text:
Instead, we have a 'Fifty (at least) Shades of Grey' palette worthy of a Farrow & Ball marketing catalogue. At the opening, when the Chorus burst from two large boxes and fling forth a joyful sicilienne to celebrate the arrival of peace, even their vigorously flapping Tricolores are tint-less, deprived of their revolutionary colour symbolism. Arriving at the wedding ceremony which concludes the opera, the guests look as if they've been dragged down a Dickensian chimney-stack.
Colour, as Pelly explains, 'emerges from the music', but his design and concept betray no awareness of the Sicilian balminess that is built into the score by way of the distinctive orchestration and native dance rhythms. There is no bitterness in Berlioz's opera but Pelly gives us a storm-cloud back-drop which offers no intimation that the apparently imminent tempest will give way to the clear blue skies of nuptial bliss. Visually, this production presents not a 'merry war' but mirthless gloom.
Pelly imagines the bickering protagonists as 'two rebellious people who refuse to fit into a mould and live in a "box"', and the characters as 'puppets' within a 'slightly unreal social ritual'. But, how are we to believe in these characters? The romantic dilemmas and dramas, conflicts and conciliations, of Beatrices and Benedicks have been box-office sure-fire hits since Shakespeare created his originals precisely because we can empathise with their emotional upheavals and appeasements.
Pelly puts all his eggs in one basket - or, dare I say it, box. The Glyndebourne Chorus - in wonderful voice - clamber in and out of these boxes, which Pelly conceives as containers of, and conduits to, conformity and domesticity. But more direction is needed for an opera which has hardly any plot - even though its spoken dialogue is drawn directly from Shakespeare - and the arias of which are largely static. The incessant re-arranging of the towers of teetering boxes assumes the choreographic complexity of a shipping dock in a busy freight port, but the human interplay gets lost in the carousel of cartons and chests.
In this opera, so much depends upon Béatrice, and how she is dramatically conceived: fortunately, Stéphanie d'Oustrac (last year's Carmen) blends Gallic hauteur with elegance of wit and attire, and possesses a mezzo which can explode fierily, brood portentously and float contemplatively.
She made her mark dramatically in Act 1, but it was not until her Act II aria, 'Il m'en souvient', in which Béatrice recognises the nature and extent of her hitherto repressed feelings, that the range of d'Oustrac's vocal expression was fully exhibited: tenderness sat side-by-side with strength, though the sound was never forced; there was diversity of colour and an impressive sense of the long line of Berlioz's phrases. As the armour protecting her heart was pierced by Cupid's stubborn arrow, d'Oustrac conveyed Béatrice's real sense of fear: where will the release of repressed sentiments lead her? When the truth revealed itself, the shocked Béatrice grabbed a chair to defend herself from the alarming emotional onslaught - a melodramatic gesture which was at once comical, charming and touching. Then, as the off-stage wedding hymn wafted dreamily, d'Oustrac was a portrait of contemplative serenity as graceful supernumeraries balletically removed the detritus of the incompetent music-master Somarone's feast in a beguiling silent charade around the seated dreamer. Yet, Béatrice's impetuosity was as much a part of her submission as of her opposition: she recklessly dashed off a signature on the wedding contract which tied her in matrimonial subservience, embracing love as impulsively as she had resisted the amorous dart.
Paul Appleby as Bénédict and Stéphanie d'Outrac as Béatrice. Photo credit: Richard Hubert Smith.
As Bénédict, American tenor Paul Appleby just about held his own in the face of d'Oustrac's dramatic intensity, parrying her acerbic verbal thrusts with pointedness, if not much clout in Act 1. At times he seemed under-directed: Bénédict lurked unresponsively when he overheard his buddies speaking of Béatrice's love for him. But, if Appleby demonstrated little sense of French style, his tenor is sweet-toned, ardent and flexible, and he offered masculine arrogance a-plenty. Bénédict's exuberant aria, 'Ah! je vais l'aimer,' was vigorous and clear. Unfortunately, in Act 1 the skirmishes between the sceptical pair lacked an enervating frisson, though there were some piquant touches, as when, ordered to leave by her contra-amour, Béatrice stomped off in the opposite direction. But, as the proportion of music to spoken dialogue increased in Act 2, the rapport between the warring lovers became more absorbing, and the final Scherzo-Duetti, 'Oui, pour aujourd'hui la trêve est signée; Nous redeviendrons ennemis demain' (Yes, for today a truce is signed, We'll become enemies again tomorrow) was delightfully sparky.
Sophie Karthäuser, replacing Hélène Guilmette, took a while to settle into the role of Héro, and didn't capture the excitement or splendour of her Act 1 aria 'Je vais le voir, je vais le voir!' But, the end-of-act moonlit serenade, 'Nuit paisible et sereine!', in which she was partnered by Katarina Bradić dulcet Ursule, was exquisite. I was torn between admiring Pelly's coups de théâtre, as the two excited girls drew back the walls of yet another box to reveal a Dior wedding gown bathed in golden light - some colour at last to counter the pitch-black sky and glaring pendant globes of 'star-light' - and regretting that the visual spectacle distracted, and detracted, from the poignant mingling of pain and pleasure in Héro's heart as she contemplates the bitter-sweetness of true love.
Katarina Bradić as Ursule and Sophie Karthäuser as Héro. Photo credit: Richard Hubert Smith.
Berlioz replaces Shakespeare's Dogberry with the asinine music-master Somarone, and the latter's involvement in the wedding plans is perhaps better integrated into the action than the Master of the Watch's malapropisms and mishaps. Lionel Lhote was a portrait of puffed-up, pedantic mediocrity, and his exhibitionism injected some much needed levity, if at times it strayed into farce - Somarone's drinking song, 'Le vin de Syracuse, Accuse, Une grande chaleur', ended with perfectly-timed exit atop the banqueting table, narrowly avoiding decapitation. As Lhote conducted his grotesque epithalamium with pompous self-absorption, flinging out furious commands at the orchestra and urging his singers to 'milk the ecstasy', the musical jokes reminded us of the artifice of the plot.
Philippe Sly has little to do as Claudio - except provide Héro with her sole topic of conversation - but his warm baritone made a strong contribution to the Act 1 trio, and Frédéric Caton was an authoritative Don Pedro. As Léonato, Georges Bigot was characteristic of all the cast in delivering the French text idiomatically.
Lionel Lhote (Somarone), Frédéric Caton (Don Pedro) and Philippe Sly (Claudio). Photo credit: Richard Hubert Smith.
Replacing Robin Ticciati (who is recovering from back surgery), Antonello Manacorda made an auspicious Glyndebourne début in the pit. The overture didn't quite tease and delight as it should, but once things got going he revealed a sure sense of the nuance and detail of Berlioz's gossamer score.
Berlioz concluded that the opera shows us that 'madness is better than stupidity'. Béatrice's conversion is inspired not, as in Shakespeare's play, by Bénédict's defence of Héro's honour and virtue but by Love - 'a torch, a flame, a will o'the wisp, coming from no one knows where, gleaming then vanishing from sight, to the distraction of our souls'. Perhaps Pelly's surrealism does capture this sense of strangeness, but while the singing offers much joy, visually this defeat of romantic scepticism is a melancholy affair.
Claire Seymour
Béatrice et Bénédict continues until 27th August: http://www.glyndebourne.com/tickets-and-whats-on/events/2016/beatrice-et-benedict/
The performance on 9th August will be screened in cinemas and online: http://www.glyndebourne.com/tickets-and-whats-on/events/2016/watch-beatrice-et-benedict/
Hector Berlioz: Béatrice et Bénédict
Béatrice - Stéphanie d'Oustrac, Bénédict - Paul Appleby, Héro - Sophie Karthäuser (23, 27, 30 July; 3, 5, 9 August; Anne-Catherine Gillet will sing Héro on 12, 15, 19, 22, 25, 27 August), Claudio - Philippe Sly, Somarone - Lionel Lhote, Don Pedro - Frédéric Caton, Ursule - Katarina Bradić; Director - Laurent Pelly, Conductor - Antonello Manacorda, Set Designer - Barbara de Limburg, Costume Designer - Laurent Pelly, Lighting Designer - Duane Schuler, Dialogue adapted by Agathe Mélinand, London Philharmonic Orchestra, The Glyndebourne Chorus.
Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Saturday 23 July 2016.]]> image= http://www.operatoday.com/BandB1.png
The music stopped, then, just before the final bars; the lights fell. Silence fell too, the singers looking uneasily at each other: splendidly acted, I remember thinking. Then, following that caesura - inevitable memories of Konwitschny's celebrated Meistersinger, even for those of us who only heard tell - we heard the final bars, albeit from what sounded like a distant, wind-up gramphone. I even wondered whether it might have been Konwitschny père's recording, rendered more ancient, not that that matters. Redemption, then, was undercut not only by Wagner's Tristan-less ending. (I am skating over the more complex issues of earlier versions, but that is not really the point here.) It was ironised - few directors manage to ironise Wagner successfully; Konwitschny does - by hearing it as something we all knew, all expected, were more or less hearing in our heads anyway, and yet then did not hear as we should. It was a little like King Marke's appearance in Die Meistersinger: meaningful, consequential, a modernist rather than a post-modernist quotation.
Then we spilled out onto the Max-Joseph-Platz, quite unaware of Munich's terrorist lockdown. My telephone had no reception; I could not contact a friend, to see whether he had been there or not. (It later transpired that he had not.) Many of my fellow opera-leavers seemed puzzled. We could not, for instance, enter a restaurant on the other side of the square; although a few people in there were eating, the doors were locked. Whilst trying to find out what was going on, I eventually received a call from my father, to check that I was safe; he began to explain, and armed police came into view. I learned after that those who were less quick on their feet than I had been were unable to leave the Nationaltheater for quite some time. I, however, had little choice but to try to walk back to where I was staying, armed police and other advisors pointing me and others first in one direction, then in another, often seeming to disagree with each other. Meanwhile, so far as I was aware - this was not the case, but it was what everyone seemed to think at the time - the U-Bahn was closed, since one of several gunmen (there was, of course, only one) had gone down there, armed. Walking past Odeonsplatz station was a little frightening, then; but it was the eeriness of the evacuated beer festival in the square - when I had walked to the opera, it had been full of beer, music, Dirndls, Lederhosen - that, if anything, chilled more. Having spoken to my brother too, I made it back to my host's, who filled me in on events unfolded and unfolding - and immediately poured me a much-needed drink.
I learned much later that what I 'should' have seen and heard - Barry Millington had sent me his review of the production, but I had not read it at the time - was Senta, clearly furious with the Dutchman for not having trusted enough, setting one of the quayside barrels ablaze and mount her own act of terror. The explosion I 'should' have heard - unlike Wagner's music, I did not know it - never came; darkness and alienation, nevertheless curiously, chillingly effective, did. No wonder so many onstage 'acted' confused; they had not, it seems, been acting at all. Presumably many had suspected a technical problem. The Bavarian State Opera had, it seems, decided to pull the explosion. For those in the know, was this perhaps a bit like 'hearing' Mahler's missing third hammer-blow in the Sixth Symphony? (Thank goodness this was not a Mahler evening: that really would have been too much.) And so, the business of interpreting, reinterpreting, a particularised version of Konwitschny's staging - never, let us hope, to be repeated - truly got under way; or at least it did in the odd couple of seconds between replying to anxious Facebook and Twitter messages from friends. (Why, they wondered, had I not replied? Most of them had no idea, of course, that I had been in the theatre for nearly two-and-a-half hours, without an interval.) I shall never forget the non-bang and the gramophone whimper, nor the further step our wretched world made towards Götterdämmerung.
Let me turn, though, to what I had seen and heard before. My memory and my experience are doubtless coloured by the 'other' events of that night. Nevertheless, what I saw and heard was impressive indeed, on its own terms. Our friends at Against Modern Opera Productions - how chilling it was to see, that very night, them railing, as if Hitler had never fallen, against 'degenerate' artists - might even have liked, had they not seen the word 'Konwitschny', the realistic designs from Johannes Leiacker, with which the mise-en-scène opens. For it is a (German) Romantic, even Gothic landscape that provides the backdrop. Apart from anything else, this is a ghost story: every one of us, every society, is overwhelmed by ghosts from our pasts. So too, of course, is opera. Nevertheless, ships are definitely ships; the sea and sky are definitely the sea and sky. The Dutchman's crew, moreover, are most definitely Golden Age Dutchmen. The painterliness is, in one sense at least, ironic. AMOP would not have 'got' that; representations and their deconstruction would have gone unnoticed, uncomprehended. They would surely, though, have noticed the heightened venality not only of Daland, but his crew too (modern Norwegians, but as yet, not with an overwhelming Wagnerian clash between ghostly visitors and the 'present'). Daland's pockets of a few golden chains; the Steersman crowns himself with a golden crown; the other lads eagerly join in the bonanza: there is much jewellery to be had from the new ship's Cardillac-like cargo, unless, as one of Wagner's less-eagerly acknowledged forebears might have advised him, 'L'or est une chimère'. A chimera of another variety haunts the Dutchman: the Angel in white who visits the stage. This Dutchman is a man, with sexual fantasies of his own; they distract him, pave the way for tragedy; they lead us to the second act.
Our opera-as-Pegida acquaintances would certainly have started screaming degeneracy, at the deliberate scenic contrast when the curtain rose upon that act. This is a swish health club, in which the wheels that spin are those on the exercise bicycles. Mary leads the class, the girls engaged in the uneasy camaraderie and rivalry of the mindless heteronormative pursuit for an 'ideal' physical form to please 'the' men they have either hooked or would like to hook. (Or is it the other way round?) Spinning, one might say, takes more than one guise: old visiting new, new visiting old; connections abound. Senta does not fit in; she arrives late for the class, and is far more interested in her Romantic painting. Erik is a creepy yet impatient voyeur: no mere innocent he. Yet it is Senta's disruptive presence, encouraged by the reappearing Angel, that ultimately, prophetically, proves the turning point. It sets in process the Brechtian - house lights on - lecture to the audience she and the Dutchman give at the close of the act. 'Romantic love? Yeah, right ' Everything, then, is set up to fail, as it increasingly does during the third act, modernity and caricatured Old Dutchmen engaging in violent combat, the past, as it so often is, victorious - not least because the present refuses to learn from it. And then - well, you have heard the rest. Explosion there comes - on this occasion, came there not.
The cast was distinguished. Catherine Naglestad trod to powerful, even searing effect the line between, on the one hand, twin incitement to Verfremdung and terror, and on the other, heartfelt, Romantic or neo-Romantic 'feminine' suffering. Her top notes - and not just her top notes - thrilled; we were reminded that the female redemption problematized by Konwitschny, by us more generally, is, not only in Wagner but in so much opera, often effected through vocal presence. Johan Reuter traced this complex Dutchman's mood swings with great skill; we sympathised with, even followed, his distractions and his demons. Matti Salminen's final Daland - so, at any rate, I was informed - was a bluff yet knowing performance, a fine tribute to a great artist. Wookyung Kim came close to stealing the show with his sensitively sung, far-from-pushover Erik. Okka von der Damerau imparted dramatic as well as 'merely' musical meaning to the role of Mary, and Dean Power proved as appealing and as intriguing a Steersman as I can recall having heard. Choral singing was wonderfully full-blooded too. All, then, engaged with Wagner's work as living drama.
The Bavarian State Orchestra was, unsurprisingly, in its element here. Its playing encompassed all manner of shades from darkest, grimmest of musical tragedy to echoes of Mendelssohn and Weber, apparently - if only apparently - more blithe, even fairy-like. This was orchestral Wagner as outstanding as one might hear from Daniel Barenboim's Staatskapelle Berlin. Asher Fisch might have benefited from a more Barenboim-like sense of the work's melos ; or at least he would have done for me, my preference being very much for a more 'musico-dramatic', less 'number-opera' approach to the work. The latter is, of course, perfectly justifiable in theory, but it tends, unless more strongly incorporated into a sense of an unbroken whole, to make parts of the work drag - especially when, as here, numbers such as Senta's Ballad, are taken so slowly. Fisch undoubtedly knew what he was doing, though; he had me, on more than one occasion, rethink, rehear. The waltzing at the end of the first act - perfectly in keeping with fantasies venal and sexual, visually as well as musically realised - pointed far into the musico-dramatic future, to Strauss as well as to the integrative tendencies of later Wagner. The Flying Dutchman is in some ways the most difficult Wagner drama of all to bring off musically; no one would have been seriously disappointed, if at all, by this performance.
The rest was silence; until, that is, it became the noise of chaos.
Mark Berry
Cast and production details:
Daland: Matti Salminen; Senta: Catherine Nagelstad; Erik: Wookyung Kim; Mary: Okka von der Damerau; Steersman: Dean Power; Dutchman: Johan Reuter. Director: Peter Konwitschny; Deisgns: Johannes Leiacker; Lighting: Michael Bauer; Dramaturgy: Werner Hintze; Chorus and Extra Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera (chorus master: Søren Eckhoff)/Bavarian State Orchestra/Asher Fisch (conductor). Nationaltheater, Munich, Friday 22 July 2016.]]> Der fliegende Holländer, Bavarian State Opera product=yes product_title=Der fliegende Holländer, Bavarian State Opera product_by=A review by Mark Berry ]]>
Anna Christy is born to play Baby Doe. Diminutive and appealing, blessed with a limpid, silvery soprano, the role seems to have been tailored to her significant gifts. While she can certainly easily encompass the spunk and grit of the determined heroine, where Ms. Christy uniquely excels is in the incredible legato flights above the staff.
It is not often one encounters such total ease of vocal production, seamless phrasing, and alluring timbre. She also thoroughly understands the full range of emotions in Baby's journey, and she communicates them with an honest simplicity. I have often marveled at Anna Christy's achievements in the past, but with this role assumption she is at the height of her powers, an utterly perfect marriage of artist and material.
Grant Youngblood as Horace Tabor
As the object of her affection, Grant Youngblood, too, was a splendidly apt choice for Horace W. Tabor. His physical stature and self-assured bearing were matched by a dependable, rich baritone of considerable import. Mr. Youngblood perfectly balanced the public swagger of the successful businessman-politician with the pathos of his personal longings and shortcomings.
His version of Warm as the Autumn Light was luxurious in its outpouring of burnished tone. As he ultimately descended inexorably into a state of drunken despair, he infused his voice with such pathos and anguish that no one could have been unmoved. The final pages of the score with his compelling, unaffected enactment of Tabor's death, followed by Ms. Christy's crsytalline performance of Always Through the Changing were unbearably moving. There can't have been a dry eye in the house.
As the third part of the story's love/power triangle, Susanne Mentzer emphatically held her own as the determined, staunch, till-death-do-us-part wife Augusta Tabor. To her great credit, Ms. Mentzer finds every cranny of nuance in an often unsympathetic personage. She wisely invests the role with as much dignity as outrage, balancing the overt self-righteousness with an abiding sense of loss.
She is an attractive woman, her handsome bearing able to suggest severity as well as noble suffering. She has an incisive, throbbing mezzo-soprano, and her technique is rock solid, reveling in a freely ringing top and upper middle, while wisely negotiating lower passages with savvy dramatic flair. Ms. Mentzer also excels portraying the character's physical deterioration, dramatically and vocally. When she appears as her youthful self in Horace's final hallucination, she is stunningly renewed: sassy and fresh-voiced.
Bryan for President (Anna Christy and ensemble)
The featured character William Jennings Bryan was served up with gusto by bass-baritone Donald Hartmann. His characterful, sonorous singing boomed out in the house and his take-no-prisoners campaign persona was the riveting focal point of his scene, as was required. As Baby Doe's near harridan of a mother, Sarah Barber dominated her scenes with potent stage presence and a highly-charged, brilliantly aggressive vocal delivery of penetrating power.
The large cast of featured roles was so uniformly excellent, it seems a shame not to have space to single all of them out for praise. These dynamic cameos were mostly peopled by the outstanding corps of Apprentice Artists, and the entire laudable cast list is enclosed for your perusal. Moreover, Chorus Master Aaron Breid has molded these talented artists into a precise and finely-honed ensemble.
Conductor Timothy Myers seemed to be having a ball in the pit, and his skillful orchestra responded with a reading that was by turns heady, colorful, atmospheric, driving, introspective and sweetly sentimental. Maestro Myers wrung every bit of variety from this popular score, managing a perfect combination of folksy Americana and profound operatic expression.
If this is not the year that Central City Opera discovered the possibilities of scenic projections, then mark it as the year they perfected them. Is there a show with as many different locations as this one? (Gypsy, maybe?) The over-achieving David Martin Jacques devised a truly wondrous design for sets, lighting and projections juggling all three duties with consummate skill. This achievement was so virtuosic that I suspect the talented Mr. Jacques could have done it all while still clanging a pair of cymbals between his knees like a consummate busker.
What Do You Intend to Do Augusta Tabor? (Susanne Mentzer)
The scenery was largely scrim panels and painting frames that flew in and out in various combinations. These frames were stretched with 'canvases' that were also scrim, spookily ragged, trailing downward as the bottom crosspiece of the frames was missing. On these shifting surfaces were projected real images of the locations and personages of the story. Highly effective.
The few pieces of furniture were chosen with great care and specificity, and it did not hurt that the actors were clad in Sarah Jean Tosetti's spot-on period costumes. The sweep of the story and the definition of the characters and their stations in life were inestimably aided by Ms. Tosetti's fine work. The icing on the cake was a beautifully judged wig and make-up design from Liz Printz.
Ken Cazan's loving and knowing direction was so effective as to almost not be noticeable. The movement was natural and made good use of the space. He brilliantly peopled the stage with inevitable pictures and well-motivated crowd control. Mr. Cazan seems to have created highly productive subtext with his performers since their relationships were so connected and meaningful.
He also had great skill crafting powerful images, none more so than when Augusta is firmly planted center stage, with her lady 'friends' buzzing around her with unwanted advice. That they appeared and disappeared from behind a quintet of scrim projections of Horace's 'portraits' was even more powerful, and the complete stasis of the upright, uptight Augusta made the visual startlingly impactful.
I also very much liked having a mute Baby Doe ambling on stage at the beginnings of the acts and other selected times, all buttoned up and moving stiffly as the eccentric recluse she would become after Tabor's death. Indeed, the show started with her older self, standing in the middle of a snowy ground cloth, soon pulled away as the opera started. At the opera's close, the same austere cloth was drawn around the dying Horace, and his grieving wife. Touching and meaningful.
This enduring company seems to return to celebrate its 'signature opera,' The Ballad of Baby Doe, every ten years. Based on this year's loving and beautifully rendered landmark production, I can't wait for the 70th anniversary edition.
James Sohre
Cast and production details:
Old Silver Miner: Justin Berkowitz; Bouncer: Chad Sonka; Kate, Saloon Girl: Ashley Fabian; Meg, Saloon Girl: Tatiana Ogan; Horace W. Tabor: Grant Youngblood; Sam: John David Nevergall; Bushy: Daniel Ross; Barney: Leroy Y. Davis; Jacob: Samuel Hinkle; Augusta Tabor: Susanne Mentzer; Sarah: Danielle Palomares; Mary: Marlen Nahhas; Emily: Anna Laurenzo; Effie: Megan Case; Mrs. Elizabeth (Baby) Doe: Anna Christy; Samantha, a Maid: Micaëla Aldridge; Clarendon Hotel Clerk: Peter Lake; Albert, a Bellboy: Michael Floriano; Mama McCourt: Sarah Barber; Washington Dandies: Terence Chin-Loy; Nathan Ward, Christopher Kenney, Cody Müller; Father Chapelle: Peter Lake; Footman: Michael Floriano; President Chester A. Arthur: Justin Berkowitz; Elizabeth (child): Lucy Crile; Silver Dollar (child): Carly Crile; Mayor of Leadville: Justin Berkowitz; William Jennings Bryan: Donald Hartmann; Stage Doorman: Peter Lake; Denver Politician: Stephen Clark; Silver Dollar (adult): Kaileigh Riess; Conductor: Timothy Myers; Director: Ken Cazan; Set, Lighting and Projections Design: David Martin Jacques; Costume Design: Sarah Jean Tosetti; Wig and Make-up Design: Liz Printz; Chorus Master: Aaron Breid.]]> Baby in Colorado product_by=A review by James Sohre product_id=Above: Anna Christy in the title role
As such, it consisted of a semicircle of latticed metal doors above which rose a prison 'wall' that served as a perfect receptacle for the combination of still image and film projections. These most often began as structurally accurate suggestions of the actual physical locations, then morphed into artwork of the period relative to the topic, and finally included some very telling psychological reflections.
When Scarpia lusts after Tosca as the parishioners intone the Te Deum, the video above the prayer services is of the imagined conquest of Tosca, wherein a chat room-like close up of the actual actress is languidly undoing her bodice as she projects inviting glances. This was the most profane juxtaposition I have ever seen of Scarpia's morally bankrupt character balanced against sincere religious fervor.
The Te Deum
There were other startling images as well, such as blood running over cityscapes during Cavaradossi's torture. But my favorite might have been the serenity of the imposing Castel Sant'Angelo, projected on the show scrim, which got invaded by a herd of sheep as the Shepherd was picked up in a spot behind the scrim jangling the bells he carried in his hand. What wonderful, telling imagery!
If this sounds highly stylized, it was. Another large part of the show's success is the dynamic lighting design by David Martin Jacques. As expected, there were well-executed pools and areas of lighting, with good uses of color and textures. But Mr. Jacques also took some real chances: during moments of crisis and decision for major characters he punctuated them with schizophrenic bouncing of spots that were an apt comment on the emotional turmoil of the situation.
The final moments of the show were perfectly calibrated. On this flat floor, one level set, I was wondering how on earth Tosca was going to jump to her death. Well, Team Tosca had a stupendous effect in mind: Tosca parted the center walls floor to ceiling, revealing a white shaft of light, ran a few feet onto a short platform, turned and hurled her final phrase. . .and fell backwards into the abyss like Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3! A stunning surprise.
Jonathan Burton as Cavaradossi and Alexandra Loutsion as Tosca
The costumes from Utah Opera looked handsome, and Tosca's Act II gown, especially designed by Dana Tzvetkov was rich and effective, especially for its red, removable overlay, its flowing white under gown, and a diaphanous scarf. Set pieces were limited to multi-purpose, modular, industrial looking platforms, tables and chairs, a writing stand, and a white marble statue of the Virgin Mary.
I have to say, this was the funniest Tosca I have ever seen. You read that right. The director found willing participants with the Sacristan, Cavaradossi, and yes, even Tosca to create intentionally humorous interplay. I am not sure I liked it all, but I am not sure I didn't. I can tell you that the premiere audience Ate. It. Up.
Perhaps, that initial humorous tone does not instill the usual nobility in the great tempestuous diva, nor does it presage the immense tragedies that are looming. The Sacristan suddenly kneeling to Scarpia with a pained 'take,' Mario playfully coming on to Tosca in their first duet, Tosca being restrained as she threatens to slash the l'Attavanti portrait (which she later does in fact do), all were played with comic sensibilities but also with commendable honesty. Would Floria and Mario actually start to get intimate on the floor of the chapel? Director Schamberger thinks so.
He does not shy away from the attempted rape in Act II, having Scarpia suggestively begin to disrobe as he defines Tosca's prezzo. In the moments before Vissi d'arte, he actually forces himself atop her on the floor, tearing open the red over dress, leaving Tosca to begin the aria, flat on her back, legs tangled in her petticoats. Pretty intense stuff.
Alexandra Loutsion as Tosca and Michael Mayes as Scarpia
When Scarpia finally crosses down stage to have her, his white shirt open baring his handsome torso, she turns upstage and executes as fierce a stab as I have ever seen, jolting him into the air, before he sinks on bench to be slashed at again and again. Visceral excitement that is pure Puccininian 'shock and awe.'
Not every idea lands. The Te Deum looked crowded with everyone center stage. And the show began in silence, with extras entering from the house to survey the stage and its pile of rubble. They decide to clean it up and reconfigure the elements to create the first scene. A woman sees a red scarf (Tosca's) and picks it up, sending (Cavaradossi's) paint brushes scattering from with it.
The first loud note then intones in the orchestra and they all run off in terror. This rubble turns out to have been the Act III set, and the red scarf was Tosca's, that artistically fell from the fly loft after she jumped. The show ends with these contemporary extras coming back to the fringes of the action, looking confused. Who are these people? Tourists? Critics? The Puccini Police? Your guess is as good as mine. Or as good as the folks at the B and B where I stayed, who also were unable to suss it out over breakfast.
John Baril conducted a stylistically accurate, theatrically vivid account of this thrice-familiar score. The orchestra responded with real fire and commitment. The divisi celli were especially vibrant and pulsing with emotion. The clarinet solo work was impeccably haunting. Whether playing soli or tutti, Maestro Beril inspired these fine players to thrilling results. He did on occasion allow soloists to indulge in some held high notes that were long enough to give Corelli pause, but that is a minor consideration. His reading had veristic sweep as well as minute detail. Aaron Breid's chorus was well-schooled and full throated.
Peter Lake as Spoletto, Jonathan Burton as Cavaradossi, and Michael Mayes as Scarpia
Alexandra Loutsion is making an auspicious role debut in the title role. She has a warm, round, plush sound, that has ample presence in all registers. Ms. Loutsion also has a secure, ringing high register that can ride the orchestra with impressive ease, but she can also scale back to regale us with meltingly beautiful sotto voce singing. Since there were some unorthodox elements to this character's interpretation I will be interested to follow her development in the part. Although she is herself young, at the moment her vocal approach seems better served by the tortured, mature turns of events of Acts Two and Three, than the unusually coquettish girlishness of Act I.
I had greatly enjoyed tenor Jonathon Burton in last summer's Fanciulla in Des Moines. Of course, Cavaradossi is a whole other kettle of fish, but Mr. Burton acquitted himself with distinction. He invests a great deal of meaning and emotional weight in his heartfelt singing. He certainly has all of the thrilling money notes, even though one or two lacked the ease of production that characterized his other vocalizing on this evening. It is when he sings in mezzo forte that he can grab your heart and not let go. O dolci mani was beautifully, winningly intoned.
Michael Mayes made an overwhelming impression in his debut as Baron Scarpia. His is a powerful, booming, dark baritone that has a searing presence. Mr. Mayes is also a highly imaginative singer capable of great diversity of effects. I have never experienced quite such a sinuous Va, Tosca, so laced with menace as he seemed to taste her name as he uttered it. He not only had the reserves for the Big Sell moments, but also could command a skillful legato. As a Las Vegan, I can paraphrase the Cosmopolitan's promo when I say Mr. Mayes' colossal Scarpia is just "the right amount of wrong."
The thrilling, full-voiced sing of all three principals is laudable, applaudable, and admirable. I would only caution that sometimes, pressing volume for dramatic effect can invite strain or even errant pitch. When you strive to sing 'balls-to-the-wall,' well, in this theatre at least, the wall may be closer than you think!
Lanky Donald Hartmann was all gangly limbs and orotund delivery as he gave us a Sacristan that was all about the comedic core of the character. His was a well-rounded and thorough embodiment of the doddering meddler, although occasionally his histrionics stole focus. Stephen Clark's stalwart baritone gave great urgency to a well-sung Angelotti. Peter Lake's smooth, attractive baritone made us wish Puccini had given Sciarrone much more to sing. The fresh-scrubbed Adam Richardson lent his pleasing tenor to a sinister portrayal of Spoletta, and he made the most of his scenes. Ashley Fabian was the sweet-voiced, utterly natural sounding Shepherd.
James Sohre
Cast and production details:
Angelotti: Stephen Clark; Sacristan: Donald Hartmann; Mario Cavaradossi: Jonathon Burton; Floria Tosca: Alexandra Loutsion; Baron Scarpia: Michael Mayes; Spoletta: Peter Lake; Sciarrone: Adam Richardson; Shepherd: Ashley Fabian; Jailer: Eric McConnell; Condcuctor: John Baril; Director, Set and Projection Designer: Joachim Schamberger; Original Costume Design: Susan Memmott Allred; Costume Coordinator: Dana Tzvetkov; Lighting Designer: David Martin Jacques; Wig and Make-up Design: Liz Printz; Chorus Maste.]]> Tosca in Colorado product_by=A review by James Sohre product_id=Above: Michael Mayes as Scarpia
The magnificent tenor Andreas Schager charmed the disappointed audience expecting a sick Jonas Kaufmann. With a touch of theatrical flamboyance Schager includes the audience intimately in his performance. As a singer he gives each of his characters his all. I have seen him go at it as Tannhauser in Ghent, Max in Der Freischütz in Berlin, and he was a major high point in Leipzig's Ring Cycle last May, where he blew up the stage as Siegmund. Schager has also tackled Tristan in St. Petersburg with Gergiev, this evening's conductor. His debut at the Met in NY is already programmed for the near future.
Andreas Schager and Eva-Maria Westbroek
Tonight, he returned as Siegmund for the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, who managed to steal him away from his rehearsals for Der fliegende Holländer in his debut at Bayreuth. He again convinced as the overconfident hero. His performances have the sense that it might be his last.
From the moment Schager arrived on stage, the Austrian Adonis turned on his charm and dazzled. He has a soulful voice and big personality always intent on seducing the audience. In Leipzig, the Gewandhaus Orchestra was located in the pit, so he did not have the challenge of overcoming orchestral volume, a challenge he overcame most of the time with Gergiev and the muscular intensity of his body-builder Mariinsky. The challenge of balancing the volume was one of the few things that could have been more refined. But that was in Gergiev's hands.
Schager's chemistry with Westbroek was extraordinary. They elevated their duet to more than the sum of its parts. Their subtle acting and minimal gestures added great drama to this first act. Add to that the rich strings, swooning in their romance, and you were truly swept away as a listener. Schager and Westbroek's fiery, passion moved me to tears. Epic was the revelation of his true name as first Sieglinde and then her brother exclaimed "Siegmund!". It sent shivers down my spine.
Ms. Westbroek displayed her captivating acting skills, presenting Sieglinde highly expressive with great emotional authenticity, including her rich, relentless vibrato. She infused her declaration of love for her brother with generous exuberance. Later she contrasted this mania as she exuded a fearful malaise before Siegmund's confrontation with her husband Hunding. A complete natural, her entire performance seemed hardly difficult, adding an almost laidback quality to the performance. How does she do it?
Evelyn Herlitzius
Mikhail Petrenko must be admired for his flawless diction in German. You couldn't detect his Russian accent at any point during his portrayal of Hunding, full of disdain and anger.
In Act II, Ekaterina Gubanova stole the show as the elegantly puritan and utterly disgruntled Fricka. Her voice commanded the stage, and she put Wotan to shame, in the best of ways, as Pape held his own. The climax of Act II had five world class singers on stage, and made for one of the most star-struck moments in opera that I have experienced. And one subtle moment of if-looks-could-kill emerged as Fricka arrived and Brünnhilde's cheer diminished. That slight moment of eye-contact expressed volumes.
René Pape formidably portrayed Wotan with a sad, almost hopeless, resignation, as a leader at the end of his rule. In his interaction with Fricka in Act II, he displayed an authoritarian vocal prowess, demanding respect, yet still deeply human, perhaps too much so as God.
In Act III, Brünnhilde's eight sisters threw themselves into Wagner's vocal acrobatics as Gergiev turned the first half into a fully blown adrenaline rollercoaster. Yet it was the interaction between Wotan and Brünnhilde that left me helplessly sobbing, as the father cast his favorite daughter out of Valhalla. Such devastation I have rarely experienced from a stage performance. And while Wotan remains a bit distant, Evangeline Herlitzius turned me into an instant fan. Her Brünnhilde convinced in her virtuous optimism, but also displayed great dread for Wotan's retribution. The singers elevated the performance to mythic heights.
In Act II Evangelina Herlitzius gave hint of what was later to come. But in Act III with Wotan she switched with seeming ease from upbeat enthusiasm, to great despair and all without too much theatricality. Her interaction with her disappointed father turned out to be the heartbreaking, gut wrenching finale that was necessary to conclude such a superlative concert.
Gergiev brought out the exhilarating passages of Wagner's score. Brass sounded consistently brilliant or subtle with finesse in their simmering, swampy passages. Gergiev sustained a suspenseful momentum. He built up the Wagner's tension effectively and knew to release it at the right moments.
With air conditioning, comfortable seating and such a stunning cast and orchestra, the question becomes…do you really need to still go to Bayreuth? Probably, because with a cast like this, it will be a long time before I will hear another so superlatively sung Die Walküre.
David Pinedo]]> Die Walküre, Baden-Baden product_by=A review by David Pinedo product_id=Above: Ekaterina Gubanova]]>
It has to be said that Sydney Mancasola was luminous in the title role. She sports a secure, silvery soprano of enormous flexibility, wedded to an unfaltering musicality. There is a generous dash of humanity in her portrayal and she is possessed of a charismatic presence in her well-rounded assumption of a richly complex personality. Ms. Mancasola is completely believable as the young girl, in fact she is perhaps too giggly. It is as the developing adult that she confronts some limitations of vocal heft and coloring. She is not yet able to fully convey the womanly, seasoned maturity of the later scenes. But she is young, she is extremely gifted, and she will only grow.
As her lover Des Grieux, Joseph Dennis has the right sized tenor and he sings extraordinarily beautifully, especially at mezzo forte. When he presses the top and covers the tone, Mr. Dennis muscles up just a bit although he does get wholly acceptable pointed forte notes out. His lyrical, introspective Act II aria found him at his best, offering his most meticulously controlled singing all night. This is such a daunting role, and if Joseph has not quite yet mastered all the tricky gearshifts between voix-mixte and full throttle that this part demands, he nonetheless made a substantial impression.
Sydney Mancasola and Joseph Dennis
Michael Adams as Lescaut sported a naturally warm and engaging baritone, but he too, slightly covers so that when he goes up the voice has a tendency to fall back instead of pinging forward. Mr. Adams certainly cuts a handsome figure, although he mugged pretty shamelessly in Act II, and he seemed to really enjoy playing with his cascading hair. Maybe he was a little "too" much of a dandy to be as likable as he should/could be.
The securely sung trio of women, Pousette (Ashly Neumann), Javotte (Emma Sorenson) and Rosette (Antonia Botti-Lodovico) blended well and complemented each other beautifully. Troy Cook lavished De Bretigny with an exceptionally fine, suavely produced baritone that was cultivated, unctuous and persuasive. His acting was suitably unapologetic about winning Manon by all means necessary. As Guillot de Morfontaine, Brian Frutiger's impersonation started out a somewhat annoying caricature, but then found some chilling malicious honesty in the gambling scene. As Comte des Grieux, seasoned pro Julien Robbins contributed a richly sung portrayal, his meddling paternal phrases poised on a cushion of mellifluous bass sound.
The accomplished conductor David Neely had a somewhat flat night in the pit. The opening statements were dry and correct, instead of sparkling and anticipatory. This rather clinical beginning thwarted stylistic engagement for a couple of acts but then began to settle into a more enthused, informed, expansive French style.
There is much about Manon that starts out heady and bubbling, but ultimately it is a rather gentle tragedy as things go, certainly not Offenbach's La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein. The broad generalities of the first fourth of the evening did not set-up (as they must) the powerful set pieces and confrontations in the following acts.
(Left to right) Antonia Botti-Lodovico, Ashly Neumann, Sydney Mancasola and Emma Sorenson
Director Kristine McIntyre's blocking was often excellent, always competent, but sometimes just too darn' clean as when the chorus sits down almost en masse in the Cours la Reine scene. Or, too vague as in the very opening when we can't quite assess who is who, or what is where. The wonderfully detailed business of the lovers cavorting on the bed was preceded by an odd separation of the would-be lovers as they sing about going to run away together, all the while remaining resolutely apart.
Manon and Des Grieux are directed to do mostly all of the right things and Ms. McIntyre's business has been very well thought out and conscientiously executed. But curiously, for all of Ms. Mansacola's and Mr. Dennis's strengths and hard work, for all of their going through very uninhibited romantic motions, no true sparks are ever really struck, just suggested.
I am a firm admirer of set designer R. Keith Brumley's skills, but they seemed a bit muted on this occasion. The angled rows of painted screens were professionally executed, and the rotating of the panels allowed for swift changes. But they were oddly sterile considering the sumptuousness of the period and lushness of the score.
Indeed, in the beginning, it was difficult to define the space, and to know where the referenced elements were supposed to be imagined. The addition of drape panels in Act II were airy and diaphanous when it seemed that the lovers should be trapped in a garret or down at heel apartment. Thereafter, Mr. Brumley scored with some wonderful effects, never less so than with the beautiful grill and gate for St. Sulpice which provided a very effective environment.
Barry Steele's lighting design was another curiosity. This gifted illuminator provided an uncharacteristically blunt design, with lighting cues mostly abrupt and lacking atmospheric specificity. This was obviously a choice, but arguably not often a well-considered one. One excellent effect was having white votive lights placed on the stage's perimeters for the Cours la Reine scene, and then having them cross fade to blood red for the passions of St. Sulpice, augment by red hanging votives.
Conversely, Roger Kirk's lavish, character-specific costumes were just what the piece required, and were the most wholly successful design element. I wondered if Manon's loud, sequined gold Cours la Reine gown might have been just a bit on the gaudy side, but, hey, she does dominate the scene. Never you mind, Mr. Kirk provided wholly splendid attire.
Eh bien, mes amis, at the end of la nuit, this was a commendable convocation of top talent and good intentions. Manon was a concerted and admirably conscientious effort. It just ultimately seemed to be not quite the right one.
James Sohre
Cast and production details:
Manon Lescaut: Sydney Mancasola; Pousette: Ashly Neumann; Javotte: Emma Sorenson; Rosette: Antonia Botti-Lodovico; Chevalier des Grieux: Joseph Dennis; Comte des Grieux: Julien Robbins; Lescaut: Michael Adams; Guillot de Morfontaine: Brian Frutiger; de Bretigny: Troy Cook; Innkeeper: Spencer Reichman; Guardsmen: Lee Steiner, Nathaniel Mattingly; Maid: Aurelie Veruni; Sacristan: Chris Carr; Sergeant: Christian Sanders; Street Performers: Deborah Giddings, Steve Giddings, Rebecca Mauritz; Conductor: David Neely; Director: Kristine McIntyre; Set Design: R. Keith Brumley; Lighting Design: Barry Steele; Costume Design: Roger Kirk; Make-up and Hair Design: Brittany Crinson for Elsen and Associates; Chorus Master: Lisa Hasson.]]> Manon product_by=A review by James Sohre product_id=Above: Sydney Mancasola and Joseph Dennis
It didn't hurt his efforts to have a formidable cast on his team. Wayne Tigges, in a role debut, is already a tremendous Falstaff in every way. His imposing physicality houses a big, pointed voice that rang out in the house as he blustered, boasted, and bellowed with ample reserves of power. That said, Mr Tigges was also capable of a highly polished characterization that found nooks and crannies and nuances that he was able to convey with conviction and subtley. Indeed, his might just have been the most richly detailed Falstaff of my experience, summoning real pathos in his poignant Act III aria. Occasionally, his no holds barred approach may have caused the voice to rasp, and a few times some pauses and pacing may not have exactly been Verdi's, but he is destined to become a much sought after Sir John.
As Ford, Edwards Parks revealed himself to be a fine Verdian indeed, and boy do we need him now. His secure technique and imposing, warm delivery were marked by good squillo and excellent legato. His delivery of E sogno was musically potent and dramatically rich. Mr. Parks also managed to find some variety in this tight-ass role, interacting playfully with his wife at selected instances. As said wife Alice Ford, the always winning, effortlessly beautiful Kelly Kaduce scored yet another success. Ms. Kaduce's acting and especially, her comic sense are without peer on the operatic stage (as Beverly Sills might say: "Lucille Ball with high notes"). At the performance I saw, her upper voice began a little fuzzy in focus, but she soon warmed to her task finding the appealing, silvery glint I remember as the show went on.
Seated: Maria Zifchak, Kelly Kaduce, Megan Marino. Standing: Deanna Breiwick.
She was well paired with another youthful "merry wife," Megan Marino as Mrs. Meg Page. Ms. Marino is a real company asset, her luxuriant mezzo and energetic participation for once made Meg an important and equal co-conspirator, not just a requisite space filler. I can't tell you how often I have seen this role under-cast or under-performed, so it was a real pleasure to experience Ms. Marino's solid achievement.
Maria Zifchak was a wonderful Mistress Quickly, with a wholly fresh take. Hers was not the chest-voiced, barrel-toned force of nature sometimes presented by mezzos "of a certain age." No, Miss Zifchak prefers to be sexy and sassy over bossy and booming. Her poised, controlled, sinuous singing was in perfect service to a well-considered characterization that she served up with obvious relish.
Deanna Breiwick's Nannetta represents a dream match-up of role and voice. Not since the great Benita Valente have I heard such melting singing in the part. Ms. Breiwick's finely spun upper register was floated with utmost skill and effortless beauty. As Fenton, young Jack Swanson also has a pure, warm, lyric instrument, which he wisely does not try to push beyond its limit. His sweet vocalizing was somewhat at odds with Fenton's urelenting horndog behavior, but we will get to that.
Both Bardolfo (Ryan Connelly) and Pistola (Matthew Scollin) were absolutely committed and over-the-top. Mr. Connelly is an imaginative and playful comprimario on the rise, and Mr. Scollin has a pointed bass-baritone used with solid conviction. Dr. Caius finds a worthy interpreter in Chris Carr, although he alone seemed trapped in a stereotypical, doddering physicality.
Jack Swanson, Deanna Breiwick, Maria Zifchak, Wayne Tigges, Edward Parks, Kelly Kaduce, Matthew Scollin, Ryan Connelly
Director Tomer Zvulun achieved much to admire and the responsive audience clearly appreciated his efforts. I found the staging quite apt, often clever, and unusually carnal. And why not? The whole tale hinges on pursuit of love-making, and fears of wives being seduced into infidelity. If this overt physicality interestingly informs the older personages in the show, I found that by also imposing that on Fenton and Nanetta, their randiness deprived the show of its balancing sweetness.
Too, there were a few (but only a few) instances of lilies getting gilded. Or jokes being given away too soon. It is far funnier if we don't get tipped off that Caius is inadvertently marrying Bardolfo. It also strained credulity that Ford and Caius mercilessly batted, pushed and bullied Fenton. These brief distractions were offset by moments of real brilliance like the chase scene in pursuit of Falstaff as he is caught mid-faux-seduction. The bustling stage was a riot of beautifully controlled movement. And the entrance of the fairies through the audience was a splendid effect.
Erhard Rom's set design provides the piece with a handsome and atmospheric playing space, as adaptable as Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. Two heavy, dark, oak-paneled walls flank the stage, able to close in or angle out as needed to create the interior of the inn (with addition of furniture), the exterior (with addition of the "Garter Inn" shingle), the Ford household (with emphasis on the upstage window) or the forest (with addition of three huge cockeyed oil paintings of stylized trees). I loved the placement of the double sided portrait that got changed out with Sir John on one side and Verdi on the other side. After the fat night is unceremoniously dumped in the river, a trashed version shows up in Act III. And the Advent calendar reveals of compartmentalized plotters was a delectable touch.
Mr. Rom also used a Fantastick's-like act curtain on which was copied the title page of Verdi's vocal score for Falstaff. This proved a clever touch and allowed the show to start with a silhouette of a backlit Fenton and Nanetta kissing, only to have them scatter when the curtain reveals them by dropping to the floor. Lighting designer Barry Steele repeated this effect perfectly timed when the two are caught kissing in the script. Throughout the evening, Mr. Steele deployed effective and subtle lighting shifts and made excellent use of tight specials, with the fairyland greatly enhanced by the starry lights. Vita Tsykun's handsome, well-tailored, often highly colorful costumes seemed to belong to Maestro Verdi's era rather than having the usual Elizabethan look. Nonetheless, they were lovely to look at, and defined the social strata of the participants. Sir John's outlandish visiting costume was alone worth the price of admission.
This great opera reveals new delights and greater depth with each encounter, and Team Falstaff is to be commended for breathing yet more fresh air into this enduring masterwork.
James Sohre
Cast and production details:
Dr. Caius: Chris Carr; Sir John Falstaff: Wayne Tigges; Bardolfo: Ryan Connelly; Pistola: Matthew Scollin; Mrs. Alice Ford: Kelly Kaduce; Mrs. Meg Page: Megan Marino; Mistress Quickly: Maria Zifchak; Nannetta: Deanna Breiwick; Fenton: Jack Swanson; Ford: Edward Parks; Host at the Garter: Gretchen Krupp; Robin: Cameron Bennington; Conductor: David Neely; Director: Tomer Zvulun; Set Design: Erhard Rom; Costume Design: Vita Tzykun; Lighting Design: Barry Steele; Make-up and Hair Design: Brittany Crinson for Elsen and Associates; Scenery and Costumes created for the Wolftrap Opera Company; Chorus Master: Lisa Hasson.]]> Falstaff in Iowa: A Big Fat Hit product_by=A review by James Sohre product_id=Above: Wayne Tigges as Falstaff
Lloyd-Evans pulls off the trick of balancing tongue-in-cheek farce with dramatic credibility. Rather than the inanities of a Carry-On caper, this show presents a romp with the wit and sparkle of an Ayckbourn farce enjoyed in a seaside theatre in mid-summer.
It's true that there's little of the 'darkness' which casts a subtle shadow over Strauss's escapist fantasy. And, for those who remember Christopher Alden's 2013 ENO production, which buried the fun beneath Freudian symbolism and envisaged the protagonists as psychiatric case-studies, that might be a good thing. But, there's little sense of Viennese nostalgia either. Strauss may have recreated the debonair congeniality of aristocratic life in fin-de-siècle Vienna, but the world he presents was resting on a precipice: the 'fall' to come was swift and deep, and the operetta spares neither working-class ambition nor the apathy, frivolity and superciliousness of the Viennese elite in a time of economic and political uncertainty. Alfred's seductive plaint to Rosalinde, 'Happy are those who forget that which cannot be changed', might be seen as a comment on bourgeois attitudes following the stock-market crash of 1873.Act 1: Ben Johnston (Eisenstein), Robert Burt (Dr Blind), Susanna Hurrell (Rosalinde)
What we have instead is stunningly lit (Howard Hudson) Art Deco decadence. Designer takis replaces the curves of Art Nouveau with the angles of Art Deco, and in Act 1 uses elegant glass and metal screens to partition the stage, thereby creating the Eisensteins' intimate but uncluttered boudoir and bathroom. With the extant walls of the Elizabethan Holland House visible in the background, the effect was the blend of medieval royal palace and cutting-edge modernity that one finds at Eltham Palace, the colour-schemes of which takis' palette recalled. The design was economical too. The screens were swivelled to expose the Holland House portico and entrance steps, and a pyramid of champagne coupes, a trio of round gold pedestals, heaps of sumptuous pillows, and a sprinkle of some topless male waiters, bunny-girls and cross-dressing revellers transported us from private chamber to public ballroom. Prince Orlofsky's palace was an ironic meeting-place of burlesque and Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.
The Opera Holland Park Chorus were once again superb in this Act 2 ball scene, the vocal precision and vitality even more impressive as Adam Scown's slick, detailed choreography kept them busy. They were naturalistic as party-goers and showman-like as whirling dancers. They were permitted a brief rest during the ballet sequence in which burlesque dancer Didi Derriere (yes, really) tickled their fancies with a beguiling ostrich-feather fan display.
After the carousing highs of Act 2, the final act always struggles to maintain momentum and a distinct hang-over pall descended in Act 3, as the glittering screens and colours faded to leave us in grey prison, sparsely adorned with desk and filing cabinets. Ingeniously, though, we were afforded a glimpse into the cells where the merrymakers slept off the excesses of the night: stage-right, a square-patterned frame which had lurked in the distance all evening, inconspicuously according with the general design, was now brought the fore and populated with inebriate-strewn mattresses.
Lloyd-Evans' slapstick requires nimbleness and good comic timing from his cast, and they oblige. Prison governor Frank - sporting a Clousseau mac - can't enter a room without tripping over the doorstep and ends up asleep with his head in a bucket; horse-play with cuff-links and overcoats repeatedly leaves the characters tied in knots. Alfred's attempt to infiltrate his beloved's bedchamber via a ladder is thwarted, time and time again, by a slamming of the window: what could have been hackneyed instead became the delightful fulfilment of expectation - was it my imagination, or was there a slightly longer, playfully teasing, delay before each successive crash? The 'off-kilter choreography' of the four Keystone Cops who accompany Frank to arrest Eisenstein is charming - as is the bashful smile of the fourth, and somewhat tardy, diminutive copper. Their bobbing and baton routines, their over-swift departure and sheepish return, last just long enough to tickle without irritating. And, it takes a lot of practice to get the sequences that 'wrong'.
The farce is aided by Alistair Beaton's rhyme-wielding translation. The verbal gags are engagingly modern but in keeping with the spirit of the original. And who could fail to be impressed by the blustering Dr Blind's neologistic invention: 'magnifying', 'modifying', 'ratifying', 'verifying', 'speechifying', 'simplifying', classifying', 'disqualifying' [ ] 'alibi-ing'! The spoken dialogue came across well, the Eisenstein's RP contrasting with Falke's Irish brogue. Adele's neat switch between Home Counties and northern working-class exemplified her social aspirations and get-up-and-go.
Indeed, as Jennifer France perched in Eisenstein's bathroom excitedly poring over the invitation from her sister, Ida, to attend the Prince's ball, it was clear that this was a chambermaid who knew her own mind and was going places. France negotiated the bravura coloratura with ease and the Act 2 'Mein Herr Marquis' was a dramatic and musical delight: unceremoniously spun and dumped into a pile of cushions, Ben Johnson's Eisenstein was no match for this sassy lass.Jennifer France (Adele)
Johnson and Susanna Hurrell were a good comic duo in Act 1 and the Act 2 seduction-duet was fun, as Hurrell taunted her frustrated, belittled husband with his pocket-watch. Johnson has an elegant voice, but it is quite light, though nimble and warm; I'd have liked a bit more authority - after all he is the 'master' of the house - but he stamped his presence more forcefully when convincingly disguised as Dr Blind. Hurrell's Rosalinde was glamorous in a rose-pink pyjama suit and exotic in a fabulous green-and-gold get-up as the Hungarian princess. This was a winning impersonation, full of disingenuous wile. Her voice is expressive and the tone beautiful, though at times I'd have liked a fuller sound: the final note of 'Klänge der Heimat' was a bit snatched - which was disappointing following such a charismatic rendition, though the tempo felt a bit ponderous.
Peter Davoren's Alfred had a nice golden sound and despite his unintelligible Italian accent - his text is peppered with Italian - he successfully avoided the 'Italian tenor' stereotype. Alfred can be a bit wearing, but Davoren was more puppyish than preening; his willingness to suffer and spare his lover's blushes won our sympathy, all the more so when he appeared from the cells in Act 3, trussed like a chicken, reduced to hopping feebly about in disorientated bewilderment.
Gavan Ring was excellent as a suave Falke, his baritone supple and smooth. Falke's 'Brüderlein, Brüderlein und Schwesterlein' can be played quite hauntingly, but here his paean to brotherhood was so persuasive that the partyers instantly stripped to their underwear, fulfilling Falke's observation that 'pairs have formed, that many hearts in love are bound' - as the macho waiters deftly swept up the discarded fineries.
I enjoyed Samantha Price's Orlofsky: her mezzo is vibrant and assured, and she was the perfect party host - hospitable and indefatigable. Joanna Marie Skillett was a characterful Ida and as Dr Blind Robert Burt bluffed and puffed through his unmusical monotones.Susanna Hurrell (Rosalinde) and Samantha Price (Prince Orlofsky)
Ian Jervis was a curmudgeonly Frosch whose Act Three monologue spiked several Conservative MPs - Brexiteers, Remainer and Regrexiteers alike - prompting some belly laughs in the prison gloom.
Guiding the show, conductor John Rigby exhibited a no-nonsense approach borne of his experience in musical theatre, and the shirt-sleeved City of London Sinfonia served him well. Rigby's West End credits include The King and I and Sinatra at the London Palladium, Marguerite at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, Les Misérables at the Palace Theatre, The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre, and The Producers at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane; and this was a wise conducting appointment for the score danced to a tight beat, while the woodwind players were allowed some slack for their expressive rubatos. The overture took off like a shot and the momentum did not flag - though I felt some empathy for the second fiddles and violas whose right elbows must have been drooping by the end of the sweltering evening - all that oom-cha-cha waltzing! Perhaps some of the orchestral details and tonal variety didn't come across - more might have been made of the orchestration of the Czardas, all flutes, clarinets, and tambourines, which so differs from the prevailing string-dominated idiom - but the Straussian spirit was heeded.
Die Fledermaus is essentially an ensemble piece with the emphasis on dramatic interplay as much as on vocal sparkle. Here, the waltzes swirled, the corks popped and the pleasure-seekers rocked, as Lloyd-Jones and his team raised their glasses to this Dom Perignon of operettas.
Claire Seymour
Johann Strauss II: Die Fledermaus
Gabriel von Eisenstein - Ben Johnson, Rosalinde - Susanna Hurrell, Adele - Jennifer France, Ida - Joanna Marie Skillett; Alfred - Peter Davoren, Falke - Gavan Ring, Dr Blind - Robert Burt, Frank -John Lofthouse, Prince Orlofsky - Samantha Price, Frosch - Ian Jervis; Director - Martin Lloyd-Evans, Conductor - John Rigby, Designer - takis, Lighting Designer - Howard Hudson, Choreographer - Adam Scown, Chorus Master - Harry Ogg, City of London Sinfonia, Chorus of Opera Holland Park.
Opera Holland Park, Kensington, London; Tuesday 19th July 2016.]]> Die Fledermaus, Opera Holland Park product=yes product_title=Die Fledermaus, Opera Holland Park product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: The champagne aria ]]>
In exquisite straight tone the four voices of the quartet fought elegantly for attention, converging finally and almost incidentally in the first fugue, then converging staunchly in the third fugue, these four consummate players in absolute control of the the most mature of fugal machinations.
The program continued with the 18 year-old Mendelssohn's first string quartet that the composer prefaced "Is it true that you wait for me in the arbor by the vineyard wall?" The structures of this late-Beethoven inspired work dissolved into youthful sonic atmospheres of seasons, of light and shadow and plumbed the mysteries of nature and its magical forces in a myriad of colors and textures, the four voices of the quartet now one in infinite gestures of sentient sounds.
The Arcanto Quartet
The program concluded with Alban Berg's Lyric Suite. The quartet carefully and succinctly laid out the program of this six movement, late Romantic tone poem exploiting the composer's fascination for his friend's married sister. Here the sounds of the quartet delivered a monologue by a brilliant human psyche, no nuance of a very private drama overlooked in this journey into rarefied musical territory.
This concert was Western art at its most refined, its precious moments savored and self-consciously treasured.
On July 16 a magnificent theater of a dead civilization, the Théâtre Antique in Orange breathed death's prayer, the requiem mass. It is Verdi's most terrifying portrayal of any of his tortured souls. In this Orange requiem we were these souls, as indeed was all humanity.
The Eye of Providence, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, soloists and the Orfeón Donostiarra. Photo copyright Kris Picart, courtesy of the Chorégies d'Orange
The acoustic of this massive theater is unforgiving, every voice of the awesome Toulouse Orchestra laid bare, the three flutes and two human voices of the Agnus Dei cutting into the hearts of the many thousands of spectators, the 60 centimeter high hammer stokes of the tympani mallets creating the deliberated havoc of an angry God, the huge bass drum thunderclaps burying us in eternal damnation.
The final prayer, the Libera Me, is intoned by the soul graveside who knows its guilt and begs the mercy of God for its salvation. It is delivered by the purist of voices, the soprano whose range belies the innocence of a child, whose warmth encompasses the heart of a woman, and whose primal ancestor was the Eve of original sin.
Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev with his splendid players, the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse sought universal humanity and not the particular sinner. The operatic drama of the individual soul was drowned by the hugeness of the theater, the one hundred five voices of the Orfeón Donostiarra from San Sebastion (Spain) and colossal, non-relevant, confusing and quite colorful iconography of the digital game-like images that were projected onto the huge scaenae frons of the Théâtre Antique. [This back wall is 61 meters wide by 31 meters high — 200 by 120 feet!]
In the late afternoon of July 17 the Aix Festival gave its final performance of a new opera entitled Kalîla wa Dimna (the names of a brother and sister), based on a Persian fable famous for its transcription by Ibn al-Muqaffa' (executed in 759 AD) into narrative Arabic — a lion, jackal and raven trick a camel into sacrificing itself. In the opera a king is tricked into executing a poet whose song then posthumously reconciles populace with power.
left to right: Kalîla (sister), Dinma (brother), the poet, the king, the queen mother, photo by Patrick Berger / ArtcomArt
French/Palestinian composer Moneim Adwan combined elements of Arabic and Indian musical languages to create the 24 scenes that meticulously spell out deception and revelation. Five singers and five instrumentalists, all born and trained in the classical musical arts of north Africa or the Middle East, discovered many musical moods in richly melismatic singing and what seemed to be virtuoso levels of plucking, bowing, striking, and blowing mostly arabic instruments.
With lengthy narrations and perfunctory staging it was a theater piece with inserted songs more than an opera, and the heavily instructive intention of the story gave it the trappings of dogmatic oratorio. Most striking was the absence of relevance of its message to the Western world, and certainly its absence of relevance to the Arab world, civilizations shaken to their foundations in this twenty-first century. This 68th Aix Festival in particular was laden with social, intellectual and artistic complexities in which this opera was an island of innocence, an interesting and enlightening, too lengthy excursion into an alternative musical language.
The afternoon's world of Arabic innocence, its innocuous play on power and pity gave way in the evening to the shattering intellectual proportions of an individual soul — the powerful Oedipus. The Grand Théâtre de Provence hosted Stravinsky's opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex, the king of Thebes who confronts his blindness to know what he could not know, the savior of Thebes who must confess his sacrileges in searing melismas and become an object of pity.
Oedipus and Antigone with singers of the Orphei Drängar, photo by Vincent Beaume, courtesy of the Aix Festival
Shattering as well was the volume of sound pouring forth from the pit, Esa-Pekke Salonen's magnificent Philharmonia Orchestra. The 75 voices of Orphei Drängar, the famed all male choir from Uppsula, Sweden shouted the glory of Oedipus' power and their anger at his betrayal at unprecedented acoustic levels, and finally whispered their pity for their errant king.
Peter Sellars, the sixty-year-old wunderkind genius of late twentieth century opera ignored the text Stravinsky provided for narrator, making his own narrative adaptation for female voice of the Sophocles tragedy that would continue into Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms to complete the evening following an intermission.
This choral symphony was intoned by some seventy Christian singers comprised of members of Orphei Drängar, plus Sweden's Gustaf Sjökvist Chamber Choir and its Sofia Vokalensemble. The blinded Oedipus, here bravely acted by the now silenced, splendid Canadian tenor Joseph Kaiser was led onto the stage by Oedipus' daughter Antigone, the narrator for both pieces, and by her dancer sister Ismene (a Peter Sellars addition to the mythic forces at play in the Oedipus Rex).
Singers of the Orphei Drängar, photo by Vincent Beaume, courtesy of the Aix Festival
The Salonen pit begged redemption and peace for the soul of Oedipus in thundering exclamations as the lines of singers moved their arms in synchronized motions indicating abstracted, distilled universal participation in this neo-Classical musical world, Oedipus was led across the stage to be placed in a square of light (outlined by four neon tubes) while the chorus shouted praises of the Lord (Psalm 150). In the midst of this celebration Oedipus walked off stage left. The final image of this Symphony of Psalms was Antigone and Ismene embracing downstage right, each comforting the other.
In the aftermath of the tragedy in Nice each of us in Aix and Orange will have seen and felt these magnificent works of art in our own way. These were my perceptions.
Michael Milenski
Casts and production information:
Quatuor Arcanto Violin I: Antje Weithaas; Violin II: Daniel Sepec; Viola: Tabea Zimmermann; Cello: Jean-Guihen Queyras. Conservatoire Darius Milhaud, Aix-en-Provence, July 15, 2016).
Verdi Requiem Soprano: Erika Grimaldi; Mezzo: Ekaterina Gubanova; Tenor: Joseph Calteja; Bass: Vitalij Kowaljow; Chorus: Orfeón Donostiarra. Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Conductor: Tugan Sokhiev. Projections: Philippe Druillet. Thèâtre Antique, Orange, France, July 16, 2016.
Kalîla wa Dimna kalîla: Ranine Chaar; Dimna: Moneim Adwan; Le Roi: Mohamed Jebali; La Mère du roi: Reem Talhami; Chatraba: Jean Chahid. Music Director: Zied Zouari; Mise en scène: Olivier Letellier; Scenery Philippe Casaban and Eric Charbeau; Costumes: Nathalie Prats; Lighting: Sébastion Revel. Théâtre du Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence, July 17, 2016.
Oedipus Rex / Symphony of Psalms Oedipus: Joseph Kaiser; Jocasta: Violeta Urmana; Créon / Tirésias / Messanger: Sir Willard White; Shepherd: Joshua Stewart; Antigone (spoken): Pauline Cheviller; Ismene (dancer): Laurel Jenkins. Philharmonia Orchestra. Conductor: Esa-Pekka Salonen; Mise en scène: Peter Sellars. Grand Théâtre de Provence, July 17, 2016.
product_title=The Verdi Requiem in Orange, Kalîla wa Dimna and Oedipus Rex in Aix
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above: Laurel Jenkins as Ismene, Josseph Kaiser as Oedipus, Pauline Cheviller as Antigone (closest) [Photo by Vincent Beaume, courtesy of the Aix Festival]
There was much fine vocal talent on display, but the singers had to contend with some unhelpful direction and design. Director Richard Gerard Jones, a JPYA since 2015, and Lighting Designer Nick Havell decided to give all the scenes a 'modern' spin with a 'radical' edge. An eight-foot black wall served as a set and props were minimal - a transistor radio for Varvara and Kudrjáš to bob along to, a wheel-chair for Mireille to slump into, an armchair to support the fast-fading Mimi, a microphone for a karaoke-rendition of the Champagne Aria. Certainly, stagings need not be lavish to make their mark - companies such as Opera Holland Park and Bampton Classical Opera repeatedly prove that invention can triumph over budgets - but the grungy grimness of these designs was dispiritingly unimaginative. Lighting was of the extreme chiaroscuro type with naked bulbs (starlight for the lovers' nocturnal tryst in Kát'a ) and dazzling strip-lights (glaring painfully from the lowered lighting rig at the close of Onegin) serving to blind rather than illuminate. Too often characters were half in darkness, which I suppose did fit in with the general 'twilight zone' ambience.Jennifer Davis (far left) as Tatyana; Act III Eugene Onegin. Photo credit: Clive Barda.
The settings, and costumes, were dubious, too, in that they didn't seem to take heed of anything that the protagonists might be singing about. The tender romance of the night-time rendezvous in Kát'a was blunted by Varvara's far too revealing hot-pants. Mireille did not seek her wounded lover in the church of Sainte-Maries-de-la-Mer, but found herself in a mental asylum, dressed in a white sack and dumped, fairly unceremoniously, in a wheelchair while two medics looked on aghast at the vocal antics of this would-be suicide. Prince Gremin's ball was a flashy charity fundraiser complete with paparazzi to snap the posing celebrities, and the somewhat coarse ambience was at odds with the grave sincerity of Gremin's subsequent avowal of love for Tatyana. Café Momus was a pole-dancing club - or so the animated neon silhouettes which prefaced the final scene from La bohème suggested: they drew an initial whoop but the flickering images, on a loop, quickly became nothing but a distraction. Worse still, they reappeared half-way through Orlovsky's ball, though there was nothing riotous, or anything festive, about the revelling.
However, despite the fact that the black wall, which radically foreshortened the ROH stage, made the acoustic unsympathetic to the voices the singers displayed considerable talent, with the ladies perhaps just having the edge.
Vlada Borovko, who the evening before had sung the role of Xenia in the ROH's Proms performance of Boris Godunov ( review), was an impassioned Kat'á Kabanová, demonstrating great power at the top and a lovely gleaming timbre. Kat'á's innocence and love were equally credible. Borovko received praise when she made a role début when she stepped into Violetta's shoes at short notice in March this year, and I look forward to hearing her sing Mademoiselle Jouvenot (Adriana Lecouvreur) and Giannetta ( L'elisir d'amore) next season. Emily Edmonds was a vivacious Varvara and as Prince Orlovsky she got the party going with a swing. Edmonds won acclaim in her native Australia before joining the JPYA Programme in 2015 and one can see why: her mezzo is full and sensuous, and she has sparkling stage presence. Her performances next season, which include Kate Pinkerton (Madame Butterfly) and Tebaldo ( Don Carlo) will be keenly anticipated.Emily Edmonds as Varvara. Photo credit: Clive Barda.
There is currently a quartet of Australian JPYAs, and soprano Lauren Fagan shone as Gounod's Mireille, despite having been cast as a deluded, self-harming depressive. Her stunningly rich tone and vibrant timbre rose above the incongruous design and later, as Mimì, she showed that she has range of colour too. She deserved praise for showing forbearance with the directorial quirks in the latter excerpt too, whipping an oxygen mask from a carrier bag and convulsing violently during in Mimì's death throes. Despite a pre-curtain announcement that Jennifer Davis was under-the-weather, there was no obvious effect on her singing and she was an open-hearted Tatyana, her soprano unforced and rounded, and a bright Adele in Fledermaus. Davis is cast as Ines in next season's Il trovatore and as Arbate in Mitridate, re di Ponto.David Junghoon Kim as Kudrjáš. Photo credit: Clive Barda.
Among the men, Australian baritone Samuel Dale Johnson stood out as a firm-voiced Rodolfo and was joined in the 'garret' by David Shipley's Schaunard and Samuel Sakker's Marcello for a tacky take-away beside a needle-light Christmas tree and a feeble electric bar-heater. Sakker, the fourth of the Australians, also had his moment in the spotlight during the run of Traviata earlier this year, stepping in as Alfredo when Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu was struck down by a last-minute illness. He has a resonant tenor and appealing tone but he's not a natural stage animal and took a while to settle as Boris in the scene from Kát'a Kabanová. In contrast, David Junghoon Kim was an ebullient and strongly characterised Kudrjáš. Kim and Sakker share the role of Ruiz in the double-cast Il trovatore next season.Samuel Dale Johnson (Rodolfo) and Lauren Fagan (Mimì). Photo credit: Clive Barda.
James Platt - who, like Borovko, sang in the previous evening's Prom performance (Border Guard) - injected some much needed gravitas into the Eugene Onegin excerpts. Tall and imposing, he was an impressive Prince Gremin and had the low notes for Gremin's declaration of love, descending smoothly to the bottom. No wonder Tatyana threw her arms around him in a tight bear-hug. Yuriy Yurchuk has a sonorous baritone but his brief turn as Onegin didn't afford much opportunity to show it off. I admired Yurchuk's performance as Angelotti in January this year ( review) noting that he used 'his lovely tone to garner our sympathy', and his moment came in Die Fledermaus, as the elegant Dr Falke calmly invited Orlovsky's revellers to treat each other as 'Brüderlein und Schwesterlein'. There will be several chances to hear Yurchuk at Covent Garden next season, as he performs Schlemil (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Baron Douphol (La traviata) and Prince Yamadori ( Madame Butterfly).
The fine singing was complemented by the crisp playing of the ROH Orchestra conducted by Paul Wynne Griffiths, Paul Wingfield and Jonathan Santagada (the latter two are former and current JPYAs respectively). Fledermaus's Adele tells us that 'Champagne washes down all sorts of things sometimes, So wise monarchs never let, their people go thirsty'. On this occasion it was the fantastic music-making which was the spoonful of sugar.
Claire Seymour
Jette Parker Young Artists Summer Performance
Janáček: Kát'a Kabanová, Act II, scene 2
Katěrina (Kát'a): Vlada Borovko; Varvara: Emily Edmonds; Boris Grigorjevič: Samuel Sakker; Váňa Kudrjáš: David Junghoon Kim; Conductor: Paul Wynne Griffiths; Celeste: Colin Scott.
Gounod: Mireille, Act IV aria
Mireille: Lauren Fagan; Conductor: Paul Wingfield; Organ: Colin Scott.
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin, Act III, scenes 1 and 2 (excerpts)
Tatyana: Jennifer Davis; Eugene Onegin: Yuriy Yurchuk; Prince Gremin: James Platt; Guests: Vlada Borovko, Lauren Fagan, Emily Edmonds, David Junghoon Kim, Samuel Sakker, Samuel Dale Johnson and David Shipley; Conductor: Jonathan Santagada.
Leoncavallo: La bohème, Act IV
Mimì: Lauren Fagan; Musetta: Emily Edmonds; Marcello: Samuel Sakker; Rodolfo: Samuel Dale; Johnson; Schaunard: David Shipley; Conductor: Paul Wynne Griffiths.
Strauss: Die Fledermaus, Act II finale (excerpt)
Rosalinde: Vlada Borovko; Adele: Jennifer Davis; Ida: Lauren Fagan; Prince Orlofsky: Emily Edmonds; Gabriel Eisenstein: Samuel Dale Johnson; Dr Falke: Yuriy Yurchuk; Colonel Frank: James Platt; Guests: David Junghoon Kim, Samuel Sakker and David Shipley; Conductor: Paul Wynne Griffiths.
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London Sunday 17 July 2016]]> Die Fledermaus
The Royal Opera House de-camped to the west side of town for this concert performance of Richard Jones' production of Musorgsky's opera, seen at Covent Garden in March (review), conducted by Antonio Pappano. There was no attempt to 'semi-stage' the work, other than a few token gestures. For example, the newly crowned Boris made his first appearance in the organ console, behind and above his adulating people - a magnificent sight in ceremonial crème and gold, but less successful vocally as Terfel struggled to project from this distant placement. But, the decision to avoid too much stage business was probably a sensible one, especially given the 1869 version performed here focuses less on the conflict between Boris and his people than on the tortures within his own mind. With the protagonists delivering their long orations and narratives from the front of the stage, an intense immediacy was created as they seemed to be speaking directly to the Prommers before them, overcoming the Albert Hall's capacious dimensions.
Nicky Gillibrand's costumes and make-up were retained but Jones' and Miriam Buether's designs were largely dispensed with, and there were both gains and losses from the omission of the visual symbolism and the choreographic dimension - with the gains perhaps in the ascendant.
On the down side, the involvement of the Chorus in the dramatic denouement was lessened. This was in no way a consequence of the quality of the choral singing, which was superlative. The Royal Albert Hall has witnessed countless choral apotheoses over the years, but the power and passion of the Russian populace's acclamation of their new Tsar, as Boris emerges from the Cathedral of the Assumption in the opening scene, must have equalled the best of them. Although they were seated behind the ROH Orchestra, quite distant from the action, it was evident that each individual member of the Chorus was deeply alert to the musico-dramatic arguments being presented by the various soloists.
However, the Chorus's engagement with the drama was inevitably somewhat 'at a remove', and this was especially noticeable in the fourth Act where unrest grows among the people who gather in the square before the Cathedral of St Basil the Blessed, and in desperation and hunger beg the shocked Tsar to give them bread. The result was that Boris seemed less concerned about the popular dissent that his past crime may have caused and more obsessed with his inner struggles and suspicions; while this sharpened the psychological portrait of the Tsar, the tender lyricism of the people's folk-song appeal for alms was less poignant.
The iconic replication of the Tsar Bell of the Kremlin had been a powerful emblem in Buether's designs; here the duplications in embossed granite and the dark projections which hung in the belfry about Pimen's cell in the Chudov Monastery were reduced to an ultramarine frieze behind the performers. The carillons which clang in joyful cacophony during the Coronation Scene resounded from the RAH Gallery, but they were both too detached from the drama - Prommers were distracted from the stage as they swivelled to see where the clarion was coming from - and rather too loud.
There were a couple of places where I wondered whether projections might have been used to substitute for elements of Buether's design that had had great impact at Covent Garden. For example, the story-board chronicle of Russian history which is a back-drop for Pimen's narration - and upon which portraits of three former Tsars are followed by an unfinished likeness of the red-haired, murdered Dmitri - and the huge map which dominated the Tsar's apartments upon which the Russian territories were signalled red, as if the land is bathed in blood, might have been recreated in this way. But, on the plus side, out went the repetitive intrusion of the mimed murder of Dmitri and the profusion of spinning tops.
So much depends upon the Tsar's grandeur and guilt, and although Bryn Terfel, as I remarked in March 'may not be able to summon the sonorous darkness of a basso profundo', he once again excelled and showed what a fine singing-actor he is. This time round his Tsar was even more isolated, trapped within the claustrophobic torment of his own mind and drawn only momentarily from his anguish by the presence of his children Fyodor (a sweet-toned Ben Knight) and Xenia (Vlada Borovko).
If the Tsar's psychological loneliness lessened the dramatic weight of these familial scene, then it deepened our understanding of Boris's despair and decline. Left alone in the Tsar's apartments, Terfel's desperate, hallucinatory reflections on his five-year reign - he is blamed for everything, even the death of Xenia's fiancé and the poisoning of his own sister - revealed a lack of proportion and reason which will push him into an inexorable physical and mental deterioration.
And in the final scenes this deterioration was laid bare: grey, dishevelled and lurching wildly, this was a man on a precipice. Terfel used every aspect of his voice to growl with fury at the Simpleton, and bellow at the duplicitous Shuisky, whom he both distrusts and fears, while the soft articulation of the higher-lying passages conveyed the Tsar's affection for his son, and his psychological fragility.
Terfel was joined by an outstanding cast, many of whom were reprising their roles. Estonian bass Ain Anger was once again marvellous as Pimen. He delivered his account of his country's past ills and wonders with such magisterial authority that one longed to hear what intensity he might bring to the role of Boris.
David Philip Butt conveyed Grigory's haughty and somewhat gauche idealism effectively, while John Graham-Hall injected his smooth tenor with a sinister nuance as the obsequious but self-serving Shuisky, though the lack of staging meant that dramatically his role had less clear direction and he often seemed to be just hanging around in the side-lines.
The smaller roles were just as strongly performed. Jeremy White's Police Officer hurled out brusque insults to the cowering populace; Kostas Smoriginas sang Andrei Shchelkalov's announcement to the people that Boris has refused to become Tsar with a noble, legato line.
John Tomlinson's grotesque comic turn as Varlaam had been one of the highlights of the Covent Garden performances, but he was absent here and the scene at the Lithuanian border was weakened by the lack of visual context and contrast. Rebecca de Pont Davies' was a blowsy gregarious Innkeeper, though, and the two wandering monks, Varlaam (Andrii Goniukov) and his drinking buddy Missail (Harry Nicoll) added a dash of japery, including a deft percussive contribution on the musical spoons.
Even though the Simpleton was denied the opportunity to play directly to the populace, Andrew Tortise was again excellent as he foretold of forthcoming disaster and defamed Boris before a crowd of mischievous urchins.
I enjoyed the opportunity, too, to see Antonio Pappano guide the Orchestra of the Royal Opera, rather than simply hear the results. Peering into the ROH pit I've sometimes wondered how the baton-less Pappano's hyperactive 'hand-pumping' and vigorous arm-swinging is interpreted by the players, but now it makes perfect sense. Pappano is like an electricity generator, ceaselessly pumping out energy which surges through each and every performer. I think that some of the orchestral subtleties were lost in the vastness of the RAH, but the crafting of the over-arching tensions was brilliant and the climaxes were by turn grandiose and suffused with anxiety.
This was a captivating performance: two hours of compelling narrative in which magnificent musical peaks communicated the sheer psychological force of Boris Godunov's inner conflicts. Witnessing his death, we truly understood his tragedy.
Claire Seymour
Musorgsky: Boris Godunov
Boris Godunov - Bryn Terfel, Prince Shuisky - John Graham-Hall, Andrey Shchelkalov - Kostas Smoriginas, Grigory (Pretender Dmitri) - David Butt Philip, Pimen - Ain Anger, Varlaam - Andrii Goniukov, Missail - Harry Nicoll, Yurodivy (Simpleton) - Andrew Tortise, Xenia - Vlada Borovko, Xenia's Nurse - Clarissa Meek, Hostess of the Inn - Rebecca de Pont Davies, Mityukha - Adrian Clarke, Border Guard - James Platt, Nikitich - Jeremy White, Fyodor - Ben Knight, Boyar - Nicholas Sales; conductor - Antonio Pappano, Royal Opera Chorus (chorus-master - Renato Balsadonna), Orchestra of the Royal Opera House.
Royal Albert Hall, London; Saturday 16th July 2016.]]> Boris Godunov, ROH at the Proms product=yes product_title=Boris Godunov, ROH at the Proms product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Bryn Terfel as Boris Godunov
First and foremost, what a treat it is to see DMMO take a chance on a piece that many opera enthusiasts may know of, but never get a chance to experience. This operatic game changer is best known for the mezzo's set piece Che faro senza Euridice, excerpted from the Italian version. This production, presented in the French version is a reminder, nay revelation of Gluck's musical genius, and proves a powerful souvenir of a golden age of explosive creativity.
Jennifer Johnson Cano and the Furies
Mr. Rader-Schieber has endowed the staging approach with a striking, yet delicate balance of sobering introspection and mythical whimsy. The stage configuration of Simpson's College's Blank Performing Arts Center can prove a challenge, bisected as it is by the orchestra pit. The main stage is connected to the thrust by walkways on either side of the lowered pit. The director addresses this limitation by exploring a wide variety of performer placement and continually morphing choral groupings.
In an awesome display of subtlety and nuance, he managed to create well-motivated movement that kept the pictures in flux so that all three side of the horseshoe seating were engaged and visually satisfied. Jacob A. Climer's handsome, evocative, and frequently dazzling sets and costumes perfectly matched and amplified the director's artistic sensibilities.
The picture of Mr. Climer's cool, white cemetery building with decaying wrought iron fence was intersect by a pick-up-sticks like scattering of slender white trees, slightly akimbo. On the thrust is a rectangular grave with a mound of fresh dirt, studded with votive candles. As a white clad, grieving Orphée keens his opening aria, he at first claws at the dirt, then wipes his hands on his clothing, as if wanting to desperately connect with the earth that covers his beloved wife. This was just the opening salvo in several rounds of powerful imagery.
This grave recedes downward and when the trap raises again it bears a writhing chorus of Hades demons who remain submerged waist-level until dancers ooze-crawl onto the stage and proceed to enact a ritual of death. An unsuspecting and unwilling mortal gets roughly stripped of his clothes (read: life) and gets passed, all but naked, down the mosh pit of choristers to death's realm. The characterful, stylish dances and movement were choreographed with insightful skill and elegance by Jillian Foley.
The festive serenity of the Elysian fields is realized in a hot red palette that could not have been further from the restive handsome cemetery. The chic black court attire is here accented with headwear (and a touch of red) cleverly suggesting deer, rams, goats, and the like. Set pieces were limited to matching red-trees in weighted boxes that could be configured (and re-) to vary the playing area. These stylized bucolic gestures were a perfect complement to the radiant, fairy-princess-perfect gown that adorned Eurydice in gradations of pink.
After her husband breaks his vow and looks upon her, the effect of Eurydice's death, was brutally blunt and stunning. She was positioned with her back to us upstage on a platform facing Orphée, collapsed onto him, and then sunk into death as she tumbled backwards and downwards on the red stairs. But the evening's coup de theatre was yet to come. The graveyard façade flies back in separating Orphée from Eurydice once more as it isolates him to sing his famous lament.
Partway through the aria, red rose petals began to fall into the open grave on the thrust. Then they escalate to a flurry as the original rectangular grave reappears, this time covered with a mound of petals. Well, when the winged Amour (clad in eye-popping, shiny gold) brings the heroine back to life one final time, he does so by reaching deep in the mound of petals and drawing out the actress in a matching red gown as the petals cascaded all 'round. Yes, there were audible gasps. All of this stage magic was flawlessly enhanced by Nate Wheatley's superb lighting design, and Brittany Crinson's well-judged make-up and hair design (for Elsen and Associates).
In the pit, Maestro Gary Thor Wedow infused the musical reading with passion and immediacy. Performances of this genre can sometimes become precious, reverential, or worse, irrelevant. But Mr. Wedow encouraged a rendition full of buoyant freshness and dramatic vitality. His instrumentalists responded with equal doses of plangency and panache. Lisa Hasson's wondrous chorus sang with a full arsenal of well-calculated effects from full-throated joy, to satisfied contentment, to sympathetic bereavement, to satanic vitriol. Bravi tutti. With the title role soloists, we were blessed to have two singers at the top of their game and on the cusp of their fame.
In a time that many young singers sound polished but somewhat monochromatic, no one seems to have told Jennifer Johnson Cano to play it safe. Ms. Cano's highly individual Orphée was a star turn of significant proportions. Her burnished mezzo has it all: size, color, agility, evenness and individuality. She effortlessly tossed off coloratura with elan as well as meaning, filled the house with refulgent phrases, and drew us into her despair with barely audible vocal effects. She tears into the part with such abandon that occasionally a bit of huskiness intrudes in her powerful lower voice, but oh my, this was a towering, personalized performance.
Susannah Biller is every bit her equal as a radiant, golden-toned Eurydice. Ms. Biller finds every modicum of charm, grace, and poise in her characterization, and is mightily impressive as her elation inexorably turns into heart-wrenching despair. Her secure, gleaming soprano encompassed a wide range of musical colors and she was able to ply her voice to create any number of admirable dramatic effects.
Rounding out the principals, Cree Carrico's clear, shining soprano was an ideal match for the requirements of the small but indispensible role of Amour. Her poised, focused tone vocally matched her winning, spunky personality. Ms. Carrico made the most out of every second she was on, exuding an infectious and charismatic stage presence.
James Sohre
Cast and production details:
Orphée: Jennifer Johnson Cano; Eurydice: Susannah Biller; Amour: Cree Carrico; Dancers: Jillian Foley, Isaac Lerner, Megan McCarthy, Tariq Mitri; Conductor: Gary Thor Wedow; Director: Chas Rader-Schieber; Set and Costume Design: Jacob A. Climer; Lighting Design: Nate Wheatley; Choreographer: Jillian Foley; Make-up and Hair Design: Brittany Crinson for Elsen Associates]]>
This is an idea that was obviously sewn on fertile ground, for performances I attended each year were packed out. The quality of the experience and the opportunity to hear unique repertoire are proving to be a potent lure.
The production of Galileo Galilei could hardly have been bettered, starting with a mesmerizing musical realization of the Glass 'formulaic' score. You pretty much know what you are going to get from this composer: repetitive arpeggiated phrases, accented rhythms challenged by other percussive stings, staccato commentary, sustained chords serving as a different kind of cantus firmus.
Under the steady baton of Michael Sakir, every calculated effect was carefully allowed its proper place. There is a different Glass sound to this score, the small orchestra comprised disproportionately of lower voices. There is an occasional, welcome brightness from higher winds, but the overall effect was a preponderance of a restless weightiness, in both music and Mary Zimmerman's text.
That the music-making never became ponderous was a great credit to the poised, polished playing. Maestro Sakir's concentration never wavered and he led his amassed forces through the complex writing with insight and skill. He was in full command of the most minute shifts of the sound palette, and he found a wonderful build to the final expansive choral statement. I only wished that he had not paused quite so long between scenes. The composer did not put musical "buttons" on many (any?) scenes, and the forward motion of the piece was sometimes interrupted by applause, to fill an uncomfortably odd silence.
Chris Carr as the Older Galileo
Every single element of the design was top tier. The production was presented in arena style, and set designer Adam Crinson created a playing space that was simple but highly practical. Mr. Crinson used Galileo's drawing for decorative inspiration of a circular "stage," consisting of a circular platform/ramp within another circular platform/ramp tilted in opposition to each other. These "rims" enclosed a central "pit" with a mosaic-like painting on its floor. The ramps were of a perfect height for actors to sit on them, and provided a circular walking space around the perimeter of the action.
With the orchestra placed at 12 o'clock, a horseshoe of tiered seating surrounded the stage. The designer encircled the entire space in an ethereal hanging of floor-to-ceiling scrim panels, upon which was projected a non-stop cornucopia of images relating to Galileo's life and work. Barry Steele's masterful lighting and projections were a model of excellence.
To add to this embarrassment of riches, Aryana Petrashenko has designed sumptuous costumes that are not only strikingly attractive but which also immediately define the characters. The beautifully judged set pieces were the icing on a very rich cake. This was quite simply one of the most perfectly realized opera designs I have seen in many a moon, in total service to the composition.
Given this true feast for the eyes, we might not be blamed were we to come out "humming the scenery." But director Octavio Cardenas and his talented cast have accomplished a considerable success in performing this rarity with dedicated passion and precision.
Mr. Cardenas found no end of diverse uses for this space, and its limitations seemed to be liberating as he cleverly place the singers in any number of varied groupings and poses. Every possible entrance was utilized, the height of the ramp versus the depth of the pit was exploited, and a myriad of highly theatrical presentations impressed. The haunting look of the four empty birdcages on sticks, the administering of the 'irons' that suspend and punish Galileo, the evocation of three people in a Venetian gondola suggested by two chairs and a paddle, all were magical.
While sightlines were otherwise carefully managed to accommodate the surrounding audience, only the final static choral position blocked the view of "the Galileo's" in the pit. Perhaps a bit of motion could have remedied that but all told, this was a breathtakingly inventive staging.
Pre-show image of audience surround of Galileo
The singing was of a very high standard. As Old Galileo, Chris Carr's compact, stirring tenor had a smooth and easy delivery with commendable legato, suggesting the resignation of a mature man. Troy Cook has a fluid baritone of substantial tonal beauty. Mr. Cook informed Younger Galileo with a firmly voiced passion for scientific truth and justice. The two singers complemented each other beautifully as different aspects of the fascinating title character. Rounding out the trio of Galileos (Galilei?), Camron Bennington brought a fine, focused presence to the Child Galileo.
Tony Dillon gave his usual solid performance as Pope Urban and Cardinal Barberini, his rich bass-baritone capable of considerable heft and meltingly beautiful sotto voce effects as required. Bryan Pollock (Cardinal 1/Oracle 1) has an easily produced countertenor which he was able to vary in tone from reedy warmth to edgy body. Other than that, the show was a feast of excellent baritone showcases. Reuben Lillie (Salviati) enlivened the Venetian trio with a memorable turn that was marked by bravado and characterful phrasing. His virile sound was well-served by a reliable technique.
Conor McDonald (Servant/Oracle) impressed with a steady, forward-placed baritone, especially as he intoned a relentless solo passage circling around the action on auto-pilot. Baritone Spencer Reichman (Servant/Oracle 2) has a pleasant, burnished delivery that not only produced some highly charged solo passages, but greatly enriched ensemble work. Rounding out the men was a noteworthy contribution from baritone Reuben Walker with his assured, musical singing as Cardinal 2.
On the distaff side, there was also much to admire. Ashly Neumann pretty much nailed her first extended solo as Maria Celeste, vanquishing the demands of the high tessitura with a ferocity and laser-focused soprano. At times, it was perhaps a little too focused as a hint of steeliness crept in. Ms. Neumannn's later, more introspective singing was marked by a more pleasing and rounded sound. Emily Tweedy's Duchess Christina is also required to come on like gangbusters, which may have infused her resonant soprano with a somewhat generous amount of vibrato. As she (and the music) relaxed into her assignment, Ms. Tweedy contributed passages of genuine beauty and control.
Melisa Bonetti is possessed of a warm, supple mezzo that struck all the right impressions, first as a self-assured Scribe, and later as a rather imperious Maria Maddalena. Cree Carrico's turn as Sagredo was infectious and appealing, her bright, well-schooled soprano sporting zing and polish. I wish Ms. Carrico had put just a bit less weighty effort into being "important" as Eos as her lower voiced singing tended to harden under pressure. Andrea Baker made the most of her stage time with a cleanly voiced Marie de'Medicis.
James Sohre
Cast and production details:
Older Galileo: Chris Carr; Younger Galileo: Troy Cook; Pope Urban/Cardinal Barberini: Tony Dillon; Simplicio: Matthew Scollin; Cardinal 1/Oracle 1: Bryan Pollock; Cardinal 2: Reuben Walker; Cardinal 3/Priest: Conor McDonald; Servant/Oracle 2: Spencer Reichman; Maria Celeste: Ashly Neumann; Duchess Christina: Emily Tweedy; Scribe/Maria Maddalena; Melisa Bonetti; Salviati: Reuben Lillie; Sagredo/Eos: Cree Carrico; Marie de'Medicis: Andrea Baker; Child Galileo: Cameron Bennington; Conductor: Michael Sakir; Director: Octavio Cardenas; Set Design: Adam Crinson; Costume Design: Aryana Petrashenko; Lighting and Projection Design: Barry Steele; Make-up and Hair Design: Brittany Crinson for Elsen and Associates]]>
Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet sounded, in this context, especially dark in its fatal opening bars. The introduction took its time, pace gathering with a proper harmonic foundation; Sakari Oramo is far too musical a conductor to whip up artificial 'excitement'. The Allegro sounded turbulent indeed, counterpoint nicely Berliozian (should that not be too much of a paradox). The BBC Symphony Orchestra played the 'Love' theme gorgeously, without a hint of vulgarity. On more than one occasion, the harp stole our hearts, although so, to be fair, did the BBC woodwind. Tension between programme and material was productively explored, so to enthral and indeed to move all the more. There could certainly be no doubting the strength of the partnership between the BBC SO and Oramo.
Sol Gabetta joined them next for the Elgar Cello Concerto, with equally fine results. In the first movement, the Moderato material proved very much the child of the preceding Adagio, transition emotionally as well as technically seamless, whilst remaining a transition nonetheless. Much the same might be said of the transition between first and second groups; although the mood lifted in some respects, it remained dependent (secondary, one might say) upon what had come before. It was not all doom and gloom, by any means; Elgar's Mendelssohnian inheritance came sparklingly to life at times. Underlying sadness, however, remained inescapable. The background of German, even Leipzigerisch, Romanticism was also present in the scherzo; it sometimes came into the foreground too, albeit without banishing unease entirely. Elgar's modernity, even modernism, was as unquestionable as its roots. (Applause and bronchial outpourings were most unwelcome at the movement's close.) There was nothing morose about the Adagio, although it certainly sounded deeply felt. It was, rather, passionately songful, with wonderfully hushed tones too to relish, both from Gabetta and the orchestra. Dialogue and incitement were the generative order of the day in the final movement. Light and shade were expertly judged, likewise harmonic motion. Kinship with Elgar's symphonies was clear, although, by the same token, this was decidedly later music too, almost an English cousin to Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin. Ultimate weight was placed on the finale, and rightly so. Gabetta returned to the stage, following justly warm applause, to perform Pēteris Vasks's Dolcissimo, her solo vocal as well as instrumental; this was an auspicious Proms debut indeed.Sol Gabetta. Photo Credit: Chris Christodoulou.
The second half was given over to Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky Cantata, based on the composer's score for Eisenstein's film of that name. Its nationalism can hardly fail to make one uneasy too; Stalin is quoted in the Proms programme as having declared to the director, 'Sergey Mikhailovich, you're a good Bolshevik after all!' Not that Stalinism by this stage had so very much to do with Bolshevism, but anyway Prokofiev, awkwardly for many of us who admire him, often, although not always, seemed to flourish in such circumstances. Those who would have us believe that art is somehow removed from politics could not be more wrong; more to the point, their protestations could not be more pernicious. However much one might want to wish away awkward questions, such as over the Marseillaise, one cannot - and should not.
The opening orchestral number, 'Russia under the Mongolian Yoke', was cold yet colourful, just as it should be. The 'Song of Alexander Nevsky' revealed choral forces (both the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC National Chorus of Wales) both weighty and clear. Prokofiev's homophonic writing helps in the latter respect, of course, but only helps. The 'patriotism' and militarism of the words - 'Ah, how we fought, how we hacked them down!', 'Those who invade Russia will meet death,' etc. - is all the more perturbing when performed with such musical conviction as here. An impeccably post-Mussorgskian orchestral opening announced 'The Crusaders in Pskov', the dissonances of course quite Prokofiev's own, harking back to The Fiery Angel and forward to Romeo and Juliet. Even here, in 'socialist realist' land, there is some of the bite of the more youthful composer's acerbity - and so there was in performance. Echoes of Boris Godunov sounded all the more strongly as the number progressed. One could hear what must have attracted Claudio Abbado to this music.
The following chorus, 'Arise, Russian People', provided a not un-Mussorgskian contrast. Motor rhythms in particular rendered the composer's identity unmistakeable. Glockenspiel and xylophone offered the most enjoyable of rejoicing later on. 'The Battle on the Ice' is the longest number in the cantata; here it proved very much the musical and emotional heart too. Its introduction was not only atmospheric, but atmospheric in a filmic way. Oramo brought out the glassy violas at dawn to strike a proper chill. Still more chilling was the barbarism of war proper, those motor rhythms and grinding dissonances once again proving the engine of progress; the scherzo of the Fifth Symphony hovered not so far in the musical future, whilst Mussorgsky's shadow was, once again, rarely far from the aural stage. Eisenstein came to the eyes of our imagination. Olga Borodina walked onto the stage for 'The Field of the Dead', seemingly as an angel of death. And yet she sounded, in her ineffably Russian fashion, a note of consolation as well as one of tragedy. This contralto-like rendition held the hall spellbound. The final chorus, 'Alexander's Entry into Pskov', struck a more difficult note. Now is not the time, to put it mildly, for patriotic rejoicing in London, and disconcerting it sounded, even when of a 'foreign' variety. It was magnificently done, though, chorus, orchestra, and conductor alike clearly relishing their musical task. Perhaps they had succeeded in putting the words to one side.
Mark Berry
Tchaikovsky - Fantasy Overture: Romeo and Juliet; Elgar - Cello Concerto in E minor, op.85; Prokofiev - Cantata: Alexander Nevsky, op.78. Sol Gabetta (cello)/Olga Borodina (mezzo-soprano)/BBC National Chorus of Wales/BBC Symphony Chorus (chorus master: Adrian Partington)/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sakari Oramo (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London, Friday 15 July 2016.]]>
Art can never assuage reality but it can provide a momentary escape, where imagination and fantasy can, for a moment, hold sway. What better than a fairy-tale to show us that sometimes rags really can turn to riches, coal to diamonds, and the poverina truly can become a Principessa.
Oliver Platt's sparkling new production of La Cenerentola at Opera Holland Park is timely, then. True, Rossini does not indulge in sentiment: it's out with the glass slipper and in with his-and-hers bracelets. Pumpkins and fairy godmothers are usurped by beggars and philosophers. But while Rossini may ironize tender feeling and romantic display, Platt's new production surely seduces with its suave stagecraft and deft, but never hyperbolic, wit.
This is a production where - I'll risk a cliché in relation to a work which relies on formulae, both musical and narrative - director, designers and musical dirigent are all singing from the same hymn sheet, and the cumulative effect is as magnificent as the 'Wicked Stepfather's' nomer.
Neil Irish's designs are splendid without calling for excessive splendour. The lurid excesses of Angelina's two sisters, Clorinda and Tisbe, all hot-pink and poisonous-green, are contrasted with cool elegance of Prince Ramiro's black-and-white retinue, while the courtiers' classical understatement is attractively alleviated by a flash of glamour in the form of their gleaming hunters' red-coats. Don Magnifico's mediocre apartment - the pompous patriarch snoozes under a crumpled brown counterpane while his daughters boast in their brassy boudoirs - is counter-balanced by the glitzy stylishness of Ramiro's palatial ballroom. Mark Jonathan's lighting design emphasises both the realistic emotional arguments (cool blue is superseded by warm orange during Angelina's first meeting with the disguised Ramiro) and the shifts between honest naturalism and fictional caprice.
Shape-shifting and transformation are the essence of fairy-tale so it's fitting, but still impressive, when the papered panels of Don Magnifico's bed-chamber swivel to transport us to the luxurious majesty of Ramiro's court. As with all marvellous magical effects, if you blink, you'll miss it.
Platt is well aided too by Movement Director Emma Brunton whose choreography - particularly of the OHP Chorus who are in as fine a voice as when I heard them in the opening production of this OHP season (review) - is polished. Individuals and ensembles slide in-and-out through doors and trompe-l'oeil apertures with the slickness, but not the slapstick, of the sharpest farce.
Platt may not delve too deeply into the opera's incipient moral issues, but then neither does the composer. But, the director does overcome the formulaic inevitabilities of a score which was composed by the 25-year Rossini in just three weeks and which makes considerable use of self-borrowings. Platt gives us witty gags a plenty while never straying into hyperbole. The visual jokes are never laboured, and are frequently side-tickling and clever. The final disillusionment of Magnifico is a gem, a set-piece of punctured pomposity. The storm episode - one of Rossini's favourite tropes - is a tour de force as twirling brollies enact the progress, ultimately calamitous, of Ramiro's carriage through the tempest.
Director and designers are superbly partnered by conductor Dane Lam, who exhibits an intuitive feeling for the Rossinian idiom matched by a confident baton technique. Though Rossini and his librettist Jacopo Ferretti cannot avoid some musical and dramatic longeurs as they go through the dramma giocoso motions, Lam keeps the musical momentum swinging. The Rossinian accelerandos are perfectly geared up, the crescendos expertly flared. The left-handed Lam's confidence gave punch and brilliance to the score and he was well-served by his woodwind players who bubbled along with a sensitive ear open to what was going on behind them. All the details were pin-pointed, but there was never any hint of fussiness, or bombast.
Of the cast, Jonathan Veira's slightly down-at-heel Don Magnifico led the way. The virtuosic patter of 'Sia qualunque delle figlie' was precision-perfect and Veira struck the delicate balance between oppressive bullying and vulnerable charm. He was almost equalled by Nicholas Lester's arch, stylish Dandini; Lester sang with lots of brio and in his Act 1 number, 'Come un'ape ne' giorni d'aprile', used the text well. The only, small, concern was just how the tall, elegant Lester and the more compact Nico Darmanin would ever have convinced their entourage during the role-swapping of master and servant.
As the eponymous scullery-maid-cum-princess, Victoria Simmonds took a little while to warm up; her identify-defining 'Una volta c'era un re' was gentle and sweet but did not quite make the moral mark it should. Subsequently, Simmonds had the notes, if they didn't always trip along as if on overdrive. But, if her coloratura was not as finely etched as it might have been she grew in confidence when drab bandana was supplanted by diamante ball-gown - the silvery exuberance of her gown trimmed with an ebony glint served to underscore that charcoal and gem are cut from the same seam. La Cenerentola's showpiece aria, with which the opera concludes, didn't bring the house down but it was honest and enchanting.The Ball Scene. Photo Credit: Robert Workman.
Maltese tenor Nico Darmanin had enough agility to leap up on high, but not a lot of freedom once he'd arrived; he dispatched his Act II showcase aria, 'Si, ritrovarla io giuro', confidently, but his is not a very ingratiating tone. Darmanin was proficient but a bit charmless for Prince Charming.
Barnaby Rea used his resonant bass well as the philosopher Alidore who serves as both tutor to Ramiro and fairy-godmother to Angelina. His one aria 'La del ciel nell'arcano profondo' was competent though the intonation strayed at times.
As the 'ugly' sisters - who are in fact 'beautiful' of voice and visage, but certainly not of virtue and moral compass - soprano Fleur de Bray and mezzo-soprano Heather Lowe were excellent as Cinders' stepsisters, Clorinda and Tisbe respectively.
Vocally, the ensemble pieces - the Act 1 quintet and Act 2 sextet - didn't quite hit the musical peaks, although there was some lovely sotto voce singing in the latter to express the collective incredulity and bewilderment as Cenerentola's real identity is revealed. But, minor caveats aside, this is a terrific production. In unsettled times, we all need to be reassured that it's still possible, to paraphrase the opera's subtitle, for Virtue to triumph. Rossini may not give us a fairy-godmother, but if your heart and hopes need a bit of a boost, this show will wave a magic wand.
This production of La Cenerentola is a co-production with Danish National Opera. It will tour in Denmark from 7 October 2016 until 3 December 2016. For more information see this link.
Claire Seymour
Rossini: La Cenerentola
Angelina - Victoria Simmonds, Prince Ramiro - Nico Darmanin, Dandini - Nicholas Lester, Don Magnifico - Jonathan Veira, Alidoro - Barnaby Rea, Clorinda - Fleur de Bray, Tisbe - Heather Lowe Conductor - Dane Lam, Director - Oliver Platt, Designer - Neil Irish, Lighting Designer - Mark Jonathan, Movement Director - Emma Brunton, Chorus Master - Harry Ogg, City of London Sinfonia and Opera Holland Park Chorus.
Opera Holland Park, London; Thursday 14th July, 2016.]]> La Cenerentola, Opera Holland Park product=yes product_title=La Cenerentola, Opera Holland Park product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Victoria Simmonds (Angelina), Nico Darmanin (Ramiro), Nicholas Lester (Dandini), Jonathan Veira (Don Magnifico).