Die Walküre, Opera North, 29 June 2016

Brünnhilde (Kelly Cae Hogan)
Images: Clive Barda

Royal Festival Hall

 

Siegmund – Michael Weinius

Sieglinde – Lee Bisset
Hunding – James Creswell
Wotan – Robert Hayward
Brünnhilde – Kelly Cae Hogan
Fricka – Yvonne Howard
Gerhilde – Giselle Allen
Ortlinde – Kate Valentine
Waltraute – Heather Shipp
Schwertleite – Claudia Huckle
Helmwige – Katherine Broderick
Siegrune – Sarah Castle
Grimgerde – Fiona Kimm
Rossweisse – Madeleine Shaw

Peter Mumford (concert staging, design concept, lighting, projection)

Joe Austin (associate director)

Orchestra of Opera North

Richard Farnes (conductor)

A day is now a very long time indeed in politics; would that it were otherwise. It certainly is in the Ring, as we move forward a generation to Die Walküre. I had two principal reservations for the ‘first day’ proper of the trilogy ‘with preliminary evening’, the odd minor niggle, and otherwise nothing but praise. Opera North continues to put many starrier, yet in no sense superior, companies to shame.

 

Sieglinde (Lee Bisset)

 

 

Robert Hayward’s Wotan was for me the weakest link. It was not a bad performance, and his facial expressions conveyed a great deal (at least for someone as lucky as I to be seated towards the front of the Stalls, or indeed for those watching on the big screen in the Clore Ballroom, for which many thanks should go to the Southbank Centre). His vowels were often odd, though, and there was less of an expressive range than one might have hoped for. Otherwise, there was little to complain about in the cast, and, as I said, much to praise. I have heard more heroic Siegmunds than Michael Weinius, but his was a thoughtful, eminently musical performance throughout. Siegmund’s love for his sister-bride was palpable. And how could it not be, given so fine a performance as we heard from Lee Bisset? For me, she was the star of the show: no mere victim, but a woman with agency, however much circumstances – and bourgeois society –might have repressed her. I cannot instantly recall a more compleat Sieglinde ‘in the flesh’, perhaps because I have not heard one.

 

Hunding (James Creswell)

 

 

Yvonne Howard’s triumphant – though for how long? – Fricka was again pretty much everything it should have been. Her dialectical path to victory over her husband chilled as it must, not least since the orchestra (on which more soon) told so very different a story, a story of, in Wagner’s celebrated phrase, the ‘purely human’. Her vassal, Hunding, was in the excellent hands – and voice – of James Creswell. Brutal authoritarianism is the character’s stock-in-trade; so it was that of his interpreter.  Latent slavery in the family,’ we learn in both The German Ideology of Wagner’s contemporaries, Marx and Engels, and in Hunding’s treatment of Sieglinde, ‘is the first form of property. … Division of labour and private property are, after all, identical expressions.’ And Wagner never had any doubt that marriage was slavery; nor did we. Kelly Cae Hogan made for a wonderfully impressive Brünnhilde, her transformation as witness to the truest of love both plausible and highly moving. Hers, moreover, seemed to be a staged performance in all but name; this was certainly an artist who lived the role. All of the Valkyries were on excellent form. One might have taken dictation from them individually, and yet their ensemble was equally excellent. I doubt I have heard finer.

That other reservation was Richard Farnes’s conducting of the first act. It certainly was not anything to which anyone could reasonably object. However – and mine seems to be very much a minority report here – I did not really find that it caught fire until toward the end of the final scene, just, actually, as fire began to blaze as part of the (now somewhat irritating) projections above the stage. As soon as we returned after the first interval, there was, by contrast, no letting up. It is the mark of a great Wagner conductor that he can weld the second act of Die Walküre together as not only a convincing whole, but perhaps as the most profoundly moving act in the entire Ring (at least until one comes to the next, and the next!) Amongst conductors I have heard ‘live’ in this work, Bernard Haitink and Daniel Barenboim have proved themselves true masters in that respect. Farnes now joins their company. There was, both here and in the third act, an almost infinite variegation of tempo, without ever losing sight of the whole.

Orchestral balances were just as fine, likewise the often wondrous playing of the Orchestra of Opera North. If I found the strings a little subdued in the first act, they were, by the time of Wotan’s Farewell, not far off a match for a great Central European orchestra, with a sheen to match. The otherworldliness of what we heard during the Annunciation of Death could scarcely have been outdone, brass and timpani playing their roles as the characters-cum-commentators they are. As Ludwig Feuerbach wrote, in his Thoughts on Death and Immortality, a crucial, acknowledged influence upon Wagner: ‘Only when the human once again recognises that there exists not merely an appearance of death, but an actual and real death, a death that completely terminates the life of an individual, only when he returns to the awareness of his finitude will he gain the courage to begin a new life and to experience the pressing need for making … that which is actually infinite [death] into the theme and content of his entire spiritual activity.’ The orchestra was not the least of Wagner’s instruments on this evening in having us realise the full truth of that message. And so, Siegmund’s heroism proved to be as much that of the orchestra as his own – which is just as it should be.

 

Das Rheingold, Opera North, 28 June 2016

Royal Festival Hall

Wotan – Michael Druiett

Donner – Andrew Foster-Williams
Froh – Marc Le Brocq
Loge – Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
Fricka – Yvonne Howard
Freia – Giselle Allen
Erda – Ceri Williams
Alberich – Jo Pohlheim
Mime – Richard Roberts
Fasolt – James Creswell
Fafner – Mats Almgren
Woglinde – Jeni Bern
Wellgunde – Madeleine Shaw
Flosshilde – Sarah Castle

Peter Mumford (concert staging, design concept, lighting and projection)

Joe Austin (associate director)

Orchestra of Opera North

Richard Farnes (conductor)

Rhinemaiden mechanics at the 1876 Ring

Das Rheingold is, of course, the reddest in tooth and claw of all Wagner’s dramas – which is saying something. The only path to denying its socialism would be never to have encountered it, or at least never to have listened to it. That, I can only assume, must have been the ‘non-expert’ path to enlightenment taken by Michael Gove, whose unpleasant presence I suffered in the row behind me at Bayreuth in 2014. Goodness knows what damage Frank Castorf’s post-dramatic theatre wrought to his 'back-to-basics' mentality; maybe that is why, Alberich-like, he elected to destroy this country, this continent, the world. It is certainly no easy thing to imagine a Rhinemaiden falling voluntarily into his clutches. But then even Wagner did not quite possess the venom to invent Mrs Gove, Sarah Vine. With typical not-quite-even-handedness, he wrote of Lohengrin’s Ortrud to Liszt, in 1852: ‘a male politician disgusts us; a female politician appals us.’ Ladies and gentlemen of the Festival Hall, take your pick: the Conservative Party leadership election awaits.

I could go on, and on, and on, as someone once almost drawled. Opera North, sadly, could hardly have found London in more electrically receptive – ‘electrical reception’ is perhaps a concept better left to the ‘experts’ – mode than today. The Ring can be made, in some senses might even be claimed to be, about everything. (I once even managed to bring in Norman Tebbit; the pleasure was doubtless mutual.) As Wagner wrote, also to Liszt, the following year: ‘Yes, I should like to perish in Valhalla’s flames! — Mark well my new poem — it contains the beginning of the world and its destruction!’ It is, just as much as Marx’s Capital, to quote Maximilien Rubel, ‘a history of a world in the course of self-destruction, a pathology of an inhuman society’. And as we, like the gods in Valhalla, sit back in horror to watch the flames envelop us, we find ourselves, if anything, still more receptive than usual to an inquiry into where it all began, where it all went wrong.

A staging could help, of course, none more so than Patrice Chéreau’s legendary ‘Centenary Ring’. It is not necessary, though. Whilst every bone in my body resists both that conclusion and the admission that the two best Ring performances of my life have taken place in the concert hall, the desire to be a little bit more truthful than Gove, Johnson, et al., a little more scrupulous with my obligations than Wotan, means that I must. Strangely, both took place in the Royal Albert Hall, a less-than-ideal venue, to put it mildly. It mattered not a jot, though, whether under Bernard Haitink (Royal Opera, 1998: my first) or Daniel Barenboim (2013 Proms, see here, here, here, and here!) Nor has it here at the Festival Hall, at least so far. Direction from Peter Mumford and Joe Austin is clear, accomplishing a good deal with relatively little. Projections offer titles, a little atmosphere (the Rhine, clouds, etc.), and, for those who would benefit, a little additional background. Whilst we all await Stefan Herheim and Dmitri Tcherniakov’s stagings for different houses in Berlin, concert stagings continue to have much to offer.

A particular advantage of such concert stagings is the placing of the orchestra, literally, centre stage. It is, at least, an advantage with such excellent playing and conducting as we experienced here. One really had the sense of an orchestra that knew this music, an orchestra that had lived with it, an orchestra that was here reaching the climax of its involvement with it (although let us hope that there will be much more Wagner to come from Opera North). There was barely a blemish to be heard. More importantly, the ebb and flow, Wagner’s celebrated melos, was there to be heard, to be felt: nothing exaggerated, but flowing like – well, the mighty Rhine itself. Richard Farnes proved a sure guide indeed. If he is not Barenboim, then so what? Who is? Farnes’s evident knowledge and understanding of the score, of its twists and turns, of how to navigate them, and of how to maintain the musico-narrative thrust put the generally pitiful efforts of, say, Haitink’s successor at the Royal Opera to shame, likewise those fashion victims who have extolled those sorry attempts. If there were times when I felt the orchestra might have been encouraged to play out a little more, to sound still more as the Greek Chorus of Wagner’s æsthetic imagination, this was never mere ‘accompaniment’.

As Wotan, Michael Druiett looked eerily reminiscent of Donald McIntyre for Chéreau and Boulez. If he did not quite show that depth of familiarity with the work, there was little to complain about. Audibly struggling in the final scene, he lost his voice completely at one point towards the end, but that was clearly a throat problem rather than technical incapability. His was a thoughtful performance throughout. Jo Pohlheim was a properly malevolent Alberich; I look forward to hearing more from him in Siegfried. If a Loge does not steal the show, something will most likely have gone awry; Wolfgang Ablinger-Speerhacke’s satirical edge, his vivid sense of theatre (even in the concert hall) certainly aided Wagner’s message to hit home. Mats Almgren made for a suitably dark Fafner, James Creswell lighter of tone than one often hears as his brother, Fasolt, but none the worse for that. Richard Roberts’s Mime was more than just wheedling. His words and their import registered strongly, likewise his character’s sheer misery in nostalgia for old Nibelheim. Yvonne Howard’s Fricka offered majesty but also vulnerability. The other gods and, especially, the Rhinemaidens made a good deal of their moments in the spotlight. If Ceri Williams’s intonation as Erda were not quite what it might have been to begin with, she soon made up for that in a dignified portrayal that did not lack mystery. As for the Nibelung scream, ‘recorded by the Opera North Children’s Chorus’: it ‘felt our pain’.

Hänsel und Gretel, Royal Opera, 23 December 2010

Royal Opera House

(Images: Royal Opera/Johan Persson)

Hänsel – Christine Rice
Gretel – Ailish Tynan
Gertrud – Yvonne Howard
Peter – Sir Thomas Allen
Witch – Jane Henschel
Dew Fairy – Anna Devin
Sandman – Madeleine Pierard
Echo – Kai Rüütel
Angels, Children

Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier (directors)
Elaine Kidd (revival director)
Christian Fenouillat (set designs)
Agostino Cavalca (costumes)
Christophe Forey (lighting)

Members of Tiffin Boys’ Choir and Tiffin Children’s Chorus (director: Simon Toyne)
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Rory Macdonald (conductor)

After being appointed Music Director of the Vienna State Opera, Franz Welser-Möst made a remark to the effect – I cannot remember the precise words – that how a house handled a week-day repertory Figaro was just as crucial to its flourishing as a starry new production. Indeed. Whilst the situation at Covent Garden is somewhat different, in that it does not have a repertory system along the lines of many German houses, there is a case to be made that the quality of revivals matters as much as that of more ‘newsworthy’ new productions. One does not necessarily employ quite the same criteria; it depends. And so, this first revival of Hänsel und Gretel, whilst it lacks in some though by no means all cases the star quality of some participants from the first run, may be accounted a considerable success. One does not expect a young conductor to evince the lifetime’s experience of Sir Colin Davis, though Rory Macdonald did an increasingly fine job as the night went on. Likewise, it would perhaps be unreasonable to expect Angelika Kirchschlager and Diana Damrau on every occasion. But if the performance took a little while to settle down, notably assisted in that respect by the appearance of Yvonne Howard and Sir Thomas Allen, the sole survivor from the original cast reprising the role of Peter, this proved an enjoyable and ultimately moving evening.

Part of that is down to the delights of Humperdinck’s score. Derivative it might be, but the fairy-tale Wagnerisms enchant rather than irritate, though the Meistersinger-ish opening scene perhaps remains excessively dependent upon its weightier model. During much of the first act, I felt a slight lack of focus, never damaging, and something that I suspect will soon dissipate once the run of performances beds down. The luxuriance of Sir Colin’s interpretation lingered in the mind. However, as time went on, Macdonald imparted a different quality to the score, marking this out very much as his own reading. Woodwind suggested Mozart and Strauss; indeed, I was at times taken aback at quite how much the score’s textures seemed to presage the latter: hardly Elektra, but perhaps Ariadne.

I do not really have anything to add to what I said about the production last time (click here for the DVD). It works well, and has surprisingly dark moments given that it is at least partly aimed at children. There is proper contrast between the magical dream of Christmas and the industrial scale oven of the Witch’s house. Like a true fairy tale, there is more than tinsel to this Christmas offering. Elaine Kidd’s work as revival director seems assured.

Christine Rice presented a suitably boyish Hänsel, looking as well as sounding the part. Though I find it difficult to warm to Ailish Tynan’s thin tone, this Gretel certainly provided the best performance I have heard from her, and again she acted credibly. The parents, Yvonne Howard and Sir Thomas Allen, both impressed, as one might have expected. I was amazed once again how Allen could make so much out of so relatively little. His diction, vocal presentation, and stage presence once again proved second to none. Anja Silja had assumed the role of the Witch in 2008; I very much liked her portrayal, though some were more affected by its vocal shortcomings. Here, Jane Henschel proved a more than worthy successor. I could not help but think of her wonderful assumptions of the role of the Nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten: a more ambivalent character, to be sure, but perhaps not wholly unrelated. In any case, she combined stage presence and a more secure vocal line than her predecessor. Sir Charles Mackerras was to have conducted; the performance was dedicated to his memory.

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.