Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Paris Opéra, 13 March 2016

© Christian Leiber / OnP

Opéra Bastille, Paris

Hans Sachs – Gerald Finley

Veit Pogner – Günther Groissböck
Kunz Vogelgsang – Dietmar Kerschbaum
Konrad Nachtigall – Ralf Lukas
Sixtus Beckmesser – Bo Skovhus
Fritz Kothner – Michael Kraus
Balthasar Zorn – Martin Homrich
Ulrich Eißlinger – Stefan Heibach
Augustin Moser – Robert Wörle
Hermann Ortel – Miljenko Turk
Hans Schwarz – Panajotis Iconomou
Hans Foltz – Roman Astakhov
Walther von Stolzing – Brandon Jovanovich
David – Toby Spence
Eva – Julia Kleiter
Magdalena – Wiebke Lehmkuhl
Night-watchman – Andreas Bauer

Stefan Herheim (director)

Heike Scheele (set designs)
Gesine Völlm (costumes)
Olaf Freese (original lighting, realised by Phoenix (Andreas Hofer) and Stefan Herheim)
Martin Kern (video)
Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach (dramaturgy)

Choruses of the Opéra National de Paris (chorus master: José Luis Basso)

Orchestra of the Opéra National de Paris

Philippe Jordan (conductor)

Rehearsal picture, Stefan Herheim centre stage as director
© Elena Bauer / OnP

My experience in the theatre of Die Meistersinger has not always have been happy. There are, of course, the great might-have-beens: Pierre Boulez, who expressed a desire on several occasions to conduct the work, a wish never granted, and what might have happened in Paris under Gerard Mortier, who, disappointed in the chorus at his disposal, felt it impossible to do so. Whatever the justice of Mortier’s judgement, the present-day strength of choral singing at Stéphane Lissner’s Paris Opéra, as heard first of all in Moses und Aron, means that is no longer a difficulty. José Luis Basso’s work as chorus master is clearly paying off; the chorus was outstanding throughout. Then there are the disappointing – or worse than that – productions and performances; let us pass over them here in silence, without so much as a link. Stefan Herheim’s production, first seen in Salzburg in 2013, was of course anything but a disappointment then; now, extensively rethought, it is, I think, better still. It is difficult in so busy a spectacle to know, at least in some cases, what has been changed and what one simply missed. I shall largely refrain, then, from comparisons with respect to staging and simply recount what I saw on this occasion. Comparisons with respect to performance largely favour Paris; I shall come to those later.

 

 

 

© Christian Leiber / OnP

We begin in Hans Sachs’s nineteenth-century workshop. A key feature of Wagner’s Romantic conception of Sachs and indeed of Nuremberg relates to overcoming division of labour – or, the more cynical, perhaps Marxist, commentator might respond, never having reached it in the first place. Yet Marx and Engels too, had their poetic flight of fancy in a celebrated passage in The German Ideology: ‘in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, … it [is] possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd, or critic.’ Wagner and Herheim portray Sachs in more post-Nazarene fashion. But he remains a polymath and, more than that, a rebuke to involuntary specialisation; he cobbles, he writes verse, he sings, he paints too, and so forth. Here, he also dreams, and with that Herheim reminds us of Schopenhauer, of Freud, of fairy tales, and of course of the centrality of dreams to the work ‘itself’. And when he dreams, objects in his workshop grow, Nutcracker-Christmas-Tree-style; or is it that he and the characters of his dreams shrink? There is certainly a strong sense in the Bastille amphitheatre, its scale perhaps more helpful visually than acoustically, of toy-town, even before the toys come out to play.

 

© Vincente Pontet / OnP

And so, the Prelude over, the curtain once again drawn back, the back of the writing desk – crucial, of course, to any poet, and what a gorgeous writing desk this is! – has become the church and indeed municipal organ. The green of the surface has become the arena for contest, never more so than in the remarkable agon – intensified, I think, from Salzburg, in very interesting ways – between Walther and Beckmesser. I thought there – but a personal train of thought, of course, yet the openness of Herheim’s approach permits such flights of association – of our own College Green in Westminster. Here, an undeniably charismatic Beckmesser – now that is a way to have him taken seriously, for which both Herheim and Bo Skovhus should take credit – had to fight for the backing of the Masters, initially enraptured by Walther’s song. They swayed, literally and metaphorically. Such seemed a contest as political as it was æsthetic, and we are of course very much in the realm of Walter Benjamin’s æstheticisation of politics, an idea which did not spring from nowhere but was very much rooted in ideas which, if not Wagner’s as such, were similar and historically related. We all know, sadly, where they could lead – and what role Nuremberg would come to play. It is up to us whether we dwell on that, but it would surely be wrong not even to think about it. (Memories of Herheim’s Berlin Lohengrin demand our attention; so do those of Peter Konwitschny’s darker staging of the same work.) Dancing in concentric circles around Walther, even after Beckmesser’s apparently successful intervention, the Masters and, in front of them, the Apprentices, might yet decide in either direction. They look outwards, though, not at Walther; are they looking at us? I think not, but perhaps they do. It is certainly not a benign scene, whatever its prettiness-on-steroids; the violence, just about sublimated, when Sachs comes close to striking Beckmesser is shocking.



© Vincente Pontet / OnP

 

What of the absorbing surface? My goodness, it is beautiful, at least in inverted commas, but that perhaps implies undue cynicism rather than multivalency and dialectics. The play-acting is unmistakeable. Let us remember that the nineteenth-century German monarchies as they stood were not ancient, far from it; they certainly laid no claim to Sachs’s Nuremberg. Nor, famously, does Wagner’s score, speaking of Bach: another century, another style, unless, perhaps, one counts Luther as a sublated participant too. Bavaria as it stood when Wagner wrote his work ‘for’ Munich had only been a kingdom since 1806; much of its territory was very newly acquired. Yet Maximilians and Ludwigs played alternating or rather intricately interconnected æsthetic games of modernisation and mediævalism. Franconia and Nuremberg were – here are – some of the pieces involved. The post-1815 Restoration here seems extended, perhaps as far as the time of composition; there is both clarity and obscurity in the minutely observed designs (wonderful work by Herheim collaborators, Heike Scheele and Gesine Völlm). Walther in noble regalia and heightened blondness looks the part; Ludwig II would surely have swooned. He is a peacock, and he knows – or at least wants to suggest he knows – how to wield a sword.

Books feature heavily. In the first act, Des Knaben Wunderhorn proves our Romantic inspiration. Towering above the characters, the giant volume is opened, to reveal, as such volumes often do, pressed flowers. They come to life; they are visual instantiations of David’s tones. In the second act, it is the Brothers Grimm, and it is their ‘characters’ who come to life, incite and participate in the Prügelfuge. Red Riding Hood as you have never quite seen her – or maybe you have, in your imagination, perhaps earlier in your life than you would care to admit or even to remember – is perhaps first among equals here. There is madness, delusion, illusion – let us say Wahn aplenty – in this dream of Sachs. What, however, are we to make of the part of the original workshop set, stage left, which shrinks in none of the three acts? There is a painting on the wall – not to be identified with the painting of Eva at which he has been at work in the third act, when, in the cold light of day, normal ‘size’ is resumed – and we might speculate about the nature of its young woman (or Jungfrau?) Perhaps more intriguingly, though, there is a puppet theatre. When Eva and Walther take refuge, it is there. They are playing roles; and someone, of course, is the puppet-master. The theatre is luxurious, like what we can see of Pogner’s house and its decor; one can imagine it, them, in the Louvre’s nineteenth-century galleries, or indeed in a Wittelsbach or Hohenzollern Schloss. The damask luxury has a touch of the absurd, to it, though, not unlike Wagner’s fabled – too fabled – pink silk. Wagner’s bust at this point remains out of sight, although other old German masters may be seen, in different sizes, from time to time. The puppet play of Herheim’s Lohengrin may again be instructive here.

© Christian Leiber / OnP

 

Meister Wagner comes into play properly in the third act, as does Sachs’s workshop in what seems now to be reality – although the conclusion will throw that all into disarray. Dreams, memories and interpretations of them, have a habit of doing so; the unconscious was not invented by Romanticism, but it was certainly placed centre stage, as it is by Herheim. So is Wagner, and in what is now surely an act of defiance against fashionable denigration or at least scepticism, all will bow before him in the final scene. (Again, though, I should remind you that Herheim has a final card up his sleeve, to which we shall come shortly.) There has, moreover, been no one single book in play here; rather, for the festivities, Sachs’s library, or part of it, has grown in size, so we may take our pick. Liberty or licence? There is danger in the very question, as the determinedly anti-liberal Wagner knew very well. Wagner’s work, even its stage directions, is acutely observed. The Master’s banners even have harps: resplendent, again a little too resplendent. Less trivially, although nothing in Wagner is really trivial, the moment of devastation earlier in the act, when the triangle between Sachs, Eva, and Walther is revealed has never moved, never wounded me so. Rent asunder, Sachs and Eva have never seemed so real a prospect; rarely, however, have Walther and Eva. One senses her plight as a plaything – however we try to dress it up, her father’s idea is monstrous; she is a bartered bride – but it is unclear whether Wagner or Herheim is actually indicting the situation. We must make up our own minds; there is something truly Shakespearean here about the lack of judgement being forced upon us.

 

© Vincente Pontet / OnP

 

 

© Vincente Pontet / OnP

 

 

All good, and bad, things must come to an end, however. Everything starts to unravel with Sachs’s shocking refusal to shake Beckmesser’s proffered hand. He has been humiliated, bruised in every sense, and yet seems willing to meet Sachs half way. No chance, it seems. Is Sachs actually the proto-fascist some have claimed him to be? Herheim remains a master of theatre, however, and not just in the echt-operatic spectacle to which Wagner and he have treated us. As the action freezes – I am sure you can guess when – the unravelling proper gathers pace. There is another awakening – was not the visible pain Sachs had suffered at ‘Wach auf!’ enough? – yet it is Beckmesser’s. Who has dreamed whom? It is not Sachs who, for the final time, draws the curtain. Or is it?

My review concentrates on the production not as an implicit denigration of the musical performances, but because not only was it really ‘the thing’ here, it was, almost as much as Wagner’s score, although of course springing in almost every respect from that score, the framework for the vocal performances. Concerning Philippe Jordan’s conducting, I wish that it had been more variegated, and thus more like the staging itself, but one cannot have everything all the time. It was generally light, sometimes too light, but it was more the lack of contrast that was a problem than the somewhat strange cross between Mendelssohn and Ravel we seemed to hear. There was no denying, however, Jordan’s fluency; again, I shall resist the temptation to draw contrasts with a number of other conductors. Nor was there any denying the magnificent playing of the orchestra itself. As with the Iolanta/Nutcracker double-bill two nights earlier, this spoke of one of the great opera house orchestras of the world. What we sometimes lacked was not only the last few ounces of grandeur, but also a real sense of the music growing upwards from the bass line; that, however, was clearly Jordan’s concept, which I found less than entirely convincing. Electrifying in Moses, and genuinely original in his conception, Jordan was perhaps too much the foil here; in Wagner, and in Herheim, the music enhances and is enhanced by the staging.
 

© Vincente Pontet / OnP

 

The cast was generally strong. If Daniele Gatti had convinced me more in Salzburg, the orchestra and singing were surely superior here in Paris. Gerald Finley’s Sachs was not a larger-than-life portrayal, and Michael Volle’s performance was unlikely to be bettered by anyone. Finley’s intelligence, vocally, verbally, and on stage, were in their very different way just as impressive, though; this was a Sachs who made one think. I can hardly say better than that. Brandon Jovanovich, as I have already said, looked the part as Walther; he sang it too, with the ease that the role requires yet does not always receive. Again, he had one believe in the part and think about it. So too did Skovhus’s Beckmesser, as provocative and intelligent a rethinking as I can recall. He must have been as exhausted as his character, yet it did not necessarily show. Julia Kleiter’s Eva was finely sung, often reaching the calculated radiance the production imparted to her appearance onstage. Toby Spence proved an eager David: a gift of a role, of course, but a demanding gift nevertheless, ably supported by Wiebke Lehmkul’s Magdalene. With a strong group of Masters, headed by Günther Groissböck and Michael Kraus, there could be no reasonable complaints concerning the singing. If it sometimes sounded a little distant, even small of scale, that was mostly, I think, to be attributed to the acoustic.

If any opera, or at least any nineteenth-century opera, is intended to have one reflect upon artistic creation, it is surely this one. That it did, and that it did in ways novel, remembered, and somehow both novel and remembered, even perhaps misremembered, stands in many ways testament to a successful staging and performance. I left the Bastille with a spring in my step, wishing only that I could see it all again, ‘so alt und … doch so neu’.

 

Iolanta/The Nutcracker, Opéra National de Paris, 11 March 2016

 

Images: © Agathe Poupeney / OnP

 

Palais Garnier

 

King René – Alexander Tsambalyuk

Iolanta – Sonya Yoncheva
Vaudémont – Arnold Rutkowski
Robert – Andrei Jilikovschi
Ibn-Hakia – Vito Priante
Alméric – Roman Shulakov
Bertrand – Gennady Bezzubenkov
Martha – Elena Zaremba
Brigitta – Anna Patalong
Laura – Paola Gardina

Marie – Marion Barbeau

Vaudémont – Stéphane Bullion
Drosselmeyer – Nicolas Paul
Father – Aurélien Houette
Mother – Alice Renavand
Robert – Takeru Coste
Sister – Caroline Bance

Dmitri Tcherniakov (director, set designs)

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Edouard Lock, Arthur Pita (choreography)
Elena Zaitseva (costumes)
Gleb Filshtinsky (lighting)
Andrey Zelenin (video)

Chorus and Children's Chorus of the Opéra National de Paris (chorus master: Alessandro Di Stefano)

Dancers of the Opéra National de Paris

Maîtrise des Hauts-de-Seine

Alain Altinoglu (conductor)

 

The spirit of Gerard Mortier seems truly renewed at the Paris Opéra under Stéphane Lissner: not restored, for, times having changed, such an attempt would be meaningless, but renewed. Mortier’s intendancy was not perfect, of course; far from it. Any artistic endeavour that takes the risks necessary for success will experience failures too, something grim bureaucrats seem incapable of understanding. Nor, I am sure, will Lissner’s be; again, how could it be? However, even on the basis of the two evenings I have experienced so far, this and the great opening declaration of intent, Moses und Aron, the wilderness years of Nicolas Joël now, thank goodness, seem another, almost forgotten era.

If Romeo Castellucci’s Moses, somewhat belying his previous operatic reputation, proved remarkably faithful, in an almost traditional sense, to the work, then Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Tchaikovsky double-bill fuses fidelity and infidelity in what was arguably more daring fashion. The dialectic between the two comes often to the fore. First, one might point to the historical fidelity of pairing the two works. Iolanta was performed before the 1892 premiere of the Nutcracker. Here Tcherniakov combines the works in ways both expected and unexpected; indeed, toying with our expectations, confounding them and yet remaining faithful in some senses to them, might, according to taste, be seen as another principal theme of the evening or, perhaps better, as a manifestation of that previously mentioned. It would not, for instance, take a great deal of thought, save for the hosts of opera-goers unaccustomed to or even hostile to thought, to guess that a girl’s or young woman’s sexual awakening might be at the heart of what we see. And, indeed it is. Iolanta is an opera put on for Clara or, rather, as I learned afterwards upon seeing the programme, ‘Marie’. (Nothing I read in the synopsis went against what I had seen and understood; it confirmed the directness and the complexity of the storytelling and analysis, but was not necessary.) Yet it is not Christmas, as we should have expected and as we seem to have been led to expect. The set remains the same initially, the show having taken place chez Marie, but one thing that disappears is the one thing that has surely pointed to a connection, the Christmas Tree (and indeed, the thing we perhaps most strongly associate with a ‘traditional’ Nutcracker). It is, instead, Marie’s birthday, as a cake with candles makes clear. A birthday is, of course, a rite of passage if ever there were one – and, for many of us, a time to recall past horrors, even to experience new ones, at least as much as to ‘enjoy’ the festivities.

 

 

Iolanta itself takes place relatively ‘traditionally’. We see no sign of mediæval Provence. (Do self-styled ‘protectors of the work’ really know anything about mediæval Provence?) However, we see what, for much of the history of opera, has been something approaching the norm: an opera set in a period and with assumptions comprehensible to its (initial) audience. What has now become one of the most obvious settings for an opera, the time and place, more or less, of composition was long the default before historicism – always a word and idea to cover a multitude of sins – took root, in the nineteenth century. The phrases that perhaps jar – where is the ‘cave’ in this well-to-do drawing room? – seem intended to jar, although who knows? For the most part, we are settled, perhaps a little too settled, in the comfort of a Victorian-age family Christmas. The fun and games at the start, the blind girl led by her nursemaid, Martha, and friends, Brigitta and Laura, provide an image of a life that might seem perfect, unless one looks. Then one sees and hears a room full of love and, as times goes on, a room full of despair, claustrophobia the handmaiden to the well-meaning yet disastrous conspiracy that has denied Iolanta knowledge of her condition. Knowledge, at least since Eden, is necessary, whether we like it or no; and knowledge, together with romantic, indeed sexual love, will be necessary to rescue her. Such is the task of Vaudémont. He knows not who she is; she knows not who he is. His anguish at her plight is real, even shocking. Even when one ‘knows’ the opera, one feels that his reaction to her blindness might lead him to forsake her. He does not, of course, but Tcherniakov’s typically strong, even overwhelming, Personenregie has one believe one is experiencing the story for the first time, as in some sense one is. One cannot step twice into the same stream twice, however ‘traditional’ that stream might look.

The first act ends at the crucial point of lyrical exaltation, self-exaltation and yet discovery in each other: Iolanta and Vaudémont in love, before her cure. It was with this scene that Tchaikovsky actually began work on the opera, underlining its centrality. In a sense, Tcherniakov underlines its centrality by shifting the framework. (It is not in any case, central in terms of placing within the opera; there is not so very long to go in the opera following this climax.) Its resemblance to an Anton Rubinstein song, ‘Longing’ greatly annoyed Rimsky-Korsakov; allusion, though, is surely the thing, given the subject matter. This, at any rate, is the beginning of the breakthrough; regaining her sight is not inevitable at this stage, but it is this which makes that possible. All then happens ‘as it should’.

The Nutcracker then begins part-way through this second act of the evening. Identities shift, dancers replacing lookalike – or dress-alike – singers, or occasionally not. Marie, who has been physically engaging with the characters has begun her awakening too. The love between her and Iolanta, or the actress/singer playing her, seems real, genuine. So, in sexual form, it soon becomes clear, is that between her and her own Vaudémont, the ginger hair so noticeable before the ‘break’ the strongest clue of identity. But the party has its own course to take, some games nastier than others, some reproductions more faithful than others. Tcherniakov’s use of the LP to usher in some ‘hit’ numbers reminds us necessarily of Walter Benjamin’s celebrated – too celebrated? – essay. The guests go away, but they do not. Just when Marie and her lover might finally be together, they return; who is spoiling the fun of whom?

 

 

Then, catastrophe. If sight, the visual beauty of creation, had been won by Vaudémont for Iolanta, we seem now to move backwards. Not to Marie being blind, of course; we do not have that sort of banal symmetry, which would make no sense in this context. But the moment of shock is replicated; and what is more explosive than what must come next? The festivities disappear – just as they would have done in The Nutcracker ‘itself’ – but we find ourselves in a more desolate landscape. Nuclear winter? Figuratively, at least. Snow falls, yes, but there seems little hope, at least until Marie finds her way in this new world. (Remember Brünnhilde’s trauma at loss of her divinity? Remember her fear at the prospect of losing her virginity, let alone the consequences in Götterdämmerung?) Multiple Maries, multiple Vaudémonts, multiple other characters, familiar or not from ‘before’, have their choreographed couplings, some briefer than other, learning (perhaps) as they go on. Monstrous toys – think of how we, as ‘adults’, often consider ‘toys’ – play their part, just as they did in ‘the original’; yet all is new, strange. When Marie returns ‘home’ – it has been a dream, a fantasy, or something like that, yet which is which? – she knows she will never be the same again. So do we. Tcherniakov’s whirlwind, literal as well as metaphorical, has changed her and, in many of our cases, changed us.

 

I have never seen ballet treated so seriously, so convincingly, as a dramatic art form, and again, what could be more faithful to Tchaikovsky, adamant that the genre was anything but a mere divertissement? The land of Lully, Rameau, and Gluck (well, sort of the land of Lully and Gluck!), the land of Béjart, the lands of the Ballet Russes do both genres proud and create something both old and new (but enough of Die Meistersinger until my next review). Choreography, from Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Edouard Lock, Arthur Pita does not stand out as a ‘thing in itself’, as so often in opera-ballet collaborations (when we have them at all). Nor does dance itself. The excellent dancers contribute as much as the excellent singers; I shall forego detailed consideration only on account of my lack of expertise. Suffice it to say, I was at least as captivated by Marion Barbeau and Stéphane Bullion, and not only in their pas de deux but throughout, as by Sonya Yoncheva and Arnold Rutkowski. Indeed, given the placing in the dramatic hierarchy of the two works, I was perhaps still more so, without that denoting a judgement upon performances as such. Yoncheva’s Iolanta was heartfelt, and made us, or at least me, feel with her. This was a lovable character, one felt, and a good deal of the drama, so carefully directed by Tcherniakov, flowed from that. The sincerity of Rutkowski was equally palpable. There was no weak singing, even where Tchaikovsky’s score sags in inspiration (as it surely does from time to time). Everyone played his or her part and played it well.

 

If there were times during the opera when I wondered whether Alain Altinoglu’s conducting, always sure of purpose, were just a little too refined, that was, on reflection, a foolish criticism. What is one supposed to do? Unconvincingly imitate the rough-and-readiness of a (doubtless ill-remembered) old Bolshoi recording? What we saw and heard disabused us of such notions. There was in any case no gainsaying the excellence of the orchestral playing in every section; this is surely one of the world’s greatest opera house orchestras and deserves its praises to be sung as such. Moreover, Altinoglu’s long-term strategy, just like Tcherniakov’s truly came into its own in the second work; Tchaikovsky is, almost of all composers, not one to be too comfortably enjoyed, lest what really matters about his music, what it can say to us now, recede from our view and our hearing. One can perhaps exaggerate the score’s proto-modernism, just as one can exaggerate Stravinsky’s closeness to Tchaikovsky. (Was there ever a slyer composer when it came to influences, to throwing one off the track, perhaps even to throwing himself off the track?) But there are, I think, undeniable neo-Classical elements and tendencies, especially in a particular sort of performance. There were times, actually, when I thought more of Busoni’s ‘Young Classicism’, of his Arlecchino and Turandot, as well as Strauss’s Ariadne – and certainly not just on account of its metatheatricality. That may speak more of my own concerns than those of the staging or musical performance ‘as such’ but again, that speaks of the welcome openness of both. The slipperiness of the work-concept served, visually and aurally, to reinforce our admiration for the works we heard.

 

May Night, Royal Academy Opera, 7 March 2016

Ambika P3, University of Westminster

Levko – Oliver Johnston

Ganna – Laura Zigmantaite
Kalenik – Alex Otterburn
The Headman – Božidar Smiljanić
Headman’s Sister-in-law – Katie Stevenson
Distiller – William Blake
Pannochka – Alys Roberts
Clerk – Dominic Bowe
Stepmother/Rusalka – Helen Brackenbury
Brood-Hen/Rusalka – Iúnó Connolly
Raven/Rusalka – Marvic Monreal

Christopher Cowell (director)

Bridget Kimak (designs)
Jake Wiltshire (lighting)
Mandy Demetriou (choreography)

Royal Academy Opera Chorus (chorus master: Richard Leach)

Royal Academy Sinfonia

Gareth Hancock (conductor)

 

And so, eight days in which I shall see no fewer than four Russian musical works for the stage began, with a true rarity, Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night. As ever, Royal Academy Opera’s programming refreshes: last term we had The Marriage of Figaro, as far from a rarity as one might imagine, but in one of the best performances I have ever seen or heard, now an opera that would surely have Rimskyites and the simply curious determined to come. Which am I? More the latter, I suppose, although the composer certainly intrigues me. There is a materialist emptiness to much of his music I sometimes find problematical, but there is no denying, alongside an undeniable datedness (not always a bad thing, by any means), Rimsky’s mastery of colour, his legacy for twentieth-century music (above all Stravinsky), and many other strengths. Of the two operas I had previously seen staged, I much preferred The Tale of Tsar Saltan to The Tsar’s Bride, although the latter work clearly has its advocates. On the basis of my admittedly limited experience, the Orientalist and the supernatural Rimsky seem to me much more interesting than the merely realist. (Leave that to Mussorgsky and his towering masterpieces!) Characterisation does not appear to be a strength; where Rimsky can summon up a dazzling peacock, he seems – can one blame him? – less thrilled by the prospect of a group of peasants. Or maybe one needs to be Russian, or at least have first-hand familiarity with the language, to appreciate Gogol.

 

Such, at any rate, was my experience of by May Night too. Although I was grateful indeed to hear the work, especially performed so well, it was really in its third act that it came into its own for me, although there are certainly individual numbers, perhaps especially the choral ones, beforehand which prove arresting or at least interesting earlier on. At one point, I felt The Firebird calling; that, I thought was what I had been hoping to hear. Elsewhere, I felt a little too often that numbers were about to flower like Tchaikovsky, but never did. However, once the rusalki came along in the third act, the composer seemed far more in his element (or at least mine). There, the air of orchestral fantasy and magic – even if the Beckmesser in me might have queried quite so much use of the harps – proved a delight and incited the hero, Levko, to quite his loveliest music too, against that supernatural setting which would save the day for him once back home. The evening never looked back.

Christopher Cowell’s production makes the most of that. The water nymphs take over the stage, extending themselves and their realm physically as well as – well, if not quite metaphysically, for that seems alien to Rimsky’s world-view, then imaginatively. Choreography (Mandy Demetriou) and lighting (Jake Wiltshire) do excellent work in this transformation. But the production accomplishes a great deal beforehand too. Updating to the 1920s gives us a sense of where Russia – or, indeed, the Ukraine, where this is set – was heading, of the challenges of industrialisation more than hinted at in the setting of a distillery and its transformation, and sheds new light upon the relationship between village community and outside direction.  Striking designs by Bridget Kimak and students from Rose Bruford College frame the action splendidly, and work very well with the setting: the Ambika P3 bunker in Marylebone. I was surprised not just at the extraordinary visual transformation, but also at the fine acoustic results too.

As ever, a Royal Academy production offers a showcase for young singers, and once again, they performed very well indeed. Our pair of thwarted and finally united lovers, Oliver Johnston as Levko and Laura Zigmantaite as Ganna, truly excelled. Zigmantaite’s performance was graceful, flexible and grateful of voice, with a splendid vocal flowering at the close. Johnston’s was little short of sensational. The beauty of his voice was matched note for note by idiomatic command. His third-act aria, ‘Sleep my beauty,’ was ravishing: something that would have commanded the attention on the most celebrated of stages, all the more so for its lack of grandstanding. Its wistful sincerity was palpable. Everyone, however, played his or her part. Božidar Smiljanić’s bumbling, scheming Headman was a fine comic portrayal, likewise Alex Otterburn’s hapless Kalenik. Katie Stevenson similarly raised smiles as sister-in-law – one suspects that covers a multitude of sins – to the Headman. Alys Roberts made the most of her opportunity to steal hearts as the nymph, Pannochka, drawing us in to find her plight and rescue credible and affecting.

If the orchestra got off to a surprisingly rocky start in the Overture, it soon settled down. Earlier on, there were occasions when I thought a few more desks of strings would not have gone amiss. (When, after all, would that not be the case?) But as time went on, such thoughts vanished from my mind, and was able fully to enjoy a lovingly (post-)Romantic performance, thoughtfully directed by Jane Glover’s successor (in September) as Director of Royal Academy Opera, Gareth Hancock. Tempi were persuasive; the orchestra spoke without ever overwhelming the singers. Choral singing was very impressive too. As so often, I was left in no doubt that we shall hear more from many of these excellent young artists. This was, of course, a wonderful opportunity for them, but equally for us.

 

 

 

For International Women's Day

Appl/Johnson - Schubert, 6 March 2016

Wigmore Hall

Adelaide, D 95; Lied aus der Ferne, D 107; An Emma, D 113; Abschied, D 475; Der entsühnte Orest, D 699; Freiwilliges Versinken, D 700; Die Mutter Erde, D 788; Der Einsame, D 800; Lied des gefangenen Jägers, D 843; Fülle der Liebe, D 854; Sehnsucht, D 879; Trinklied, D 888; An Silvia, D 891; An die Laute, D 905; Jägers Liebeslied, D 909; Herbst, D 945

Benjamin Appl (baritone)

Graham Johnson (piano)

 

At the risk of sounding too much like a stuck record, this was another fine recital – the third I have heard already this year – from Benjamin Appl. Unsurprisingly, his pianist, Graham Johnson, was not bad either, just as had been the case on 4th January! Where that had been a mixed programme, here, as just a week later (with Jonathan Ware), this was an all-Schubert recital. Programmed chronologically, the songs spanned the whole of the composer’s all-too-short career, beginning with three from 1814 and concluding with Herbst, from 1828.

When we think of Adelaide, we naturally think of Beethoven; Schubert’s setting proved still closer to Mozart. It received a stylish performance, which already announced the hallmarks of the recital as a whole: beautiful, even tone, diction beyond reproach, and a communicative skill second to none. In Lied aus der Ferne, the words also by Friedrich von Matthisson, some of the harmonies sound more unmistakeably Schubertian, likewise some of the piano turns of melodic phrase. If neither of those songs, nor Emma, is fully mature, it is of interest to hear them from time to time, especially in performances as alert as these. Johnson, as expected, made the most of the piano parts through long-standing knowledge; there was no grandstanding here.

The opening (and closing) chords of Abschied certainly caught the attention; they might almost have been by Liszt. (We perhaps tend to think of him as further removed from Schubert than he actually was; if the latter had lived longer, musical history would doubtless look – and sound – very different.) Taken at an effortlessly leisurely tempo, it revealed its secrets all the more effectively. Mayrhofer supplied the words for the following two songs too. Der entsühnte Orest offered Appl an opportunity, well taken indeed, to show quiet, patient, masculine strength: ‘… und murmelst sanft. „Triumph, Triumph!‟/Ich schwinge Schwert uns Speer.’ I really do not know what to make of the strange concluding lines to Die Mutter Erde (Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolbert-Stolberg). Seemingly out of nowhere, we are told that if only we should look upon the face of Mother Nature, we should not fear her bosom. They sounded almost reasonable here, especially if one concentrated upon the musical aspects. (It was not difficult to do so.)

Der Einsame brought a welcome change of mood. Johnson’s piano crickets chirped splendidly, very much part and parcel of a good-natured performance. It had its sterner moments too, as Appl reminded us: the ‘schwarm der lauten Welt’ cannot bring ‘Zufriedenheit’. Lied des gefangenen Jägers received an appropriately heroic rendition, which yet yielded where required. It and the ensuing Fülle der Liebe displayed very different, yet not entirely different, aspects of Romanticism. The depth of Johnson’s piano tone in the latter song was especially noteworthy. So were the words: ‘Ein Stern erschien mir vom Paradies’: they truly sounded as such. A keen sense of drama characterised Sehnsucht, emotional kinship with Schubert’s song-cycles undeniable.

The first of two Shakespeare settings, Trinklied, brought humorous contrast, especially the second time around, Appl slurring his speech to genuine comic effect. Mozart’s Osmin came to mind. An Silvia could hardly be more familiar, yet rarely can it have sounded so fresh, simply, or so it seemed, by letting it speak for itself. An die Laute offered a playful sense of the lute as instrument. Attentiveness to verbal meaning characterised Appl’s response to Jägers Liebeslied, quite without pedantry. Finally, at least so far as the published programme was concerned, Herbst sounded with Beethovenian purpose, albeit in an illustrative fashion that was unquestionably Schubert’s own. The sense of helplessness was heightened by vocal security and beauty. We were treated to two encores: a Ständchen so seductive it might have been sung by Don Giovanni, albeit with palpable sincerity, and the winning contrast of Das Fischermädchen.

 

Iphigénie en Tauride, English Touring Opera, 5 March 2016

 

Images: Richard Hubert Smith

Hackney Empire Theatre

Iphigénie – Catherine Carby

Oreste – Grant Doyle
Pylade – John-Colyn Gyeantey
Thoas – Craig Smith
Scythian Guard – Simon Gfeller
Ministers of the Sanctuary – Ashley Mercer, Bradley Travis
Priestesses of Diana – Susanna Fairbairn, Samantha Hay

James Conway (director)

Anna Fleischle (designs)
Guy Hoare (lighting)
Bernadette Iglich (choreography)

Orchestra and Chorus of English Touring Opera
Martin André (conductor)

At last, an opera company bothering, in London, to perform an opera by one of the most important composers in the history of the genre! (When the Royal Opera performed Orphée et Eurydice, it condescended to Gluck by hiving him off to an external orchestra, as if he somehow were not good enough for its own players.) One grows weary of lamenting, year after year, Gluck’s absence from our programmes. This performance at the Hackney Empire sold out, showing that there is a keen audience, both of devotees and newcomers; if Gluck is not programmed, just as when Schoenberg, say, is not programmed, it is because companies have decided not to do so, not because no one will go. It is all the better, then, that English Touring Opera will take the production to many theatres around the country that would otherwise receive no opera at all, let alone any Gluck operas.

What most, me included, would consider the crowning masterpiece of Gluck’s career will win converts from any willing to treat opera as a serious art form; those who are not might as well remain in front of the television. For Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the great German art historian and archaeologist, ‘the only way for us to be great, and if at all possible, immortal,’ was ‘by imitating the ancients’. Such was the context for Gluck’s crystallisation of plans for operatic reform, opera, which should have been the inheritor of Attic tragedy, being seen instead to have degenerated into an undramatic farrago of vocal and scenic exhibitionism. (It is hard not to sympathise in the case of, say, Vivaldi’s operas, and many others.) Gluck’s (well, Ranieri de’ Calzabigi’s) 1769 Preface to Alceste remains a landmark document in operatic history, the archetypal declaration of operatic reform. It was very much what we heard here:

I have striven to restrict music to its true office of serving poetry by means of expression and by following the situations of the story, without interrupting the action or stifling it with a useless superfluity of ornaments; and I believe that it should do this in the same way as telling colours affect a correct and well-ordered drawing, by a well-assorted contrast of light and shade which serves to animate the figures without altering the contours. Thus I did not wish to arrest an actor in the greatest heat of dialogue in order to wait for a tiresome ritornello … nor to wait while the orchestra gives him time to recover his breath for a cadenza. … I have sought to abolish all the abuses against which good sense and reason have long cried out in vain. ... Furthermore, I believed that my greatest labour should be devoted to seeking a beautiful simplicity.

Moreover, it was what we saw too. James Conway’s production, focused on Anna Fleischle’s resourceful single set will doubtless transfer well to other, smaller theatres. It proves eminently adaptable, focusing our attention, like Gluck’s music, on the drama, not upon extraneous ‘effects’. That is not to say that there is anything bloodless to it. Quite the contrary, in fact, the blood-drenching of the opening scene, Iphigénie and her priestesses compelled to perform their appalling task, hits home powerfully, the well-nigh psychoanalytical quality of Gluck’s writing – storm external and internal – powerfully conveyed. Conway concentrates on the characters and their plight, permitting the drama to do its own work, or so it seems. One especially welcome aspect is his willingness to follow the homoeroticism of the relationship between Oreste and Pylade. (Quite why many other directors decline to do so remains a mystery to me.) Their second-act kiss is a splendidly handled moment. Have they (physically) been lovers all along? Perhaps, but I had the impression that, at this moment, facing death and the prospect of never seeing each other again, they could finally act as their romantic friendship had all along urged them. However difficult Oreste had become, perhaps even tried to be, they now found themselves helpless, compelled by Fate to snatch the moment. The openness of Conway’s staging allows one to read that moment as one will; there is no doubt, however, that this is the truest of love. Nothing, however, detracts from the playing out of the tragedy, Guy Hoare’s lighting clearly focusing our expectation and concentration.

An unfortunate exception came with the decision to present the deus ex machina in the guise of a little girl Diana, splashing around in the puddles. It makes for an undeniably arresting moment of theatre. Alas, its vocal effectiveness stood in inverse proportion to the element of visual surprise. Another aspect of vocal weakness came with Craig Smith’s stiff Thoas, king of Tauris. It is not the most grateful of roles, perhaps, but he sounded elderly rather than barbarous. Otherwise, there was much to admire in the cast. Catherine Carby’s gave a heartfelt performance as Iphigénie; how could one not deeply sympathise with her plight? Grant Doyle’s Oreste came across as properly conflicted, properly stunted by his appalling experiences, growing in humanity and self-knowledge. If John-Colyn Gyeantey’s Pylade was not always vocally secure, sometimes possessed of an unduly distracting vibrato, he had one believe in his character and his motivations, which is of greater importance; moreover, ‘Divinité des grandes âmes’ proved a proper climax to the third act. An excellent small chorus made its mark in various guises, as did those taking the smaller roles.

What a joy, moreover, to hear Gluck performed on modern instruments! If Martin André’s direction sometimes veered a little towards the frenetic for my taste, one hears far more extreme examples. Rarely did the instruments sound circumscribed, even if a little warmer string tone would not have gone amiss at times. More importantly, though, the bubbling of this well-nigh proto-Wagnerian (and proto-Berliozian) wordless Chorus told us so much of what we needed to know, explained so much of what we saw on stage and heard in the vocal line. Continuity and variety were impressive, André ensuring that both emerged as sides of the same dramatic coin. This was not a performance on the grand scale of, say, Riccardo Muti’s legendary recording from La Scala, but one would not have expected it to be. ETO does in many respects a far more important job, for which we should all offer thanks. There could be no doubt that it gave us the opportunity to hear just what Louis Petit de Bachaumont wrote of, in the account he gave in his Mémoires secrets of the 1779 premiere:

It is a new genre. It is truly a tragedy, … a tragedy in the Greek style. There is no Overture, … no arias [an exaggeration, but one knows what he means!]; but many indications of passion expressed with the greatest energy; they arouse an interest hitherto unknown on the lyric stage. One can only congratulate Chevalier Gluck for having discovered the secret of the ancients, and he will raise it to a pitch of undoubted perfection.

Now, more Gluck, please!

 

 

Pollini - Schoenberg, Schumann, and Chopin, 2 March 2016

Royal Festival Hall

Schoenberg – Six Little Piano Pieces, op.19

Schumann – Allegro in B minor, op.8
Schumann – Fantasie in C major, op.17
Chopin – Barcarolle, op.60
Chopin – Two Nocturnes, op.55
Chopin – Polonaise-Fantaisie, op.61
Chopin – Scherzo in C-sharp minor, op.39

Maurizio Pollini (piano)

Maurizio Pollini remains to my mind our greatest living pianist. He has always had his detractors, although their line of attack appears to have turned 180 degrees. Once they denigrated his awe-inspiring technique, as if that were somehow a bad thing. They accused him also of a literalism that could not have been further from the truth. Now, it seems, they accuse him of lacking technique. (Whether ‘they’ are the same people is not always clear; in some cases, they certainly are, and seem to object more to his wholly admirable political principles than anything else, using such manufactured objections as ballast.)

Why do I mention this here? Partly because it would be vain to claim that Pollini’s technical command is quite so unassailable as it once was. However, as those of us preferring to listen rather than to scorn have also observed, there has come with a relative increases in fallibility a still more evident humanity to be heard. It was always there, of course, and it is far more than the banality of saying that the occasional wrong note makes a musician seem human. But if anything, many of his interpretations have deepened, liberated even by current circumstances. There was, for instance, to these undeniable ‘Pollini works’ often something different, intriguing, even experimental, when compared with his celebrated recordings. I remember as a teenager, my sixth-form music teacher handing me a newspaper cutting of an interview with him. (I am afraid I cannot remember from which newspaper.) He spoke of every few years returning to Beethoven and re-learning the sonatas from scratch, just as he would re-read Goethe or Schiller. This, I think, is what we hear here, where some excite themselves by crowing over a few smudged passages.

As a previously unannounced curtain-raiser, in tribute to Boulez, whose death will surely hang over the whole of 2016 and beyond, we heard Schoenberg’s op.19 Pieces. (I once, as a student, heard Pollini play the set as one of several encores at this very venue.) Only the first sounded slightly diffident. The others were sharply characterised, proud in their Brahmsian inheritance, equally proud in their suspended (yet not entirely so) tonality, or, if we like, their Wagnerian inheritance. Stockhausen perhaps stood not so very far away either. But Debussy also came to mind; at times, the instrument seemed almost hammer-less. And then, came the ruptures, undeniably hammered; Adorno would surely have nodded sagely.

 

Schumann followed. The B minor Allegro came first. It would be difficult to imagine a performance – and a performance this most certainly was – with a stronger sense of purpose, and yet which remained imbued with a poetic impulse rooted not only in Schumann’s own Romanticism but also in so much of musical history since. Here and in the ensuing C major Fantasie, Debussy again proved an intriguing presence, perhaps at first surprising but, upon consideration and, more important, upon experience, satisfying and compelling. This was a Romanticism that opened up vistas, for those with ears to hear, rather than retreated into an imaginary ‘golden age’. Multiply that a few times, mix in a considerably greater willingness to beguile us with telling rubato, and you might have an idea of the Fantasie in performance. Pollini’s celebrated recording is perhaps a better initial guide to the work, and will surely remain a prime recommendation to listeners of all varieties. Here, however, the pianist, or better the musical thinker, seemed willing to test his preconceived ideas and ours. A frankly Chopinesque – at least at times – second movement, especially interesting given the second half, soothed and ravaged the instrument in equal measure. Standing on either side, like panels in a triptych, the first and third movements were played perhaps more ‘straight’, but nevertheless with great variegation. Yes, the conclusion to the second movement was a rollercoaster ride, but he and we made it; it was exciting in a more profound sense than one would ever hear from a ‘mere’ virtuoso, because this was a performance driven by the intellect, at least as powerful as ever.

Chopin has perhaps always been Pollini’s greatest love. If there were times during the Schumann works when I could imagine those preferring more ‘traditional’ approaches looking askance, it would be difficult to conceive of anyone feeling bewildered here. The Barcarolle sounded, well, more barcarolle-like than I could recall – which is saying something, Swaying waters drew one in to listen, despite, indeed partly because, one knew that such waters would prove dangerous. Such, after all, is the definition of siren voices. Voices led us, tempted us, to the very depths. Suddenly, and yet no suddenly, moonlight guided our way through the pair of Nocturnes, op.55. The onward tread of the F minor piece developed its own impetus, not exactly wayward, but perhaps more varied than one once might have heard; melodic delights led us once again to look to the silvery skies. So they did also in its E-flat major sibling, whose voice-leading reminded us just how complex Chopin’s music can be, whilst retaining an essential melodic impulse. Dialectics have always been Pollini’s thing, whether in Chopin, Beethoven, or Nono.

Even those not generally attuned to ‘later Pollini’ would surely have adored the performance of the Polonaise-Fantaisie. Structural command was absolute, melodic and harmonic progress as one; here, one sensed, was a reminiscence of the pianist’s earlier, equally misunderstood, self. The C-sharp minor Scherzo might at times have been edited or elaborated by Liszt, such was the battle and yet ultimate rejoicing with the instrument, in which musical and technical discoveries could not, should not be separated. It sounded as exploratory as anything in the recital, testament surely to the Boulez to whom Pollini had initially paid homage. Both encores, the G minor Ballade and (!) the D-flat Nocturne, op.27 no.2, sounded at least as liberated; as so often in Pollini’s recitals, the end of the published programme proved only the end of the beginning. I have been continuing to think long after having left the hall; indeed, in that sense, the recital has yet to draw to a close.

Il trittico, Royal Opera, 29 February 2016

Royal Opera House

Il trittico

Michele – Lucio Gallo

Giorgetta – Patricia Racette
Luigi – Carl Tanner
Tinca – Carlo Bosi
Talpa – Jeremy White
Frugola – Irina Mishura
Song Seller – David Junghoon Kim
Lovers – Lauren Fagan, Luis Gomes

Suor Angelica

Suor Angelica – Ermonela Jaho

Suor Dolcina – Elizabeth Key
Monitress – Elena Zilio
Suor Genovieffa – Lauren Fagan
Suor Osmina – Eryl Royle
Mistress of the Novices – Elizabeth Zikora
Abbess – Irina Mishura
Princess Zia – Anna Larsson
Novice – Katy Batho
Nursing Sister – Jennifer Davis
Alms Sisters – Emily Edmonds, Renata Skarelyte
Nuns – Tamsin Coombs, Kiera Lyness, Anne Osborne, Amy Catt, Cari Searle

Gianni Schicchi

Gianni Schicchi – Lucio Gallo

Lauretta – Susanna Hurrell
Zita – Elena Zilio
Rinuccio – Paolo Fanale
Gherardo – Carlo Bosi
Nella – Rebecca Evans
Gherardino – Gabriele Montano
Betto di Signa – Jeremy White
Simone – Gwynne Howell
Marco – David Kempster
La Ciesca – Marie McLaughlin
Maestro Spinelloccio – Matteo Peirone
Ser Amantio di Nicolao – Tziano Bracci
Pinellino – Simon Wilding
Guccio – David Shipley
Buoso Donati – Peter Curtis

Richard Jones (director)

Sarah Fahie (revival director, Il tabarro and Suor Angelica)
Benjamin Davis (revival director, Gianni Schicchi)
Ultz (set designs, Il tabarro)
John Macfarlane (set designs, Gianni Schicchi)
Miriam Buether (set designs, Suor Angelica)
Nicky Gillibrand (costumes)
Mimi Jordan Sherin (lighting, revived D.M. Wood)
Sarah Fahie (movement)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Nicola Luisotti (conductor)

 

Until last summer, when I saw Opera Holland Park’s excellent production, I had never seen Il trittico as a whole in the theatre, something I had been intending to remedy for a while. Such was perhaps easier said than done, given that complete performances, whilst probably less rare than at one time they had become, are less frequent than one might expect. (Alexandra Wilson’s programme note was interesting on that subject.) At any rate, I wanted to wait for the right occasion, and OHP has a very good track record in Puccini. Now I have seen another, which seemed to me almost, yet perhaps not quite, as successful, but which should surely disappoint no one. That quite a few friends – I learned this only afterwards, so it did not colour my expectations – had been disappointed on the first night, especially in vocal terms, I find surprising; I have no reason to doubt them or their judgement, but can only say that, going on the second night, my experience was different; it was, after all, a different performance, and such is the magic – and indeed the frustration – of a performing art. Even the weakest of the three operas, considered purely vocally, was only comparatively so.

 

I will admit to a little disappointment that Richard Jones seems to have made little, if any, effort to unite the three operas. Three is no iron-clad rule which says one must, of course, but surely it would be interesting at least to make the attempt when the director is common to all three. It is, after all, perfectly clear how different they are on the surface; what, however, if one digs a little deeper? Yes, one can – and should – do one that oneself, but to say there is no need for a director to do so comes close to saying that there is no need for a director, at least in the strong sense, at all. Ably revived – with the caveat that I had only seen the Gianni Schicchi before, when it was paired with L’Heure espagnole – by Sarah Fahie and Benjamin Davis, there was, however to these stagings no doubt concerning the Personenregie nor the general sense of theatre. Jones treats Il tabarro as one would usually expect it to be seen, in naturalistic fashion. If I am honest, I was relieved to be spared his usual visual trademarks – no flock wallpaper, thank goodness! – and being set when and where it ‘should’ be makes a good deal of sense. (Not, I hasten to add that it must be, and if one were seeing the opera all the time, one might think differently.) It is atmospheric, though, and the designs – surely that is crucial, if one is going to be naturalistic – convince in a realistic fashion. There is perhaps more than a hint of Zola, or at least that this is recognisably of Zola’s world. The barge convinces as a barge, as do Ultz’s handsome street designs and Nicky Gillibrand’s costume designs. Paris, the very particular Paris of these workers by the Seine, emerges as perhaps the central ‘character’, and that is surely a good thing.

I am less sure about the children’s hospital ward setting of Suor Angelica; it feels a little contrived throughout, and especially at the end. Indeed, substituting for the nun’s vision a child running forward to hug her comes across, whatever the intention, as kitsch sentimentality, which is the last thing Puccini needs. Anti-clericalism is one thing, Puccini’s thing, although ultimately not a very interesting thing; this, for me, is another, something which seemed unable to take religion seriously at all and which was therefore to be found lacking. A full-on, atheistic attack – admittedly, of the post-Voltairean variety, and yes I know Voltaire himself was a deist, rather than the silly contemporary nonsense of Dawkins et al. – might be interesting; this is not it. Within these confines – and admitting, again, the excellence, on their own terms of the designs, this time by Miriam Buether – the story is told well enough, at least until the end.

Gianni Schicchi is, as one would hope, full of life, well observed, and certainly seems to respond to the music. Presumably Sarah Fahie’s movement coordination deserves credit there. It might not dig so deep as Calixto Bieito’s production for the Komische Oper,Berlin, despite their surface similarity, and of course the latter’s brilliant pairing with Bluebeard’s Castle – now there is an example of someone pursuing a compelling line through two operas – renders the comparison problematical. Having seen Bieito, I found this a little too obvious in its ‘zaniness’, a little lacking in a sense of what the work might mean. There is little, nevertheless, that should really trouble anyone, save for those ultra-reactionaries who object to the business of updating ‘on principle’. How I wish, though, that the audience could have been at least a little more quiet! Its incessant laughter was disruptive and wearying. (Is the opera really so funny that people cannot control themselves?) Applause following ‘O mio babbino caro’ suggested as strongly as audible sighs when that aria began that the perpetrators had little sense of irony, nor of the audible and visual (cinematic still) inverted commas around it. Whatever they were doing, they were certainly not applauding ironically, with a sense of the metatheatrical.

The real continuity came from Nicola Luisotti’s excellent conducting of the orchestra. To begin with, I wondered whether the orchestral sound in Il tabarro were a little too pastel of shade. However, it increasingly drew me in rhythmically, and soon I noticed and responded to the close connection with harmonic rhythm. Colour and its variation, rhythm and its variation, harmony and its variation: these and their interconnection progressed as if the score were plotting the course of the River Seine itself. That, arguably, is very much part of what it is doing. I was able to hear to an unusual degree the opera as a masterly symphonic poem with voices. That certain rhythmic figures and their development found their way into Suor Angelica was even more striking. Musical differences asserted themselves too, of course, but the sense of unity and diversity missing from the staging was undeniable in the pit. Gianni Schicchi’s scherzo-like writing thrilled as it should: with the quickfire alternation and sheer variety of character-voices above, I felt again that the truest action was in the symphonic poem so brilliantly played. Luisotti was economical with climaxes; however, my doubts as to whether he was perhaps being a little too parsimonious were readily assuaged by his long-term strategy, ably put into practice by the Covent Garden orchestra, sounding as Puccini players to the manner born.

 

Vocally, this felt somewhat like a ‘company’ night. The Royal Opera may not really possess a company in the old-fashioned sense; more is the pity. Nevertheless, there was considerable strength in depth and a true sense of cooperation, both between singers and between them and the production. Il tabarro, as I said, was somewhat less impressive in straightforward vocal terms, although Lucio Gallo’s relative dourness was surely part of his portrayal of Michele. Carl Tanner’s Luigi and Patricia Racette’s Giorgetta had impressive moments, although they were not so sustained as one might have wished. Irina Mishura was an arrestingly spirited Frugola. Ermonela Jaho’s Suor Angelica was properly sympathetic, indeed heart-rending; if her vocal strength is not sustained equally throughout her range, then that is the case with a good many singers. One employs what one has, and this she did very well; there was no doubting her honesty of portrayal and her commitment. Lauren Fagan’s moment as Suor Genovieffa, admitting her desire once again to hold a lamb, was touching indeed. Anna Larsson gave a remarkable performance as Princess Zia, her cold dignity scene-stealing; what a splendid contrast with the Wagner and Mahler in which I have most often heard her! Elena Zilio shone both as the Monitress and still more as Zita, the focal point – arguably more so than Gianni Schicchi himself – of activity in the final opera. Her stage and vocal presence were as one. Gallo’s more energetic – how could it not be? – performance as Schicchi clearly sprang from the words with, dare I say it, a native Italian ease. Gwynne Howell showed that he still very much has ‘it’ as Simone. Susanna Hurrell and Paolo Fanale offered youthful, fresh-tone relief as Lauretta and Rinuccio. As elsewhere, though, everyone contributed to the evening’s success. This was a properly human comedy.

 

Stefanovich - Copland, Carter, and Ives, 26 February 2016

St John’s, Smith Square

Copland – Piano Variations

Carter –Tri-Tribute
Carter – Two Thoughts about the Piano
Ives – Piano Sonata no.1

Tamara Stefanovich (piano) 

 

This will prove, I think, to be a recital long echoing in the memories of those present. The music of three very different composers were here heard, a common theme perhaps more the utterly compelling advocacy and virtuosity of Tamara Stefanovich than any intrinsic musical connections between the works. That did not matter a jot. Stefanovich’s welcoming manner – she prefaced the Carter pieces and the Ives with very helpful introductions – would have drawn anyone in. The warmth and volume of the applause following Charles Ives’s First Sonata said it all.

If Aaron Copland wrote a better work than his 1930 Piano Variations, I do not know it. Stefanovich gave at least as good a performance as any recording I have heard. (I do not think I had previously had the opportunity to hear it live.) The opening sounded stentorian, provocative. It took, quite rightly, a little while to yield, construction and drama revealed to be as one. I loved Stefanovich’s grand, Romantic manner with the work, sounding every bit as much music for the Steinway as Rachmaninov; indeed, at times, Copland sounded positively Lisztian. The music could melt, tenderly, in similar fashion too. Leonard Bernstein called the work ‘as hard as nails’. That was not really how it sounded here. Rather, Stefanovich seemed to posit – or at least I heard – something of a rapprochement avant la lettre between Schoenberg and Stravinsky; perhaps there was even a sense of Prokofiev at his most radical. More importantly still, Stefanovich proved herself here an unmistakeably original musical thinker, beholden to no performing tradition; I really must hear her again in Boulez’s Second Sonata, since I now fear that, on a previous occasion, I listened far too much with my own preconceptions to the fore.

 

Elliott Carter is widely recognised as the greatest of all American composers. Here we heard works from his extraordinary final period, approaching his century. Slipping in a cunningly unattributed Ivesian reference (his father’s advice) to her introduction, Stefanovich told us that this was music to ‘stretch the ears’. It was indeed, but so had Copland’s work been too. Different metrical speeds ‘in a very confined space’ was an apt frame of reference for us to hear the three miniatures of Tri-Tribute. They sounded, in their way, as something of a petite suite, and had a wonderful sense of playfulness. In Two Thoughts about the Piano, ‘Intermittences’ brought what sounded like a post-Messieanic hierarchy of dynamics. And again, I thought: what wonderful use of the Steinway! Sparks flew, as it were, in ‘Caténaires’: electric as well as electrical, with an intriguing, indeed delightful post-Webern sonority. The sense of a single line – akin to a cable – was unmistakeable, a moto perpetuo for the Internet age.  

It was also my first opportunity to hear Ives’s Sonata no.1 in concert. If less single-minded than Mahler, it emerged certainly as more akin, in that most celebrated of symphonic contrasts, to Mahler’s vision than to that of Sibelius. If it did not quite embrace everything, it had a wonderful stab at doing so, perhaps all the more touching, all the more daring, for its defiant lack of polish. Again, Schoenberg came to mind, especially at the beginning; I had to remind myself that Ives’s writing preceded Schoenberg’s op.11. Thereafter, take your pick: everything seemed to be present. The grand, Romantic sound we had heard in Copland seemed revivified here; we did not seem so very far from the challenge of the Hammerklavier Sonata. The revelations and mysteries of Ives’s compositional choices – what are we to make of the appearance of What a Friend we have in Jesus, and the use to which it is put? – were as extraordinary, as baffling, and yes, as moving, as ever. This was a bravura performance, if ever I heard one. ‘Silent’ Kurtág was the perfect encore response: witty and surely just as loving.

 

The Rape of Lucretia, Guildhall, 24 February 2016

Silk Street Theatre, Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Collatinus – Milan Siljanov

Junius – Daniel Shelvey
Tarquinius – Christopher Cull
Male Chorus – Thomas Atkins
Female Chorus – Elizabeth Karani
Lucia – Jennifer Witton
Bianca – Elizabeth Lynch
Lucretia – Katarzyna Balejko

Martin Lloyd-Evans (director)

Jamie Vartan (designs)
Mark Jonathan (lighting)
Dan Shorten (video)

Orchestra of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Dominic Wheeler (conductor)

 

I shall not beat about the bush: this was the best performance of The Rape of Lucretia I have seen. It would be difficult – indeed unduly contrived, if not quite so contrived as the opera’s wretched Epilogue – to find anything much at which to cavil in the excellent performances from Guildhall musicians under Dominic Wheeler, or indeed in Martin Lloyd-Evans’s taut, powerful, musical production. Seen in the round, the orchestra at the same level as the stage, this could be experienced almost as a piece of music theatre, and emerged all the more strongly for it. Jamie Vartan’s designs are spare but telling, Mark Jonathan’s lighting subtly doing a great deal of the work. The Chorus has been there all the time, sharp-suited singers walking around the stage, through the audience, beforehand: pensive, maybe impatient, hurrying us to start and yet delaying. Or is that all in the imagination? Who can be sure? And does that matter? We do not really know who they are, after all. But, until that final, supremely unconvincing Christian promise of redemption – Britten’s own fault: one wants to shout, ‘What on earth has this to do with Christ’s Passion? – I responded to them in a way I have not before. Kinship with the not-quite-real, yet all-too-real, qualities of The Turn of the Screw is apparent to an unusual extent.

 

The Romans are portrayed convincingly in near-modern dress: perhaps the time of composition, maybe a little earlier? The narcissism of army dress uniform tells its own tale, especially when we sit so close to the action. One can certainly feel the physicality, the provocative nature of an opera, which, despite its unusual – for Britten – centrality of a female character, ultimately falls back just as much as the others upon male sexuality. The domesticity of Lucretia’s realm, its illusory peace, is hauntingly caught: spinning with echoes of a past fondly remembered, soon to be savagely destroyed forever by Tarquinius’s deed. We feel, as did Britten, the closeness, the monstrousness of war; but is society always in a state of war in one way or another? Is sex also war by other means? Nothing seems black and white here; Collatinus, after all, grows into his role, into compassion and forgiveness.

 

The singers impressed both vocally and as actors. I could not, if I wished, have selected a weak link. Milan Siljanov, Daniel Shelvey, and Christopher Cull played the three men similarly at first, distinctions becoming later. Where Cull’s Tarquinius lost control of his actions via excellent vocal control, Collatinus and Junius pulled in different directions. Attention to words and music was exemplary. Likewise with Katarzyna Balejko’s rich-toned, imploring Lucretia: a victim with whom one could sympathise deeply, not that that would do her any good. Jennifer Witton and Elizabeth Lynch proved equally sympathetic women of the household, trying to do their best in an impossible situation, their lack of success again a factor drawing us in to their particular and general plight. Thomas Atkins and Elizabeth Karani carefully, excitingly trod a fine Choral line between observation and participation.

 

That, as I suggested above, served to highlight connections with The Turn of the Screw: not just onstage, but perhaps still more importantly, in musical terms. (The distinction seemed unusually false in this case.) For not the least of this cast’s and this production’s virtues was the strong impression they gave that their decisions sprang from Britten’s highly ‘constructed’ score. That could not have happened, of course, without highly committed, concentrated playing from Wheeler and the excellent young orchestral players. The closed forms may be more overt, less complex than those of Wozzeck, but the cumulative effect was perhaps not entirely dissimilar. Figures, harmonies, rhythms lodged themselves in the mind and would not let go: like the tragedy enacted on stage. If only someone could solve the problem of that Epilogue… Otherwise, and in any reasonable sense, outstanding! I have no doubt that we shall see and hear much more from these singers; I look forward to doing so.