though when are such organs of poujadisme ever satisfied? This production’s revelation of the prisoners in their orange jumpsuits is shocking enough, but the way in which they are cowed, in need of the light yet almost unable to cope with it, is something to shame not only those who will never see it but those who have voted for or at least tacitly assented to such barbarism, even those of us who abhor it and yet have been unsuccessful in bringing it to an end.

It is, of course, tiresome to have to confront those who reckon Fidelio a failure; they so spectacularly miss the point that this is a work about freedom, and not in any sense that our political overlords would understand. Yet a production such as this might actually accomplish that confrontation for us. Fuchs’s reappraisal of Jacquino transforms a bit part into something truly horrifying: doubtless not an evil person, but a stupid one, brutalised by the situation, who engages in relatively ‘low-level’ abuse, or so the politicians would see it, of the prisoners. In another setting, he would doubtless be chanting ‘harmless’ nationalist slogans at a soccer match. And why should we trust the minister, who arrives with sinister bodyguards in shades? Likewise, the ‘media’, desperate to be let in to snap the first photographs? This souring of the final victory may not have been what Beethoven intended, but it works, and there is no harm in undercutting the music just a little, when it is done so well. It need not be done so every time, but is a valid option when confronted with an age of barbarism beyond anything the composer could have imagined.

Unfortunately, this proved to be very much a tale of the production and, to a lesser extent, the singing. Peter Robinson was the archetypal Kapellmeister in his conducting. There was no sense of the music meaning anything at all to him, let alone the astounding instantiation of a once-radical notion of bourgeois freedom. All he did was beat time. One could not only hear every bar line; one could set an atomic clock by the metronomic beat. The reading, or rather rendition – ‘extraordinary’ in its way – was free of Harnoncourtisms or worse, save for the kettledrum sticks, but that is the best one could say. The City of London Sinfonia played well enough, horns emerging triumphant from their ordeal in ‘Komm, Hoffnung’. Yet, even in a small performance space such as this, the strings were too small in number. One needs to be drowned in, driven on by, a torrent of symphonic lava. As it was, one concentrated on the fire of the production, with the orchestral contribution reduced to something akin to a soundtrack. This was not the orchestra’s fault at all, but a string section of 7.5.4.3.2 can only do so much.

The soloists compensated considerably. Tom Randle has always seemed to me a highly intelligent musician and so he was again here. His Florestan could only really work in a small-scale performance, but after initial wavering intonation on his cruel opening ‘Gott!’, he threw his all into the role, emerging with true musico-dramatic credibility. Jonas Kaufmann in Paris is an experience I shall never forget, but until there is opportunity to see and to hear his astonishing assumption again, this will do fine. Yvonne Howard was a sincere Leonore. One may have heard greater vocal power and beauty, but she convinced on stage, and navigated Beethoven’s often cruel demands without faltering. The Pizarro and Fernando were unimpressive, but Sarah Redgwick was a feisty, characterful Marzelline. Stephen Richardson was unusually credible as the compromised Rocco, who manages yet to do the right thing: a truly Beethovenian inspiration. Richardson’s fine command of the vocal text was a significant contributing factor here. Nicky Spence was equally convincing in the characterisation of Fuchs’s reappraised Jacquino. As for the dialogue, it is rarely anything but a trial when delivered by non-native speakers; I have heard worse though.

There were drawbacks, then, significantly so in terms of the musical direction. This is not a Fidelio one would wish simply to hear. But such are the production's strength and conviction that it remains necessary to see it.

Jenůfa, English National Opera, 21 March 2009

The Coliseum

Grandmother Buryja – Susan Gorton
Kostelnička Buryja – Michaela Martens
Jenůfa – Amanda Roocroft
Laca Klemen – Robert Brubaker
Števa Buryja – Tom Randle
Foreman – Iain Paterson
Jano – Julia Sporsén
Barena – Claire Mitcher
Mayor – Peter Kestner
Mayor’s wife – Susanna Tudor-Thomas
Karolka – Mairéad Buicke
Neighbour – Morag Boyle
Villager – Lyn Cook

David Alden (director)
Charles Edwards (set designer)
Jean-Marc Puissant (associate set designer)
Jon Morrell (costumes)
Adam Silverman (lighting)
Jon Clark (revival lighting)
Claire Gaskin (choreographer)

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: Martin Merry)
Orchestra of the English National Opera
Eivind Gullberg Jensen (conductor)

Having grown so used to disappointments in the opera house, the recent nadir having been Covent Garden’s Flying Dutchman, what a relief it was to encounter such a triumph, on the last night of its all too short run at the Coliseum. Let me get the odd gripe out of the way first. The English translation was, even of its kind, inadequate. Even with a better version, one would have missed the sound of Czech, its speech rhythms so fundamental to Janáček’s vision. It is testimony to the overall quality of the performance, however, that I soon ceased to care. And there were a few oddities about David Alden’s production. Some aspects of the updating to post-war Eastern Europe work better than others. The tarting up of the girls of the town – this does not seem to be even a modern rural community – is probably overdone. With the exception of the dowdier Jenůfa – she should have been a teacher, as Grandmother Buryja tells her – they all look like prostitutes. Perhaps a point is being made here concerning moral hypocrisy but there ought to have been better ways to do so. Nor did I understand why when, in the second act, Jenůfa prays to the Virgin Mary, she does not face the statue the production has provided for. It is not as if any point seemed to be made about turning away. The mayor and his wife seemed oddly portrayed in the final act, as though they really were part of some rural backwater; their caricatured vulgarity detracted from rather than intensified the drama. Laughter does not seem an appropriate reaction to what is taking place here.

Otherwise, Alden’s production did a great deal to heighten the impact of Janáček’s searing drama. The updating is not strictly necessary, of course, but it was a relief generally to be spared that folksiness which briefly and jarringly intruded upon the third act. The shame of unmarried motherhood persisted long into the second half of the twentieth-century, although I wondered whether Eastern Europe – Czechoslovakia, I presume – was really the best location. The stifling conformism of Western post-war petit bourgeois society, the paradaisical 1950s so beloved of the Daily Mail and ‘conservative social commentators’ – try as I might, I cannot quite bring myself to provide a link to the humourless bigotry of Melanie Phillips – might have been a better target, although perhaps that would have been considered a shift too far. At any rate, the period might have given hypocritical moralisers de nos jours a well-needed jolt.(Feel free to substitute something more appropriate for ‘jolt’.) The morality of the mob was frighteningly conveyed, both visually and chorally, in the final act, all the more so when one knew how ‘fun-loving’ it had previously seemed. Such a gentle age...

Musically, things were better still. I am not sure that I have ever heard the ENO orchestra on better form. This might have been a top-flight international orchestra, boasting considerable depth of tone and dramatic versatility. Special mention should go to leader, Janice Graham, whose crucial solos were well-nigh perfect, reminding us of at least the hope, however distant it might seem, of redemption. Clearly the orchestra was inspired, as it should have been, by the musical direction of Eivind Gullberg Jensen, who would in no sense be embarrassed by comparison with Bernard Haitink or Sir Charles Mackerras. Ever-responsive to the shifting demands of the score, there was true harshness, though never of the easily applied variety, to Jensen’s reading. The more Romantic passages were never unambiguously so, with the possible exception of the conclusion – although here, given what had happened, one could hardly forget. There was not one occasion on which I thought a transition hurried or a tempo-choice questionable. Orchestral balances, the opening brass excepted, were expertly handled too. This was my first encounter with Jensen’s work; I trust that it will not be my last.

Jenůfa really seems to be Amanda Roocroft’s role. Dramatically credible, infinitely touching, almost invariably secure of tone, I could hardly believe this was the same singer I had seen a few years ago as Tatiana at Covent Garden. Where sometimes the Kostelnička might cast her daughter-in-law into the dramatic shadows, one never forgot here that the opera bears the name of its true heroine. Only if it is understood thus does the opera offer any true hope at all. That said, Michaela Martens was simply stunning as the Kostelnička. Less forbidding than one might expect, this was a compassionate woman throughout, driven by appalling circumstances to infanticide. Whatever the horrors of her deed, one never ceased to empathise with her predicament. The guilt it had imposed upon her by the beginning of the third act was almost overwhelming, even when one looked at her, let alone heard her. Susan Gorton offered a nicely observed grandmother, whilst Mairéad Buicke was a splendidly ghastly Karolka. Števa got what he deserved there. In that role, Tom Randle gave an all-encompassing performance. His stage and vocal alcohol-enhanced bravado in the first act prepared the way with utter credibility for the squirming weakling of the third. One could understand why all the girls wanted him – and not just for his money – but equally one could feel relieved that Jenůfa found Laca instead. Robert Brubaker’s portrayal of Laca was equally fine, movingly alert both to his essential simplicity and the somewhat paradoxical attendant complexities of his reactions. His journey from lovestruck petulance to true nobility of spirit was powerfully conveyed.

This performance’s signal achievement was that not a single member of the audience could have been left in any doubt as to Jenůfa’s status as one of the greatest operas of the twentieth century. I do not know whether this were intentional, but I was sometimes moved to think of Janáček as a successor to Mussorgsky in terms of unsparing operatic realism. One cannot say much better than that.