The Rake's Progress, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 29 August 2010

Glyndebourne Opera House

Trulove – Clive Bayley
Anne Trulove – Miah Persson
Tom Rakewell – Topi Lehtipuu
Nick Shadow – Matthew Rose
Mother Goose – Susan Gorton
Baba the Turk – Elena Manistina
Sellem – Graham Clark

John Cox (director)
David Hockney (designs)
Robert Bryan (lighting)

The Glyndebourne Chorus (chorus master: Jeremy Bines)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski (conductor)

There was much to enjoy in this final performance of Glyndebourne’s season. Perhaps first and foremost was the playing of the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski, every bit as fine as it had been for Billy Budd in June. The opening scene did not seem quite settled – this went for the singers as well – but thereafter, Jurowski proved highly alert to the score’s changing moods and underlying consistencies. The LPO responded with disciplined yet warm playing: razor-sharp rhythmically, yet more than usually allusive to Mozart. One can play The Rake’s Progress in a number of ways, and Stravinsky’s own polemical sardonicism will surely never be eclipsed, but Jurowski is clearly his own man here, as I recall from a performance a few years ago for the English National Opera. Then it had been Stravinsky’s Russianness, even in this work, that seemed most apparent; here the distanced affection for Mozart’s most tellingly artificial opera shone through. For though Don Giovanni inevitably springs to mind in terms of the subject matter, the orchestra is of course, knowingly, unmistakeably reminiscent of that for Così fan tutte. Stravinsky’s knowingness and Auden’s too are part of what makes this so unique a work: difficult, perhaps impossible, to warm to, but equally difficult not to be intrigued by and to admire.

Quite what the audience thought was so incessantly funny about it, though, even into the graveyard scene, I cannot imagine; it simply took a new or old character to arrive on stage for some to erupt into distracting mirthful commentary. However, this was an even less discerning crowd than usual – as witnessed by applause during the epilogue, a goodly number having failed to register that the music had not stopped. An oddity, though: was Jurowski’s card-playing at the relevant point for his own amusement or ours? I do not think it would have been visible to many, though the view of the orchestra was some compensation for my partial view of the stage from the standing room of the Upper Circle.

Singing was generally impressive too. Following a degree of unsteadiness in that opening scene, Miah Persson’s Anne proved as pure and beautiful of tone as in stage presence. Topi Lehtipuu judged Tom very well: guilelessly attractive, corrupted, and then tragic, without the slightest sense of overdoing it. Matthew Rose’s Nick Shadow was well sung but lacked malevolence, if only of a mock variety. Elena Manistina’s Baba overstated the silly, ‘exotic’ voice earlier on, but excelled in her subsequent babbling. As the characterful auctioneer, Sellem, Graham Clark’s wickedly camp portrayal will take some beating. The singing of the Glyndebourne Chorus, splendidly trained by Jeremy Bines, was beyond reproach, rhythmically and verbally alert.

What, then, of John Cox’s production? Whilst it was interesting to see this venerable creature, first staged in 1975, and I can imagine that many will feel considerable affection for it, it does seem something of a museum piece now. David Hockney’s designs provide a direct link with Hogarth himself, of course, but they are the principal attraction. Whilst the sparkle has worn better than, say, the Texan transposition of Robert Lepage’s Covent Garden production (even on its first revival), I think it might not be a bad idea to call time now. The pauses for scene-changing – after every scene – become wearisome and provide a reminder of how some things at least have changed for the better. Whilst less out of place here than they would be in many works, Stravinsky’s determined non-through-composing being highlighted, the dislocation seems accidental rather than dramaturgical. Still, thirty-five years is good going by any standards.

LPO/Masur - Mendelssohn: Elijah, 17 October 2009

Royal Festival Hall

Elijah – Alistair Miles
The Widow – Melanie Diener
An Angel – Renata Pokupic
The Queen – Sarah Castle
Obadiah – Topi Lehtipuu
Ahab – Tyler Clarke
The Child – Freddie Benedict
Sarah-Jane Brandon (soprano)
James Oldfield (bass-baritone)
Jimmy Holliday (bass)

London Philharmonic Choir
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Kurt Masur (conductor)

It was not immediately clear to me why Mendelssohn’s Elijah – ‘the Elijah’, as the Victorians liked to call it – was considered an appropriate work with which to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Handel’s Joshua might have been a more obvious candidate. Yet, whilst I doubt this was the reason, insistence that one’s god should be the only one in town, whether God Himself or that of ‘the market’, and the terrible wake of such triumphalism – look at small-town and rural Saxony or Thuringia today – exert their toll both upon drama, at least to a modern audience, and upon ‘real life’. The actual reason, I am sure, was the identity of the conductor, Kurt Masur, who, unlike the vultures who have since descended upon the former ‘Eastern Bloc’, showed genuine courage during the revolt of 1989 in Leipzig. He, moreover, unlike Elijah, contributed to a peaceful outcome: no command to slaughter the prophets of Baal there. Mendelssohn has always been of great importance to Masur, not least during his period at the helm of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. And his recording of Elijah has, ever since it was made, served as the prime recommendation for the oratorio. Such was reason enough, more than reason enough, for the performance. Frequent announcements concerning the Berlin Wall and a non-too-reticent firm of London solicitors sponsoring the event – is that why people risked their lives to evade the border guards? – were unnecessary at best.

I have dwelled on the presentation since the presentation was so apparent, but it was ultimately, of course, the performance that mattered. It, I am delighted to report, was of a very high standard, confirming Masur’s continuing strength in this repertoire. He made none of the mistakes self-righteous ‘authenticists’ make: crispness of attack need not entail driving too hard; contrapuntal clarity need not entail any loss to weight of choral or orchestral texture; dramatic flow need not entail loss of grandeur; lack of undue piety need not entail loss of humanity. And why should he? Masur has been conducting the music for decades; he has nothing to prove, no need to attack his predecessors; he has relied upon musical values throughout his career, so has no need to resort to pseudo-historical ‘justifications’. A work is never, and should never be, uninterpreted, but Masur’s unaffected understanding imparted the illusion that this might have been the case. Secure enough with the score sometimes to allow the musicians to play for themselves, direction was always there when needed. If inspiration dropped somewhat during the second part, this is no comment on the performance, simply the work itself and the lesser dramatic opportunities afforded and taken by Mendelssohn. Victorian pieties are a little too present, at least for the present writer’s taste, in some of this music. But overall, it was Handelian drive and dignity, the two working in tandem, which characterised Masur’s performance. (Incidentally, it sounded as though he would be an ideal Handel conductor, though the chances of hearing that must be slim, to say the least.)

The London Philharmonic sounded resplendent in from the opening bars, the Overture, which follows Elijah’s opening recitative, providing ample occasion both to appreciate its performance and to prepare oneself for the drama to come. There was especially fine solo work from woodwind principals, Jaime Martin (flute) and Daniel Bates (oboe). The latter’s obbligato contribution to the arioso, ‘Ja, es sollen wohl Berge weichen,’ was profoundly moving, quite outstanding. And the brass made the most of their opportunities, whether menacing or rejoicing, without ever sounding the slightest bit brash. The London Philharmonic Choir was outstanding: full of tone and equally incisive of attack. Large forces are called for here and the thrill of large forces we received.

Alistair Miles assumed the title role at short notice, given the indisposition of the advertised John Relyea. Whilst Miles lacked the sheer tonal refulgence Relyea might have brought to the role, no one could have been disappointed by this eminently musical performance, stentorian as the prophet himself. Melanie Diener proved an equally fine soprano, both as the Widow and in other solos: dramatic without veering towards the operatic. It was a pleasure to hear Topi Lehtipuu’s lyric tenor as Obadiah, earnest as the role should be, Tamino-like in heft. Special mention should go to the spellbinding treble contribution from on high of Freddie Benedict. Most composers – and librettists – would surely have made more of the Queen (Jezebel), but Sarah Castle, another late substitution, did what she could; indeed, all of the smaller roles were well taken. This, rather than any spurious ‘Berlin Wall’ connection, was something to celebrate.

Salzburg Festival (2): Così fan tutte - VPO/Fischer, 7 August 2009

Images © Monika Rittershaus

Haus für Mozart

Fiordiligi – Miah Persson
Isabel Leonard – Dorabella
Topi Lehttipuu – Ferrando
Florian Boesch – Guglielmo
Patricia Petibon – Despina
Bo Skovhus – Don Alfonso

Claus Guth (director)
Christian Schmidt (scenery)
Anna Sofie Tuma (costumes)
Andri Hardmeier (dramaturge)
Olaf Winter (lighting)
Alex Buresch, Kai Ehlers (video)
Ramses Sigl (choreography

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera (chorus master: Thomas Lang)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Ádám Fischer (conductor)

My expectations were extremely high, following Claus Guth’s extraordinary transformation of Le nozze di Figaro, which I saw at Salzburg in 2007. At the time (click here for the full review), I enthused:

Had anyone described it to me, I should have recoiled in horror. Somehow, this anti-Figaro provided a truly compelling dramatic experience. ... Claus Guth presented one of the best examples of Regietheater I have ever seen. What sounds perverse, to say the least, was thought through to the end. ... the most fizzingly champagne-like of operas was transformed into a harrowing, even sadistic drama, which came closer to the devastating hyper-realism of Così fan tutte.

Reference to the previous production – unfortunately, I have yet to see last year’s Don Giovanni, though I hope for a revival – might help to explain why my impressions were more mixed upon this occasion. Così might, I suppose, be convincingly transformed into its opposite, but I suspect that this would be a task even more difficult than that for Figaro and it does not happen here. What I find it hard to imagine it convincingly shedding is the artificiality lying at its heart, an artificiality that permits the unsparing realism with which Mozart – and it is far more he than Lorenzo da Ponte – lays bare the illusions of romantic love. Here instead we have a production somewhat realistic in the ordinary sense, a path which simply makes for a rather unconvincing plot. I am the last person to insist upon some kind of eighteenth-century fetishism, upon period costumes and a clear view of the Bay of Naples. But equally, it does not seem to me that transferring the action to what appears to be a modern apartment and turning the characters into modern characters who drink more than is good for them in themselves make for convincing drama. The aspects when such up-to-date references were pushed further merely distracted. For instance, it is a rare production that ensures Despina will not irritate. This production merely has her irritate in a different way, irrelevantly emphasising her identity as what would seem to be an Eastern European cleaner. Many of the audience – somewhat dubiously or even chillingly – seemed to find this hilarious. But should anything in Così be hilarious?

There are promising aspects to the production, but another problem, again in contrast to Guth’s Figaro, is that they were not always carried through. For instance, I was intrigued by how what appeared to be an original take upon the matter of the male disguises would develop. Ferrando and Guglielmo first wear masks, which seems full of potential in terms of the connection to Greek tragedy. Is it with masks that one might be able to bear the most horrific drama? They soon lost the masks, however. Then the reason for the girls failing to recognise their lovers is that they are blindfolded. Again, interesting: perhaps there will be a series of such reasons. This seems to be borne out by the subsequent positioning of men and women on different levels of the stage. However, following Despina’s appearance as the doctor – a most odd portrayal, involving (African?) fetishism and incantation of the word Mesmer, which broke up the account of the score – any pretence at disguise or an alternative thereto is discontinued. Either the problem has been forgotten, which seems almost incredible, it is considered irrelevant, which seems highly dubious, implying an ordinary-realistic tale of loose women who simply carry on with each others’ boyfriends, or Despina’s act – itself carried out without visual disguise – has changed everything in a way that remains obscure, or at least remained obscure to this audience member.

Where Guth scores very highly, however, is in the determination to place Così as the final work in a trilogy. He makes connections with Figaro – and, I think, Don Giovanni, certainly on the evidence of production photographs I have seen, the wood there increasingly protruding into the location of Così. The most striking visual connection is that of dress and nervous behaviour between Don Alfonso and the sinister Cupid figure – and if you listen to Da Ponte’s libretto, you will hear Cupid invoked repeatedly – of that anti-Figaro. Both create (necessary?) mischief, which might conceivably help us to confront harsh realities. The falling of feathers connected to both creates a further bond, mystifying yet perhaps also provoking the other characters.

Musically there was much to admire in this performance. I had been a little wary of the prospect of Ádám Fischer, having found much of his previous Salzburg direction of the work (2005) rushed and unyielding. Such was certainly not the case on this occasion, however. There was considerable variation of pace, generally well integrated into a broader tonal and dramatic framework. I could hardly believe that this was the same conductor, not least since recent fashions have tended to propel Mozart interpreters in the opposite direction. Whilst I might have preferred a larger body of strings, there were few instances in which this was much of a problem. The acoustic of the Haus für Mozart, formerly the Kleines Festspielhaus, compensated admirably, as did the renowned sheen of the Vienna Philharmonic strings. It was the woodwind section, however, which truly took the palm. These musicians were truly beyond compare, ravishing as perhaps only they and certainly only Mozart can. That cruelty which, despite the director’s efforts, was so often absent from the production was readily apparent in the savagery of such tonal beauty. As for those Viennese horns of cuckoldry... It was all the more unforgivable, then, that on more than one occasion such Elysian delights were disrupted by the ringing of mobile telephones. That is a form of cruelty adding no more to the drama than the incessant conversation of certain selfish members of the audience, or indeed the applause not only between acts but, more than once, within numbers. There were many people in the house for whom a life prohibition concerning Mozart would be too kind.

The cast was good, if not unforgettable. Perhaps the most consistently strong vocal performance came from Miah Persson as Fiordiligi, handling her coloratura with aplomb and possessed of a winning, attractive tone. Like every member of the case, moreover, she could act. Isabel Leonard’s Dorabella became more differentiated as a character with time, which is, I suppose, how it should be. Topi Lehtipuu at first proved somewhat variable as Ferrando, often impressing more in the recitatives than elsewhere. However, his character too developed in leaps and bounds, and the pain elicited by friction between him and Florian Boesch’s Guglielmo was a credit to both artists. Lehtipuu was allotted both of his second act arias, not the only case of music restored that is almost always cut. I was very happy to hear all of it. Boesch in the second act presented a more complex Guglielmo than is often the case: to be thoroughly disliked in his arrogance but then learning from his bitter experience and seeming the most disillusioned of all. Patricia Petibon was an audience favourite. She certainly acted well and sang well too, but her voice is rather plain. I was frankly perplexed at the mismatch between my reaction and that of most others. Rather to my surprise, Bo Skovhus sometimes sounded a little woolly, and fell short of the Alfonso gold standard presented by my various hearings of Sir Thomas Allen in this role. Nevertheless, Skovhus acted very well and at least as often employed his voice to good advantage.

If the musicians could not take my mind off some of the production’s shortcomings, that is not their fault. Even Sir Colin Davis, giving, a couple of years ago, the performance of his life at Covent Garden, could not do that, faced, admittedly, with a far more objectionable production. Disappointment here was relative and there were very considerable musical rewards.