Boris Godunov, Royal Opera, 14 March 2016

Royal Opera House

Boris Godunov – Bryn Terfel

Andrey Schchelkalov – Kostas Smoriginas
Nikitch – Jeremy White
Mityukha – Adrian Clarke
Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky – John Graham-Hall
Pimen – Ain Anger
Grigory Otrepiev – David Butt Philip
Hostess of the Inn – Rebecca de Pont Davies
Varlaam – John Tomlinson
Missail – Harry Nicoll
Frontier Guard – James Platt
Xenia – Vlada Borovko
Xenia’s Nurse – Sarah Pring
Fyodor – Ben Knight
Boyar – Nicholas Sales
Holy Fool – Andrew Tortise

Richard Jones (director)

Miriam Buethner (set designs)
Nicky Gillibrand (costumes)
Mimi Jordan Sherin (lighting)
Ben Wright (movement)
Elaine Kidd (associate director)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Antonio Pappano (conductor)

 

I really only have one grumble, so I shall get it out of the way first. Why the original, 1869 version of Boris Godunov? Yes, it was a Royal Opera, although not a Royal Opera House, first? Yes, it has its particular fascinations; one might even argue it more radical or at the very least still less beholden to operatic convention than Mussorgsky’s revised version, first performed long before the original was exhumed. Yes, there is the very real advantage in the theatre of not having the action broken by an interval. But does anyone seriously think we are better off without the Polish act, without Marina? Does anyone seriously think that Mussorgsky’s sometimes drastic reworking of Pushkin is not more successful operatically (however we understand the term)? Does anyone seriously think the grander scale of the opera as a whole and the (still) greater opposition between tsar and people are not more or less unambiguously to the dramatic good? For seasoned opera-goers, one might argue that that is all less of a problem; we shall know the revision anyway. We might even know the Rimsky-Korsakov reorchestration. Indeed, we do, although I have yet, alas, to hear a performance of Rimskyfied Boris, and should like the opportunity to do so before I die. That said, I should hesitate before staging either 1869 or Rimsky in this country, at least, given that performances of any version have been bizarrely infrequent. I cannot imagine anyone would dispute the standing of the work as the greatest of all Russian operas. Perhaps it seemed less so on account of the version to the first-night audience; I cannot be sure. At any rate, I was surprised by the muted reception: quite undeserved. Maybe these were just people who thought they were in for Russian Donizetti.

 

If the 1869 version will always seem more akin to a fascinating draft to me, what a draft it is! This was a strong performance all around. Antonio Pappano sounded far more at home here than he ever has in German repertory. There were some oddities, not least the over-emphatic phrasing of the very opening bars. Even that, though, served to underline its Janáček-like vocal prophecy. More concerning, at times, was a tendency towards smoothing away some of Mussorgsky’s sparest, uncompromising writing, rather at odds with the version but, more importantly, occasionally suggesting a kinship with more conventional, even Italianate, operatic practice which, to my ears at least, should not be there. (Whatever Richard Taruskin might claim, I really do not hear a rapprochement with Verdi in the revised version.) That said, however, there was splendid playing from the orchestra, on as fine form as I have heard in some time. Pappano, moreover, should surely take some, at least, of the credit for the force with which particular musical moments stood out: not like a sore thumb, but with an underlining of a telling shift, harmonically, timbrally, or both. Pacing was sure, too: perhaps still more important in this succession of scenes, whose own formal radicalism – sorry to keep using that word, but it seems so apt in this case! – was enabled thereby truly to make its mark.

 

Bryn Terfel gave one of the finest performances I have seen from him. Truly, he embodied the role; and, in an opera so concerned with succession, it was truly unnerving to witness him grasp John Tomlinson’s mantle, as the latter gave an inimitable performance in the role of Varlaam. Not that Terfel sounded remotely like Tomlinson, of course; if one were expecting, and insisting upon, a ‘traditional’, deep, ‘Russian’, performance, one would doubtless have been disappointed. There is no more reason, though, to insist upon one correct way to perform Mussorgsky than there is with Elgar. Terfel’s care with the text – musical, as well as verbal – was striking; so was its visual incarnation. I had no doubt that this was Boris. As for Tomlinson, his larger-than-life assumption of Varlaam was spot on; the extraordinary double act, spoons and all, with Harry Nicoll’s Missail proved a joy, its grim humour well-nigh Shakespearean. Let us hope we shall one day see Tomlinson’s Lear.

 

David Butt Philip’s intelligent portrayal of the growth of a false Dmitri had one, rightly, both sympathise – why not have a go, in such a world? – with and suspect Grigory. Vocally as well as dramatically, this was a fine performance, which had one all the more regret the loss of the Polish Act. Ain Anger’s Pimen was something no one present is likely to forget, a world-weary yet canny chronicler more in control (perhaps!) than any other of these tormented – and tormenting – characters. This was, surprisingly, his Royal Opera debut; it will surely not be long before we see him at Covent Garden again. Ben Knight gave an astonishingly mature performance as Fyodor; this was the real thing, no doubt. The extraordinary versatility of John Graham-Hall took another turn with his Shuisky: wheedling, yes, but ultimately a sad figure, a more rounded assumption than one generally sees (and hears). Schchelkalov assumed greater, more chilling stature in Kostas Smoriginas’s performance than I can recall. Andrew Tortise’s Fool was, again, the Shakespearean thing; this talented singer deserves greater exposure on our opera stages. Were I to continue, and perhaps I ought to, I should simply be listing the cast and saying ‘well done!’ to each of them, for there was no weak link; there was, indeed, an abundance of fine character-singing and acting from all concerned.

 

Choral singing was excellent, as were Richard Jones’s direction of the chorus and Ben Wright’s movement direction. Here, although there are of course losses with respect to the version, there is arguably considerable gain too. The truly extraordinary prose recitative of the Coronation Scene shocked as it should. In 1869, and indeed in 2016, we stood as distant from Rimskian Technicolor and, so it seemed, not so far from a mix of Monteverdi with Schoenberg – in Russian. It is here, ironically, that one is probably better off either with the original or with Rimsky. Renato Balsadonna will be leaving a chorus in very good shape for his successor, William Spaulding. (As any operagoer knows, Spaulding’s work at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin, augurs extremely well for London.)

 

Jones’s production is honest, straightforward, direct, with some of the tell-tale designs we expect, but nothing irritating. The upper, silent level of action in which assassins meet – a disturbingly Orientalist image here, I am afraid, although I doubt it was intended that way, nor is it necessarily intrinsically so – plotters scheme, and, above all, a child meets his cruel death is the realm of memory. We see as well as hear it haunt Boris; we sympathise, as we should, although, as with his would-be usurper, we do not only sympathise. Whether what we see be ‘true’ or no, we cannot know. The more disturbing question, or rather the implicit answer to that question, is: who cares?  Such is a crucial question in the work, and it is vividly, almost ritualistically instantiated here. Otherwise, below, a story is clearly and indeed colourfully told; it is difficult to imagine even the most ‘traditionalist’ of operagoers having any quarrel with Jones’s staging or – and, sadly, this is what such operagoers exclusively seem to mean by ‘productions’ – with the designs by Miriam Buethner and Nicky Gillibrand, all well thought out and finely executed.

I cannot help but wish that the production were a little more daring in its political terms of reference. If ever an opera cried out for a little contemporary or near-contemporary signposting, it is surely Boris. Is there a Russian regime to which the work could not be updated? Gorbachev’s might be trickier than most, although even then, Boris the reformer might intriguingly come into play. By the same token, however, we are free to draw our own comparisons, and anyone with half a brain cell will do so. In some ways, it is not unwelcome to have a construction – and Jones is too clever to approach the opera unmediated, whatever first impressions might suggest – of old Muscovy placed before us; if some silly souls take that as ‘fact’ or, God forbid, as ‘beautiful’, then that ultimately is their problem. At any rate, the evening offered a convincing, powerful musico-dramatic whole.

 

The performance on 21 March will be broadcast live to cinemas worldwide.

 

 

 

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!