Opera Today

Peter Grimes, Vladimir Jurowski

Jurowski makes us hear Britten as a composer who knew the music of his era and had much to say about the times he lived in. Britten was not provincial though he chose to live in Aldeburgh. Peter Grimes is by no means a "heritage museum" in music even if its inspiration was an 18th century text.

Jurowski's Passacaglia and Sea Interludes reveal Britten as a composer in the wider European context: grand, majestic gestures, as Romantic in the best sense of the word, but emotionally intense with a very modern edge. Peter Grimes was Britten's first mature opera and arguably the first real British opera, so it's important to hear it in this context. Britten knew the music of his time. The orchestration is huge in comparison to Britten's later works. There are even references to American popular music, such as in the Act Three scene in the pub. Britten, who knew more about America than most Suffolk fisherfolk, was obliquely commenting on social change. For change is at the heart of Peter Grimes.

Grimes is persecuted by pious hypocrites, determined to condemn him on principle. All around Aldeburgh, there are ruined churches, destroyed by fanatics in the Reformation. Witch hunts weren't so far in the past. Whatever Grimes may or may not have done, there are those in the Borough who need an outlet for the poison in their own souls. Perhaps there are subtexts in this opera linked to Britten's sexuality, or to his relationship with the conservative music establishment (qv Gloriana) but Peter Grimes is an opera which protests blind obedience to conformity. Anniversary years like this smother genuine knowledge under a fire blanket of banal cliché. All the more reason to respect Jurowski, even though the concert was part of the South Bank's anodyne The Rest Is Noise marketing.

Stuart Skelton's Peter Grimes is a breath of fresh air. Because Grimes is inarticulate, it doesn't mean that the role should be sung with neutral colour. The clarity of Skelton's timbre suggests Grimes's intelligence. Like his apprentices, he might have been forced into his line of work without choice. Skelton sang "Now the Great Bear and Pleaides" with such elegant purity that I thought of Captain Vere, the real hero of Billy Budd. Strength, for Britten, isn't physical prowess so much as emotional integrity. Audiences might like their Britten characters safer and more comfortable, but Skelton shows where the real potential in the role might lie.

Some excellent support from Brindley Sherratt (Swallow), whose shimmy with the Nieces ((Malin Christensson and Elizabeth Cragg) was low down and dirty yet hilarious at the same time. Nice to hear levity in a bass. Alan Opie was a good Balstrode and Mark Stone a very convincing Ned Keene. If that leather jacket cost thousands, it gave him an authentic swagger. The main female roles, Ellen Orford (Pamela Armstong), Auntie (Pamela Helen Stephen), and Mrs Sedley (Jean Rigby) could have been done with more bite, but to some extent, Britten wasn't at his best creating women. Mrs Sedley, though, can benefit from being done malevolently. There's vicious camp humour in "Murder most horrid", where trombones slither like snakes. If nothing else in this anniversary year, we should learn to recognize Britten's incisive sense of humour.

Singers have to show character and interact even in semi-stagings and concert performances. If anything, good Personenregie is even more important in semi-stagings and concert performances. One of the reasons I like minimal productions is that they focus attention on the performers themselves, not on the decor. The director was Daniel Salter who directed an excellent Die Entführung aus dem Serail at Garsington Opera at Wormsley..Alex Doidge-Green's designs were excellent. The LPO were roped in, partly to shield them from the movement of the singers on a cramped stage, but also symbolically. When Skelton rolled up the rope, he released the Peter Grimes, heading towards fate.

Anne Ozorio

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Cast and production information:

Peter Grimes: Stuart Skelton, Ellen Orford: Pamela Armstrong, Captain Balstrode: Alan Opie, Auntie: Pamela Helen Stephen, Nieces: Malin Christensson, Elizabeth Cragg, Bob Boles: Michael Colvin, Swallow: Brindley Sherratt, Mrs Sedley: Jean Rigby,Ned Ke3ene: Mark Stone, Rev. Adams: Brian Galliford, Hobson: Joanathan Veira, London Voiuces, London Philharmomnic Orchestra, Conductor: Vladimir Jurowski, Director: Daniel Slater, Designer: Alex Doidge-Green, Lighting: Tim Mascall. Royal Festival Hall, London 28th September 2013.

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La Traviata, Hamburg

I caught the third on 27 September 2013, with Alexandru Agache as Giorgio Germont and Rebecca Jo Loeb as Flora. The production was designed by Annette Kurz with costumes by Herbert Murauer. The conductor was Alexander Joel.

As we entered the auditorium the curtain was up and we saw a lone figure sitting on a huge bare stage, black walls, lighting rig visible. The figure started playing the accordion, two figures came on stage, Alfredo (Costello) and Annina (Ida Aldrian), she gave money to the accordionist (Jakob Neubauer) whilst Costello pulled the body of Violetta out of the ground and cradled it. At the conclusion of the prelude, the rear wall opened and the party guests were revealed, coming forward on a platform whilst Costello was still on stage. This was clearly a production which was understood to be happening in flashback.

There were a number of key elements which helped define Erath's dramaturgy. The first was the use of dodgems, these were lowered from the flies for the party scene in act one and the party took place in and around them. Dodgems were the only set, two remained on stage during the opening of act two, and the whole set of them returned for the party at Flora's. The other major element was a set of circus performers, all played by older actors, all in white whom only Violetta could see and whom we had to take as ghosts from her past. They reoccurred at key moments of the drama. Apart from the circus performers, all the cast were in modern dress.

The platform that I referred to earlier contained a revolve and Erath made a too frequent cliched use of it with much walking on the spot. But generally the visual style was very considered with movements and gestures being mirrored in the two party scenes; for example Costello laid Perez in one of the dodgems, in act one prior to an erotic encounter, in act three as she lay dying.

The problem was that Erath used these elements in rather too obvious a way. He clearly took a very particular view of the dramaturgy of the opera and wanted to ensure that we knew what to think. There was something heavy handed about the rather obvious way he martialled his forces to reinforce his ideas, such as bringing on the circus performers with monotonous regularity. For me, though, the main problem was the way that he tried to re-write the ending of the opera. During Addio del passato there was steady, slow progression of the circus performers with a second Violetta at the end. Perez greeted her doppelganger and whilst the second Violetta climbed into her grave, Perez removed her dress to reveal her white shift. She too had become a ghost and we were to understand that for much, but not all of the remainder of the act neither Alfredo nor his father could see her or interact with her. But not quite, as parts of Verdi's score almost forced them to interact. It was very much a cast of forcing the opera to fit a konzept and I could not help wishing that Erath had emulated a director like Peter Konwitschny who has no qualms at separating words and music.

LA TRAVIATA - Staatsoper Hamburg from Theater-TV on Vimeo.

There were odd details too. During act two scene one we saw Annina selling to Flora the dress that Violetta work in act one, and Flora wore it at her party. The entertainment at Flora's party was not Spanish, but a re-enactment of the story of Violetta, Alfredo and Giorgio Germont. At the end of the previous scene, Agache had given his overcoat and hat to Perez, who appeared at Flora's party still wearing them.

The production worked because Perez gave a performance of such brilliance and intensity, clearly identifying with Erath's concept of Violetta. Perez is a lyric soprano and there were moments in act two scene two and in act three when having a more spinto voice would have been ideal, but this didn't matter because Perez used her resources superbly. Technically the end of act one was well done, but it never felt like a coloratura showpiece, Perez simply used the music to further the drama. Common to all her performance was a superb feeling for the line of Verdi's music, with Perez spinning out long phrases in a profoundly moving and expressive manner. She was able to thin her voice to the merest thread, but also revealed a surprisingly rich and warm depth to her voice at key moments. Unlike other lyric colorratura sopranos in the role, I was never aware of Perez managing her voice. Her identification was total and her performance simply mesmerising.

Stephen Costello was new to the production, but is Perez's husband in real life, and the two generated quite a remarkable buzz. Costello's voice is the sort of lyric tenor that might be termed useful. It lacks an Italianate ping but is evenly produced throughout the range and he sang intelligently and never grandstanded, If these virtues seem a little negative, it did mean that we appreciated his Alfredo rather than simply watching Stephen Costello. From the first moment his Alfredo was quite poised, having sex with one of Violetta's party guests and clearly a bit of a shit. This was no eager puppy and the relationship with Violetta, so serious in its intensity was clearly a surprise to both of them. He coped well with the extra drama required of him, the framing device so that we saw things in flash-back, and he cr dled the dummy body manfully during sections of the close opf act three. It says much of Costello and Perez's relationship that they could generate so much electricity during the Parigi o cara duet with him cradling a dummy and her sitting alone on a dodgem.

During Flora's party, Alfredo's treatment of Violetta was profoundly disturbing; Costello did not just throw money at Perex but launched himself at her and in a highly disturbing and rather extended scene, seemed to virtually kill her with Perez only reviving in time to join in the ensemble. For the remainder of the scene Perez was shunned by the party goers. The scene moved into act three without a break (the intermission was in the middle of act two), and the opening of act three seemed to explore Violetta's alienation rather than her illness. It seemed as if, in some way, Violetta died by Alfredo's hand during Flora's party.

Agache made a notable Giorgio Germont. His voice lacks something of the flexibility at the top of his range, and he was clearly making an effort not to simply bark the upper passages. But his stiff-backed, rigid Germont was a notable participant in the drama, unbending enough at the end of act two scene one to give Perez his coat for protection. His duet with Perez was another musico-dramatic highpoint of the evening.

The lack of a set seems to have caused acoustical problems, at least that is what I presume because all the principals had moments of tuning problems in some of Verdi's extended cantilena, because they could not hear the orchestra sufficiently.

Rebecca Jo Loeb was a fine Flora, gamely stripping down to her underwear during her party, and acting as the main focus of the drama during the dance sequence there. Ida Aldrian, a member of the Opera Studio, made a notable Annina, in this version participating far more in the drama than is usual.

Over the conducting of Alexander Joel I could wish I could draw a veil. His speeds were lively and his feelings for Verdi's music was clearly strong, but he seemed entirely unable to keep the stage in time with the pit in the bigger ensembles, something that happened not just once but repeatedly.

This was however, Perez and Costello's evening and whatever the drawbacks of the production I took away the amazing electricity and musicality of the performance

Robert Hugill

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Cast and production information:

Ailyn Perez: Violetta, Stephen Costello: Alfredo, Alexandru Agache: Giorgio Germont, Rebecca Jo Loeb: Flora, Ida Aldrian: Annina, Sergiu Saplacan: Gastone, Jan Buchwald: Douphol, Florian Spiess: D'Obigny, Levente Pall: Grenvil, Manuel Gunther: Giuseppe, Gheorghiu Vlad: Un domestico di Flora, Jakob Neubauer: Accordionist Johannes Erath: Director, Annette Kurz: Set Design, Herbert Murauer: Costume, Alexander Joel: Conductor. Staatsoper Hamburg, 27 September 2013.

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Elektra, Royal Opera

and revived in 2008 , now returns to Covent Garden under the baton of Andris Nelsons. There remains much to admire in the staging, though I found myself entertaining a little more in the way of doubt than I had on previous occasions. My impression was that it had become gorier, and it may well have done, though by the same token, it may have been that I was now more attentive to what it had in common with, rather than what distinguished it from, David McVicar’s Royal Opera Salome. (McVicar was present in the audience.) Violence had always been present, not least in the shocking torture of the Fifth Maid, her twitching and indeed at one point revivified corpse, long present on stage to remind us, lest we forget. Playing with time, the ‘present’ of Strauss and Hofmannsthal meshed with ancient Mycenae, or rather with an idea thereof, remains a strength. A sense of the archaeological is offered by Agamemnon’s bust, and the shadow it casts: at one point as towering as the motif associated with the murdered king. Perhaps that sense might have been stronger; there are moments when the relationship seems unclear and a stronger impression of recreating a past that never was might assist. But it is quite possible that that is the point; we are after all in the world of dreams, of psychoanalysis. A splendid touch in that respect is Elektra’s desk. One might read its role in various ways; I could not help but think of a more or less explicit consultation, not only when Klytämnestra comes to her in need of interpretation, but also in the scene with Ägisth. Piercing the darkness with the fierce ray of her desk lamp heightens that impression, Elektra’s lighting his way viewed from a new standpoint, both literally and more figuratively. A particularly troubling sense of familial sickness — I realise that in this opera, that is something of an understatement — is offered by the relationship of Elektra and Orest. It appears that there is something rather more than sibling affection between them, though that is not laboured. It certainly seems confused, as it would be: fleetingly maternal, fleetingly paternal, at one point apparently sexual. Or maybe it is that Edwards’s staging allows the audience the space to offer its own interpretation; whatever the ‘intention’, the result is provocative in the best sense. My present taste may lie more with relative abstraction; that, however, is no reason to dismiss other approaches.

Adrianne Pieczonka as Chrysothemis

‘Ob ich nicht höre? ob ich die Musik nicht höre?’ Elektra asks, commencing the last and most delirious of her monologues: ‘Do I not hear it? Do I not hear the music?’ She maintains that it comes from inside her, though we, in a sense, know that at best to be a partial truth; Strauss’s orchestra has shown itself true to Wagner’s Opera and Drama — for Strauss, the ‘book of all books’ on opera — conception of the orchestra as the modern Attic chorus. Far too often, however, we find ourselves lamenting the tone-deafness of stage directors, wishing to ask them, in the nicest possible way, or perhaps not, whether they do not hear it, do they not hear the music? Therein perhaps lies the greatest strength of Edwards’s staging, aided by Leah Hausman’s movement, in that it clearly hears Strauss’s music. It is not enslaved, but rather liberated by it. There are instances where movement is clearly tied to the score, others when it is more a case of heightening of tension on stage relating to the orchestra as much as to the libretto. Lighting — Edwards’s own — is as attentive and revealing as movement.

And what music, it is, of course, in what must surely be Strauss’s greatest opera. (It may not be our favourite, but that is a different matter.) Nelsons was often impressive, at his best offering an object lesson in transition: Wagner’s ‘most subtle art’, as it should be in Strauss too. The recognition scene was but one exemplary instance. Not only was dramatic process tightly and meaningfully controlled, with an aptly unsettling sense of release that was not at all release when Elektra’s slinky ‘Orest! Orest! Es rührt sich niemand’ stole upon us; Strauss’s phantasmagorical cauldron of orchestral colour here and in many other cases had been stirred so as to provide just the right sense of dream-world and nausea for us to receive what was unfolding. Indeed, there were numerous instances in which I heard the score sound closer to the Strauss of earlier tone poems than I can recall; it is doubtless no coincidence that Nelsons has been exploring that orchestral repertoire in some depth of late. Other transitions were handled with less security; the second scene, for instance, seemed to follow on abruptly from the first, indeed from a prolonged caesura rather than musico-dramatic inevitability. There may well, however, be good reason to believe that the flow will become still more impressive as the run of performances continues. Likewise, if Nelsons’s ear for colour seemed somewhat to desert him at the very close, that may well be rectified, and may have been more a matter of orchestral exhaustion than anything else. The orchestra itself was on good rather than great form, but it was only when one made comparisons, as inevitable as they are odious, with one’s aural memory — always a dangerous, deceptive game — thinking, for instance, of Karl Böhm’s magnificent Staatskapelle Dresden, or of Daniele Gatti’s astounding Salzburg Festival account , the Vienna Philharmonic at the very top of its form, that discrepancy became apparent.

Christine Goerke’s assumption of the title role may be accounted a resounding triumph. There was dramatic commitment, to be sure, but also vocal security and clarity that are far from a foregone conclusion in this treacherous role. If there were moments of strain, I either did not notice, or have forgotten them; this was very much a sung rather than screamed Elektra. Adrienne Pieczonka gave the finest performance I have heard from her as Chrysothemis, her voice more focused and with considerably greater bloom than I recall from, for instance, her Salzburg Marschallin. (Perhaps this role is a better fit vocally for her, or maybe her time has more fully come.) Michaela Schuster threw herself wholeheartedly into a splendidly malevolent portrayal of Klytämnestra, with John Daszak as her husband finely managing the tricky balancing act between portrayal of a weak, contemptible character and convincing assumption of the role. Iain Paterson offered a typically musicianly, quietly chilling Orest. Smaller parts were all well taken, the individual lines and timbres of the five maids impressively apparent.

At the end, then, I felt duly bludgeoned, as that least affirmative of C major chords dealt the final blow. There is no redemption: a concept that Strauss never understood, as witnessed by his bemusement over Mahler’s desire for that most Wagnerian of goals. Here, however, as is not always the case with the composer, thoroughgoing, post-Nietzschean materialism and dramatic truth go hand in hand. Adorno’s attack upon Strauss’s concluding music seemed to me more wrongheaded than ever: testament, surely, to a staging and performance worthy of Elektra.

Mark Berry

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Cast and production information:

First Maid: Anna Burford; Second Maid: Catherine Carby; Third Maid: Elizabeth Sikora; Fourth Maid: Elizabeth Woollett; Fifth Maid: Jennifer Check; Overseer: Elaine McKrill; Elektra: Christine Goerke; Chrysothemis: Adrienne Pieczonka; Klytämnestra: Michaela Schuster; Confidante: Louise Armit; Trainbearer: Marianne Cotterill; Young Servant: Doug Jones; Old Servant: Jeremy White; Orest: Iain Paterson; Orest’s Companion: John Cunningham; Ägisth: John Daszak. Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)/Orchestra of the Royal Opera House/Andris Nelsons. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, Monday 23 September 2013

image=http://www.operatoday.com/130920_0227.gif image_description=Michaela Schuster as Klytamnestra and Christine Goerke as Elektra [Photo © ROH / Clive Barda] product=yes product_title=Elektra, Royal Opera product_by=A review by Mark Berry product_id=Above: Michaela Schuster as Klytamnestra and Christine Goerke as Elektra

Photos © ROH / Clive Barda

Die Schuldigkeit Des Ersten Gebots

In fact, Mozart first put words and music together in an extended dramatic work of substance during the previous year, 1767, and at the Wigmore Hall it was the turn of Classical Opera to present the whizz kid’s juvenilia, offering a rare chance to hear Die Schuldigkeit Des Ersten Gebots — a setting of Ignaz Anton Weiser’s adaptation of an episode from St Mark’s Gospel, which was composed for performance at the Archbishop of Salzburg’s Palace during the period of Lent, when secular plays and opera were forbidden.

The libretto is a righteous allegory, albeit one presented with a dash of wry drollness. A half-hearted Christian lies sleeping, while Mercy, Justice and the Spirit of Christianity engage in a debate, pontificating vociferously in a series of three sententious arias. When the Christian awakens, he is afraid — perhaps he has overheard Justice’s severe moralising? — but comfort is at hand, in the form of the Spirit of Worldliness who offers him the pleasures of freedom, sensuality and dreams, slyly reassuring him that the warnings he has hearkened are no more than a trap prepared by their common enemy, or a fleeting dream. The Spirit of Christianity seeks to save the wavering Christian from debauchery and damnation, entering disguised as a doctor and warning that ‘spiritual surgery’ is needed. The Christian begins to question him in the hope of learning the elixir of eternal life, but Worldliness, bored by their discussion, declares that the best medicine is gambling, hunting and sexual pleasure. The Christian is, however, impressed by the Christian Spirit’s arguments, and accepts a sealed document in which the ‘miracle cure’ is contained, before Worldliness interrupts and drags off her protégé to a dinner party, leaving the censorious trio to sermonise once more in a concluding ensemble. Whose fault will it be if the Christian is eternally damned? Only his own, they agree.

The action takes place ‘in an agreeable landscape, with a garden and a small wood’; the first performance was probably presented in concert form but with some stylisation and stage setting. Here, COC chose — as is their usual practice — to present the oratorio/cantata in concert performance — the singers’ attire providing the only theatrical signposts: black austerity for Justice and Mercy, glittering creamy gold for the Spirit of Worldliness, and a white coat for the Spirit of Christianity when in medical guise.

But, the plot is simple, the characterisation unambiguous, and the cast told the tale engagingly; and, while the text is often excessively moralistic and highfalutin, the singers made the most of the musical glimpses of the young Mozart’s dry delight in, and tender sympathy for, human shortcomings.

All the cast got through the lengthy recitatives with impressively direct communication and conversational naturalness. Sarah Fox, as Mercy, was particularly assured in this regard, confidently delivering the recitative off-score. In her aria, Mercy objects that men wander from the straight path through lack of willpower and because they do not obey ‘the first commandment’ (the literal translation of the title) — ‘Thou shall love the Lord thy God’. Fox sustained the extended melodic lines evenly, but occasionally the large leaps to the upper register lacked a smooth grace.

Mary Bevan was a regal and imperious Spirit of Justice, once her intonation had settled. Bevan injected energy into Justice’s repeated demands that the Christian — ‘the lazy scoundrel’ — should arouse himself from his slumber, a nimble rising figure from the cellos adding a gentle humour as Justice insists that she cannot show tolerance towards souls unworthy of mercy, as it is her duty to reward the righteous and punish the guilty. In the slower second section of the da capo aria, unison string quavers throbbed mordantly, the minor key hinting at the inescapable moment of reckoning that awaits all men.

As the hedonistic Spirit of Worldliness, Ailish Tynan adopted an aptly spirited bearing, her gown and coloratura glittering with equal devilishness. Tynan’s flexible soprano danced through the sprightly rhythms of her aria, executing the coiling runs and trills insouciantly; she demonstrated considerable stamina, and her cadential trills were tight and bright. She exhibited a rich, seductive sheen, although occasionally her voice was less well-focused in the lower register.

Allan Clayton was admirable as the faltering Christian; awakening from his dream, his tenor was movingly earnest and open, as he was reminded of the torments of Hell and Judgement by rushing strings and sharp dotted rhythms. With tender delicacy, Clayton conveyed the vacillations and waverings of the Christian’s soul, complemented by some gentle string playing and a notably agile and accurate, horn obbligato played with assurance and sensitivity by Gavin Edwards. The elaborated vocal repetitions of the da capo were fluid and flexible, Clayton’s melodic lines evenly sustained and well-supported.

Robert Murray sang the Christian Spirit’s opening number, and his ‘diagnostic aria’, with directness and firmness, confidently compassing the upper reaches, extravagantly ornamenting the cadences and demonstrating excellent length of line in the running semi-quaver passages. Murray’s account of the ‘operation’ which would literally ‘make’ humans could have been even more mischievous, but the asides had a playful shrouded quality.

The overture, while not a bad symphonic effort for an eleven-year-old, is a rather repetitive ritornello structure and somewhat uninventive, melodically and harmonically. Though performed with elegance by the players of the Orchestra of Classical Opera, with striking dynamic contrasts, I felt the rather thick scoring demanded a lighter touch, and a faster pace, than conductor Ian Page provided — indeed, there was several places where the tempo seemed rather slow, resulting in a lack of dramatic momentum and musical nimbleness. Page did, however, bring clarity to the inner textures, foregrounding interesting accompaniment motifs, many of which significantly contribute to the musical characterisation.

The youthful composer frequently responded pictorially to the text, painting the words mimetically, and the instrumentalists under the baton of Ian Page were responsive to such details. ‘An enraged lion roars’ as punchy horns growl accompanied by scurrying strings, for example, and at Christianity’s mention of the ‘hideous howling’ emitting from the chasm of Hell a veritable orchestral tumult ensued culminating in eerie harmonic twists as ‘if one of the damned himself/ were to rise up from his grave’!

Although the spirit of mischievous irony which this spiced up Lenten entertainment surely infers was not always sufficiently indulged, there is a childlike sincerity about this work which Classical Opera deftly captured.

This month, the company release a recording of a new partnership with Signum Records, Die Schuldigkeit Des Ersten Gebots — the first enterprise in a new partnership with Signum Records. The two-disc set includes an exclusive feature film on the making of the recording, as well as additional French and Italian translations of the notes, synopsis and libretto, which are provided in English and German in the accompanying liner booklet. Clayton and Fox reprise their roles and they are joined by Andrew Kennedy (Spirit of Christianity), Sophie Bevan (Spirit of Worldliness) and Cora Burggraaf (Justice). Ian Page conducts.

Classical Opera perform more Mozart at the Wigmore Hall on 31 December, and on 30 January and 8 May next year; while on 13 March, they travel across town to Cadogan Hall for a performance of an opera composed at the opposite end of Mozart’s life, La clemenza di Tito.

Claire Seymour

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Cast and production information:

Justice, Mary Bevan (soprano); The Spirit of Christianity, Robert Murray (tenor); Mercy, Sarah Fox (soprano); The half-hearted Christian, Allan Clayton (tenor); The Spirit of Worldliness, Ailish Tynan (soprano); conductor, Ian Page; The Orchestra of Classical Opera; continuo, Christopher Bucknall (harpsichord), Andrew Skidmore (cello), Cecelia Bruggemeyer (double bass). Classical Opera Company. Wigmore Hall, London, Tuesday 24^th September 2013.

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Lyric Opera of Chicago Introduces its Season

In this year’s concert the Lyric Opera Chorus was featured in a variety of pieces under the direction of its new permanent chorus master, Michael Black. After a prefatory address delivered by the company’s General Manager Anthony Freud the evening’s performance was conducted by Ward Stare.

As a start to the program Mr. Stare led the Lyric Opera Orchestra in a spirited performance of the overture to Béatrice et Bénédict by Hector Berlioz. Tempos were appropriately brisk in the opening section, while Mr. Stare showed a nice attention to legato playing in the subsequent, slower section. Flute and horn passages were especially well controlled in passages that led the orchestra back to its opening tempos and to an energetic and effective conclusion.

The remainder of the first part of the concert was devoted to excerpts from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, which will be featured with two casts in the upcoming season at Lyric Opera. Ana María Martínez and James Valenti sang the parts of Cio-Cio-San and Pinkerton. As the geisha Cio-Cio-San muses while alone on the anticipated return of her beloved Pinkerton, she imagines first the sight of his ship on the horizon. As Ms. Martínez intoned the start of her aria “Un bel dì” (“One fine day”) expectation built noticeably on a rising vocal line until she declared “romba il suo salute” (“will thunder its salute”) with an impressive forte pitch. Martínez expressed Cio-Cio-San’s determination with her middle range focused on “non mi pesa” (“will not weary me”), until she envisioned the approach of Pinkerton from afar, starting as “un picciol punto” (“a tiny speck”) in an appropriately piano vision. Hints of later tragedy were expressed with touching innocence, as the words “celia” and “morire” (“to tease”… “to die”) were interwoven vocally. As she identified with her character’s unflagging faith, Martínez concluded this committed performance with a valiant top note on “l’aspetto” (“I shall await him”). Mr. Valenti’s aria from the final act of the opera, “Addio fiorito asil” (“Farewell, flowery refuge”), was performed with good attention to line, a technique which emphasized the haunting memories that would continue to plague him. Valenti’s lower register was somewhat underused yet his high notes in the conclusion of this brief scene (“ah, son vil” [“Oh, I am despicable!”]) were exemplary.

The Lyric Opera Chorus performed the “Humming Chorus” from Act III of Madama Butterfly as a fitting contribution to this first part of the concert. The final piece from Puccini’s opera featured Martínez and Valenti in the extended love scene from the conclusion of Act I (‘Bimba, bimba, non piangere” [“My child, do not cry”]). Laura Wilde sang the role of Suzuki, Cio-Cio-San’s confidante, in the opening of the scene. Once the couple is left alone by Suzuki, the lovers’ passion seems to bloom. Perhaps because of the distance implied in the initially shy or awkward dialogue of the characters, the soloists here sang a convincingly emotional line toward the close of their duet. With Valenti proclaiming at the close “Ah! Vien, sei mia!” [“Ah, come you are mine!”]), there was no doubt that love had indeed been awakened.

In the second part of the concert the Lyric Opera Chorus and Orchestra performed highlights from Lohengrin, Verdi’s Otello, and Il Trovatore. Mr. Black has clearly worked with his forces to achieve a well-prepared ensemble. The varying ranges and effects in the Act III Prelude and Bridal Chorus from Lohengrin were distinct yet well integrated. Tempos were restrained in the Verdian choruses with attention to specific orchestral details magnifying the overall impression.

The final excerpt presented was Act III, Scene 2 of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. Again the chorus was given the opportunity to set the tone of ephemeral happiness, here as the guests celebrated with vocal delights the wedding of Lucia. At the height of this joy Raimondo interrupts the ospiti to reveal the tragedy of the bridal chamber: Lucia has stabbed the husband she was forced to marry and lost her reason. Albina Shagimuratova shared the stage with Evan Boyer as Lucia and Raimondo, tutor of the young woman, with Anthony Clark Evans performing the role of Enrico, Lucia’s brother. Mr. Boyer made a strong impression as the initial soloist. He drew on a fully developed palette of vocal colors in order to express the conflicting emotions in Raimondo’s mix of horror and sympathy over Lucia’s actions. “Dalle stanze” (“From the apartments”) showed a smooth lyrical delivery with judicious application of vibrato. Boyer’s chilling enunciation of “insanguinato” (“blood-stained”) made of his voice a convincing witness to the aftermath of the murderous deed. Boyer’s sense of decoration was evident on telling lines, e.g., rising pitches on “l’ira no chiami su noi del ciel” (“may it not call down upon us the wrath of heaven”). At Lucia’s entrance Shagimuratova communicated immediately the sense of a woman unhinged. Notes sung piano and diminuendo as a means to delineate character were in evidence from the start , as she recalled hearing the voice of her true beloved Edgardo (“nel cor discesa!” [“won my heart!”]). Seeming happiness was declaimed on “lieto giorno” (“happy day”), just as Shagimuratova indulged in melismatic richness on the line “A me ti dona un dio” (“God has given you to me”). As she descended further into a mad reverie, Shagimuratova became more ambitious in the insertion of trills and well-chosen decoration. The conclusion was an exciting cap to the evening with a season of vocal drama still awaiting.

Salvatore Calomino

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Matthias Goerne: Hugo Wolf and Franz Liszt

In the audience were many who had heard Goerne before he became famous, and some who knew Andreas Haefliger’s father, the tenor Ernst Haefliger. An audience like this doesn’t need popular tidbits. Goerne and Haefliger performed Wolf and Liszt with intense, passionate commitment. Even by the very high standards of the Wigmore Hall, this was an evening to remember.

Hugo Wolf’s Peregrina I and II (1888) set the mood. Peregrina was a real, if mysterious woman, a beautiful semi-vagrant, extremely well read and intellectual, though tinged with religious mania. Eduard Mörike, a nice Lutheran pastor, was intrigued because she represented a wild, exotic alternative to conventional mores. The piano part seems worshipful, but when Goerne sang the phrase “....Tod im Kelch der Sünden”, the poisonous danger in the reverie could not be mistaken. Wolf set only two of Mörike’s five Peregrina poems, but the ending of Peregrina II might suggest why. The poet is in the midst of a family celebration. But in the midst of the festivities, the ghost of Peregrina comes to him, and they walk out, hand in hand. Goerne expressed the horror, but also the excitement. After 150 years, Peregrina continues to taunt, tempt and tantalize.

In contrast, Wolf’s An der Geliebte, also to a poem by Mörike, seemed heartfelt relief. Goerne’s voice these days is freer and brighter at the top. In the two Wolf Reinick songs Liebesbotschaft and Nachtgruß (both 1883), he could bring out the images of light and transparency to great effect.

These very early songs thus served as a good prelude to Wolf at his craggiest, the Three Lieder to texts by Michelangelo (1897). These songs, originally written for bass, have long been Goerne specialities, for they fit his natural register so well. Haefliger delineated the firm opening chords, so when Goerne’s voice emerged, it seemed hewn from stone. In Wohl denk’ ich oft , the two strophes contrast past and present. Once, the poet thought “to live for song alone” though “im jeder Tag verloren für mich war”. Now he’s famous - and censured - “Und, dass ich da bin, wissen alle Leute!” Goerne brought out the bitter irony, his voice spitting the consonants in the last line, contrasting with the firm round vowels of “alle”. Two parallel realities embedded in the structure of the song.

Haefliger’s chords struck like purposeful hammerblows in Alles endet, was entstehet. Goerne sang with nobility, the smoothness of his legato giving the song an elegaic quality. Yet this was no marble monument. When Goerne sang “Alles, alles rings vergehet!”,, he expressed human, personal anguish. In the final song, Fühlt meine Seele, the poet wonders whether his art has been inspired by “Licht von Gott”. When Goerne sang “ich weiss es nicht”, he expressed something altogether more complex. The strength in his timbre suggested where Michelangelo’s deepest convictions lay.

Franz Liszt expressed himself ideally in his works for piano, and in some ways his songs work best as Lieder-in-reverse, where the piano sings and the voice accompanies. That in itself makes them an interesting part of the repertoire. Haefliger came to the fore. He played the introductions and postludes elegantly, but with the focus on meaning that differentiates piano song from piano solo. In Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam (S309/1 c 1855) the piano’s sparkling, twinkling chords describe snowfall and starlight. Heine’s poem is more ironic, for he imagines the spruce tree imagining itself a palm. For Liszt, though, the atmosphere is magic, and we marvel in its beauty.

More conventional poets seem to bring out the best in Liszt. In Laßt mich ruhen (S314 1858) to a poem by Hoffmann von Fallersleben , Liszt creates the “Mondes Silberhelle auf des Baches dunkler Welle” so vividly that the song is almost tone poem. Ich möchte hingehen (S296, 1845), Georg Herwegh the poet thinks how nice it must be to die. The piano part is almost jolly, as if Liszt is mocking the poet’s delusion. The new brightness in Goerne’s voice worked very well indeed. Only in the last verse does reality intrude. The lines go haywire. And Goerne sings sardonically. “Das arme Menschenherz muss stückweis brechen”.

Liszt responds to individual lines in poems, like “Noch leuchten ihre Purpurgluten um jene Höhen, kahl und fern” in Des Tages laute Stimmen schweiugen S337 (1880) to a poem by Ferdinand von Saar. Delicious round sounds for Goerne to circulate his voice around. Liszt is interesting as song composer, too, because his songs suggest how Lieder might have been experienced in the interregnum between Schubert, Schumann and Hugo Wolf. Liszt’s Über alles Gipfeln ist Ruh’ (S306/2, 1859) predicates on repeats of the words “Warte nur” and a nice final coda. Many composers set this poem by Goethe, not many to penetrating effect.

Earlier this week at the Wigmore Hall, Goerne sang Schubert Lieder accompanied by harp (full review here) with the three Gesänge des Harfners. Now he turned to Hugo Wolf’s settings of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister songs, Harfenspieler I, II and III (1888). Wolf’s approach is more extreme than Schubert’s, veering away from tonality towards psychic disintegration. The piano treads penitentially. “Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt”, sang Goerne, bringing out the desolation. “Still und sittsam, will ich stehn” sings the Harper in the second song. One of Goerne’s great strengths is his inwardness. Like the Harper, he doesn’t emote theatrically to entertain an audience, but draws in on himself, physically and emotionally, focusing expression outwards, entirely through his voice. In the third song “Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß” brought the loudest and most forceful singing of the evening, but, as always with Goerne, volume was natural and unforced, deployed intelligently, not simply for show. Magnificent singing, and done with integrity. No populist showmanship here.

Goerne and Haefliger concluded with three Wolf songs from 1896, Keine gleicht von allen Schönen and Sonne der Schlummerlosen, to texts by Byron and Morgenstimmung to a text by Reinick. A glorious ending to a thrilling concert. “Die Engel freundejauchzend fliegen”. Goerne’s enunciation was flawless. The encore was Wolf’s Anakreon’s Grab. Goethe describes the Greek poet’s grave festooned with flowers. “Frühling, Sommer, und Herbst genoß der glückliche Dichter; Vor dem Winter hat ihn endlich der Hügel geschützt. Der Hügel geschützt.” As I left the Wigmore Hall, the thought of that “mound” where art rests eternally cheered my heart.

Anne Ozorio

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Schubert Songs with Harp: Matthias Goerne, Wigmore Hall

Instead of the familiar songs for voice and piano, Goerne sang versions transcribed for harp, accompanied by Sarah Christ. Goerne knows the Wigmore Hall audience. True Lieder devotees were intrigued.

Throughout the Lieder repertoire, there are references to Ständchen, serenades where a man, usually alone, sings and plays a simple, portable plucked string instrument, much in the way that troubadours performed centuries before. Indeed, the idea of song with harp long predates Lieder itself. The harp is a much less sophisticated instrument than a modern piano. It's more in keeping with the Arcadian image of the harp, where a bard might play and sing in tune with nature. Wilhelm Meister, for example, creating his music as he wandered. Harps also evoke the sounds of lutes, zithers and even early guitars. There's an excellent transcription of Die schöne Müllerin for guitar, which brings out the miller's relationship with his lute, as well as with the brook. Goerne's concept of Lieder with harp has a long pedigree.

Dynamics shift when Schubert is heard with harp instead of piano. The sound is more fluid, more "innocent" and naturalistic. Perhaps sound is more difficult to control when it resonates over a long string. Sarah Christ made the harp sound playful, spontaneous, even slightly unpredictable. Goerne had to listen, even more carefully than usual, adapting his singing to a lighter, brighter voice than a piano. It was refreshing to hear familiar songs done in this new way. They felt even more personal, as if we were listening in natural surroundings rather than in the formal context oif a concert hall.

Songs like Im Frühling (D882. 1826) and Das Lied im Grünem (D917. 1827) adapted well to the more vernal approach. Goerne's timbre rose to a transparency one doesn't normally associate with a baritone with bass-like coloration. This suited Des Fischers Liebesglück (D913, 1827) where the fisherman's lines are short and simple, suggesting his unspoiled simplicity. It was interesting to hear how Goerne respected the slight pauses between each short phrase, while Christ's harp continued to resonate even after her hands had left the strings. Just as Schubert describes moonlight, stars and the stillness of night, Goerne and Christ create an atmosphere of watchfulness. In Der Winterabend (D938, 1828), the harp evokes the sound of muffled snowfall, from which the voice emerges with warmth.

"Und geb' ein Lied euch noch zur Zither, mit fliess gesungen un gespeilet" (Pilgerweise (D789, 1823), worked particularly well with the humble harp, as did Der Kreuzzug (D932, 1827). Christ's playing tolls, like a bell in an austere monastery. Goerne floats the extremely high lines in the first strophe so we can imagine what the monk might feel as he watches the Crusaders on their way to war. Then his force takes on the rich, dark assertiveness for which he has no peer. ""Ich bin, wie ihr, ein Pilger doch!" he sings with fervour. The monk is fighting inner battles every bit as difficult as those the Crusaders are heading for.

Although Wigmore Hall concerts are rarely disappointing, this season's concerts so far have been enjoyable more for the artistry of the performers than for the technical standards of performance. Goerne, however, restored the balance. His voice has blossomed since he was last heard in London, and is now truly revealing its riches.

His three Gesänge des Harfners were outstanding. Superlative singing, beautifully nuanced and shaped. The best singing so far this year and more to come on Friday 27th, no doubt. Wilhelm Meister, the harper, wanders through life, haunted by guilt. "Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß, ....Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächt!". He who has never eaten his bread with tears....cannot know the power of Heaven". Goerne's voice resonates, expressing mysteries and pain words alone cannot articulate. Yet even in his anguish, the Harper finds validation.of some sort, through his art.

Exceptionally well-written programme notes by Richard Stokes, If the Wigmore Hall collects his work into a compendium, it will create a classic reference work. Programme notes, though, are written before a performance and don't directly relate to it. If the Wigmore Hall does another programme like this (lots of possibilities) it would be nice to read something on Schubert's interest in instruments other than piano. That would take the erudition of a Richard Stokes to be truly original.

Anne Ozorio

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Opera Theater Around San Francisco

This past weekend West Edge Opera formerly known known as Berkeley Opera took a bold step, moving off the stage of a suburban East Bay high-school onto the 400 seat, Berkeley Repertory Theatre Thrust Stage for two semi-staged performances of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa. Berkeley Rep is a prestigious address, after all its productions sit at the forefront of American regional theater. The spectacular new East Span of the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge somehow adds a panache to Berkeley that the funky, dangerous old Bay Bridge excluded. Expectations were high, promise was and is in the air.

This past weekend as well saw the last of six performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in the 250-seat black box theater of Hidden Valley, an institute for the performing arts in Carmel Valley (2 1/2 hours south of San Francisco) that has come back to producing opera now that a degree of prosperity has returned to the Monterey Peninsula. Its Opera Ensemble founded in 1974 offers young singers an opportunity to take initial steps into professional producing circumstances. Overseeing this current Don Giovanni were conductor Stewart Robertson, Music Director Emeritus of Glimmerglass Opera and veteran stage director/designer Robert Darling.

The common artistic ground held by the two productions was opera as theater, not opera as opera.

On Berkeley Rep’s blackened Thrust Stage a 30 piece orchestra sat upstage, two chairs and a table were downstage and the singers performed within a few inches of the three-quarters surround audience. The conductor was visible to the singers only by television monitor. At Hidden Valley it was opera in the round, a 9 piece ensemble (including harpsichord) sat off in a corner, TV monitors offered the conductor’s beat, the stage itself was a small asymmetrical platform in the center of the space surrounded by audience.

Common also were the much, much reduced orchestrations. While the brass and woodwind complement of Vanessa was somewhat intact the strings were limited to twelve players total (there were forty five or so at the opera’s premiere). The Don Giovanni orchestra became a string quintet, plus a flute, oboe, and bassoon (the three woodwinds total were reduced from the fifteen brass and woodwind instruments of Mozart’s score).

Not exactly Wagner’s gesamtkunstwerk, and it really did not matter as the immediacy of voice, the urgency of action, the physical presence of character created a powerful dimension of theater — a dimension that is so often and so easily overwhelmed by opera’s complexities.

Nikola Printz as Erika, Marie Plette as Vanessa, Jonathan Boyd as Anatol [Photo by Lucas Krech]

The theatrical dimension was very present in Berkeley. Vanessa was about aging soprano Marie Plette and her shallow young tenor lover Anatol, Jonathan Boyd. Innocent if weird young Erika, San Francisco Conservatory graduate soprano Nikola Printz simply wanted real love whatever that is, and dumbly wise bass Phillip Skinner was the Doctor who even knew how vapid he was. Not to forget the grandmotherly Baroness, Malin Fritz who sang very little but looked very stern. Very believable characters indeed, who were also quite real singers and very good artists. Even the staging was their own (there was no stage director), and seemed completely true to character — how could it have been otherwise.

Barber’s Vanessa itself sat very comfortably in the chamber format. The coy libretto by Barber’s life partner Gian Carlo Menotti is like a short story that resolves into a clever play on words much more so than it is a complex human situation that might end in tragedy. The chamber format imposed by the small theater responded to the wit and fun that permeates Barber’s music, and revealed his brilliance as a composer of mid-century complexities — like the splendid quintet that winds up Vanessa. And as a composer of occasional pieces, like the well known arias and duets that embellish the action.

In this reduced orchestral and sceneless format the specific colors and tones of Barber’s quite pictorial music and the atmospheres inherent to Menotti’s little twilight zone story are sacrificed. But the chamber format did ring true as the perfect place to bare the soul of this wonderful artifact of mid-twentieth century American music. The proceedings were held together by West Edge Opera music director Jonathan Khuner.

Hidden Valley has had much practice staging in the round, achieving in this Don Giovanni a degree of perfection. The irregular shape of the small center platform provided places to step, to sit and to hide, and it was turned from time to time by three very, that is very shapely damsels in black vinyl body stockings to indicate a change of scene, or rotated sometimes to make a posed stage picture visible to the entire audience. The entrance/exit aisle bisecting the theater was used for staging, the intersecting aisle axis led to platforms high against the side walls where Elvira appeared on her balcony and later the Commendatore’s statue loomed.

And there was production — minimalist lighting by designer Matthew Antaky sketched a few atmospheres, plus when those sexy stagehands threw a red rope net over the Don and drew him into hell a bit of smoke billowed from under the central platform. All this while the eight players in the pit gave it there all. And it was absolutely enough for the circumstances, probably because we were right in the middle of it.

Gregory Gerbrandt as Don Giovanni, Anna Noggle as Donna Elvira, Igor Vieira as Leporello [Photo by Tiffany Velasquez-Walker]

Sitting in such close proximity to six fine young singers showing their stuff was a very great pleasure. While Don Giovanni himself seems to have the least to sing in the opera he must create a powerful presence to give reason for everyone else to sing a lot. Baritone Gregory Gerbrandt had the voice, charisma and physical stature to set off the vocal fireworks blazingly exhibited by Donna Anna sung by soprano Jennifer Jakob, Donna Elvira sung by soprano Anna Noggle, and particularly Don Ottavio sung by tenor Zachary Engle. Mezzo soprano Nora Graham-Smith as Zerlina has a vocally warm presence that was appreciated in the ensembles, and baritone Ryan Bradford brought touching boyish naiveté to Masetto. Brazilian baritone Igor Vieira had the hint of accent and the bad-boy instinct (he often ignored the beat) to make him a truly believable Leporello. Veteran (i.e. old) bass Art Schuller was a very intimidating Commendatore.

This young cast could not plumb the depths of Don Giovanni, after all the Don himself needs a bit of age to have created the catalog that Leporello thumbed through on his iPad. Stage director Robert Darling therefore took the libretto and music at face value, embellishing the story just enough to provide some staging interest, like for example the Commendatore exchanging pistol shots with Don Giovanni, wounding the Don. It was enough that the staging was a vehicle for young singers to explore their voices and hone their acting skills.

Conductor Stewart Robertson presided from afar, providing a reasonable musical basis on which these young artists could build commanding performances of some of opera’s most known and beloved music. This maestro made the singers shine at the expense of exploiting the orchestral dramas of the Mozart score — after all he had but a flute, oboe and bassoon, plus the string quintet who surely found new meaning for the word exhaustion.

Michael Milenski

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Casts and production information:

Vanessa: Marie Plette; Erika: Nikola Printz; Baroness: Malin Fritz; Anatol: Jonathan Boyd; Doctor: Phillip Skinner; Majordomo: Timothy Beck; Footman: Calvin Wall. The West Edge Opera Orchestra. Conductor: Jonathan Khuner. The Thrust Stage of Berkeley Repertory Theater. September 21, 2013

Don Giovanni: Gregory Gerbrandt; Donna Anna: Jennifer Jakob; Donna Elvira: Anna Noggle; Leporello: Igor Vieira; Don Ottavio: Zachary Engle; Masetto: Ryan Bradford; Zerlina: Nora Grahamm-Smith; Commendatore: Art Schuller. Hidden Valley Opera Ensemble Orchestra and Chorus. Conductor Stewart Robertson. Stage Director: Robert Darling; Lighting Designer: Matthew Antaky; Costumer: Katy Simola. Hidden Valley Theatre. September 22, 2013.

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image_description=Zerlina and Masetto at Hidden Valley [Photo by Tiffany Velasquez-Walker]

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Olga Neuwirth, American Lulu

One friend, perfectly reasonably, said that he had not taken to it when he had seen it in Berlin; I wish I had had the chance to press him more on why. However, he did suggest that the staging — presumably at the Komische Oper premiere — may have been a considerable part of the problem. Others, though, seemed to recoil at the very idea. Who did Olga Neuwirth think she was, adapting Berg’s opera into her own? For once, I almost felt myself the voice of reason, then stopped short when I recalled that to have been the title of an especially nasty right-wing newspaper column. At any rate, I had no a priori objection to what sounded as though it were simply the continuation of practices that dated back as long as any conception of the musical work, and indeed beyond. I have always preferred the Second Viennese School arrangements of Johann Strauss to the ‘originals’; Mozart’s Handel reworkings, whether in terms of arrangement or more thoroughgoing recomposition have long fascinated me; and as for Bach, whether his rewriting of other music, sometimes his own, sometimes that of others, or the multitude of rewritings, in whatever form, offered by composers from Mozart to George Benjamin... They vary wildly in quality, of course, and that seemed to me the only point; the question was not whether Neuwirth had any ‘right’ to adapt Berg’s opera, but whether it worked.

I think it did, or at least much of it did. I cede to no one in my love for Lulu — save, perhaps to one of Neuwirth’s teachers, Luigi Nono, who described it as one of the two greatest operas of the twentieth century, the other being Schoenberg’s Die glückliche Hand. I know Berg’s score — and Friedrich Cerha’s completion — pretty well, and found myself not annoyed, but fascinated by the interplay between Berg and Neuwirth. In a work that lasts about half the time of the original, Neuwirth adapts, including reorchestration, the first two acts, and writes her own third act, both text and music. (English translations, concerning which, I found some more convincing than others, were provided by Richard Stokes and Catherine Kerkhoff-Saxon in the first two acts, and Kerkhoff-Saxon alone in the third.) One might miss the gorgeous post-Romantic labyrinthine depth of Berg, but to hear his music refracted as it was, pointed in a different direction by a new(-ish) story held its own interest — just as, say, Berio’s work on composers as different as Boccherini, Purcell, and Schubert has. (If only he had lived to complete his realisation of L’incoronazione di Poppea...) And so, with Berg’s — admittedly, selectively employed — jazz-influenced scoring in mind, Neuwirth’s reorchestration and composition alike make their move to New Orleans via a wind-dominated ensemble, Berg’s voluptuous strings put in their place and perhaps now heard through Brecht-Weill. (No one, I hasten to add, is saying that Berg is ‘improved upon’; that is not the point.) I was less sure about the introduction of more popular music ‘proper’, especially Eleanor’s blues music, into the score; its inclusion, presumably intentionally so, seemed oddly uncritical, as if, in a curious inversion or at least evasion of Adorno, Berg’s opera requires subjection to criticism but that of an allegedly purer popular culture does not. And yet, as I shall come to describe, there is a dialectical twist that would at least partially assist in that regard. The new version of the film music — what a relief it was actually to see a film, practically the only moment in present-day staging of opera where film seems to be eschewed — is brought to us, like the ‘jazz band’ music via a recording of a Wonder Morton organ: evocative, contemporaneous, and yet also, rightly for a new work, somewhat oblique in its relationship to the ‘original’.

The third act of Lulu, which Neuwirth, wrongly to my mind yet perhaps nevertheless fruitfully, regards as ‘unsatisfactory’ — ‘after great trials and tribulations, two women are simply slaughtered by a serial killer; and that is that’ — becomes instead ‘an unresolved murder case’, but more to the point here, offers her own music, clearly flowing from that of Berg, still more from that of Berg-Neuwirth, and yet which quite properly takes on a life of its own: a twenty-first-century reimagination of post-expresssionist music. There are vocal leaps; there is vocal seduction; there is a hard-edged, yet sinuous quality, in line with Berg’s own. I should need to hear it again to say much more; yet, to answer the earlier question, for the most part, and bearing in mind my cavil concerning the blues music in particular, I think it worked.

I deliberately started with the music but ought to say something briefly about the new setting. Instead of the Prologue, we start at the end, in 1970s New York, when Clarence (Schigolch) asks Lulu why, when she is now so wealthy, she is no more satisfied, prompting her to look back at her life, beginning in 1950s New Orleans. A photographer with whom she is living is soon supplanted by Dr Bloom, purchaser of the pictures; Lulu dances in Bloom’s club, music written for her by his son, Jimmy. (I do not need in laboured fashion to point out who is who with respect to Berg; it is perfectly clear, though some of Berg’s intricate parallelism falls by the wayside as Neuwirth’s drama takes on a different trajectory.) Initially I found the substitution of Eleanor, a singer, for Geschwitz, something of a disappointment. The ‘otherness’ — if I am honest, banality — of her music, however well sung by Jacqui Dankworth, seemed too obvious, too lacking in integrative or indeed disintegrative power. However, and I hope this was not merely a product of my fevered imagination, there is criticism, if not so much of her music, then of the hippyish psycho-babble in which her reproaches — she is by the third act a successful singer, though still hurt by Lulu’s prior rejection — are couched. She too, it seems, is capable of exploitative behaviour. As indeed are we all, and some of it, like Neuwirth’s, may even be construed positively. We should not fall for bogus notions of the ‘jargon of authenticity’. Meanwhile, all the while, the drama is punctuated by reminders of the Civil Rights Movement: words from Dr King, and sounds, in Eleanor’s final song, of ‘We shall overcome’. It is certainly not subtle, and it is perhaps all too easy to say ‘that is the point,’ but its contribution was nevertheless greater than to make us appreciate more fully the balancing-act between existential and social — far too often tilted in favour of the former — in Berg’s opera. (Should we consider American Lulu in reference to Berg’s work, or as a work in itself? That depends, of course, on who ‘we’ are. Either we know the original or we do not, but a question that permits neither of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as a ‘straight’ answer is a good question for Neuwirth to be asking audiences, steeped in the self-righteous delusions of Werktreue.)

This was a co-production by The Opera Group, the Young Vic, Scottish Opera, and the Bregenz Festival, in association with the London Sinfonietta. The latter was on excellent form throughout, splendidly guided, insofar as one could tell from an initial hearing, by Gerry Cornelius. I was certainly as gripped by the orchestral performance as by the puzzles and challenges of Neuwirth’s work itself. John Fulljames makes a great deal from relatively little on the small stage of the Young Vic. Video was used sparingly but to great effect, Finn Ross’s work employing characters from the stage greatly appreciated, as mentioned above. The uncomfortable voyeurism of having Lulu change on stage, taking her clothes from a wardrobe and almost defying us not to watch, has one’s mind working, as it should, in different directions: self-interrogation, heightened by the (Brechtian?) presence onstage behind a see-through curtain of the orchestra. Construction of reality, perception of what may or may not be epic, is not simply our own task, but it is so at least in part, as in Lulu’s mind.

Angel Blue offered a charismatic assumption of the title role. It is of course far shorter than Berg’s, but has different challenges, the slipping between speech, parlando, and glorious, if all-too-brief (deliberately so?), passages in which the voice may truly soar a case of ongoing reinvention. Her stage presence, just as in ENO’s recent Bohème, was scintillating. In this opera, more than Berg’s, the other cast members are lesser beings, but there was much to enjoy from their various contributions. Paul Curievici, for instance, furthered the strong impression he recently made in The Importance of Being Earnest, and Donald Maxwell continued to hold the stage even at what must be approaching the twilight of his career.

Emma Woodvine, credited as ‘dialect coach’ seemed to have done a good job. I still wonder about the practice, though, of having assumed accents, be they from the South or elsewhere. It seems curiously selective; for instance, when we have a performance of Carmen, whether in French or in translation, we do not usually hear the dialogue — or, for that matter, the vocal lines — delivered in the tones of Seville. Better, I think, to let actors, including singing actors, act than to have them turn impressionists. (That runs both ways, of course; those complaining, as sometimes they do, about American or other accents in English dialogue should probably find better things to do with their time.) No matter; it is a minor point, indeed more of a question. And a great strength of this evening was the questioning that it provoked.

Mark Berry

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Cast and production information:

Lulu: Angel Blue; Clarence: Robert Winslade Anderson; Dr Bloom: Donald Maxwell; Jimmy: Jonathan Stoughton; Eleanor: Jacqui Dankworth; Photographer, Young Man: Paul Curievici; Athlete: Simon Wilding; Professor, Banker, Police Commissioner: Paul Reeves. Director: John Fulljames; Designer: Magda Willi; Lighting: Guy Hoare; Video: Finn Ross; Sound: Carolyn Downing; London Sinfonietta/ Gerry Cornelius (conductor). Young Vic Theatre, London, Saturday 14 September 2013

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Dolores Claiborne in San Francisco

Just now she has been made into an operatic heroine by composer Tobias Picker with one assumes a lot of undocumented help from J.D. McClatchy, his librettist.

But before the opera the fictional Dolores Claiborne became the heroine of a movie (film does not seem the appropriate term) back in 1995 that a lot of people seem to remember even though a lot more films based on Stephen King novels made a lot more money (seventeen of them made more money to be exact).

If these two pop genres are not part of your general culture and opera is, and you happened into the War Memorial Opera House and caught Dolores Claiborne you might have been as aghast as I was.

This poor domestic servant (Dolores) had just emptied the bedpan and changed the diaper of her mean old employer when the bitter old woman was chased down the stairs by the ghost of her murdered husband. A lot happened before this, for example Dolores’ daughter Selena was raped by her father, Dolores’ husband Joe (a big number about “into the well and don’t tell”). But Selena worked hard and became a lonely Boston lawyer after Dolores got Joe drunk during the 1962 eclipse of the sun and pushed him into a well, then hit him on the head with a big rock when he tried to climb out.

Elizabeth Futral as Vera Donovan

With all this, and it is only for starters, there was not much time for psychological immersion. Empathy too was out of the question given that the sordid situations these unfortunate figments of Mr. King’s imagination got themselves into were revolting.

The governing tension of the piece is that men abuse women (there is quite a list of ways in the opera) and that God is a man and not interested in women so women must become mean bitches to take care of themselves (these are the words used in the opera). One might take a moment to compare the tensions explored in Werther or Wozzeck (or for nearly any other opera in the repertory), tensions that engender psychological exploration and emotional elaboration.

There is no point in imagining the music that might equal the situations of this libretto, except, just for the fun of it, to imagine music that might be created for a solar eclipse. There was not a hint of any such music. Tobias Picker let the words of the story tell the story in plausible, more or less conventional musical lines supported by appropriate, more or less conventional contemporary sounds emerging from the pit.

There was but one moment of reflection that stood out in the evening. Dolores’ daughter Selena was alone on stage in the starry blackness of the solar eclipse and senses that things are not quite right. It was a beautiful moment before it got musically boring, but it did call attention to the absolutely brilliantly designed set, the work of Allen Moyer. Here it was the projection of an all black abstraction of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” and it was the opera’s only imaginative moment.

Susannah Biller as Selena, Wayne Tigges as Joe St. George and Patricia Racette as Dolores Claiborne

Moyer’s set was the outline of a rural police office elaborated by cinematic projections (by Greg Emetaz), some realistic, some abstractions of physical spaces, and there were stunning landscapes created across the width of the stage, among them a realistic clapboard house sitting in actual coastal marshes of Maine. With effective lighting by Christopher Akerlind the physical production achieved immense emotional atmospheres that were without response in the music. One assumes that stage director James Robinson had much to do with the realization of this superb physical production.

Mezzo soprano Dolora Zajick had the foresight to abandon the project, the role of Dolores Claiborne assumed and achieved, heroically, by diva Patricia Racette. Unfortunately there are already two sopranos in the score. The old woman Vera, vocally conceived as a high, thin aged voice was taken by Elizabeth Futral (in splendid voice). Dolores’ daughter Selena sung by Susannah Biller was the high coloratura voice of youth. Mme. Zajick would have provided welcomed alternative vocal color. Bass Wayne Tigges sang Dolores’ no-good husband Joe, and tenor Greg Fedderly was the not-too-bright country detective.

It was a high-powered cast who gave it their all. It was a waste of important talent. Conductor George Manahan held it together from the pit.

Michael Milenski

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Cast and production information:

Dolores Claiborne: Patricia Racette; Selena St. George: Susannah Biller; Vera Donovan: Elizabeth Futral; Joe St. George: Wayne Tigges; Detective Thibodeau: Greg Fedderly; Mr. Pease: Joel Sorensen; Teenage Girl: Nikki Einfeld; Teenage Boy: Hadleigh Adams; Maid: Jacqueline Piccolino; Maid: Nikki Einfeld; Maid: Marina Harris; Maid: Laura Krumm; Maid: Renée Rapier; Mr. Cox: Robert Watson; Mr. Fox: Hadleigh Adams; Mr. Knox: A.J. Glueckert. Chorus and Orchestra of the San Francisco Opera. Conductor: George Manahan; Stage Director: James Robinson; Set Designer: Allen Moyer; Costume Designer: James Schuette; Lighting Designer: Christopher Akerlind; Projection Designer: Greg Emetaz. San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, September 18, 2013.

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image_description=Patricia Racette as Dolores Claiborne [Photo © Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera]

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Photos © Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

Mefistofele in San Francisco

Just now San Francisco Opera has presented Arrigo Boito’s Mefistofele, in a 25 year old production by Canadian stage director Robert Carsen who was 34 years old at its premiere in Geneva in 1988. Carsen’s production, designed by Michael Levine (who was 27 years old back in 1988), is brilliantly witty. Maybe its racy titillations (bared female breasts and exposed male genitalia) were racier back in the ’80’s than they are now but they still brightly illuminate Mefistofele as one of opera’s more bizarre artifacts.

What the Carsen production did not have at its 1989 premiere in San Francisco was conductor Nicola Luisotti whose exuberant showmanship and spectacular musical making have found, finally, an opera production that is their match. It is no secret that the glories of the Luisotti pit frequently dwarf what is on the stage in San Francisco, or more often ignore the intentions of the stage, meager may they be these days. Here however the Boito, Carsen and Luisotti collaboration was one clearly envisioned in heaven.

The 1860’s were heady times in Paris and Milan, Offenbach was at the peak of his fame making fun of both love and antiquity sparing, strangely, religion. In Milan however there were a few outrageous poets (messy haired ones) who took on anything sacred to the Italians, be it personal appearance, God or Goethe. One of them (these scapigliature) was Arrigo Boito, 26 years old in 1868, who deftly extracted a few passages from the bible of bourgeois Romanticism, i.e. Goethe’s Faust and construed them to cruelly satirize nineteenth century self-fulfillment aspirations.

Patricia Racette as Margherita and Ramón Vargas as Faust

These were not modest times operatically — Verdi’s Don Carlo comes in 1867. The fully developed 19th century Italian sound was widespread as evidenced by the many composers who contributed to the Messa per Rossini (1869). A man of letters and a man of his times Boito could write music as well as librettos. The operas Mefistofele and Nerone are his musical legacy. Their style is typically Italian of the period, warmed somewhat with oltralpe sonorities (beyond the Alps means Wagnerian, a dirty word in Italy just then). It is good music.

Obviously Boito’s Mefistofele is massive, given it addresses the always important struggles of good and evil. God and the Devil confront one another, Faust is in between, Marguerite is pathetic and Helen of Troy is untouchable. Robert Carsen manages all this with enough supernumeraries to turn a village fair into a Chinese New Year of the Snake running amok in the Garden of Eden, a huge chorus of nymphs and satyrs is unleashed into an out-of-control bacchanal, and a pristine ballet revels to the beauty of classical architecture shining in an hyper elaborated harp solo. All of this overseen by a massive chorus of heavenly angels who are joined by legions of cherubim at the moments when the glory of God rises to its utmost clamor.

Needless to say everyone has a very good time, most of all maestro Luisotti who can unleash the forces of heaven themselves in massive choirs of praise as well as confront God with outright derision — those two piccolos screaming over the orchestra were only some of the whistles you heard (the fischio [whistle] is obvious derision in Italy), the rest were real. In spite of being condemned to death even poor Marguerite has a good time — her aria is one of the splendors of the soprano repertory. It was in fact an exquisite duet with the maestro, the diva in quite fine voice at the third performance.

Carsen’s indulgence of affection for Boito’s youthful escapade was sweetened by the casting of Mexican tenor Ramon Vargas as Faust. His is a voice of great beauty still most at home in the light lyric repertory (he was San Francisco’s Nemorino). At 53 years of age Vargas now takes on heavier roles, like Boito’s Faust as well as Gustavo III in Un ballo in maschera last summer at Orange. Here he sang with consummate style and musicianship, and with the maestro made a quite moving declaration of love to Helen. Nonetheless he remains a miniature tenor for the big repertory and therefore could perfectly embody a pretend Romantic hero caught up in all this fun.

Much the same can be said for the Mefistofele of Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov. He gave a maximally effective performance, vocally and histrionically. In fact Mr. Abdrazakov was absolutely adorable as a pretend villain whose sole purpose is to give rise to lots of fortissimo music. While it surely was expedient to cast Adler Fellow Marina Harris as Helen of Troy it was not appropriate. However fine a young singer may be it is rare that an Adler Fellow may have the presence, personality and experience to hold the stage in a major role. After all, San Francisco Opera boasts that it performs on the international level. Or does it?

The Robert Carsen/Michael Levine production is huge, and hugely fun. It is a masterpiece that was well worth reviving. If you miss it just now in San Francisco you can catch it at the Met in 2015 (conductor and cast not yet announced). And, uhm, it was anything but cheap to get this production back on the stage after twenty five years of travel.

Michael Milenski

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Cast and production information:

Mefistofele: Ildar Abdrazakov; Margherita: Patricia Racette; Faust: Ramón Vargas; Elena: Marina Harris; Marta: Erin Johnson; Pantalis: Renée Rapier; Wagner/Nereo: Chuanyue Wang. Chorus and Orchestra of the San Francisco Opera. Conductor: Nicola Luisotti; Production: Robert Carsen; Stage Director: Laurie Feldman; Choreographer: Alphonse Poulin; Set and Costume Design: Michael Levine; Lighting Design: Gary Marder. San Francisco War Memorial Opera House. September 14, 2013.

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image_description=Ildar Abdrazakov as Mefistofele [Photo by Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera]

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Photos by Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera

La finta semplice, Bampton Classical Opera

Responding enthusiastically to a casual remark by Emperor Joseph II that the young wunderkind might like to compose an opera for the court, the proud parent precipitately exclaimed, “Today we are to see a Gluck and tomorrow a boy of twelve seated at the harpsichord conducting his own opera”.

Unfortunately his impetuous pronouncement was a little premature, for Leopold had not reckoned with the jealousy of the musical retinue at court, who were not keen to be upstaged by an unwelcome upstart, and with the machinations of the Emperor’s dubious theatre manager, Giuseppe d’Afflisio, who - already in financial difficulties - was unwilling to take a gamble on the first operatic efforts of an untried teenager. The unworthiness of a twelve-year-old to occupy the hallowed maestro’s chair was urged, the merit of the music disputed, and its veracity challenged, some alleging that it had in fact been composed by Leopold.

Mozart did compose the opera, but had to wait until 1769 for the first performance, in Salzburg. However, in some ways Leopold Mozart’s suggestion that a new operatic age, led by his precocious offspring, was about to dawn was spot on. While a remarkable achievement for an adolescent, La finta semplice is understandably lacking in the richness and variety of human feeling of Mozart’s later works, but nevertheless the instinctive sense of the dramatic and innate feeling for musical characterisation is already evident, and there are a few gleams of the move from aria-based form to truly interactive ensembles which was soon to follow. Moreover, there are incipient signs of the combination of the comic and the tragic which define the Mozartian genius.

Comparisons with the mature opera buffa are unfair but inevitable, especially as the plot revolves around that old staple of obstructions to young love being overcome by wiles and wisdom; and one may indeed discern a touch of Despina in Ninetta, or a foretaste of Figaro’s Countess in Rosina.

In fact, the actions of Coltellini’s libretto, adapted from a play by Goldoni’s 1764, and the familiar character ‘types’, drawn from everyday life, are closer to commedia dell’arte than the clever complexities of Lorenzo Da Ponte’s comic masterpieces. A Hungarian officer, Fracasso, and his sergeant, Simone, are billeted with two rich, unmarried brothers, the irritable and petulant Don Cassandro and the more timid, empty-headed Don Polidoro. The brothers have a sister, Giacinta, whom Fracasso is wooing, while Simone addresses his amorous advances towards Giacinta’s maid, Ninetta. Fracasso and Simone determine to enlist the assistance of Fracasso’s sister, Rosina; with ‘finta semplice’ - literally, pretended foolishness - she will flirt and divert the attention of both brothers. This she does with thespian adroitness and the predictable complications follow. Ultimately, the brothers are told that Giacinta and Ninetta have absconded with the family jewels and the princes are persuaded by Rosina to offer the light-fingered lasses’ hands in marriage to the men who can find them and return the treasures. Inevitably, this feat is duly accomplished by Fracasso and Simone, and the nuptials are agreed. Rosina - having led Polidoro to believe he is the favoured one - at the last surprisingly switches her devotion to the misogynist Cassandro, exposing her ‘innocent’ deception and declaring that she surely deserves forgiveness for being cleverer than she appeared. Polidoro accepts his rejection, consoled by the fact that his brother has been proven to be equally foolish, and multiple marriages ensue.

‘Pride and Pretence’, the title of Jeremy Gray and Gilly French’s frivolous but efficacious translation, aptly encapsulates the work. Sharp rhymes keep the farce whipping along and add a touch of slickness to the boisterous larks on stage.

So often the plots of commedia and of opera buffa defy unequivocal explanation - have you ever tried to summarise the libretto of Figaro for an opera novice? Thus, Jeremy Gray’s surreal sets, comprising copious visual references to René Magritte - who so disliked explanations which diluted the enigma of his images - made a fittingly ambiguous and paradoxical backdrop to this tale of mistaken identity and crossed purposes.

Magritte’s Les amants, In which the identity of the figures is mysteriously veiled in white muslin, as two blanketed heads attempt to kiss each other through their cloth encasements, may hint at darker themes - isolation, suffocation and alienation - but here served to highlight the frustrated desire experienced by all the personnel, and perhaps too the inability to fully know the true nature of even our most intimate acquaintances. Sculptured torsos, derived from ‘La Lumière des coïncidences’ were similarly enshrouded throwing illumination on the illogicality of life - as Magritte himself said, “Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us.” The floating clouds of the painter’s ‘The Empire of Light’, hovering bowler hats and green apples plucked from ‘The Son of Man’, and the impenetrable perplexities of ‘Ceci n'est pas une pipe’ (This is not a pipe) formed a kind of surreal graffiti which established an aptly chaotic ambience of confusion and contradiction, blurring reality and illusion.

The cast were uniformly excellent - totally committed to the music and alert to the comic potential of the drama. Several of the singers are long-time Bampton associates and this helped to create a sense of comfortable companionship and confidence.

As the irascible Don Cassandro, baritone Nicholas Merryweather was drily peevish in his Act 1 aria but he did not settle into caricature, and showed dramatic and musical intelligence in developing the complexity of the role as the action progressed. Mozart’s music may be stylistically somewhat unvarying but there are some signs of the remarkable musical delineation which would be the hallmark of his later operas. Thus, Polidoro’s arias are often of slower tempo and while Robert Anthony Gardiner took advantage of every opportunity to convey the younger prince’s inanity he also added an occasional note of pathos to his warm tenor, especially during the aria in which he confesses his subjugation to Rosina and at the moment of his ultimate disillusionment.

Simone is a role of minor importance, but bass Gavan Ring made a big impression, his voice full of character and his diction clear; his breathless entrance during the Act 1 Finale was especially effective, as he rushed in with an announcement that a handsome stranger is requesting permission to wait upon Rosina and take her out to dinner, throwing all into confusion and paving the way for the troubles and trickeries ahead. Adam Tunnicliffe was a boisterous Fracasso, expertly colouring the recitative, every word audible, and singing with ringing tone. Only in his final aria did he seem to tire a little, the rhythmic tightness occasionally lessening.

Aoife O’Sullivan demonstrated stamina and flexibility in the demanding role of Rosina, despatching the glittering coloratura of her lengthy Act 3 aria with accomplishment and ease. She used her supple, sweet-toned soprano to communicate character and text with clarity, and revealed herself to be no mean actress too, drolly playing the simpleton to Polidoro, masterfully manipulating Cassandro and clever controlling the amorous destinies of her brother, her sister-in-law-to-be’s maid and herself. As Ninetta, Nathalie Chalkley’s bright soprano and comic astuteness suggest she would make a good Susanna; Caryl Hughes was highly effective in the small role of Giacinta.

Conductor Andrew Griffiths demonstrated a keen sense of style and dramatic momentum, drawing superb, stylish playing from the eighteen musicians of CHROMA. The recitatives, skilfully and sensitively accompanied by harpsichordist Charlotte Forrest, raced along - convincing, lively conversations rather than dramatic longueurs (the contrast to Figaro at the ROH the evening before was notable). It was in the act finales - where the characters enter in rather jerky succession compared with the smooth accumulation of texture and tempo of the later operas - that Griffiths most particularly showed his dramatic acumen, managing the abrupt changes of style, tempo and time signature with impressive control, forming an effective chain of contrasting sections.

Occasionally the on-stage shenanigans were perhaps rather too busy and barmy, but this may well have been a result of the restrictions imposed by the limited stage area: the elongated narrow strip must have seemed exasperatingly cluttered and congested compared to the more expansive dimensions of the open-air stage at the Deanery Gardens in Bampton for which the production was devised. (Incidentally, operatic croquet seems to be all the rage at present: BYO’s recent production of Cimarosa’s The Secret Marriage featured a panoply of ‘sporting’ ensembles - but Bampton got there first!) Overall, this was another discerningly amusing performance by Bampton Classical Opera: a cheerful, charming production which confirmed the essential mystery of the ordinary and the inscrutability of the world of love.

Claire Seymour

Bampton Classical Opera will perform La finta semplice at The Barn at Bury Court on 20 October.

Cast and production information:

Giacinta, Caryl Hughes; Fracasso, Adam Tunnicliffe; Ninetta, Nathalie Chalkley; Simone, Gavan Ring; Rosina, Aoife O’Sullvan; Don Polidoro, Robert Anthony Gardiner; Don Cassandro, Nicholas Merryweather; Director/Designer, Jeremy Gray; Costume Designer, Fiona Hodges; Conductor, Andrew Griffiths; CHROMA.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Magritte%20The%20Son%20of%20Man.png
image_description=The Son of Man by René Magritte (1964)

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Schubert : Ian Bostridge at the Wigmore Hall

During the next two years, the programme tells us, Bostridge plans to ‘chart the expressive depths, lyrical inflections and psychological insights of the composer’s work’.

Certainly this recital confirmed the seemingly unlimited expressive range of Schubert’s songs. The stormy energy of ‘Der Strom’ - in which Drake’s wonderfully light and even touch conveyed the barely contained power of the river as it rears and plunges - was followed by three songs by Johann Baptist Mayrhofer which spanned the emotional gamut from despondent pessimism, through elevated love and trust, to peaceful rest.

The tenderness of the sweet barcarolle with which ‘Auf der Donau’ (On the Danube) commences was challenged by the focused intensity which Bostridge injected into the opening vocal melody, as the boat glides past castles which ‘soar heavenward’ and pine-forests which ‘stir like ghosts’, the voice accompanied by tremulous right hand whispers. Ominous left hand trills punctuated the singer’s dark recollections of fallen heroes and shattered monuments of former glories, the tenor’s lower register rich with enigmatic shadows. A slight hiatus before the final verse heightened the mood of desolate resignation, as the voice plummeted through dark, hushed chromatic waters: ‘Wird uns bang -/ Wellen droh’n, wie Zeiten,/ Unterhang’ (we grow afraid -/ waves, like times, threaten/destruction).

With barely a pause, the rippling piano chords and hymn-like melodiousness of ‘Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren’ (Seafarer’s song to the Dioscuri) eased the mood of despair, the tenor’s voice gleaming as the twin stars lit the way and provided consolation. Bostridge found a radiant weightlessness as the seafarer gazed heavenwards with wonder, before the music of the opening verse returned and the journey resumed, Drake’s busy accompaniment never over-powering the vocal line but embodying the pull of the tide which impedes the sailor’s homebound voyage.

Drake’s polyphonic chromatic rovings at the start of ‘Nachtstück’ (Nocturne) served to underline the import of the aged harp-player’s song of farewell. Bostridge expertly crafted the expansive melody, heightening the minstrel’s urgent cry for the sleep that shall free him from affliction, injecting a quiet pathos when the forest of the night offers reassurance - ‘Die Gräser lispein wankend fort,/ Wie decken seinen Ruheort;’ (the swaying grass will whisper:/ we will cover his resting-place’) - the pathos intensified by the accompaniments dense, mysterious modulations.

Further Mayrhofer settings concluded the first half of the recital. Bostridge’s thoughtful enrichment of the opening lines of ‘Abendstern’ (Evening star), as the poet-narrator anxiously questions the single star whose isolation reflects his own loneliness, spilled naturally into the piano’s after-phrase. Voicing the star’s humble resignation, Bostridge’s tenor was beautifully distant and this almost translucent aloofness was complemented by the piano’s gentle closing chords, tempered by a brief shimmer of drama in the final cadence.

The propelling rocking rhythms of ‘Gondelfahrer’ (The gondolier) then swept us forward, an eerie inflection in the voice emphasising the presence of fleeting nocturnal spirits and momentarily clouding the piano’s enchanting dance. Twelve rolling chords tolled the midnight hour; Drake’s deep bass accompaniment, far beneath the voice, conveyed the profundity of both water and sleep, but while Venice slumbers the boatman sails on, and Bostridge’s final word, ‘Wacht’ (only the boatman is awake), was beautifully extended and sustained. After such motionlessness came the tumult of ‘Auflösung’ (Dissolution), Drake’s explosive introduction heralding Bostridge’s commanding address to the sun. Despite the rhetorical grandeur of the opening, the tenor turned the focus inward - ‘Quillen doch aus allen Falten/ Meiner Seele liebliche Gewalten;’ (For sweet powers well up/ from every recess of my soul) - impressively negotiating the relentless vocal line which offers few opportunities for breath, before stabbing bass rumbles dissolved into the silence of echoing ‘ethereal choirs’.

Dividing the Mayrhofer poems was Franz von Schober’s ‘Viola’ (Violet), and it was this song more than any other that confirmed Bostridge’s willingness to look afresh at every nuance of text and music, to surprise us, to manipulate our expectations. The opening tempo was slow, Drake deliciously lightening the second of his paired introductory chords, before Bostridge heralded the arrival of spring with a firm brightness accompanied by the piano’s crisp, sprightly staccato. Throughout the ballad, tempo, texture and tonality were thoughtfully interpreted and their ‘meaning’ communicated; never was the rondo structure allowed to lull us into complacency, and the dialogue between voice and piano was probing. The violet’s urgent terror when she realizes her isolation was chillingly contrasted with a moment of stillness; her fretful torment was coolly, disconcertingly swept aside by the return of the sweet refrain. An accelerando towards the close was halted by a pause before the final statement of the refrain, and the return of the slow tempo of the opening made a requiem of the closing verse.

Following the interval, ‘Widerschein’ (Reflection) saw Bostridge casually leaning on the piano, the brooding fisherman awaiting his tardy beloved, whose belatedness was neatly reflected in the merest of delays which the tenor occasionally inserted - most tellingly, holding back the final line, as the fisherman, infused by the sweet radiance of his lover whose face is reflected in the water, grips the rail, ‘Sonst - zieht’s ihn hinein’ (for fear of falling in). The folky rhythms which open the nocturnal serenade ‘Alinde’ (Alinde) were interrupted by the tenor’s urgent search for his love, the unassuming melodic shapes given weight and form, each cry of ‘Alinde’ tinted with a different hue, as the simple elements were built into a dramatic whole.

The first of three Goethe settings, ‘Rastlose Liebe’ (Restless love), was an impetuous whirlwind of passion and pain, suffering and exultation. The incessant driving accompaniment, with its challenging combination of legato right hand semiquavers and a staccato scalic bass, powered the music forward. The declamatory force of the first verse gave way to introspection in the second, as the poet-narrator seeks respite from the forces of nature; in the final verse he is transported back to a moment of love, and the rhetorical impact of his cry, ‘Alles vergebens!’ (All in vain!), was unnerving. ‘Geheimes’ (A secret) was delivered with coy elegance, Drake’s repetitive sighing motif wonderfully controlled, the major/minor fluctuation of ‘Weiß recht gut was das bedeute’ prepared by a guileful lull, the harmonic vacillations of the close sweetly flirtatious, the final diminuendo fading with wistful longing into the imagined future ‘sweet hour’.

An energetic reading of ‘Versunken’ (Immersed) - in which Drake demonstrated his technical assurance in mastering Schubert’s fiendish, unbending accompaniment - was followed by a lengthy pause before ‘Der Winterabend’ (The winter evening), the first of two settings of Karl Gottfried von Leitner, in which the mystery of the midwinter dusk gradually unfolded, Drake’s gentle patterings as soft as the snow which drapes the streets. This was an exquisitely understated performance by Bostridge, as he welcomed the moonlight into his chamber, the most delicate of emphases intimating the intensity of feeling: ‘Freut’s ihn nimmer, so geht er fort’ (If the pleasure palls, it can move on). In ‘Die Sterne’ (The stars) Drake’s dactylic rhythm was wonderfully fluid, inflected with subtle rubato. In the final song, ‘Strophe aus “die Götter Griechenlands”’ (Verse from ‘The Gods of Greece’ (Schiller)), we were tantalised with a trace of the magical land of song, while all that remained for us was the dry staccato of ‘deserted fields’ and godless shadows.

So many of Schubert’s perennial preoccupations were here: water, the night, stars, dreams. Bostridge knows this repertoire inside out; he does not simply interpret these songs, he lives and breathes them - here, sympathetically and suggestively accompanied by Drake’s intelligent support and interchange. This recital was recorded for release under the Wigmore Live label; and, concerts in this series will continue in May 2014 and during the 2014-15. Don’t miss them.

Claire Seymour

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Programme:

Ian Bostridge, tenor; Julius Drake, piano; Schubert - ‘Der Strom’, ‘Auf der Donau’, ‘Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren’, ‘Nachtstück’, ‘Viola’, ‘Abendstern’, ‘Gondelfahrer’, ‘Auflösung’, ‘Widerschein’, ‘Alinde’, ‘Rastlose Liebe’, ‘Geheimes’, ‘Versunken’, ‘Der Winterabend’, ‘Die Sterne’, ‘Strophe aus “die Götter Griechenlands”’

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Le nozze di Figaro, Royal Opera House

The polished floor, scrubbed so assiduously by the long-suffering servant upon whom the curtain rises, gleams and glistens — despite the heavy footfall of domestics bustling about their business under the watchful gaze of an imperious housekeeper. The chandeliers glint and sparkle, under Paule Constable’s beautiful lighting; there are some breath-taking moments such as the twilight transition between the final two Acts, as the interior of the chateau imperceptibly metamorphoses into an enchanted nocturnal garden. Costumes are similarly eye-catching and visually there is scarcely an anachronistic note — indeed, McCallin could probably teach the producers of Downton Abbey a thing or two about period detail.

It’s a shame, then, that the shine seems to have been wiped off the drama itself, for this was a rather lacklustre and untidy performance of an opera which should fizz and glide along effortlessly.

Things got off to a messy start, with both Luca Pisaroni (Figaro) and Lucy Crowe (Susanna) uncomfortably behind Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s beat in the opening numbers. Also, while both are experienced in their respective roles, there was a lack of frisson between them and they didn’t make for a convincing pair of nearly-weds. One might have put the hitches at the start down to first-night jitters, but matters didn’t really improve and the general ensemble and cohesion between stage and pit were ragged throughout the evening — Eliot Gardiner did not seem inclined to wait for his singers.

The absence of dramatic spark was a pervasive weakness — and a real problem in an opera dominated by action-packed ensembles. Although the servants buzzed about frenetically, the principals often seemed rather listless and lacking in dramatic authority. McCallin’s slickly sliding sets juxtapose the elegant luxury of the aristocrats’ chambers with the threadbare sparseness of the servants’ garrets, and these crossing interfaces reveal the co-dependence of the two worlds, for the opera is all about interaction — between the classes and the genders. Here, however, the intersecting dramatic threads were only loosely woven.

Pisaroni was a tall, handsome Figaro; he has a weighty voice across the range, a glossy tone, a pleasing legato and a relaxed delivery. However, while ‘Se vuol ballare’ was injected with real anger and indignation, in general the sound was rather uniform; more variety would have better conveyed the crafty quick-wittedness of the ever-resourceful valet.

Lucy Crowe matched her fiancé for fury and ferocity in Act 1; not afraid to act with her voice, she was vivacious in the recitatives. Perhaps she sometimes erred too far on the side of feistiness; in later Acts she allowed the fun and ingenuity of the guileful servant to rise to the fore, and as a consequence her voice took on a softer more charming hue. Although Crowe strayed a little sharp in the closing passages of the Act 2 Finale, her last-act serenade was poised and pure.

Christopher Maltman’s Count Almaviva is a thoroughly unpleasant autocrat, conscious of his power and not reticent in using it to intimidate his wife and servants alike. Maltman snarled through some of the Count’s more aggressive moments; his Act 3 vengeance aria was particularly coarse. But, though the Count may be a selfish cad and a bullying egoist, surely he must have some charm too — otherwise, why would the Countess forgive him?

Swedish soprano Maria Bengtsson seemed somewhat nervous at the start of ‘Porgi amor’ — the first lines of the aria were noticeably lacking in consonants; perhaps she felt overly exposed by the light, crisp textures conjured by Eliot Gardiner. She did warm up vocally though and by the end of Act 2 found a richer, fuller sound; ‘Dove sono’ was characterised by a joyful glow, especially at the top, and Bengtsson demonstrated a tender, alluring piano. But, dramatically she remained slightly diffident which diminished the impact of the recitatives, most noticeably in the marvellously convoluted Finale to Act 2.

Renata Pokupić was credibly pubescent in mannerism, but her Cherubino coped surprisingly coolly with the trials and tribulations of love — where was the teenage torment, the agony of pubescent passion? Pokupić, too, began a little hesitantly in ‘Non so più’, but she subsequently revealed a well-shaped, sweet-toned mezzo lyricism and ‘Voi che sapete’ deserved its warm applause.

Helene Schneiderman gave a superb performance as Marcellina, striking just the right balance between comedy and caricature, and between malice — spitefully kicking over Susanna’s basket of clean washing —and mischief, playfully cavorting with Bartolo on Figaro’s bed.

Carlos Chausson made heavy work of Bartolo’s ‘La vendetta’, which was somewhat ponderous and humourless — if you can hear the individual words in the patter, it’s too slow. As the oleaginous music-master, Don Basilio, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt sang with an apt dash of derision but did not make the most of the opportunities for preening narcissism. Alasdair Elliott and Lynton Black were solid as Don Curzio and Antonio respectively. Mary Bevan, making her Royal Opera House debut, was a fine, technically assured Barbarina.

Things crackled along in the pit, with Eliot Gardiner keeping the tempos brisk and the textures crisp, but even this couldn’t overcome the muting effect of — excepting the aggression of Maltman’s brutal Count — the low-key dramatic interplay on stage. This revival comes just eighteenth months since the last staging in spring 2012; and the production will be seen again in May next year. Given that there were a fair number of empty seats at this opening night, one wonders whether this Figaro needs a bit of a rest, in order to revive its comic energy and effervescence.

Claire Seymour

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Cast and production information:

Figaro, Luca Pisaroni; Susanna, Lucy Crowe; Cherubino, Renata Pokupić; Count Almaviva, Christopher Maltman; Countess Almaviva, Maria Bengtsson; Bartolo, Carlos Chausson; Marcellina, Helene Schneiderman; Don Basilio, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt; Don Curzio, Alasdair Elliott, Antonio; Lynton Black; Barbarina, Mary Bevan; David McVicar, director; Tanya McCallin, designer; Paule Constable, lighting designer; Leah Hausman, movement director; John Eliot Gardiner, conductor; Royal Opera House Chorus; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Monday 16^th September 2013.

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Thomas Hampson: Mahler Songs

You could almost say that what Hampson doesn't know about Mahler might not be worth knowing, but he still finds something fresh and new. So, even after all these years, it was good to hear Hampson and Wolfram Rieger perform Mahler at the Wigmore Hall.

Hampson and long-term collaborator Rieger began at the beginning, with some of Mahler’s earliest songs such as Scheiden und Meiden and Aus! Aus! from around 1888. They are significant because they represent Mahler’s earliest engagement with Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the collection of folk-derived poems published by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano in 1806/8. Their appeal to Mahler is obvious. He grew up in a small town with a military garrison. From childhood, he would have recognized the sound of marches and military bands and connected emotionally to the lives of soldiers, and to the simple townsfolk and huntsmen around him. Death was no stranger to Mahler even as a child. Indeed, his fascination with marches, funeral marches and resurrection stemmed from very deep sources in his psyche

Hampson has spoken out against war and gave a remarkable recital in which the Wunderhorn songs were perceptively presented by theme rather than as they appear in publication. Hampson called the Wunderhorn songs “negative love songs” for their protagonists retain sturdy defiance in adverse situations. Lied des Verfolgten im Turm (1898) refers to the picture by Moritz von Schwind. A man is imprisoned in a tower. Meanwhile a row of elves are busily trying to saw down the bars on the window to help him escape. “Gedanken sind Frei”, Hampson cried. Thoughts are free. As long as we can dream, we cannot be suppressed. Even now, that’s a revolutionary concept.

Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz, with its march rhythm just slightly off-beat, resolves in an evocation of trumpets and drums. The symphonist in Mahler was never far away, even when he was writing piano song. Revelge, that most nightmarish of songs is a masterpiece. If Hampson’s voice wasn’t, on this occasion, as rich and fluid as it can be, Rieger’s playing was manic, horrific. Rieger’s staccato ripped like a volley of machine-gun fire. As Hampson notes, the music evokes”Drang”, the Grim Reaper gone mad. With our modern ears, it’s like a forewarning of the slaughter of the trenches, and worse..”Tralali, tralaley, tralalera” is no lullaby here, but a bitter protest.

Although Alma would ridicule Alexander von Zemlinsky in her memoirs, the truth is more complex. Zemlinsky knew Alma’s songs years before they reached publication. Even though he was infatuated, he told her that her music was, like herself, “a warm, feminine sensitive opening but then of doodles, flourishes, unstylish passage work. Olbrich [a publisher] should have your songs performed by an artiste from the Barnum and Bailey (circus) company, wearing the customary black tails, and on his head, a dunce’s cap”. It is significant that Alma’s songs are orchestrated frequently by other composers, who want them to be more than they are.

The connections between Mahler, Zemlinsky, Strauss, Dehmel, Schoenberg and Webern are so well known they don’t need explanation. Hampson sang Zemlinksy’s Enbeitung, Alma’s Die stille Nacht.and three settings of Dehmel, two by Webern (Aufblick and Tief von fern, both 1901-4) and one by Strauss (Befreit, op 39/4 1898). In Befreit, the round vowel sounds resonated with warmth. “O Glück !” he sang, rising to a glowing crescendo. His family and friends were in the audience. Hampson’s feelings were touchingly sincere, though the poem itself is more equivocal.

The highlight of the evening was Schoenberg’s Erwartung op 2/1 1899), which pre-dates the monodrama op 17 (1909), and even Schoenberg’s meeting with Marie Pappenheim. The dedicatee was Zemlinsky, and the text by Richard Dehmel. It’s a cryptic poem where images are reversed. “Aus der meergrünen Tieche....schient der Mond”. A woman’s face appears under the water. A man throws a ring into the pond. Three opals sparkle. He kisses them, and in the sea-green depths “Ein Fenster tut sich auf”. Hampson sang, floating the words with eerie stillness. Then the punchline: “Aus der roten Villa neben den der toten Eiche” with which the poem began, a woman’s pale hand waves. Rieger played the circular figures so they felt obsessive, as if trapped in an endless mad dance. The similarities with the later Erwartung are obvious, but the song is fin-de- siècle symbolism and very early Expressionism rather than psychosis. In retrospect, it might seem eerily prophetic of the relationships between Mathilde Zemlinsky and Richard Gerstl, or indeed, Alma and Gropius.

Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder are so well known now that it’s sometimes forgotten - though not by Hampson - that they were originally published together with the Wunderhorn songs Revelge and Der Tambourg’sell. which weren’t included with the first Wunderhorn collections. In 1993, Hampson recorded an interesting collection of Wunderhorn-themed songs with Geoffrey Parsons, which included piano song versions of Urlicht and Es Sungen drei Engeln. This time, with Rieger at the Wigmore Hall, he separated the first four Rückert-Lieder with a Wunderhorn song (Erinnerung) and sang Liebst du um Schönheit as a finale, intensifying the underlying theme of the recital. “It’s a postcard”, said Hampson, “a message of love”. “If you love for beauty, youth or riches” runs the poem, “Do not love me. But if you love for the sake of love, Dich lieb’ ich immerdar”. The most beautiful, most tender song of the evening, straight from the heart.

Anne Ozorio

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Royal Opera House Announces Digital Theatre

Now a new initiative seems set to make their productions available on a wider basis. On 11 September it was announced that six Royal Opera House productions (four operas and two ballets) will be available on-line as part of Digital Theatre Collections. Digital Theatre ( http://www.digitaltheatre.com/) is an on-line platform which offers good quality theatrical performances in a variety of digital formats, on-line streaming, download, iPhone apps, a dedicated channel on the YouView TalkTalk player and on desktop.

The first four operas available are David McVicar’s production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro with Erwin Schrott and Miah Persson conducted by Antonio Pappano, John Copley’s production of Puccini’s La Boheme with Teodor Ilincai and Hibla Gerzmava, Kasper Holten’s 2013 production of Eugene Onegin with Krassimira Stoyanov and Simon Keenlysideand Richard Ayre’s production of Verdi’s La Traviata with Renee Fleming, Joseph Calleja and Thomas Hampson. The ballets are Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia to music by Delibes, with Darcey Bussll and Roberto Bolle, and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake with Thiago Soares and Marianela Nunez.

Further Royal Opera House productions are planned. The initiative is aimed developing Digital Theatre into a global arts and at the launch everyone was keen to point out that Digital Theatre’s platform gives people access regardless of social, economic or geographic factors. It is relatively affordable too, though if your internet connection is poor this means that your have to invest in the full download of the opera rather than just streaming it, which is cheaper. I had a trial of their on-line offering at the launch and was impressed with how easy it was to use.

Robert Hugill

Turandot, Royal Opera

This latest revival opened on September 9 2013 and featured the Covent Garden debuts of soprano Lise Lindstrom in the title role and conductor Henrik Nanasi. The production is in good health and the revival, directed by Andrew Sinclair, was as crisp and involving as ever.

Serban's production, in striking designs by Sally Jacobs and with extensive choreography by Kate Flatt, is lively, busy and full of incident, so that the principals need to give strong performances otherwise the production itself dominates. There was a feeling of this in act one, as if the principals had not quite found their form.

But the opera opened well, with Michel de Souza (on the company's Jette Park Young Artists Scheme) giving a commanding performance as the Mandarin.

Eri Nakamura as Liù and Raymond Aceto as Timur

Marco Berti, singing his first Calaf at Covent Garden, had a robust and thrilling tenor voice thankfully also with a willingness to moderate his tone and sing with a degree of subtlety. But his stage demeanour was rather stiff and failed to catch fire in the first act. Non piangere Liu though nicely shaped, did not touch the heart. His diction throughout was superb and it was great to hear Italian sung by a native.

The three masks, Ping, Pang and Pong were performed by three young singers, Dionysios Sourbis, David Butt Philip and Doug Jones. David Butt Philip is also on the Jette Parker Young Artists programme. In this production the roles are very active and all three brought and admirable physicality to their performances, but I found that they did not seem entirely threatening enough. Balance also was not ideal with the middle of the three voices not quite projected enough, seeming slightly weaker.

Eri Nakamura, a former Jette Parker Young Artist returning to sing her first Liu at Covent Garden. She has a vibrant lyric voice with a warm vibrato, which she makes intelligent use of. She made a touching Liu giving a finely shaped performance of Signore ascolta. She was well supported by the noble Timur of Raymond Aceto.

The first scene of act two gave the three masks a chance to show their individual talents. Dionysios Sourbis as Ping had a fine, strongly projected baritone voice and impressed with his solo, both David Butt Philip and Doug Jones contributed nicely turned solo moments. The interaction between the three was lively and well coordinated, the three made a great dramatic ensemble but I did rather keep coming back to the issue of balance of the voices.

But throughout the first act and a half, there was also a slight feeling of marking time, that we were waiting for Turandot's entry. And we weren't disappointed. Tall and slim with a brilliant dramatic voice, Lise Lindstrom made a striking Turandot. The opening of In questa reggia seemed to be threatened with too much vibrato. But she settled down and delivered a highly controlled account of the aria, singing with admirable laser-like brightness and control. Perhaps there was a feeling that phrases were broken down too much into individual syllables, but overall this was a highly auspicious and very commanding debut.

Berti made a strong impact in his decisive appeal to the Emperor (Alasdair Elliott) at the opening of the scene, and went on to join Lindstrom for a thrilling account of the riddle scene. Both voices balanced well and the two artists made this a real dramatic moment, rather than purely a musical one. Whilst Berti remained a bit stiff dramatically, this translated into decisiveness and nobility. Lindstrom, by contrast, was superb at suggesting the neurotic nature of Turandot's obsession. Lindstrom was a traditional Turandot, coolly icy with a definite dislike of being touched.

Dionysios Sourbis as Ping, David Butt Philip as Pang and Doug Jones as Pong

Act three opens, of course, with the best known aria in the opera Nessun dorma. Berti was robust here, his voice displaying an admirable consistency throughout the range as well as some sensibility and subtlety. Admirably, he did not grandstand, and the ending was neatly done.

In her two solos in this act Nakamura was supremely touching as Liu, characterful and quite strong. But she shaped Puccini's lines finely, with a nice vibrancy, and certainly touched the heart. The torture scene was well shaped by conductor Henrik Nanasi and there was a feeling of the whole ensemble building inexorable, in just the right way, towards Liu's death. As in the first act, the three masks could have been edgier but Lindstrom's Turandot was a wonderfully icy and commanding presence.

Berti almost used his size to impose himself on Lindstrom and her capitulation, when it came, was sudden and total. Not for the first time, I regretted the lack of Alfano's full ending with the extension to the two solo roles.

Conductor Henrik Nanasi displayed a nice feel for Puccini's opera and the ebb and flow of the music, but in some of the early scenes there was a worrying lack of crispness in the coordination between chorus and pit. The chorus did not seem to be on quite top form, and their off-stage contributions in act three were rather rough.

This performance saw some notable debuts and had some powerful individual performances, but it did not quite add up to a complete experience. Though this may develop over the run, and the piece is being broadcast live in cinemas on 17 September.

Robert Hugill

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Cast and production information:

Michel de Souza: Mandarin, Eri Nakamura: Liu, Raymond Aceto: Timur, Marco Berti: Calaf, Dionysio Sourbis: Ping, David Butt Philip: Pang, Doug Jones: Pong, Lise Lindstrom: Turandot, Alasdair Elliot: Emperor Altoum. Henrik Nanasi: Conductor, Andrei Serban: Original Director, Andrew Sinclair: Revival Director, Sally Jacobs: Designs, Kate Flatt: Choreography. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 9 September 2013.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/ROH_2688.gif image_description=Marco Berti as Calaf and Lise Lindstrom as Turandot [Photo © Tristram Kenton] product=yes product_title=Turandot, Royal Opera product_by=A review by Robert Hugill product_id=Above: Marco Berti as Calaf and Lise Lindstrom as Turandot

Photos © ROH / Tristram Kenton

Wigmore Hall Opening Gala, Terfel and Keenlyside

The two singers were enjoying themselves, teasing and challenging each other. Seldom do concerts, especially Gala Recitals, feel as natural as private performance.

The programme was extremely well chosen, for it showcased narrative song, a sub-genre of Lieder. It was ideally suited to the occasion, and to Terfel and Keenlyside, whose opera backgrounds mean they can sing stories with vivid élan.

Keenlyside wasn't well, and needed copious liquid succour - he finished a jug of water - but being a true trouper, he turned his difficulty to advantage in his performance. "Durst,Wassersheu, ungleich Geblüt!", he growled in Hugo Wolf's Zur Warnung. So we laughed with him, not at him, as he depicted the poet's Muse's "schmöden Bafel", the lines lurching as though through a drunken haze. That's the sign of a real professional, whose artistry overcomes all.

Terfel sang Robert Schumann Belsazar op 57 (1840). More drunkenness! This time the mighty King of Babylon blasphemes and is brought down by Jehovah. Heine's version of Belshazzar's Feast is pithy, and the drama unfolds in the space of a few minutes. It's dramatic stuff. Terfel, being a natural stage animal, intones the text with slow deliberation, each syllable kept distinct. "Buchstaben von feuer, und Schreib, und schwand". You can almost see the mysterious hand writing slowly on the palace wall. He sings the lines about the soothsayers with casual tenderness, so when he sings of Belsazar's murder, the syllables sound even more ominous.

Terfel and Keenlyside foxed the audience, too, changing the programme and keeping us alert. Schumann's Die beiden Grenadier (op 49/1 1840) popped up unexpectedly, but it's a great song that fitted perfectly into this programme of Lieder as mini-drama. The ironic quote from the Marseillaise worked especially well after the Muse's wonky nightingale song in Zur Warnung. Die beiden Grenadier is witty but the humour is grim. Heine is satirizing fanatics who follow leaders unto death.

Also in place of the scheduled programme, Jacques Ibert's Quatre chansons de Don Quichotte (1932) substituted for Poulenc's Chansons villageoises (1942). An inspired choice, which showed the singer's grasp of repertoire. Ibert's four Don Quixote songs are even more colourful than Ravel's three songs Don Quichotte à Dulcinée which were sung by Feodor Chaliapin in the 1932 G W Pabst film Don Quixote. Ibert wrote the rest of the music for the film, so his songs area deliciously ironic. Terfel must have relished doing a riposte to Chaliapin. Ibert's songs veer (or should I say "tilt" wildly from mock heroic to mock sentimental to mock elegaic. Ideal opportunities for Terfel to camp up the humour and characterizations.

Both Terfel and Keenlyside live in Wales, though Terfel is of course a native. So Terfel sang Y Cymru (The Welshman) in what we must assume is perfect Welsh. The song, by Meirion Williams, sounds lovely in Welsh but it's just as well -- translated into English, the text is maudlin. But it's a good song and should be a star turn. Keenlyside decided that discretion was the better part of valour and declined to sing the third Williams song in Welsh.

Instead, Keenlyside sang Peter Warlock, an Englishman who lived in Wales and was rather fond of beer and song. Keenlyside's voice filled out beautifully in Cradle Song (1927). Warlock's My Own Country (1927), to a poem by Hilaire Belloc, is exquisite, one of his best and most mellifluous. Belloc was writing about an imaginary country, based vaguely on Sussex, but Keenlyside made it feel as if we all belonged there.

Since this concert celebrated the beginning of a new season at the Wigmore Hall, the holidy mood continued with a selection of show tunes. Here, Keenlyside was in his element. When he sang the Soliloquy ("My boy Bill") from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, he could sit on a bar stool clutching a glass (of water) and be in perfect character. Keenlyside does lounge lizard well, so I liked his Ain't misbehaving though he sounds nothing like Fats Waller. He also did a wry take on Fiddler on the Roof . His skills in the opera house stand him in good stead. Keenlyside and Terfel duetted in Cole Porter's Night and Day, coyly switching the words. They'd like to spend their days and nights "being friends".

Terfel resented more party tricks. He sang songs from the repertoire of John Charles Thomas (1891-1960), an American of Welsh descent who sang opera, operetta and popular tunes. "He sang with Chaliapin", said Terfel. Another hidden connection in this remarkably erudite programme. Terfel sang the comic The Green-Eyed Dragon (Wolseley Charles, published 1926 Boosey), first recorded in 1927 by an opera singer called Reinald Werrenrath. Crossover is nothing new.

Terfel also sang two rather better songs, Trees to the poem by Joyce Kilmer set by Oscar Rasbach in 1922, and Tally-ho !, a song about fox hunting where a foxy peasant out-foxes fox hunters and lets the fox escape. The peasant acts dumb when the fox hunters ask him where the fox has gone. The song was written by Franco Leoni (1864-1949) and was recorded by Arthur Reckless, an English baritone who later taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where Terfel learned his trade.

Anne Ozorio

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Gergiev’s Das Rheingold

Equal parts self-perpetuating mythology, convention-defying musical thesis, and expression of an unfettered ego, the Ring forever changed the landscape of opera: whether composers of subsequent generations embraced or discarded the examples of Wagner’s monumental tetralogy, it is undeniable that their works could not avoid responding to the innovations of Bayreuth.  In this year of honoring Wagner on the occasion of the bicentennial of his birth, his influence is more omnipresent than ever, both in the world’s opera houses and concert halls and in new releases by record labels large and small.  This recording of Das Rheingold is the second installment in the complete Mariinsky Ring conducted by Valery Gergiev, and it upholds the high standards of performance values and state-of-the-art recording technology set in the previously-released recording of Die Walküre.  Despite the presence of German singers in two of the most critical rôles in the opera, this Rheingold also continues the welcome exploration of Wagner interpretation and performance traditions beyond Bayreuth and established centers of Wagnerian history.  The aftershocks of the Ring were felt strongly in Russia: elements of Wagner’s innovations invaded the scores of Russian composers, and Russia’s most celebrated composer of the 19th Century, Tchaikovsky, was of course present for the first complete performance of the Ring at Bayreuth in 1876.  It was only after the fall of the Iron Curtain that the work of Russian singers in Wagner’s operas started to achieve recognition outside of Soviet theatres, however.  For instance, Evgeny Nikitin, who sings Fasolt in this performance of Das Rheingold, has sung the same part, as well as Pogner in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Klingsor in the controversial new production of Parsifal by François Girard, at the Metropolitan Opera.  Its other artistic merits notwithstanding, this Mariinsky recording preserves the singing of some of Russia’s best Wagnerians and, with its richly-balanced sonics, gives Wagner’s score an opportunity to fully reveal its wonders via one of the world’s great orchestras.

The players of the Mariinsky Orchestra indeed confirm their ensemble’s competitiveness with the best orchestras in the world, especially among those that regularly perform the music of Wagner, playing with attention to detail that proves especially useful in clearly delineating statements of Leitmotivs even when these are woven deeply into the musical fabric.  The strings play with full-bodied tone and wonderfully reliable intonation, and the playing of the brass section is often appropriately ferocious.  More so in Rheingold than in their performance of Walküre, orchestral sonorities are adapted to the rapidly-changing drama: the brutal sound world of the Nibelungen is adroitly contrasted with the more nuanced environs of the gods, and the primordial discord from which the Rhinemaidens emerge to introduce the Leitmotiv that will serve them throughout the Ring is viscerally conveyed.  Perhaps owing to the circumstances of having recorded the opera during concert performances, some of Wagner’s most emblematic ‘special effects’ here are not quite special.  The thunder summoned by Donner is decidedly earthbound, and the anvils at which the Nibelung dwarves work sound more like wind chimes, played with splendid rhythmic vitality though they are.  Nonetheless, the Orchestra’s playing is never less than excellent and, in many passages, rises to genuine greatness.

Perhaps no other conductor in the storied history of music in Russia has made the music of Wagner his own, both in Russia and abroad, more than Valery Gergiev has done.  His conducting of this performance of Das Rheingold exposes both the strengths and the weaknesses of Maestro Gergiev’s approach to conducting Wagner.  He has a natural ear for orchestral colors, and his direction of the purely instrumental episodes in Das Rheingold is superb.  The opera’s first pages, in which Wagner memorably captured the undulations of the Rhine in unsettled music, are shaped by Maestro Gergiev with expert command of the strange, sinister sonorities.  When the Rhinemaidens ascend from the depths, reservations about Maestro Gergiev’s pacing of the performance start to rise to the surface, as well.  The irony of the Rhinemaidens’ taunting of Alberich is present, but the playfulness of the scene is absent.  As the performance progresses, moments of fantastic dramatic vibrancy alternate with passages that hang fire.  Wotan’s and Loge’s descent to Nibelheim is depicted with power, but the preceding scene in which the giants Fafner and Fasolt take Freia hostage goes for little.  Alberich’s curse lacks focus, and though the orchestral playing is sublime the famous Entry of the gods into Valhalla does not have the sense of wonder that it can—and should—possess.  Maestro Gergiev is a musician of undoubted accomplishment, and there are stretches of this performance of Das Rheingold that suggest that he can be a memorably eloquent Wagnerian.  Das Rheingold is the briefest of the Ring operas, however, and the one in which scenes progress with almost cinematic legerity.  Though the duration of this performance suggests that Maestro Gergiev’s pacing is not dissimilar from the speeds at which some of the most illustrious Wagnerians of the 20th Century conducted Das Rheingold, there is a lack of momentum that robs the performance of dramatic impetus.  Maestro Gergiev provides moments of exhilarating theatricality, but the performance as a whole is marred by patches of dullness.

Das Rheingold begins and ends with songs of the Rhinemaidens.  All three Rhinemaidens in this performance—soprano Zhanna Dombrovskaya as Woglinde, soprano Irina Vasilieva as Wellgunde, and mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Sergeeva as Floßhilde, all of whom were also heard as Valkyries in the Mariinsky Walküre—sing well, with Ms. Dombrovskaya particularly impressing with her voicing of Woglinde’s high lines.  The ladies do not prove quite so euphonious in trio as they are individually, but their voices are admirably secure.

The giants Fafner and Fasolt are sung with almost demonic relish by basses Mikhail Petrenko and Evgeny Nikitin.  Mr. Petrenko, Hunding at the Metropolitan Opera in 2008 and in the Mariinsky recording of Die Walküre, here sings Fafner, the dark timbre of his voice again proving apt for his part.  So nasty are the utterances of Mr. Petrenko’s Fafner that it is surprising neither that he murders his own brother in a jealous quarrel nor that he returns in Siegfried as a dragon: in Rheingold, he is already repulsively reptilian.  Mr. Nikitin’s Fasolt is also a truly off-putting creation, the singer’s singular timbre filling Fasolt’s vocal lines with chilling effectiveness.  The maddening arrogance with which both singers enact their characters’ interactions with their colleagues is enjoyably disturbing: that one brother should ultimately slay the other seems inevitable.  Both gentlemen indulge in rather more snarling than is necessary to convey the sentiments of their parts, but their singing is firm and forceful.

Fricka’s trio of siblings is strongly cast.  Singing Freia with a clear, bright voice, soprano Viktoria Yastrebova gives an expressive performance.  Her Freia is appropriately unnerved by her abduction, and her pleas for Wotan’s assistance are voiced with suitable ardor.  Ms. Yastrebova’s voice is occasionally strident when pressure is applied at the top of the range, but Freia’s dramatic situation is hardly conducive to smooth singing.  Under siege by satyrs of the likes of Mr. Petrenko’s Fafner and Mr. Nikitin’s Fasolt, Freia’s terror is justified.  It might be said that her brothers are not the most intellectually advanced residents of Valhalla, but they can be interesting when sung by attentive singers.  Tenor Sergei Semishkur makes Froh a kindly presence whose concern for his sister is touching: words of comfort seem to come more naturally to him than threats, but there are flashes of masculine pride in his performance.  Vocally, Mr. Semishkur has a narrow timbre and must occasionally push the voice in order to be heard.  Donner is sung by baritone Alexei Markov, whose noble tone is often lovely.  Like Mr. Semishkur, Mr. Markov is sometimes compelled to force his voice in order to make his intended effects, but he, too, proves convincing in his defense of Freia and summons the best of his vocal resources for a ringing account of Donner’s raising of the storm.

Tenor Andrei Popov, acclaimed in stratospheric tenore contraltino parts in Russian operas like the Astrologer in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Golden Cockerel, is an animated, audibly disgruntled Mime: it is obvious in Mr. Popov’s singing that the seeds of Mime’s hatred for Alberich take root in Das Rheingold.  Mr. Popov’s performances relies overmuch on Sprechstimme, but the voice—when deployed without distortion—is an instrument of quality.  The repertory of German tenor Stephan Rügamer includes both lyric rôles and parts traditionally associated with larger voices.  As Loge in this performance, Mr. Rügamer achieves with projection what several of his colleagues accomplish with effort.  Expectedly, Mr. Rügamer’s diction is excellent, and his performance confirms the great extent to which an effective performance of Loge relies upon a sharp tongue.  Mr. Rügamer’s Loge rides the crests of Wagner’s orchestra impressively, putting across every word with spontaneity and the appearance of legitimate cleverness.  Mr. Rügamer’s Loge is a figure who knows too much in a world in which knowledge is dangerous.  Singing suggestively but with dignity, it is apparent that from the entrance to Valhalla Mr. Rügamer’s Loge already sees the smoke of Siegfried’s funeral pyre rising on the horizon.

Mezzo-soprano Zlata Bulycheva, whose repertory at the Mariinsky contains an array of the most demanding rôles in the mezzo-soprano canon, is a dark-voiced Erda, her warnings to Wotan delivered with unerring accuracy of intonation.  The part’s lowest notes challenge Ms. Bulycheva, but the upper extension of the rôle, so troubling to many singers, is delivered with energy and command.  There is a slight grittiness in Ms. Bulycheva’s timbre that contributes to the credibility of her portrayal of the primeval earth goddess.

The most indelible portrayals of Alberich are those that inspire sympathy for the character’s hardships despite his savagery and inhumanity.  It can be argued that all of his viciousness is born of an unfulfilled desire for acceptance.  In his first encounter with the Rhinemaidens in Das Rheingold, his naïveté in failing to comprehend that any creatures could be so unkind as to mock him can be quite piteous, causing his devolution into sociopathic behavior to be all the more shocking.  Unfortunately, there is little to pity in the Alberich of baritone Nikolai Putilin.  Raging at the world from his first entrance, this is an Alberich who seems unhesitatingly resolved to take the Rhinemaidens by force were they not capable of eluding his grasp.  His glee in torturing Mime whilst rendered invisible by the Tarnhelm borders on sadism, and his stupidity and impetuosity when confronted by Wotan and Loge deprive the character of any redeeming qualities.  This is a defensible interpretation of the part, but it lessens the emotional impact of the individual-versus-society subtext that is central to the Ring.  Vocally, Mr. Putilin is inclined to bark his lines, especially in heated exchanges, but he shows himself capable of singing handsomely and phrasing intelligently: were these qualities in greater supply, his performance could be more completely enjoyed.

Ekaterina Gubanova complements her performance of the Walküre Fricka with this depiction of the same character in Das Rheingold.  In Walküre, she was already ‘inside’ the rôle, her vocal bearing regal but womanly.  In Rheingold, where the subject of Fricka’s indignation is her husband’s self-serving use of her sister as a bargaining chip in his quest for omnipotence, Ms. Gubanova is even more palpably engaged as a singer and an artist.  When this Fricka pleads with Wotan for justice for Freia, it is as an exceptionally insightful woman who loves her husband but is awakening to the depths of treachery of which he is capable.  One of the most critical catalysts of the drama in the Ring is the fact that, in both Rheingold and Walküre, Fricka has the upper hand, wielding moral authority over Wotan.  Few singers have conveyed this more perceptively than Ms. Gubanova, and her transformation from devoted spouse to protector of the values upon which her husband treads is perhaps the single most engrossing aspect of this performance.  The Fricka who enters Valhalla at the end of Rheingold in this performance is already the justifiably implacable woman whose pursuit of moral rectitude changes the course of the Ring in Act Two of Walküre.  Musically, Ms. Gubanova brings to her performance a tightly-constructed, warmly feminine voice with reserves of power for climaxes.  She is unbothered by troubles at either end of her range, her lower register focused and well-supported and her top notes hurled out fearlessly.  Fricka is a difficult to rôle to bring off without veering into caricature: Ms. Gubanova succeeds where many fine singers have failed.

Having fallen victim to some of the rôle’s dramatic and vocal pitfalls in the Mariinsky Walküre, René Pape here finds the Rheingold Wotan a more congenial assignment.  The basic timbre remains quite beautiful, but in Rheingold Mr. Pape is spared the more arduous ascents into the upper register that Wotan faces in Walküre.  In this performance, Mr. Pape’s Wotan is a subtle figure, and the nobility of his singing is unchanged.  In a sense, Mr. Pape’s Wotan seems a sheltered character, his response to Alberich’s depravity and curse almost like the horror of an idealistic man encountering the mean vagaries of reality for the first time.  There is in this Wotan’s obsession with the ring more of a sense of wounded pride than of lust for power.  Still, there is a bluntness in Mr. Pape’s delivery that diminishes the cumulative force of his performance.  There is little is his singing to differentiate Wotan’s attitudes in scenes with Alberich and Loge from his questioning of Erda or exchanges with Fricka: the largesse of the part is there, but the angst and fatalism have not yet entered into Mr. Pape’s concept of Wotan.  Not surprisingly, his voicing of the greeting to Valhalla is expertly phrased and sustained with tremendous breath control, and the sheer impact of the sound of the voice cannot be denied.  Not least because he is a bass in what is unquestionably a bass-baritone rôle, Wotan will never be an easy sing for Mr. Pape, but when he manages to ally a more complete identification with the dramatic profile of the part with his mahogany-hued singing of the music he will be an extraordinary Wotan.

Das Rheingold is the foundation upon which the Ring is built, and there is considerable logic evident in the fact that Wagner conceived Rheingold after Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung had taken shape.  For all that it serves as an introduction to the events that shape the Ring in the next three operas, Rheingold is a spellbinding opera in its own right; one with musical and dramatic elements that create their own unique microcosm, both inextricably linked to what transpires in the later operas and fully functional without the context of the full Ring.  Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky forces here offer a flawed but earnest performance of this endlessly alluring opera.  With a perpetuation of the lofty standards of singing and orchestral playing almost certain, it will be interesting to hear how the famously passionate Maestro Gergiev responds to the more complicated architectures of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung.

Joseph Newsome

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Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883): Das Rheingold: R. Pape (Wotan), A. Markov (Donner), S. Semishkur (Froh), S. Rügamer (Loge), E. Gubanova (Fricka), V. Yastrebova (Freia), Z. Bulycheva (Erda), N. Putilin (Alberich), A. Popov (Mime), E. Nikitin (Fasolt), M. Petrenko (Fafner), Z. Dombrovskaya (Woglinde), I. Vasilieva (Wellgunde), E. Sergeeva (Floßhilde); Mariinsky Orchestra; Valery Gergiev [Recorded in conjunction with concert performances in the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, Russia, on 7 - 10 June 2010, 17 - 18 February and 10 April 2012; Mariinsky MAR0526; 2SACD, 147:42; Available on Amazon and iTunes.

This review first appeared at Voix des Arts. It is reprinted with permission of the author.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Marinsky_526.gif image_description=Marinsky 526 product=yes product_title=Richard Wagner: Das Rheingold product_by=A review by Joseph Newsome product_id=Marinsky 526 [2CDs] price=$35.49 product_url=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=12732&name_role1=1&comp_id=11175&genre=33&bcorder=195&name_id=56888&name_role=3

Herheim in Salzburg: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Not if they know and care about the opera or about Wagner. Herheim focuses on Hans Sachs himself, as individual and artist, not the “public” displays of civic pride. This Meistersinger is exceptionally werktreue and perceptive. It engages with Wagner’s ideas on creativity and the purpose of art. Herheim deals with the true meaning of “die heil’ge deutsche Kunst” and with Wagner in the context of German tradition.

The Overture unfolds showing Sachs (Michael Volle) in nightcap and gown, surrounded by relics of his long dead family. Herheim shows us Sachs the man who was once happy with a wife and children. Perhaps that’s why he acts as father figure to others. But it also shows how “Wahn, Wahn, überall Wahn” grows from deep emotional scars. Life is short, and unfair. It shouldn’t be wasted on things that don’t really count. There’s nothing silly about seeing Sachs playing with toys. This gives depth to Sachs’s personality, and also connects to the idea that creativity is instinctive. References to youth and renewal run throughout the opera. The congregation in church are witnessing a baptism. Herheim’s toys remind us to play with our imagination. Beckmesser thinks art comes from rigidly following rules. Sachs doesn’t. Do we approach Herheim’s Meistersinger as Beckmessers or as Sachs?

Throughout the opera, there are references to craftmanship and the process of creation. “Schuhmacherei und Poeterei”, as David says. Understanding Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as a work about art and the making of art can’t surely be too difficult a concept to grasp. So there’s no need to sneer when the set turns into a giant desk. So the characters in the narrative spring to life on Sachs’s workstation. The Meistersingers make much fuss about proper seating. Herheim has them sit on upturned giant thimbles, which are later revealed as empty buckets. When Walther (Marcus Werba) sings his first “Fanget an!”, the Meistersingers collapse like skittles. It’s funny but also very apt.

By defining the concept of art as imagination, Herheim is able to release much more esoteric levels. The imagery of sleep is important, too. By day, Sachs is busy making shoes. At night he’s alone. Sleep releases the unconscious, creative mind. Sachs solves the dilemmas in his art as a craftsman, just as he fixes shoes so they function properly. In Act Two, the desk is shrouded in darkness. We catch a brief glimpse of the lilac tree through Sach’s window, but we don’t need to see it again on the desktop “stage”. Its fragrance perfumes the music. Johannistag coincides with Mid Summer Night’s Eve, the shortest night in the year when magical things can happen. When the townsfolk awake, they’re literally surrounded by “Gespenstern und Spuk”. Fairy tales, as Bruno Bettlelheim said, mask subconcious fears under a guise of comic figures. Ghosts and spooks would be hard to depict in a more literal staging. We laugh, but take the point. There’s even a group of trolls! Herheim’s wry sense of humour is deliciously wicked.

These images also bring together several periods of German culture. Herheim’s costumes suggest the Early Romantic period, when German intellectuals like the Brothers Grimm, Brentano and von Arnim and Gottfried Herder were rediscovering premodern tradition. Without the Romantics, we might not have the modern world with its interest in the darker side of life, and in creative freedom. Nor would we have Richard Wagner. He knew very well what he was doing when he chose Sachs for his subject, since Sachs lived robustly in the Reformation, another important flowering period of German culture and identity. At Glyndebourne in 2011, David McVicar’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (review here) was set in the period of Wagner’s youth but to little effect. It romanticized without connecting to the savage spirit of the Romantiker.There’s a huge difference.

Herheim’s staging is much more literate, and intelligently thought through. The Romantiker fascination with Nature was often seen through the prism of the drawing room, so Herheim’s indoor setting is wittily ironic.Things seen through the imagination are often hyper real. When David sings of “der rote, blau’ und grüne Ton” we see wild flowers held aloft. The final scene on the banks of the Pegnitz isn’t shown literally. But there’s a train! This isn’t director whimsy. Without railways, industrialization and the rise of the middle class, modern Europe wouldn’t have developed. Trains represent change, just as aristocratic Walther represents change when he joins the good folk of Nuremberg.

The townsfolk are draped in flowers: if these were real their scent would fill the hall. The women wear white aprons, so dazzlingly bright they light the stage. Herheim’s having a merry little dig at the idea that costumes “make” an opera. Although there’s a lot of detail to reward repeated viewings, the visuals aren’t there for their own sake but to intensify the fundamental drama in the music. The critical moments, like the quintet and the Prize Song are shown with simple clarity. Those who hate modern productions on principle often claim that directors should “respect the work”. But that argument can be turned completely on its head. A really good opera is strong enough to withstand multiple interpretations, and perceptive interpretations like Herheim’s show us how much there is yet to discover. “Verachtet mir die Meister nicht, und ehrt mir ihre Kunst!”.

Michael Volle’s Hans Sachs is excellent. It helps that he looks like the historic Sachs, and that he himself grew up in the Lutheran tradition. Volle gives the character grit and gravity, mixed with a genuinely warm humanity. Volle’s diction highlights the couplets and phrasings so typical of German tradition. When he sings “ehrt eure deutschen Meister! Dann bannt ihr gute Geister” he infuses the words with positive feelings, banishing memories of wartime Bayreuth.

Markus Werba’s Sixtus Beckmesser quivered with nervous energy. He sings with more colour and charm than we’d expect from Beckmesser, but that enhances his portrayal. Beckmesser’s weak rather than evil. He wouldn’t be a Meistersinger in the first place if he was incomptent. He just doesn’t get it, that true art comes from being original. Werba makes the part sympathetic. This Beckmesser is deluded rather than a troll. Peter Sonn’s David is delivered with strength and conviction. This David is no ingénu, and justifies his master’s faith in him. Herheim’s blocking of ensemble also shows how the apprentices connect to David.

Rather less rewarding were Roberto Saccà’s Walther and Anna Gabler’s Eva. Saccà’s voice finally did him justice in the Prize Song but it was a little late. As for the orchestra ? What was Daniele Gatti doing? The pace kept slackening. Sachs is a cobbler, not a carpenter. Wooden playing like this just doesn’t work. When Herheim’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg transfers to the Met, with a different cast and conductor, it should be a success.

Anne Ozorio

Click here for cast and production details. Broadcast on Arte TV

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Meistersinger_14_Salzburg20.gif
image_description=Roberto Saccà (Walther Von Stolzing), Anna Gabler (Eva), Michael Volle (Hans Sachs), Monika Bohinec (Magdalena), Peter Sonn (David) [Photo © Salzburger Festspiele / Forster]

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product_title=Richard Wagner : Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
product_by=A review by Anne Ozorio
product_id=Above: Roberto Saccà (Walther Von Stolzing), Anna Gabler (Eva), Michael Volle (Hans Sachs), Monika Bohinec (Magdalena), Peter Sonn (David) [Photo © Salzburger Festspiele / Forster]