January 31, 2014
Peter Grimes, ENO
However, this revival of David Alden’s exceptional 2009 production of Peter Grimes at ENO makes one wonder if, in future, tenors will be similarly measured against Stuart Skelton’s heart-rending Peter Grimes, for the Australian tenor here re-visits a role which in recent years he has increasingly made his own.
The question has so often been: visionary dreamer or brutal realist? Skelton’s Peter Grimes is both. He makes the ruthless fisherman’s dreams seem rational and attainable, and yet, simultaneously, poignantly deluded, forever to remain tauntingly out of reach. This Grimes is a divided man: ruthless and defiant, and tragically vulnerable. Determined to challenge and transcend the monstrous hypocrisy of the ludicrous but venomous inhabitants of The Borough, he remains pitifully subject to their warped morality and materialism. Skelton’s Grimes has a poignant humanity which is magnified by the ugly depravity of the Borough’s cast of grotesques.
Alden updates George Crabbe’s eighteenth-century milieu to the time of the opera’s composition — Britten made the first sketches of the opera aboard the Axel Johnson liner as he headed back to Britain in 1942, having spent three years in America, to the disapproval of many in his homeland. And, as the back wall tilts to spew the parade of outlandish odd-balls into the court-room, one is reminded of other, more recent oppressive, maniacal regimes.
A severe, sharply angled barn (set design by Paul Steinberg) serves as court room, workplace and public house, its sloping walls swivelling to transform into shore-side promenade, storm-struck exterior and Grimes’s cliff-top hut.
Rebecca de Pont Daves as Auntie, Mary Bevan as Second Niece, Elza ven den Heever as Ellen Orford and Rhian Lois as First Niece
Despite the nautical buoy which looms at the right of the stage, some might lament the absence a tangible sea — the providential force in the lives of the community, both provider and destroyer. However, Adam Silverman’s terrific lighting renders the shimmers and storms of the ocean ever-present; at times the sheen of sun on water makes the back-stage gleam, the boundaries between land and ocean dangerously ambiguous. As the sea tempest approaches the coast, the radiance which filters through the tall windows of the wharf, as the day’s catch is cleaned and gutted, assumes first a fragile hint of grey and then a lowering dark intensity, revealing the vulnerability of those whose lives depend upon the whims of an indifferent natural world. When the lightning eventually releases its electric might, there is a sense of both welcome release and defenceless exposure.
Silverman’s illuminating glare is like a beam of truth. There is no hiding the ugly bruise which stains the apprentice’s shoulder, or the community’s vicious sadism. Particularly effective are the dark, towering silhouettes which hover in the background, shadows which suggest other lives and other selves — paths which might be taken but which remain forever out of reach. Thus, as Ellen urges Grimes’s young apprentice to enjoy the warm Sunday morning sunshine, they are taunted by both the Borough’s hypocritical hymn-singing and their own looming profiles. Nowhere is this more affecting that in Grimes’s Act 2 ‘mad scene’, where Skelton’s hulking contour forms multiple distant yet threatening doppelgängers, a symbol of his fractured self, taunting the disintegrating fisherman with past deeds and abandoned hopes. When Skelton shuffles off at the close, to take his boat on one last, fatal mission, one feels that he is escaping from himself as much as fleeing from the merciless Borough posse.
Skelton’s Grimes combines both gentleness and aggression, and he seems uneasy with either,; he is comfortable only when at work, fishing net in hand, at peace only when cradled by the ocean’s embrace. At the end of the Prologue duet, sung tenderly and with absolute technical assurance by Skelton and Elza Van den Heever (as Ellen Orford), the fisherman reaches out to take Ellen’s hand, before brusquely shoving her aside, unable to cast off his self-conscious pride, accept her affection and expose himself to love’s uncertainties.
Emotionally illiterate, this Grimes is similarly unaware of his physical might. Skelton welcomes the new apprentice who will help him ‘fish the sea dry’ and earn sufficient wealth to conquer the Borough’s scorn; but as he hoists the boy aloft, whirling him back to his hut, it is clear that he does not appreciate the danger that his muscular power and verbal suppression pose to the child. The apprentice — whose silent suffering is sensitively played by Timothy Kirrage — cowers in the bare hut in soundless misery and terror; but, his cliff-top fall is unequivocally an accident. As the rope which supports the boy snakes through Grimes’s fingers, his distress is palpable and it is concern, as well as the Borough’s hunting cries, that sends him scurrying desperately after the boy. When the mob arrive they find an empty shack and leave. But then, a stark, eerie vertical light illumines the cliff down which the boy has tumbled, at the bottom of which Grimes hunches, cradling the dead child in his arms. It is a heart-breaking moment. The villagers have sneered at Grimes — ‘call that a home’ — at end of Act 1; but, it is only home he knows and can offer.
Felicity Palmer as Mrs Sedley
Skelton squeezes every emotion from Britten’s score. ‘What harbour shelters peace?’ is both yearning and despairing, as Grimes’s hopes turn to angry desolation. At the conclusion of Act 1, he furiously ropes himself to the wall to confront the coming maelstrom. Like Lear, out-facing the raging winds and drenching downpour, Grimes both defies and invites the storm. Grimes and the storm are as one; as Balstrode says, ‘This storm is useful, you can speak your mind … There is grandeur in a gale of wind to free confession, set a conscience free’.
Yet, when Grimes attempts to share his vision with those sheltering in Auntie’s tavern, he is met with incredulity, confusion and disdain. Skelton’s voice was almost inaudible at the start of ‘Great Bear and Pleiades’, but the fragility possessed great presence, each repeated E gaining in intensity and assuming a new hue, before fading with the falling melody into poignant stillness — the arc of the phrases like the eternal ebb and flow of the waves, or the transient glimmer of a distant star. Out-voiced by the pub-goers’ shanty, ‘Old Joe has gone fishing’, Skelton lumbers despairingly among the raucous revellers, a lone soul among the massed ranks of oppression and repression.
But, this is no one-man show; the cast is uniformly strong. While some of the principals are returning to re-visit their roles from 2009, two newcomers to the production play Grimes’s confidantes, Ellen Orford and Balstrode. Iain Paterson’s Balstrode is an imposing stage presence. Commanding of voice, and with characteristically excellent diction, Paterson is by turns a noble, authoritative figure among the Borough, then a weary sea-dog, limping stoically, seemingly worn down by Grimes’s own disaffection. Balstrode is not spared Grimes’s aggression, and Paterson uses his dark-toned, smooth bass-baritone to convey the old sailor’s shock and disappointment.
South African Elza van den Heever is superb as Ellen, her glowing mezzo soprano expressing both compassion and resigned realism. Van den Heever began tenderly, but later demonstrated considerable dramatic power and emotional sincerity. The meditative trio which closes Act 2 Scene 1, for Ellen, Auntie and the two Nieces, was wonderfully moving, a moment of repose and respite from the braying calls of the Borough, as the villagers march out, seeking Grimes, to the vicious beat of Hobson’s drum.
Rebecca de Pont Davies was a charismatic Auntie, mischievously swapping pin-striped suit for a floor-length sabre, the warmth of her middle register charming pub-goers and audience alike. As her Nieces, ENO Harewood Artists Rhian Lois and Mary Bevan brought a sparkling vocal brightness to their rather dark portrayal with its lingering suggestions of child abuse and exploitation.
Leigh Melrose reprised his role as Ned Keene, a pill-pushing, mustard-suited spiv, singing with compelling clarity; Matthew Best returned to the role of Swallow, his forceful pronouncements in the opening court scene drawing us immediately into the conflict. Felicity Palmer conveyed both the preposterousness and pathos of Mrs Sedley, while the Bob Boles of Michael Colvin was convincingly and absurdly sanctimonious.
Matthew Best as Swallow, Rhian Lois as First Niece and Leigh Melrose as Ned Keene
The ENO chorus was on excellent form too; after a slightly untidy start in the Prologue, the precision of the ensemble was impressive in the subsequent set-pieces, and the power of their massed voices was chillingly resonant in the climactic posse scene.
Guiding all with characteristic assurance and powerful dramatic drive, conductor Edward Gardner yet again demonstrated an innate appreciation of Britten’s musico-dramatic structure and idiom. In the first of the instrumental interludes, the crystalline etching of flute, clarinet, violins, violas and harp alternated with majestic, dissonant surges from the timpani and brass; in the storm interlude the profound hammering of timpani and pizzicato double bass exploded beneath the chromatic whirling above.
My only doubt about Gardner’s authoritative reading concerns some of the tempi, which were often daringly slow, especially in the final act. The pauses between the posse’s hysterical cries, ‘Peter Grimes!’, were so extended that there was a risk of the tension breaking. Similarly, Skelton’s final monologue was audaciously drawn out; certainly, Grimes’s mental and physical dissolution was conveyed, but perhaps some of his self-consuming bitterness and fury was lost.
And, I’m not sure that the ending captures entirely the right note. In the last scene of the opera, Britten instructs that the women of the Borough should carry bundles of fishing nets down to the shore, as they sing of ‘the cold beginning of another day’. The implication is that, as Swallow spies ‘a boat, sinking out at sea’, the fisher-folk refuse to recognise their role in the tragedy that has ensued, and remain indifferent to Grimes’s anguish and death, unconcernedly resuming the routines of daily life. However, Alden’s Borough do not refuse to acknowledge the terrible events they have instigated; rather, they face the audience, unmoving, slowly declaiming the final scalic arcs, as if Grimes’s death has drained them of their own life-force.
Alden’s Borough is suffocating and stultifying; the director offers no open vistas to dilute the poison of hypocritical self-righteousness which poisons its inhabitants, just tantalising glimpses of the freedom and expanse of the sea which will ultimately salve and bless Grimes. Although the transvestism and sexual perversities of the Moot Hall party are somewhat anachronistic, they are a powerful reminder of the self-destructive force of perverted moralising. And, of the fragile defences of those who resist, who dare to be different, dare to dream.
Claire Seymour
Cast and production information:
Peter Grimes, Stuart Skelton; Ellen Orford, Elza van den Heever, Captain Balstrode, Iain Paterson; Auntie, Rebecca de Pont Davies; First niece, Rhian Lois; Second niece, Mary Bevan; Bob Boles, Michael Colvin; Swallow, Matthew Best; Mrs Sedley, Felicity Palmer; Reverend Horace Adams, Timothy Robinson; Ned Keene, Leigh Melrose; Hobson, Matthew Trevino; Apprentice, Timothy Kirrage; Doctor Crabbe, Ben Craze; Conductor, Edward Gardner; Director, David Alden; Assistant Director, Ian Rutherford; Set Designer, Paul Steinberg; Costume Director, Brigitte Reifenstuel; Movement Director, Maxine Braham; Lighting Designer, Adam Silverman; Orchestra and Chorus of English National Opera. English National Opera, London Coliseum, Wednesday 29th January 2014.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/ENO%20Peter%20Grimes%202014%2C%20Elza%20van%20den%20Heever%2C%20Stuart%20Skelton%20%28c%29%20Robert%20Workman.png image_description=Elza van den Heever as Ellen Orford and Stuart Skelton as Peter Grimes [Photo by Robert Workman courtesy of English National Opera] product=yes product_title=Peter Grimes, ENO product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Elza van den Heever as Ellen Orford and Stuart Skelton as Peter GrimesPhotos by Robert Workman courtesy of English National Opera
January 30, 2014
Puccini’s La bohème at Arizona Opera
Giacomo Puccini and Ruggiero Leoncavallo both wrote operas based on Henri Murger’s Scènes de la Vie de Bohème, but their operas are very different. Not only does each tell different parts of Murger’s wide ranging Scènes, Puccini and his librettists, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, changed much of the story. For one thing, they made Mimì more faithful to Rodolfo, and thus much more acceptable to a bourgeois audience. The distribution of voices is also quite different. In the Puccini Mimì and Musetta are sopranos; Rodolfo is a tenor and Marcello a baritone. In the Leoncavallo, Mimì is a soprano, Musetta a mezzo, Rodolfo a baritone, and Marcello a tenor.
The Puccini opera starts with the men in their garret, but Leoncavallo puts the whole group in the Café Momus where they attempt to “dine and dash” because they have no money. His Act II opens on the repossession of Musetta’s property because her ex-lover is refusing to pay her debts. By Act III, Musetta, who had again taken up with Marcello, is leaving him because she is tired of poverty. She knows that Mimì is living with a nobleman and she hopes to do that too. Mimì returns to Rodolfo in the final act, but she is very ill. She dies as the bells chime for Christmas day. Although it might be fun to see the Leoncavallo opera someday, it is easy to see why Puccini’s story, even without his exquisite music, makes it the more popular work.
On January 25, 2014, Arizona Opera presented Candace Evans's production of Puccini’s La bohème with exciting young artists Zach Borichevsky and Corinne Winters as a romantic Rodolfo and his charming but not-so-innocent Mimì. Evans gave us a realistic interpretation of the libretto staged on sets by Peter Dean Beck. The first and fourth acts took place in a frigid attic room that radiated its cold out into the audience. A dual level set provided adequate space for the joyous outdoor Christmas Eve scene that formed the opera’s second act. It was a perfect background for Andrea Shokery’s grand entrance as the flirtatious Musetta. She sang her coquettish waltz song with dulcet tones, all the time trying to rekindle the interest her old lover, Marcello. When her shoe began to pinch her foot, she asked her escort, Alcindoro, to help her remove it. As he pulled off the shoe she pulled up her several skirts, to his embarrassment and the amusement of the audience.
As Marcello, baritone Daniel Teadt still loved her despite her acerbic personality, and he was happy to take her into his arms. Puccini never gave the lovesick Marcello an aria but Teadt had some beautifully lyric moments in Act III. Chris Carr was a gregarious Schaunard and Thomas Hammons made the most of his two character roles, Benoit, the ineffectual landlord, and Alcindoro, the old dandy who gave up a great deal of dignity to have a beautiful young woman on his arm. Young artist program member Calvin Griffin acquitted himself well as the intellectual Colline. Together, these artists evoked great depth of emotion with their ability to color their tones and act with their voices. Although the story of this opera is sad, Henri Venanzi’s choristers made the second act a pleasant interlude in Mimì’s inevitable decline. At the end, Rodolfo was the last to realize she has died, but when he finally did it was heartbreaking. Joel Revzen led the Arizona Opera Orchestra in a lucid reading of the score that brought out to poignancy of the story. This was a fine performance of the Puccini masterwork and the exquisite playing of the orchestra was a large part of it.
Maria Nockin
Cast and production information:
Rodolfo, Zach Borichevsky; Mimì. Corinne Winters; Musetta, Andrea Shokery; Marcello, Daniel Teadt; Collie, Calvin Griffin; Schaunard, Chris Carr; Benoit/Alcindoro, Thomas Hammons; Parpignol, Dennis Tamblyn; Conductor, Joel Revzen; Director Candace Evans; Chorus Master, Henri Venanzi; Scenic Designer, Peter Dean Beck; Costumes, A. T, Jones and Sons; Lighting, Douglas Provost.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Boheme%2011.png
image_description=Act II of La bohème [Photo courtesy of Arizona Opera]
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product_id=Above: A scene from Act II of La bohème [Photo courtesy of Arizona Opera]
January 25, 2014
Francesco Bartolomeo Conti: L’Issipile
The dramma per musica was premiered at the Imperial Court Theatre in Vienna during the Carnival of 1732, but was not a great success, and was granted only three performances; perhaps, if the cast of Baroque specialists and instrumentalists presenting the opera at the Wigmore Hall on Wednesday evening had been on duty on 7th February 1732, the story might have been different … for this outstanding and utterly absorbing performance by La Nuova Musica and a stellar set of soloists made for a thrilling musical evening.
Metastasio’s opera seria combines two Classical myths: that of Jason and the Argonauts and the tale of the rebellion by the women of Lemnos. Perhaps the violent nature of the subject — the vengeful slaughter of the men of Lemnos — was off-putting for early-eighteenth-century audiences and the Viennese court.
The action unfolds on the island of Lemnos, in the Aegean Sea. The soldiers of Lemnos have won their battle on the neighbouring island, Thrace, but attracted by the wealth and beauty of their enemy’s women, they have delayed their return home. Eventually their King, Thoas, eager to attend the wedding of his daughter, Issipile, to Giasone (Jason), convinces them to wend their way homeward; but, their irate, vengeful wives have hatched a terrible plot to kill their husbands upon their arrival, using the distractions of the festival of Bacchus to mask their vicious intent. Issipile tries to warn her father; she hides him and tells the other women that he has already been killed. This action, however, causes her to be rejected twice: first, by Jason who condemns this act of patricide, and then by the Lemnos women, when they discover the truth.
Eurynome, the leader of the women, is especially angered, as her son, Learchus, has previously been spurned by Issipile and forced to flee from Lemnos following a failed attempt to abduct her; it is rumoured that in desperation he has killed himself in exile. In fact, he has become a pirate and, hearing of Jason’s return, Learchus travels to Lemnos and hides in the palace, planning a second kidnap attempt. However, Issipile’s goodness wins through in the end: the virtuous are saved, the evil punished, the lovers married and Lemnos restored to peace.
An inconsequential tale, but one which inspired Conti to compose substantial arias of great power and passion, interspersed within lengthy, varied recitatives, many of which are accompagnato. High voices dominate and the six roles form effective pairs, the female roles being particularly strongly characterised.
Soprano Lucy Crowe infused Issipile’s virtuosic arias with both intensity and delicacy — often, paradoxically, simultaneously — capturing both the tenderness of her filial devotion and the ache of marital passion. The long aria which closes the first act exemplified the way that Crowe employed both penetration and sweetness — top Cs floated effortlessly, the vocal acrobatics were effortlessly agile — to portray the self-doubt which tinges the heroine’s virtue; the vocal delights were enhanced by striking variations of tempo, stirring harmonies and inventive motifs from the violins.
Crowe was perfectly complemented by the sentimental warmth of tone of soprano Rebecca Bottone, as Rodope. The lyricism and clarity of Bottone’s recitatives was deeply communicative. The Act 1 aria, in which Issipile’s confidante gives the villainous Learchus a lesson in moral philosophy, combined seriousness of intent with a persuasively seductive, luxurious tone. The sequential interplay between voice and strings, and the beautiful, rich earnestness of the soprano’s lower register in the da capo repeat, was profoundly moving; surely such musical reflections and exhortations would deflect a jealous blackguard from his evil ways…
Learchus is an anti-hero of Iago-like proportions. His intrigues and machinations were superbly rendered by countertenor Flavio Ferri-Benedetti; his relentless evil — conveyed by stunning vocal leaps from crystalline heights to resonant depths — was riveting, while his conceited pouting and strutting, embellished with tightly pulsating trills, entertained. The final scene in which Learchus, mid-way through his assassination-abduction mission, recognises his own erroneousness and imprudence and stabs himself in self-chastising remorse, was gripping. (Ferri-Benedetti is clearly the man to go to if you want to learn about Conti: currently completing a doctoral thesis on Metastasian heroines, the countertenor both prepared the edition of the score and provided the English translation of the libretto which was projected onto the wall of the Wigmore Hall cupola.)
And, what a treat for the audience to have two countertenors of such star quality to beguile them. The devil may have all the best tunes, but Lawrence Zazzo, as Giasone, equalled Ferri-Benedetti in the posing and strutting department. Zazzo’s recitatives were particularly fluent and flexible, and he used elegance and graceful evenness of phrase to convey Giasone’s essential honesty and righteousness.
John Mark Ainsley’s unfailingly beautiful, well-centred tone embodied the dignity and fair-mindedness of Thoas, as well as the sincerity and depth of his love for his daughter. His life may have been in danger, but Thoas never wavered, exuding calm composure and confident nobility throughout. Mark Ainsley encompassed the extraordinarily wide range with ease; the melodic arcs were wonderful spun, underpinned in Thoas’s second aria by dense but delicate contrapuntal lines of the strings, the minor tonality adding to the poignancy.
Diana Montague’s resentful Eurynome equalled Thoas in dramatic stature and musical characterisation; her arias were characterised by excellent diction and vocal refinement combined with rhetorical impact. The fury of her Act 1 aria, emphasised by the agitated accompaniment, gave way to more tragic sensibilities at the start of Act 2, guiding the audience to recognise Eurynome’s misfortune as well as her bitterness.
The fourteen instrumentalists of La Nuova Musica, led from the harpsichord by founder and director David Bates, produced playing of fleetness, vivacity and charm. The Sinfonia epitomised the perfectly synchronised panache of the strings’ Italianate lines, and the striking contrasts of dynamics suggested the surprising twists and turns of the drama to follow. In the complex arias, oboe (Leo Duarte) and bassoon (Rebecca Hammond) added colour to the tutti sections; the more contrapuntal accompaniments were incisively articulated. Conti’s recitative is fast-moving, Metastasio’s lines often shared between characters; Bates unfailingly created forward motion and excitement in these exchanges, which the soloists delivered with naturalness and spontaneity. Sudden harmonic swerves and interruptions were emphasised but never mannered.
Concert performance this may have been, but the drama was transfixing. The three hours whizzed by. One longs for a recording.
Claire Seymour
Cast and production information:
La Nuova Musica. David Bates, director; Lucy Crowe, soprano (Issipile); John Mark Ainsley, tenor (Thoas), Lawrence Zazzo, countertenor (Giasone); Flavio Ferri-Benedetti, countertenor (Learchus); Diana Montague, mezzo-soprano (Eurynome); Rebecca Bottone, soprano (Rodope). Wigmore Hall, London, 22nd January 2014.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/3513.png image_description=Lucy Crowe [Photo © Harmonia Mundi USA Marco Borgreve] product=yes product_title=Francesco Bartolomeo Conti: L’Issipile product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Lucy Crowe [Photo © Harmonia Mundi USA Marco Borgreve]January 24, 2014
Christoph Prégardien, Wigmore Hall
He and Michael Gees gave a recital at the Wigmore Hall, London, which showed how vigorous the Lieder tradition continues to be. Prégardien and Gees created a programme that illuminated the liveliness of the Romantic imagination. Nature spirits abound, and fairy tales and ghostly figures of legend. Lulled into fantasy, one might miss the hints of danger that lurk behind these charming dreamscapes. The Romantics were intrigued by the subconcious long before the language of psychology was coined.
The recital began with one of the most lyrical songs in the whole Lieder repertoire, Carl Loewe's Der Nöck (Op129/2 1857) to a poem by August Kopisch. A Nix, a male water sprite who plays his harp by a wild waterfall. Its waves hang suspended in mid air, the vapours forming a rainbow halo around the Nix. Circular figures in the piano part suggest tumbling waters. Prégardien breathed into the long vowel sounds so they rolled beautifully We could hear what the text means when it refers to a nightingale, silenced in awe. Suddenly the magic is broken when humans draw near. The waves roar, the trees stand tall, and the nightingale flees, until it's safe for the Nöck to reveal himself again. Prégardien and Gees paired Loewe's song with Franz Schubert.s Der Zwerg (D771, 1822) to a poem by Matthäus von Collin. A queen and a dwarf are alone on a boat on a lake. Love, murder and possible suicide haunt the idyll. The Id is released, violently, in a blissful setting.
Franz Liszt's Es war ein König in Thule> (S278/2 1856) sets a poem from Goethe's Faust. Schubert's setting is more folkloric, reflecting the innocence of Gretchen who sings in the saga. Liszt's setting is more elaborate. Lovely, falling diminuendos describe the way the King drinks one last time from his chalice, before throwing it "hinunter in die Flut". Perhaps the queen who gave him the chalice was herself a nature spirit who lived beneath the lake? Prégardien intoned the line "Trank nie einen Tropfen mehr" solemnly : the King has died.
Prégardien has championed the songs of Franz Lachner (1803-1890), who knew Schubert, Loewe, Schumann and Wagner, and worked in court circles in Munich, where he knew only too well what the Romantic imagination could do to real kings like Ludwig II. Lachner's Die Meerfrau was written in Vienna, comes from early in his career and sets a poem by Heinrich Heine. A water spirit appears and drags a mortal to a watery grave. The song comes from Lachner's magnum opus, Sängerfahrt op 33 (1831) where the are numerous songs on similar themes of supernatural seduction and death. Ironically, Lachner wrote the collection on the eve of his own marriage, dedicating it to his bride. One wonders what modern psychoanalysts might make of that. Prégardien and Gees also performed Lachner's Ein Traumbild from the same collection. Tjhe final strophe is particularly luscious: The cock crows at dawn, and the vampire seductress flees.
Prégardien and Gees also performed Liszt's Die Loreley (S273/2 1854-9), whose long prelude contains the Tristan motif in germ, before it was developed by Wagner. As Richard Stokes writes in his programme notes, it "begins with a leap of a diminished seventh : the voice however begins with a fourth ...and then soars a sixth - identical in harmonic terms with the piano's diminished sevenths". In the context of these feverish succubi, Hugo Wolf's Ritter Kurts Brautfahrt (1888) made an interesting contrast. On the way to his wedding, the Knight meets many temptations that almost throw him off course, including a mystery nursemaid who claims that her charge is his child. Yet it's quite a cheery song with cryptic in-jokes that refer to the music of Wolf's friend, the composer Karl Goldmark, who lent Wolf money, knowing he wouldn't be repaid.
Prégardien's unique timbre and ability to float legato has inspired several composers, most notably Wilhelm Killmayer (b 1927). Killmayer's Hölderlin Lieder were written for Peter Schreier and are, I think, the most exquisite songs of the last half of the last century. Prégardien has recorded them too. Killmayer wrote his Heine Lieder for Prégardien, setting 35 songs by Heine. Killmayer's songs don't imitate Schumann's. They engage with the meaning of Heine's texts in a highly original style, with pauses, and piano resonances that float in the air. The effect resembles speech, yet also inner contemplation. Killmayer revisits the poets of the past, and writes music for them in a new, refreshing way.
In this Wigmore Hall recital, Prégardien and Gees performed Killmayer's Schön-Rohtraut (2004). The poem is Eduard Mörike, from 1838. Rohtraut is King Ringang's daughter. She doesn't spin or sew, but hunts annd fishes like a man. Mörike was inspired by the strange sound of the names, which he found in an ancient book, but the princess could be a reincarnation of the wild and elusive "Peregrina" who might have led Mörike astray. The lines are simple and repetitive, which suits Killmayer's abstract, almost zen-like purity. As Rohtraut leads the boy into the woods, his excitement mounts. Killmayer's delicate, fluttering note sequences suggest a heart beating with nervous anticipation. We feel we are at one with the boy, as enthralled as he.
Michael Gees is himself a composer, and Prégardien has performed and recorded his songs several times. This time, we heard Gees's Der Zauberlehrling (2005) where he sets Goethe's poem about the sorcerer's apprentice who uses magic to wash the floor and conjures up a flood. Gees setting is delightful. Rolling, rumbling figures to suggest the rising waters, and a stiff march to suggest the legions of broomsticks. Syncopated rhythms and zany downbeats, used with great flair. The audience burst into spontaneous applause. Gees and Prégardien were taken by surprise. Gees was thrilled, and beamed with happiness. It's heart warming to see a composer get respect like that.
The recital ended with old favourites like Loewe's Edward (Op1/11818) Tom der Reimer (Op 135a 1860), Schumann's Belsazar (Op57 1840) and Wolf's Der Feuerreiter (1888). Schubert's Erlkönig made a rousing encore, Since Prégardien and Gees had done Loewe's Erlkönig (Op 1/23 1818) earlier in the evening, it was good to reflect on the differences between the two settings. Loewe's real answer to Schubert's Erlkönig is his Herr Oluf, which is another song of prenuptial anxiety, murder and mayhem, . Prégardien and Gees could be doing recitals like this over and over and not exhaust the Lieder repertoire.
Anne Ozorio
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image_description=Christoph Prégardien [Photo © Marco Borggreve]
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January 23, 2014
Parsifal, Chicago
At the same time a group of youths is awakened and encouraged by Gurnemanz in their prayers of devotion. This daily routine of the Grail community is staged with somber dignity before the King Amfortas is carried onstage in the midst of renewed and heightened suffering. The sudden arrival of Kundry, credited with access to magical powers, gives temporary hope as she beings a balsam with the potential of healing. When the King is brought to his bath Gurnemanz narrates the background of all that has transpired in this community of religious and worldly aspirations. Before the title character makes his first appearance the figures and events listed have created an atmosphere at once stagnant and yet somehow prepared for resolution. In the role of Gurnemanz Kwangchul Youn makes his Chicago Lyric debut. Kundry is also a house debut role for Daveda Karanas. Amfortas is sung by Thomas Hampson. Knights and esquires of the Grail are portrayed by John Irvin, Richard Ollarsaba, Angela Mannino, J’nai Bridges, Matthew DiBattista, and Adam Bonanni. Sir Andrew Davis conducts the Lyric Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
The intrusion of Parsifal, sung by Paul Groves in his role debut, was staged with appropriate surprise and confusion generated among members of the Grail community and by the title character himself. Just as the isolated Grail inhabitants recognize Parsifal’s violent deed in killing a wild swan, the protagonist understands his own actions as a natural response to his surroundings (“Gewiß! Im Fluge treffe ich, was fliegt!” [“Of course! I shoot down in flight whatever has wings!”]). The musical and dramatic depiction of these introductory scenes catches the spirit of Wagner’s score and text while yielding an individual approach to the current Lyric Opera production. In his admonishments to the Grail knights and attendants Mr. Youn uses his rich bass voice with remarkable facility. Lines such as “Sorgt für das Bad!” (“Prepare the bath!”) and “Der König stöhnt!” (“The king is groaning!”) are intoned with a sense of authority combined with underlying compassion. Forte pitches were sung as natural extensions of the vocal line and Youn’s intonation showed a deep understanding of the communicated text. At times the pronunciation of unstressed final syllables was overly exact, a tendency which detracted only slightly from an otherwise exemplary Gurnemanz. The fluttering character of Kundry is captured aptly in Ms. Karanas’s approach. She used her secure and extensive vocal range in such lines as, “nur Ruhe will ich … Schlafen! - oh, daß mich keiner wecke! Nein! Nicht schlafen! - Grausen faßt mich!” (“I simply wish to rest … to sleep! Oh, let no one awaken me! But no, not sleep! - Fear takes hold of me!”) in order to emphasize the ambiguity inherent in Kundry’s persona. In the role of Amfortas, as a means to communicating without doubt the King’s suffering Mr. Hampson emoted in an interpretation that should have depended more on a sung line if it were to remain lyrically and dramatically credible. The Parsifal of Mr. Groves is sung with a warm tone suggesting innocence and identification with his mother, important for her descent from the family of the Grail. Decorations performed by Groves on the line “Im Walde und auf wilder Aue waren wir heim” [“We made our home in the forest and on the open meadow”] indicate his identification with kinship and defense of his upbringing until the present. The trio of Gurnemanz, Kundry, and Parsifal interacts with progressing revelations concerning the youth and the atmosphere into which he was destined to find himself. Youn’s character becomes gradually paternal as he recognizes Parsifal’s heritage and attempts to guide him toward the Grail’s true essence. [“nun laß zum frommen Mahle mich dich geleiten” (“now let me lead you toward the sacred repast”)]. After a procession of knights has passed, the King is once again brought in to experience the presence of the Grail at the sacred hour [“hoch steht die Sonne” (“the sun stands now at its height in the sky”)]. In response to Amfortas and his emotional cries of “Wehe!” in this production, Parsifal moves slightly closer to the suffering victim, yet only as a demonstration of curiosity. The collected knights of the Grail, here very well prepared in their diction and controlled projection, recite the invitation “Nehmet vom Brod … Nehmet vom Wein” [“Partake of the bread … Partake of the wine”] before the prostrate Amfortas is removed on his pallet. In the final image before the act’s end Youn as Gurnemanz reacts with appropriate derision over Parsifal’s inaction [“Du bist doch eben nur ein Tor” (“You are nothing but a simple fool”)], as he commands the youth to leave.
The realm of Klingsor in Act Two illuminates the ambivalent character of Kundry and makes further apparent, as if from a distance, the failings in the present generations of the Grail. This act also prepares the audience to experience the resolution of such deficiencies through Parsifal as protagonist during the final act. As such, the trio of performers in Act Two is vital to the continued development of Wagner’s aesthetic. Ms. Karanas and Mr. Groves, joined by the Klingsor of baritone Tómas Tómasson, made of this act a model of vocal and dramatic excitement. Klingsor is dressed in this production in a variegated red costume with the same hue painted onto his face. He is further positioned in a stylized neon structure, also in red, which emits smoke from the tower at his commands. As Tómasson proclaimed “Die Zeit ist da!” and “Herauf zu mir!” [“The time has come!” and “I summon you up to assist me!”] the stage was set for Parsifal’s arrival and Kundry’s obedient responses. Tómasson’s interpretation of the sorcerer is impressive for his vibrant, dramatic vocalism as well as his physical involvement in Klingsor’s demands. His performance of Klingsor’s laugh is equally chilling as he witnesses Parsifal’s approach and describes the hero’s searching glances into the magical garden [“Wie stolz er nun steht auf der Zinne!” (“How proudly he is standing there on the parapet!”)] After Klingsor’s interaction with Kundry, he conjures the flower-maidens to tempt Parsifal. This scene was effectively staged with costumes and movements even overdone in some respects. Kundry’s subsequent attempts to seduce Parsifal and her further revelations concerning his heritage and mother Herzeleide were delivered by Karanas with superb control, especially in the upper register. Groves’ Parsifal truly came into his own in this act, as he unleashed dramatic pitches on “Die Klage” (“The lament”) and a moving legato approach to “Erlösungswonne” (“joy of redemption”).
In a fitting preparation for the resolution of Act Three the production stages clearly the demise of Klingsor and his realm via his own spear. Parsifal catches the weapon to put an end to this magical and destructive kingdom. With this spear and resolve to atone for his own failings Groves as Parsifal proceeds to seek out the Grail as Act three develops. His ultimate healing of Amfortas’s interminable cries of “Wehe!” with the application of the spear, now transformed in its effect, elevates both the kingdom of the Grail and Parsifal’s own position in this production’s unforgettable transformation.
Salvatore Calomino
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Parsifal_3_Chicago.gif image_description=Paul Groves as Parsifal. Act 1. [Photo by Dan Rest] product=yes product_title=Parsifal, Chicago product_by=A review by Salvatore Calomino product_id=Above: Paul Groves as Parsifal. Act 1. [Photo by Dan Rest]January 22, 2014
La traviata, Chicago
The title role was sung by Marina Rebeka in her company debut; Joseph Calleja repeated his success as Alfredo Germont; the father of Alfredo, Giorgio Germont, was performed by baritone Quinn Kelsey. The Lyric Opera Orchestra and Chorus were conducted by Massimo Zanetti.
The first and final acts of Verdi’s opera were united in the visual depiction of Violetta Valery’s domain, while the atmosphere attendant on both depictions showed a considerable difference. During the overture to the opera the audience was able to witness, through a film-like curtain suspended before the stage, the protagonist Violetta helped by her maid as she stepped into a ball-gown and train. As the strings played their achingly wistful melody during the overture Violetta donned both feathers and wings to prepare herself further for the festive party in her home. This element of belle époque artifice continued throughout the production lending a credible tone to the celebratory scenes in the later acts.
From her first lines of invitation, “Flora, amici …” and “Miei cari, sedete …” [“Flora, my friends …” and “My dear friends, please be seated”], Ms. Rebeka had full command of Violetta’s role. She sings with a comfortable approach to the character’s shifting vocal lines, uses decoration judiciously, and remains involved in the stage action as hostess at her salon. At Alfredo Germont’s introduction Mr. Calleja assumes a tentative yet searching approach, so that the audience is able to sense his vivid interest not only in the setting but also in its hostess. Calleja’s admirable line and embellishments in the “Brindisi” [“Libiamo” (“Drink”)] are models of bel canto Verdian singing. Individual notes are projected clearly, just as the intensity and color of Calleja’s decorations emphasize an involvement progressing beyond infatuation. When he responds to Violetta’s questions concerning this passionate interest, Calleja introduces his self-defense with a suspenseful diminuendo before describing his unexpected love already for the duration of a year. With a seamless flow of legato expression Calleja outlines his character’s emotional struggle as summarized finally with a tear-laden effect on “Croce e delizia” [“Cross and ecstasy”]. Rebeka’s response is equally moving while she pronounces “un cosi eroico amore” [“such an heroic love”] with a rising line of decoration. During their rapid exchange of plans to meet again when the flower has withered, both principals sang “domani” [“tomorrow”] in piano intimacy. As a means to depicting their growing, shared love, this hushed glance into the characters’ feeling enhanced for the audience the resolve expressed in the duet as concluded.
During an introspective solo, when left alone to ponder the changes affecting her current state, Violetta doubts at first the possibility of authentic love. In the first part of her aria, “Ah, fors’è lui” [“Ah, perhaps he is the one”], Rebeka uses her skills to sing and modulate from soft to loud as though involved in an emphatic conversation with her heart. The incomprehensible, or “misterioso,” is sung by Rebeka softly and in awe, whereas her voice blooms in volume under the weight of the “croce.” During the ensuing “Sempre libera” [“Forever free”] the rapid runs were executed cleanly and forte notes were taken as pure, lyrical cries of emotion. Rebeka succeeds at integrating this showpiece aria smoothly into the drama while at the same time leaving a strong impression of her bel canto approach. Toward the close of the act Calleja’s repeated offstage appeals of “Croce” extended the emotional web for both protagonists even further.
At the start of Act Two Alfredo, while alone, muses on his happiness in the soliloquy “Lunge da lei per me” [“When she is far away”]. Calleja’s breath control and embellishments on “il passato” and “Io vivo quasi in ciel” [“the past” and “I seem to live in heaven”] underline his dream-like state before the rude awakening of Violetta’s financial sacrifice, about which he learns unexpectedly from Annina. In his aria of response, “Oh mio rimorso! Oh, infamia!” [“Oh remorse! Oh infamy!”], Alfredo is indeed jolted into recognizing his position. Calleja performs this aria with true emotional vigor and takes the repeat with the effect of emphasizing his resolve. Act Two of La traviata belongs, of course, just as much to Giorgio Germont, the father of Alfredo. Mr. Kelsey demonstrates a solid command of this role, his exciting baritone drawing on resonant shades of nuance especially during his introductory scene with Violetta. When making an appeal to his son’s lover Kelsey includes individual decoration to enhance the spirit of his request. His sense of rubato was effective in “genitor” [“father”] just as was the embellishment with which he sang “L’angiol consolatore” [“Consoling angel”]. As if in response to this moving portrayal of paternal need, Rebeka’s Violetta sang “Dite alla giovane” [“Tell your daughter”] with a decidedly slow tempo, so that each word was pronounced in fulfillment of her proposed actions. Both singers were then united in a rising line on “sacrifizio” as Violetta subsequently promised to leave Alfredo.
The following scene of Act Two showed Kelsey just as much to advantage. His performance of “Di Provenza il mar” [“From Provence … the sea”], addressed to a disconsolate Alfredo, was noteworthy for its disciplined approach to phrasing. The aria was performed in its uncut form, so that the audience was privileged to hear a polished performance of a baritone staple which is so often trimmed in other productions. Toward the close of this scene the orchestra, perhaps out of sympathy with the anguish expressed between father and son, played its accompaniment too loudly. In the final part of Act Two, at the salon of Flora, the costumed dancers and additional performers fit well into the overall setting of the party. After the intimate duet between Alfredo and Violetta - leading to anger, misunderstanding, and his public denunciation - Germont père returns and participates in a final ensemble. Here Kelsey’s superb legato could be traced throughout the group, while Rebeka performed her part with searing top notes as she lay on her side. Calleja’s lines “rimorso io n’ho” [“I am sick with remorse”], with equally notable projection, remained the dominant impression at the close of the ensemble.
Act Three is staged at first through the same curtain as at the start of Act One, yet now Violetta lies ill and weak as attended by Annina. After Dr. Grenvil hints discretely that Violetta has only several hours to live, the maidservant is sent off to perform errands. When left alone Violetta sings “Addio, del passato” [“Farewell … of the past”], which Rebeka performed with multiple high notes shading to diminuendo. Her vision of “La tomba ai mortali” [“The tomb for us mortals”], as expressed in this performance, was clearly visible to the protagonist despite a letter announcing the imminent arrival of Alfredo. Although he arrives shortly before Violetta succumbs, their final duet, “Parigi, o cara” [“From Paris, dear”] remains ironically also a vision. The tragedy of her death renders this final lyrical happiness, with Calleja’s leading lines answered touchingly by Rebeka’s sustained responses, a poignant conclusion to this excellent new production of Verdi’s masterpiece.
Salvatore Calomino
image=http://www.operatoday.com/traviata-1-TR.gif image_description=Marina Rebeka as Violetta, Act 1. [Photo by Todd Rosenberg Photography] product=yes product_title=La traviata, Chicago product_by=A review by Salvatore Calomino product_id=Above: Marina Rebeka as Violetta, Act 1. [Photo by Todd Rosenberg Photography]Gluck: Orpheus and Eurydice
Presenting Gluck’s opera, Orpheus and Eurydice, EPOC invite you to metamorphose from passive onlooker to active participant, joining Orpheus as he journeys to the underworld to rescue his treasured Eurydice.
Led by Artistic Director, Mark Tinkler, The English Pocket Opera Company — now 20-years-old —has for the last 10 years been dedicated to creative educational projects with children young people, ranging from primary school children to undergraduates. Previous years have seen Hamlet, Don Giovanni, Dream (based on Purcell’s The Faerie Queen, a version of The Ring, Bluebeard’s and Hansel and Gretel performed in a variety of venues, from the Brady Centre in Tower Hamlets to The Cochrane Theatre.
The company produces what it describes as ‘Opera for, by and with children’. Feedback from participants and teachers has been extraordinarily positive, even eulogistic. And, the statistics too are impressive. In 2012, up to 50,000 children drawn from 250 schools in 2012 benefitted from the company’s multidisciplinary programmes; this year’s four-phase project exploring Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera, Orpheus and Eurydice, will involve over 10,000 children from 55 schools, as well as talented designers studying the BA in Performance Design and Practice at Central St Martins (part of the University of the Arts London), amateur singers and musicians, along with some professional singers, musicians and theatre practitioners.
In many ways — in this anniversary year — Gluck’s ‘reform’ opera is a good choice for this ambulatory project: Gluck’s story is told simply and with clarity, a result of the composer’s aspirations to replace the obscure, complex plots of opera seria with a ‘noble simplicity’ — it’s a tale which is easy to follow while perambulating!
Summoned to our feet by Orpheus (Paul Featherstone) in fairground fashion — ‘Roll up, roll up, for the greatest story ever told!’ — we followed the hero, accompanied by accordion player, fiddler and assorted furry-masked creature, to the opening location. The performance begins, not with the solemn, grief-laden chorus of nymphs and shepherds but with the wedding banquet of Orpheus and Eurydice (Pamela Hay) which, somewhat wryly, takes place in the college canteen (design, Maddy Rita Faye). A trellis table is adorned with goblets, victuals and floral bouquets, around which twirl and spiral the newly-weds and assorted animal guests, occasionally sweeping members of the audience into their festive dance. A piano or keyboard is stationed at each venue; in this opening scene, Music Director and pianist Philip Voldman — who played with unflappable composure and fluency throughout —strikes up, not Gluck’s elegant measures, but the mesmerising melody of Papageno’s ‘Das klinget so herrlich’, which rings out, calming the beasts and reminding us of another operatic rescue mission in which the hero must stoically undergo trials and tribulations in order for his beloved to be restored to his arms.
Fatally bitten by a serpent, Eurydice is carried by Orpheus to her grave. Recorded music bridges the gap between some locations, and the transitions between live and recorded sound are smooth and natural. Denise Dumitrescu’s designs turn the CSM Studio Theatre into a Classical funeral vault; burnished gold, circular pillars of ruffled cloth ripple from ceiling to floor, enclosing distraught mourners, as the funeral chorus provide a dignified accompaniment to the noble grace of the setting. As the delicate columns tumble gracefully to the floor, and Orpheus lunges fruitlessly into the airy space, loss and absence are poignantly emphasised. Again, the onlookers are drawn into the action, beckoned to strew white lilies on Eurydice’s grave, as Orpheus desperately seeks his lost love through the mists of cloth which drape the entrance to the underworld.
Vivian Lu’s striking, expressionistic tree turns a corner of the Theatre Bar into the wood in which Orpheus becomes increasingly distressed — haunted obsessively by the vision and voice of his dead wife. From here, we progress to the banks of the Styx where Amor (Joanne Foote) appears, to instruct Orpheus to travel to Hades in order to plead with the Furies for Eurydice to be spared. In an appropriately bare, starkly lit corner, designer Anastasia Glazova’s white screens are opened to reveal Amor crouching in a bubble wrap cage; the bubble wrap is torn down to form a Styxian carpet leading us to Hell (the Platform Theatre Orchestra Pit) — although as we trod the watery path, paying the beastly Charon by dropping badges into his mouth, the percussive popping produced a rather unfortunate, glib sound effect.
But, the motion of descent is persuasive; the rickety stairs leading to the bowels of the pit emphasise the precariousness and risks of Orpheus’s venture, and the dense smoke which swirled in around us in the gloom — perhaps too dense? — evoked the mists which obscure his understanding and his progress. A discarded shopping trolley, filled with detritus and diabolic emblems (design Lucia Riley) is a fitting emblem of misery and despair. Three Furies (Isabella Van Braeckel, Joanna Foote and Eimear Monaghan) angrily storm through the darkness, accompanied by dramatic choral interjections from above, until quelled by the sweetness of Orpheus’s lyre — evoked by the resonant pizzicati of Sivan Traub’s violin — they agree to help return Eurydice to him.
Ascending to the Theatre Stage, the audience find themselves in the Elysium Fields of the versatile Van Braeckel and Monaghan, a shimmering paradise of reflecting white discs strung from knotted ropes, the floor ornamented with black, circular mats decorated with silvery spirals; the scene is illuminated by an evocative amber and chartreuse glow. The unveiling of a hideous skeleton when Orpheus contravenes his promise not to look back at Euridice is a striking coup de theatre. Drawn to the front of the stage, we witnessed Orpheus submit to suicidal thoughts in the Theatre Auditorium which is transformed by Mathias Krajewski into Orpheus’s homeland. A wig-wam of thin threads furnishes him with a hang-man’s rope until his grief so moves the Gods that they allow Eurydice to return to the mortal world, weaving and gliding through the audience to re-join her husband.
For the happy conclusion, the jubilant characters and chorus assemble in the Theatre Bar for a celebratory home-coming. Robin Soutar’s pillar-box red Punch and Judy booth restores the sardonic, burlesque air of the opening scene, as the dignified strains of Gluck give way to the more riotous tones of Offenbach’s ‘Infernal Galop’.
Performance standards were high, especially considering that most of the participants are amateurs performers. As Eurydice, soprano Pamela Hay revealed a glittering upper register and strong, varied characterisation, capable of capturing both the intensity and insouciance that the different settings require. The sweetness of her tone and elegance of phrase garnered much pity for Eurydice. Joanna Foote was similarly affecting as Amor: her arias were well-crafted and stylish. The chorus sang with good intonation and a well-blended, balanced sound.
As Orpheus, Paul Featherstone was committed and impassioned, and he did much to involve the audience in the drama and to encourage their sympathetic engagement with the protagonists’ fates. But, sadly, poor intonation, some heavy-handed shaping of the melodic phrases, a rough-edged tone and an undeviating dynamic level — forte — made this role a weak link in the performance. There were moments of tenderness, but these were not sustained, and the big numbers — ‘Chiamo il mio ben’, Che farò senza Euridice?’ — lacked the necessary mellifluousness and lyricism.
The designs were fresh and interesting; these young, up-and-coming students approached the work without preconceptions about what opera design ‘should’ be, and there were some imaginative and striking visual images and effects. Occasionally elements of the venue were a little distracting — signs and notices, stairways and lighting drawing our focus away from the moral dignity of the mythological journey; and, occasionally unsuspecting art students going about their business were startled to find themselves part of an operatic liberation assignment, their passage barred by an assortment of blessed spirits or demons! But, the imbibers in the Theatre Bar seemed pleasantly amused by the arrival of the pantomime-esque road-show at the close.
It seems incredible that all this is achieved on a shoe-string budget; EPOC relies on box office receipts and students have to fund their own materials for sets and costumes. It is not just a ‘worthy’ venture but a worthwhile and artistically rewarding one too.
Claire Seymour
Cast and production information:
This ‘promenade’ version of Gluck’s opera is ‘Phase 2’ of EPOC’s project, following on from Phase 1 ‘Opera Blocks’, an interactive presentation in primary schools unpacking the work, and opera in general. Next comes a performance at the Royal Albert Hall on 17 March involving choirs representing all 55 schools in the borough of Camden accompanied by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; Phase 4 will conclude the project, during which EPOC will work with schools to create their own versions of Orpheus and Eurydice — writing arias, choruses, building and designing sets and costumes, before performing their devised works to parents.
Orpheus, Paul Featherstone; Eurydice, Pamela Hay; Amor, Joanna Foote; Animals at Wedding Feast Vivian Lu (Rhinoceros), Anastasia Glazova (Monkey), Eimear Monaghan; (Rabbit), Joanna Foote (Snake); Mourners at Funeral Isabella Van Braeckel, Laureline Garcia, Jess Milton, Krishna Menon, Marlene Binder, Chuck Blue Lowry; Priest at Funeral, Robin Soutar; Charon, Minshin Yano; 3 Moirai (Furies) Isabella Van Braeckel (Atropos), Joanna Foote (Lachesis), Eimear Monaghan (Clotho); Blessed Spirits Joanna Foote (sung), Maddy Rita Faye, Lucia Riley; Director, Mark Tinkler; Music Director, Philip Voldman; Lighting Design. Alex Hopkins, Fridthjofur Thorsteinsson; Set Design, Maddy Rita Faye, Denisa Dumitrescu, Vivian Lu, Anastasia Glazova, Lucia Riley, Isabella Van Braeckel, Eimear Monaghan, Mathias Krajewski, Robin Soutar; Costume Design. Robin Soutar (Orpheus), Denisa Dumitrescu (Eurydice), Anastasia Glazova, (Amor), Mathias Krajewski (Amor Sc6, Olympian Gods), Maddy Rita Faye (‘Animals’ at Wedding Feast), Denisa Dumitrescu (Mourners and Priest at Funeral), Lucia Riley (Charon & 3 Moirai), Isabella Van Braeckel, Eimear Monaghan (Blessed Spirits and Eurydice puppet); Violin, Sivan Traub; Stage Manager, Heather Young; Lighting Assistant, Aubrey Tait. Platform Theatre, Central St Martin’s, London, Tuesday, 21st January, 2014
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Orpheus_SpencerStanhope.gif image_description=Orpheus and Eurydice on the Banks of the Styx (1878) by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope product=yes product_title=Gluck: Orpheus and Eurydice product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Orpheus and Eurydice on the Banks of the Styx (1878) by John Roddam Spencer StanhopeGerald Finley: Winterreise
The youthfulness of the protagonist may be best evoked by the high plangent quality of the tenor voice; moreover, Schubert was himself a tenor and it was in this register that the songs were first performed by the composer in an intimate salon before an audience of his closest friends. His choice of keys might also suggest that it was the tenorial range and timbre that he had in mind.
However, shortly before he died, Schubert’s close friend, the Austrian baritone Johann Michael Vogl, who was then in his fifties, performed the cycle for the composer. The expressive variety and range of the baritone voice can offer fresh insights and communicate powerfully; it is now as common for Winterreise to be performed by baritones, and on this occasion Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley added his name to the list of those seeking to make this cycle his own.
Accompanied by pianist Julius Drake, Finley’s reading is one which combines poise and eloquence with bleakness and resignation. Solemn, restrained and dignified, there are none of the flourishes and angst-ridden gestures which have sometimes charged other interpretations; but, the protagonist’s suffering is never in doubt — indeed, the darkness of the register adding to the air of solemn woe.
The performers took a little time to settle into the dramatic and emotional setting of Wilhelm Müller’s poem. The clarity which marked Drake’s gentle introductory chords and ornaments in ‘Gute Nachte’ (Good night) was characteristic of the way the accompaniment gestures were meticulously ‘picked out’ throughout the cycle, expressive details and embellishments enriching the narrative. But, despite the contrasts between Finley’s veiled pianissimo suggesting the delicately shifting moonlight shadows which keep the traveller company and the angry explosion of frustration at the start of the third stanza, the song felt a little ‘four-square’, the piano’s onward tread relentless, the only rhythmic rubato the slight pause before the change to the major mode for the last stanza. Similarly, while Finley’s articulation of the German was exemplary, in these opening songs at times the texts were almost a little too clearly enunciated, lacking a conversational ease and naturalness.
‘Die Wetterfahne’ (The weather-vane) had more assertive energy, climaxing in the angry repetitions ‘Was fragen sie nach meinen Schmerzen?’ (What is my torment to them?) and the accumulating haste of the final line. After this outburst, the piano’s dry staccato crotchets at the start of ‘Gefrorne Tränen’ (Frozen Tears) were disturbingly cool, the sparse texture and low register adding to the sense a heart chilled and numb. Finley’s impassioned timbre in the final stanza hinted at the fierce heat encased within the outer shell, but the piano’s parched closing motifs suggested both tentative steps upon the ice without and the heart’s struggle to escape the numbness.
This battle with deadening dejection continued in ‘Erstarrung’ (Numbness), where Drake’s agitated, turbulent accompaniment contrasted with the intense focus of the vocal line: the repeated line ‘Mit meinen heißen Tränen’(with my hot tears) was particularly unsettling.
By the time we reached ‘Der Lindenbaum’ (The linden tree), pianist and singer were into their stride. The rhetoric of the piano introduction established a narrative air, and Finley’s beautiful melodic lines and excellent diction made for exquisite story-telling. At times during the recital I found the pace a little too slow, overly grave and ponderous; but here the forward momentum and occasionally foreboding tone created a sense of driving inevitability. The nuances at the opening of ‘Wasserflut’ (Waterfall) — the slight delays in Drake’s introduction, the melancholy of the falling octaves which end the vocal lines and point the rhymes, and the deflections and shifts in the harmony — were wonderfully expressive. Finley skilfully controlled his vocal power to convey concentrated yearning and anguish.
In ‘Auf dem Flusse’ the juxtaposition of the Finley’s dark low voice and the distinctly articulated repeated quavers and triplets of Drake’s accompaniment created a thrilling tension which erupted in the final stanza, the baritonal forceful resonance revealing the protagonist’s inner schisms: ‘Mein Herz, in diesem Bache/ Erkennst du nun dein Bild?’ (My heart, do you now see your own likeness in this stream?) The volatile surges of ‘Rückblick’ and the violent pounding in the bass developed this mood of conflict and confrontation. Here, Finley found great variety of colour, the voice unfailingly mellifluous and the final line infused with sweet wistfulness.
After a short pause, the magical lightness of Finley’s higher register and the mischievous rubatos and accelerations in Drake’s accompaniment were as enchanting as the will-o’-the-wisp of which Finley sang. As in so many of the songs, the performers demonstrated an intelligent grasp not just of the overall structure of the cycle, but also of the miniature architecture of each individual song. Here, the repetition of the final line reinforced the protagonist’s despondancy: ‘Jedes Leiden auch sein Grab’ (every sorrow will find its grave).
The unaffected ease of ‘Fruhlingstraum’ (Dream of spring) brought freshness, and suggested genuinely happier times. The singer’s gifts as a communicator came to the fore: first we had the startling drama of the crowing cock which awakens the dreamer, the piano’s stridency depicting the shriek of the ravens; then the trance-like reticence of the dreamy reflections of the half-awake protagonist as he gazes at the patterns on the window panes and slips into reverie. ‘Einsamkeit’ reached expressive heights, the repetitions of the final line laden with pain. Drake set a crisp pace in ‘Die Post’ (The mail-coach); the subtle pause before the shift to the minor key was wonderful.
A slow tempo was adopted for ‘Der greise Kopf’ (The hoary head). This, together with the eloquence of the falling melodic phrases and dry accompaniment chords, established an aptly despairing mood — a real sense of inner despair and horror; but, I did feel that some of the tempi in the cycle’s closing songs were a little on the ponderous side, and the long pause that Finley, understandably, took before ‘Im Dorfe’ (In the village), regrettably halted the dramatic and emotional impetus. ‘Die Krähe’ (The crow) was more abandoned and the piano’s fragmented opening in ‘Letze Hoffnung’ (Last hope) was fittingly unsettling. This approach — the accompaniment ‘niggling’ at the singer in an understated but disquieting manner — continued in ‘Im Dorfe’, the trilling motifs indicating the cruel disillusionment that the slumbers will experience when daylight returns and reality inevitably quashes their dreams. Similarly, Drake’s skipping compound rhythms in ‘Täuschung’ (Delusion) seemed to mock the singer as he followed the dancing, ‘friendly’ light.
The bass line of the piano introduction to ‘Der Wegweiser’ (The signpost) possessed a gentle mournfulness which was extended by the quiet modulation to the major mode in the second stanza, the tender beauty of Finley’s pianissimo, the deadening evenness of the monotone repetitions of the last line — ‘Die nock Keiner ging zurück’ (from which no man has ever returned) — and by the wearying rallentando of the piano’s closing cadence.
‘Das Wirthaus’ was similarly drained of forward propulsion, although the rising intensity and focus of the close anticipated the impetuousness of ‘Mut!’ (Courage!). I thought the decision to run straight on into ‘Die Nebensonnen’ (Phantom suns) was a misjudgement. It is just at that point in the cycle where the re-ordering of Müller’s original sequence has such a striking effect: the optimism of ‘Mut!’ at this point of the cycle is almost a bizarre parody, even surreal, and, following this breathless impulsiveness, the shock of the return to the dark resonances of ‘Die Nebelsonnen’ is enhanced by a moment of dazed silence, however brief.
The last song, ‘Die Leiermann’ (The organ-grinder) was a superb study in weariness and dejection, but ultimately not in hopelessness, the final lines pressing forward, the wayfarer not yet defeated.
Finley did not so much embody the protagonist, experiencing and depicting his suffering in the present; rather, he seemed an elder man re-living a journey made in the impetuousness of youth. There was a sense of wearily and painfully returning to past experiences; experiences which have been revisited in memory many times before, so that the twists and turns of the emotional journey are etched in the singer’s conscience and body, unavoidable, inerasable.
Claire Seymour
Gerald Finley and Julius Drake will release a new recording of Winterreise (Hyperion) in March 2014.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Finley_67.gif image_description=Gerald Finley [Photo by Sim Canetty-Clarke] product=yes product_title=Gerald Finley: Winterreise product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Gerald Finley [Photo by Sim Canetty-Clarke]Jules Massenet: Manon, ROH
Like Carmen before her, Manon leads men to steal, cheat and murder; but in Massenet’s opéra comique, the sweet sensuous of the score, and in particular the affecting beauty of the ‘innocent’ heroine’s music, might convince us that the worst thing she is ‘guilty’ of is a slight flightiness.
Laurent Pelly’s 2010 production, receiving its first revival here (revival director, Christian Räth), was designed with a particular Manon in mind - star diva Anna Netrebko, whose performances were lauded for their passionate fervour and luscious tone, and for the sparkling ‘chemistry’ between Netrebko’s Manon and her Des Grieux, Vittorio Grigolo. Ermonela Jaho, who made such a stirring debut at Covent Garden in 2008, as Violetta (again, stepping into Netrebko’s shoes, when the latter was indisposed), took a little time to warm up; in the opening act, her characterisation seemed to me rather unsubstantial, as she flitted about the central, open expanse of Chantal Thomas’s Amiens square, swirling and dancing light-heartedly. She certainly did not look as if she was unduly threatened or cowered by the looming walls of the convent to which her family have sent her - because she is too fond of a good time.
Jaho’s tone is attractive but, initially at least, was not sufficiently full of bloom to communicate engagingly with the audience, and the lower range lacked weight and focus; moreover, an overly broad vibrato and some rather indistinct French led to a sense of nebulousness. She brought greater variety of colour and more commitment to subsequent acts; ‘Adieu, notre petite table’ was a touching farewell to the humble, honest home life she has shared with Des Grieux; and Jaho sparkled disarmingly in Act 3, the high roulades of ‘Je marche sur tous les chemins’ and ‘Obéissons quand leur voix appelle’ secure and conveying her frivolous delight and youthful superficiality.
American tenor Matthew Polenzani was a physically striking and vocally compelling Chevalier des Grieux. His powerful lyric tenor was soulful and touching; the ravishing whispered high pianissimos of his Act 2 aria, ‘En fermant les yeux’, suggested the fragility of his dreams for their future happiness. ‘Ah! Fuyez, douce image’, as the Abbé relives his memories with Manon, expressed both integrity and vulnerability; it was the highlight of the night. Polenzani has an exemplary grasp of the French idiom; the smooth legato, the sinuousness phrasing, and the sheer beauty of sound combined to create a dramatically convincing and musically enthralling performance. He deserved his considerable approbation.
Audun Iversen’s Lescaut was fittingly rumbustious, swaggering arrogantly and singing with vigour and vitality. As Guillot de Morfontaine, French tenor Christophe Mortagne was superb, reprising the role in which he made his ROH debut in 2010: by turns deluded roué and bitter fool, his strong acting was complemented by characterful singing. Alastair Miles and William Shimell offered strong support as the aging Count des Grieux and the self-important De Brétigny respectively.
Matthew Polenzani as Chevalier Des Grieux and Audun Iversen as Lescaut
Simona Mihai recreated her 2010 role as Pousette and was joined by two Jette Parker Young Artists, Rachel Kelly (Javotte) and Nadezhda Karyazina (Rosette). The perky trio sang crisply and brightly, their stage movements neatly executed and well-timed.
Pelly’s production is all about shifting perspectives and angles. Although the action has consciously been shifted from the France of Louis XV to La Belle Époque, in fact it tends towards abstraction, specificity of costume and period being less important than the inferences of the design. In Act 1 a steep staircase rises precipitously to the town houses perched precariously atop the convent walls (the stonework has all the solidity and appeal of a self-assembly furniture kit from MUJI); the stairway swings through 180⁰ for Act 2, forming a rickety gang-plank to the lovers’ garret apartment. The purple-grey Paris skyline shimmers charmingly in the hinterland, but the zig-zagging incline of the staircase embodies the obstacles in their path to future happiness.
Two crooked raked passageways, bordered by ugly metal railings, straddle the breadth of La Cours-la-Reine; the restriction on free movement that this imposes makes for a few choreographic challenges - the scene is really just an excuse for the opéra-comique’s obligatory ballet divertissement - but these are surmounted through some complex manoeuvring of personnel. There are some visual mishaps though. What is the point of the hazy ferris wheel flickering in the distance? And, what is the large round orange object centre-backdrop? Similarly, in scene 2 the dull green monochrome of the gaming room of the Hôtel de Transylvanie evokes severe asceticism rather than rakish hedonism.
In Act 4, the pillars in the vestry of the seminary at Saint-Sulpice list alarming askew, mirrored by Des Grieux’s austere iron-framed bed in the smaller chamber seen to the left; indicative of the way Abbé des Grieux’s faith is about to lurch out of kilter. Having behaved shockingly and with impunity throughout the opera, insouciantly offending bourgeois sensibilities and mores, in the final act Manon’s sins come home to roost and our heroine expires on road to Le Havre; Thomas’s angles have now sharpened to an infinity point, a row of street lights leading the eye to the horizon, the bleakness of the landscape (effectively lit by Joël Adam) inferring the desolate future.
Matthew Polenzani as Chevalier Des Grieux and Ermonela Jaho as Manon Lescaut
The chorus were on good form. The choreography (Lionel Hoche) is at times quite complex, requiring precision and nimbleness, and the large crowd scenes were slick. In the Hôtel de Transylvanie the bareness of the set, while unappealing to the eye, did at least allow for some complicated drills. Dressed in a shocking pink, sleeveless gown (a jarring clash with the deadening green walls), Manon presents a show routine reminiscent of Madonna’s video for Material Girl (itself a wry take-off of Marilyn Monroe’s Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend) -an allusion which was presumably intended to highlight the topicality of a tale which tells of a young woman’s desire for wealth and material comfort at the expense of love and relationships.
It’s a long show, at four hours, and at times I felt that conductor Emmanuel Villaume might have moved things along more swiftly. But the ROH Orchestra played with conviction and idiomatic style, the searing act climaxes giving depth and credibility to the emotions depicted on stage.
Overall, Pelly and Thomas tell the story clearly but they don’t quite fully engage our sympathy for the protagonists; the production needs a bit of a pick-me-up - perhaps things will swing along with more passion and pace as the run proceeds.
Claire Seymour
Cast and production information:
Manon Lescaut, Ermonela Jaho; Lescaut, Audun Iversen; Chevalier des Grieux, Matthew Polenzani; Le Comte des Grieux, Alastair Miles; Guillot de Morfontaine, Christophe Mortagne; De Brétigny, William Shimell; Poussette, Simona Mihai; Javotte, Rachel Kelly; Rosette, Nadezhda Karyazina; Innkeeper, Lynton Black; Guard 1, Elliot Goldie; Guard 2, Donaldson Bell; Director, Laurent Pelly. Conductor, Emmanuel Villaume; Dramaturg, Agathe Mélinand; Set designs, Chantal Thomas; Costume designs, Laurent Pelly and Jean-Jacques Delmotte; Lighting design, Joël Adam; Choreography, Lionel Hoche; Royal Opera Chorus; Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Tuesday 14th January, 2014.
This is a co-production with The Metropolitan Opera, New York, La Scala, Milan, and Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse. The run continues until 4 February. Mexican soprano Ailyn Pérez will sing Manon on 31 January and 4 February.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/MANON_RO_873A.gif image_description=Ermonela Jaho as Manon Lescaut [Photo by ROH/Bill Cooper] product=yes product_title=Jules Massenet Manon, Royal Opera House, London product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Ermonela Jaho as Manon LescautPhotos by ROH/Bill Cooper
Songlives: Johannes Brahms
Taking us along these autobiographical paths were bass-baritone Hanno Müller-Brachmann and, standing in for the indisposed Bernada Fink, soprano Ann Murray. Both singers adopted a wonderfully sincere and direct approach: nothing was exaggerated or overstated but the vocal lines were allowed to blossom in response to heightened emotion or drama in an unaffected but thoughtful and well-considered fashion.
Müller-Brachmann commenced ‘The early years’ with the unusually brief ‘Heimkehr’ (Homecoming). Described by Susan Youens in her detailed programme notes as ’21 bars of agitated, rapturous emotion’, the song presents an impetuous lover’s appeal to the natural world not to come to an apocalyptic end until he has hastened to his beloved’s side! Despite its brevity, the song enabled Müller-Brachmann to exhibit the admirable qualities which would be on display throughout the evening: a powerful intensity matched by an eloquent and controlled delivery, the text crystal clear, the dramatic and emotional focus encapsulated without undue exaggeration. ‘Die Überläufer’ (The deserter) revealed the bass-baritone’s full, burnished lower register, complementing the darkly erotic imagery of the anonymous text; as the poet-narrator expresses wonder ‘Daß mein Schatz so falsch könnt’ sein’ (that my darling could be so false) a delicate enhancement of ‘so falsch könnt’ neatly conveyed the protagonist’s anguish.
In this part of the programme, Murray and Müller-Brachmann alternated, Murray’s renditions of ‘In der Fremde’ (In a foreign land) and ‘Liebestreu’ (True love) interwoven between the bass-baritone’s numbers. In the former, Murray displayed a serene composure and sweet pianissimo to evoke the wistfulness of Eichendorff’s text; the glowing lustre of the voice may be more restrained than of former years, but there is no doubting the expressive beauty of the soprano’s innately well-crafted melodic lines. At the piano, Martineau contributed enormously to the communicative power of these songs: in ‘Liebstrau’, as so often throughout the evening, the engaging interplay between voice and accompaniment, and the particularly impressive clarity of the left hand figures and counter-melodies, was notable.
‘New Paths’ was the title of an article published by Robert Schumann in October 1853 in which he expressed his admiration for the music of the then 20-year-old Brahms. Müller-Brachmann’s ‘Ständchen’ (Serenade) combined a gentle vocal restraint with tight rhythms in the accompaniment and very effective use of rubato, especially in the piano postlude, creating both lightness of spirit and depth of feeling. The forward momentum quickened in ‘Der Ganz zum Lieben’ (The walk to the beloved), the lilting motifs sweeping onwards as the lover hurried towards his loved one’s home, before another could steal her love. In contrast, the initial focused tranquillity of Murray’s ‘An eine Äolsharfe’ gave way to moments of dramatic intensity, the recitative-like vocal melody of the opening expanding lyrically above a bed of rich major harmonies. The performers’ appreciation of the spacious structure of this song, the first of Brahms’ truly ambitious songs, was impressive.
Müller-Brachmann led the sequence of songs of ‘First Maturity’. ‘Wehe, so willst du mich wieder’ (Alas, would you one again) was characterised by an ardent tone and energised repetitions of the text; ‘Wie bist du, meine Königin’ (How blissful, my queen) adopted a more relaxed, intimate air, before flourishing with the enraptured lines, ‘Ach, über alles was da blüht,/ Ist deine , woonevoll!’ (Ah! More blissful than all that blooms is your blissful bloom). The warm, openness of the assonant vowels beautifully conveyed the poet’s passion. In ‘Keinen hat es noch gereut’ (No man has yet rued) - the first of two texts from the echt medieval romance, Die schöne Magelone - the bass-baritone brought added weight to the voice, authoritatively communicated the narrative of the knight Peter of Provence’s search for fame and love. Here and in the subsequent ‘Sind es Schmerzen’ (Are these sorrows), Müller-Brachmann established a compelling stage presence, his touching lyricism and even, focused tone - as steady at the top of the voice as at the bottom - conveying the tale with naturalism and ease. Once again the clarity and definition of Martineau’s accompanying textures, and the precision of the rhythmic and harmonic ostinatos, contributed greatly to the story-telling.
In ‘Am Sonntag Morgen’ (On Sunday morning) and ‘Die Mainacht’ (May night), Murray demonstrated a persuasive emotional range, richness and transparency alternating in the former - in which the poet-narrator hides his melancholy from the public world - while pianist and soprano built to a climactic intensity in the latter; as ‘die ensame Träne/ Bebt mir heißer die Wang’ herab’ (the lonely tear quivers more ardently down my cheek), the harmonic and timbral variety of the piano postlude embodied the desperate flow of the poet’s tears. The dialogue between a young maid and her sweetheart in ‘Von weiger Liebe’ (Eternal love) was full of drama, the dark colours of the introduction and the opening stanza creating an air of anticipation and changes of tempi and mode pointedly conveying the twists and turns of the lovers’ interaction, the piano left hand serving both as a directional guide and a melodic commentator.
Murray presented the first and last of the songs which marked Brahms’ years ‘Established in Vienna’. The effortless arcs of the soprano lines in ‘Auf dem See’ (On the lake) wonderfully depicted the graceful progress of the rocking boat, and were enhanced by tender enhancements of details, such as the thrilling shimmer of the mountains ‘weiß im reinen Schnee’ (white in pure snow) and the well-proportioned emphasis on ‘Glück und Friede’ (happiness and peace) which the poet-narrator’s heart absorbs from the heavenly image before him. Martineau’s postlude to ‘Meine Liebe ist grün’ was full of excitement and grandeur - reportedly, Clara Schumann rejoiced that she loved to play it ‘over and over again’!
The songs of ‘The Last Twenty Years’ began with ‘Therese’, Murray insouciantly playing the older woman who is attracted to the younger man but cannot resist teasing him. Martineau’s flourish of fluid triplets introduced the soprano’s quasi-arioso melody which gradually awakens and blooms, before subsiding in the slow final verse where once again voice and accompaniment conversed harmoniously - the vocal melody enhancing the piano’s restatement of the original theme, the off-beat interjections in the bass adding to the air of mystery. In ‘Sapphische Ode’ (Sapphic Ode) the pulsing syncopations in the accompaniment enriched Murray’s warm timbre, especially in the second stanza; similarly the off-beat propulsion in the bass of ‘Schön war, das ich dir weihte’ (Fair was my gift to you) thoughtfully supported the vocal line. Murray’s rising phrase, ‘Süß war der Laute Ton’ (sweet was the sound of the lute), was charmingly beautiful.
Müller-Brachmann has all the required technical and interpretative qualities for ‘Mit vierzig Jahren’ (At forty), one of Brahms’s most sensitive and moving songs, in which a young man looks back to his childhood and forward to death. The performers’ drew forth every ounce of meaning suggested by the unsettled, sometimes sinister, harmonies and melodies intervals, before finding a calm resignation at the close. Likewise, the conclusion to ‘Auf dem Kirchhofe’ (In the churchyard) wonderfully captured the sense of revelation and affirmation, in the healing repetition of the chorale-like piano chords. In contrast, in the surprisingly terse ‘Kein Haus, keine Heimat’ (No house, no homeland), the bass-baritone replaced sonorous tone with austerity and sombreness.
The singers came together for the final three folksongs of this section. In the impetuous ‘Wie komm’ ich den zur Tür herein’ (How shall I get in at the door), the rhythmically lithe piano part suggested the lovers’ eagerness to deceive the maiden’s vigilant mother. The dramatic development in the strophic ‘So wünsch ich ihr ein’ gute Nacht’ (So I bid her goodnight) was conveyed with flowing ease, enhanced by Martineau’s contrapuntal dialogues. The more plaintive ‘Schwesterlein’ made for a subdued close and, after the urgency and haste of the central section, as the young man presses his little sister to join him in a dance, the gradual rallentando was skilfully managed.
‘At the end’ comprised two songs from Vier ernster Gesänge Op.121, both settings of biblical texts. The first, ‘Denn es gehet dem Menschen’ (For that which befalleth the sons of men), with its stirring low tessitura, repeating bass motifs and sudden changes of tempo, was skilfully crafted by Müller-Brachmann and Martineau, communicating the insistent affirmation of the value of a man’s work in the piano’s almost violent final chords. In contrast, ‘Wenn ich mit Menschen’ (Though I speak with the tongues of men) brought the recital to a more peaceful conclusion. Two short encores sent the audience home replete with the quiet joy of ‘Gute Abend, Gute Nacht’.
So many of these songs seem, at first glance or hearing, fairly straightforward settings whose melodies have a folk-like simplicity and whose strophic forms indulge in little text repetition. Yet, this very brevity and economy often underpins their deep expressive power: the slightest inflections of harmony, the subtlest of rhythmic tensions, a sudden rise and fall of melodic contour, a surprising dynamic change - all these elements combine to communicate a deeply felt sensibility with immediacy and impact. In the hands of these three performers, the sensitive, proportionate eloquence of ‘Brahms the song writer’ was unfailingly and movingly evident.
Claire Seymour
Performers and Programme:
Ann Murray DBE mezzo-soprano, Hanno Müller-Brachmann bass-baritone, Malcolm Martineau, piano. Wigmore Hall, LondonMonday 13th January 2014.
The early years: ‘Heimkehr’, ‘In der Fremde’, ‘Der Überläufer’, ‘Liebestreu’
New Paths: ‘Ständchen’, ‘An eine Äolsharfe’, ‘Der Gang zum Liebchen’
First Maturity: ‘Wehe, so willst du mich wieder’, ‘Wie bist du, meine Königin’, ‘Keinen hat es noch gereut’, ‘Sind es Schmerzen’, ‘Am Sonntag Morgen’, Die Mainacht’, ‘An die Nachtigall’, ‘Von ewiger Liebe’
Established in Vienna: ‘Auf dem See’, ‘Regenlied’, ‘Ach, wende diesen Blick’, ‘Meine Liebe ist grün’
The last twenty years: ‘Therese’, ‘Mit vierzig Jahren’, ‘Sapphische Ode’, ‘Kein Haus, keine Heimat’, ‘Schön war, das ich dir weihte’, ‘Auf dem Kirchhofe’, ‘Mäddchenlied’, ‘Wie komm’ ich den zur Tür herein’, ‘So wünsch’ ich ihr ein’gute Nacht’, ‘Schwesterlein’
At the End: ‘Denn es gehet dem Menschen’, ‘Wenn ich mit Menschen’
The next recital in the Songlives series takes place on Sunday 26 January 2014 at 4pm: Songlives: Rachmaninov, Katherine Broderick soprano; Andrei Bondarenko baritone; Malcolm Martineau piano
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Ann_Murray.gif image_description=Ann Murray, DBE [Photo by Sian Trenberth] product=yes product_title=Songlives: Johannes Brahms product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Ann Murray, DBE [Photo by Sian Trenberth]January 21, 2014
Eugene Onegin in Montpellier
Maybe Pushkin never existed and Tchaikovsky is a condemned a bourgeois composer.
The first music we heard came from a cheap socialist era stereo, a blast of heavy metal to which a ripe young female appropriately gyrated. Fear and hope were equally mixed that this was the Tatiana. She was not, but was one of the seething swarm of inhabitants of a large communal apartment construed on the stage, leaving no doubt that therein existed a cosmos of human souls.
Emerging from this swarm were figures who gracefully appeared and disappeared, the characters we know by Pushkin’s names who moved in and out of the kitchen, the bedrooms, TV salon, bathroom, (spaces cleverly defined with minimal doorway lines and furniture) with beguiling naturalness and an ease that was purely musical.
There was one resident with a digital camera, a voyeur who surreptitiously captured young women in the a vista shower (we saw silhouette against the shower curtain). Innocent and charming, except we see him follow Olga as she pursues and then seduces Onegin while Tatiana is writing her letter. This spied upon scene took place on a slightly elevated platform behind the apartment floor, a place that served throughout the evening as somewhere else.
You get the picture. Filippievna did a lively dance to the famous Russian gypsy song “Dark Eyes” while listening to the radio before Tatiana’s birthday party where Lenski got jealous. The digital camera with its stored images got passed around. There was no way to stop a session of Russian roulette.
Dina Kuznetsova as Tatiana, Olga Tichina as Filippievna. Photo Marc Ginot / Opéra national de Montpellier
It is indeed a digital world that allows quick and easy recording and transmission of images and scenes of life around us, from all angles and in duplication and repetition. Here digital technology was used to add additional perspectives to what we could see from our seats. Intimate scenes were magnified onto the huge blank stage backdrop, the apartment as seen from above was projected onto the huge screen echoing what we could see from our seats, etc. These were direct dramatic motivations for use of multimedia and the achievement of rare theatrical integrity for the use of such technology.
As a theater piece, really a theatrical installation based on Eugene Onegin it was conceptually elegant, masterfully directed, wonderfully witty and charmingly successful. While it may have been at cultural odds with the richly romantic voice of Pushkin it was easily comfortable with the broad and absolutely obvious emotional climate of Tchaikovsky’s genius if not this composer’s nineteenth century tonalities.
The separation of the mise en scéne from its sources was complicated by a separation of the pit and the stage. Tchaikovsky’s score was elegantly realized by Finnish conductor Ari Rasilainen and Montpellier’s fine Orchestre national. It was a symphonic reading, the conductor pulling every possible nuance and depth of tone from his instruments, and carefully pacing the flow to exploit his players’ musicality.
While the maestro did cue the entrances of the voices he did not visually or musically communicate with the stage in any other way. Left on their own the singers responded to secure, sturdy tempos but were bereft of the supercharged emotional thrust that makes Onegin (or any Tchaikovsky opera) a huge and immediate emotional experience. Perhaps this distant music actually served the production, reinforcing the blatant separation of source from its translation, Pushkin from Putin, poetry from TV drama, and finally separating high nineteenth century art from what was high twenty-first century art.
There were many grand moments created by a superb cast, and not least by the Onegin of American baritone Lucas Meachem as a souless man, a man who did not know who or what he is. Mr. Meachem was unable to sustain a singing tone nor could he find the tonalities of the Russian language. Mr. Meachem however brought a physicality to Onegin that was quite involving and finally moving. Sad to say he was not given the final bow, he is after all the name of the opera.
Act II Country Ball. Photo Marc Ginot / Opéra national de Montpellier
Tatiana was Russian born soprano Dina Kuznetsova, alumna of the young artist program at Lyric Opera of Chicago, who wrote her letter moving between the kitchen table and the window of her room (metal lines directly frontal onto the audience, i.e. in your face), the brilliant light of the opened refrigerator flooding the darkened kitchen at an appropriate textural moment. Mlle. Kuznetsova possesses a round, Slavic toned voice she used with dramatic knowledge and style, unable however to squarely hit the high note at the ends of her letter and her final duet with Onegin.
Olga was enacted by French mezzo soprano Anna Destraël in a performance that was so real it was unnerving. Olga, a slut, was visibly bored by Lenski though she was happy to go to bed with him (we saw this in the ferment of life in the communal apartment), her seduction, quasi rape of Onegin showed real animal determination, her slight response to Lenski’s jealosy was of a shallow adolescent. It was a powerful performance that went well beyond good singing. It did not endear her to the audience.
Bespectacled Lenski was sung by Turkmenistan tenor Dovlet Nurgeldiyev, his spectacles crushed on the floor by Onegin he sang his “Kuda, kuda vï udalilis” emotionally groping his way across the stage as a pathetic rather than a sympathetic, sometimes tragic figure. Beautifully sung it earned the evening’s biggest ovation.
Simply superb were the two aging Russian women, proto petite bourgeoise, Larina sung by Svetlana Lifar and Filippievna sung by Olga Tichina. Russian bass Mischa Schelomianski oiled his way across the stage as an oligarch, the Prince Gremin. His surveillance cameras caught the Onegin Tatiana duet in eight identical images he sees from his armchair — ironically Tatiana’s new life as transparent as her past life.
All the scenes of acts I and II were run together. After the intermission four homeless looking dancers shoved a homeless looking Onegin around the stage to the music of the first polonaise. The second polonaise at a nouveau riche cocktail party brought the Opéra’s fine chorus into in a moving circle, their clicking heels forcing the Tchaikovsky polonaise to a halt. It was a moment of powerful dramatic punctuation that underlined the wonderfully theatrical nature of this fine evening at the opera (of which this account is but the tip of the iceberg).
Authors of this theatrical installation were Marie-Eve Signeyrole who imagined and created the mise en scène and her collaborators Yashi Tabassomi (costumes), Philippe Berthomé (lights), Julie Compans (movement) and Julien Meyer (audiovisual).
Michael Milenski
Cast and production information:
Onegin: Lucas Meachem; Tatiana: Dina Kuznetsova; Olga: Anna Destraël; Lenski: Doviet Nurgeldiyev; Prince Gremin: Mischa Schelomianski; Madame Larina: Svetlana Lifar; Filippievna: Olga Tichina; Monsieur Triquet: Loïc Félix; Zaretski: Laurent Sérou. Chorus and Orchestra of the Opéra Orchestre national Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon. Conductor: Ari Rasilainen; Mise en scène and stage setting: Marie-Éve Signeyrole; Costumes: Yashi Tabossomi; Lighting: Philippe Berthomé. Opéra Berlioz, Montpellier. January 17, 2014.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Onegin_Montpellier1OT.png
image_description=Onegin Montpellier [Photo by Marc Ginot]
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product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above: Dina Kuznetsova as Tatiana, Lucas Meachem as Eugene Onegin [Photo Marc Ginot / Opéra national de Montpellier]
January 20, 2014
Claudio Abbado, Italian conductor, dies aged 80
Celebrated Italian conductor Claudio Abbado has died aged 80.
The former principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra passed away in Bologna after a long illness, said Raffaella Grimaudo, spokeswoman for the Bologna mayor's office.
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image_description=Claudio Abbado
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product_title=Claudio Abbado, Italian conductor, dies aged 80
product_by=By James Lachno [The Telegraph, 20 January 2014]
product_id=Above: Claudio Abbado
January 17, 2014
The Sixteen: Jephtha
The cast of experienced Handelians included James Gilchrist in the title role, with Susan Bickley as his wife Storge, Sophie Bevan as his daughter Iphis, Robin Blaze as her fiancée Hamor and Matthew Brook as Jephtha's brother Zebul. The result was a finely dramatic performance which bodes well for the recording, to be released later this year on the Coro label.
Handel's oratorio, with a libretto by Revd Thomas Morrell, was written not for the stage but for concert performance, and the intention was to point a moral via uplifting music. An important key to the libretto is Jephtha's family's reaction to the events. For this to work, they must be established as characters and so the first three scenes give us a sequence of arias, one for each of the five main characters, ending with a duet for the lovers Hamor and Iphis. It is not the most dramatic of sequences, and can be tricky to make work on stage.
One of the virtues of the Barbican performance was how each of the five singers, Matthew Brook, James Gilchrist, Susan Bickley, Robin Blaze and Sophie Bevan made their character count and made us feel that they and their music really mattered dramatically. This was particularly true with Robin Blaze's character Hamor. He is necessary in order to give Iphis a life that she will miss, but Hamor's actual music rarely takes plot or drama forward. Blaze brought a vivid sense of character to his performance.
Handel emphasises the group nature of the characters by giving, Iphis, Hamor, Storge and Jephtha a quartet of reaction to Jephtha's vow in Act 2; a remarkable and prescient piece of writing which is a genuine quartet with four different vocal characters. When Handel revived the work in 1753 he trimmed the end of Act 3 after the angel's appearance (Winton Dean is very dismissive of the arias at this point) and instead introduced a quintet. This was the version performed at the Barbican. This quintet is not a genuine one, instead it is a duet for Iphis and Hamor with a contributory coro from Storge, Jephtha and Zebul. A construction familiar from the conclusions of some of Handel's Italian operas.
James Gilchrist made an intense Jephtha, perhaps not quite so much the self-absorbed zealot that he was on stage at the Buxton Festival, but still with a profound sense of the character's inward religious certainty. Gilchrist is a fine and stylish Handelian, his opening aria, Virtue my soul, was fluidly fluent and sung with vivid, bright tone. But when the real drama started, with Jephtha's vow, Gilchrist sang the accompagnato with a powerful intensity. With His mighty arm at the beginning of Act 2, though a more conventional piece which Gilchrist sang with decisive confidence and fine passagework, he also brought a compelling intensity to it. In the recitative and aria, "Open thy marble jaws, O tomb", when Jephtha sees his daughter and realizes the result of his vow, Gilchrist combined drama with great musicality and made us hang on to every note.
Handel closes Act 2 with a truly remarkable sequence, Jephtha's accompagnato "Deeper and deeper still" followed by the chorus "How dark, O Lord, are Thy decrees". Gilchrist made the accompagnato fine-grained but dramatic, bringing a vivid power to his voice when necessary. Gilchrist brought flexibility and power to the role, with a certain focussed intensity and the result, in Deeper and deeper still, was finely moving. Act 3 opens with Jephtha's sequence of aria, "Hide thou thy hated beams", accompagnato and aria, "Waft her angels" with the latter aria being rightly famous. We were not disappointed here and Gilchrist sang with a lovely sense of line and profoundly beautifully tone. The fine expressiveness of the opening was transformed when Gilchrist unleashed real power in the middle section.
From the outset, Susan Bickley showed commitment and identification with her character, creating Storge from the first notes she sang. Her first aria, In gentle murmurs will I mourn was fabulously fluent but with an affecting edge to the timbre of her voice. Later in the act Handel and Morrell allow Storge to really develop with Scenes of horror, scenes of woe. Here Bickley started the aria with great technical poise and a nicely vivid feeling, then gradually developed so that the da capo was intense indeed. In Act 2, on hearing the result of Jephtha's vow, Storge has an accompagnato and aria which opens First perish though, and perish all the world and her Bickley virtually spat the words out. But one of the virtues of her performance was that, though she had a clear sense of the drama, it was always with the confines of what Handel wrote; she used the music to achieve her ends quite vividly without ever distorting the vocal line.
Sophie Bevan brought a grave and sombre beauty to the role of Iphis. The character gets some charming and pastoral music, but there was little sense of the flirtatious tone which some singers use. Instead Bevan was thoughtful from the first. Take the heart you fondly gave in Act 1 was graceful yet sober. Later in the act The smiling dawn of happy days was lively and full of wholesome charm, plus there was some fabulous passage-work. In Act 2, Tune the soft melodious lute was sung with fine grained beauty, complemented with some fine flute playing Welcome as the cheerful light when she greets her father was simply lovely, a fine counterpoint to Jephtha's dramatic reaction. Her reaction to the vow in that act was an accompagnato full of resigned acceptance followed by a plangently sung aria, Happy they which was direct, simple and very moving. Her farewell in Act 3, Farewell, ye limpid springs and floods was finely done, again full of a grave and sombre beauty.
Robin Blaze's account of Hamor's first aria," Dull delay, in piercing anguish" was surprisingly characterful and full of an appealing and gentle ardour which characterized his whole performance. Blaze's and Bevan's duet in Act 1 was full of charm with the two voices moving finely in concert, complemented by rhythmic interest in the strings. Hamor's aria at the beginning of Act 2, Up the dreadful steep ascending, after he has recounted the outcome of the battle, was sung by Blaze with great technical facility, but he was also very vivid, making the aria seem dramatically valid rather than holding things up. This was also true of On me let blind mistaken zeal, Hamor's reaction to the results of Jephtha's vow, and which Blaze made you feel that the piece really mattered.
Matthew Brook's Zebul got his big moment at the beginning, with his accompagnato and aria "Pour forth no more unheeded prayers". Brook sang with great commitment and a nicely focussed, grainy baritone voice. His later contributions were restricted to recitative, the quintet, but no less fine for that.
The quartet was superbly done, the four singers Bevan, Bickley, Blaze and Gilchrist giving full power to Handel's remarkable writing.Grace Davidson, from the choir, was the Angel, giving a nicely poised account of her aria.
The Sixteen sang with their familiar commitment and energy. The choruses in Jephtha are not the showiest that Handel wrote, instead we get some writing of extraordinary power and intensity to which the chorus responded with fine control and brilliant sense of drama. The chorus which closes Act 2 has a very striking structure and her the singers gave us a performance of grave and sober beauty.
Christophers and the orchestra brought a nice rhythmic crispness and great vividness to the playing from the first notes of the overture with some notable solo moments for various instruments. Christophers used harp, theorbo, harpsichord and organ for the continue which gave us a nice variety of textures, though I am not sure whether the inclusion of a harp in the line-up would please purists.
The programme book included a fine essay by Ruth Smith and came complete with printed words, no projected surtitles here thank goodness. The performance was done with a single interval, after Act 1, and I have to say that I still think that these pieces work best with two intervals.
This was a finely compelling performance of one of Handel's major works and I certainly look forward to the recording. It was dedicated to the memory of Winton Dean, the great writer on Handel (and many other things) who died last year
Robert Hugill
image=http://www.operatoday.com/the-daughter-of-jephthah.png
image_description=The Daughter of Jephthah by Alexandre Cabanel (1879) [Source: WikiPaintings]
product=yes
product_title=George Frideric Handel:: Jephtha Jephtha: James Gilchrist, Storge: Susan Bickley, Iphis: Sophie Bevan, Hamor: Robin Blaze, Zebul: Matthew Brook, Angel: Grace Davidson, The Sixteen, Harry Christophers: conductor,Tuesday 14 January 2014, The Barbican Centre, London
product_by=A review by Robert Hugill
product_id=Above: The Daughter of Jephthah by Alexandre Cabanel (1879) [Source: WikiPaintings]
January 13, 2014
Matthew Polenzani — Des Grieux, Manon, Royal Opera House
This production of Massenet's Manon, directed by Laurent Pelly, won acclaim when it premiered in London with Anna Netrebko in 2010. Polenzani sang the part with her when the Royal Opera House took the production on tour to Japan later that summer. He also sang the part in this same production when it was heard at Teatro alla Scala, Milan in 2012, with Ermonela Jaho, who sings Manon in this first London revival.
“It’s a beautiful production”, he says, Very well thought out, and lots to see and think about” Polenzani has worked with Pelly before, most recently in Offenbach The Tales of Hoffman in 2013. “You don’t often get directors who get along with singers well and can talk things through clearly”. Even though he has done the part several times, each new run is unique because dynamics change with different casts. “Anna and Ermonela are both fabulously beautiful, but they have different personalities and different voices. And this time, I’m also singing with Ailyn Pérez in the last few performances in this run. I’ve worked with her before, too, so I know her sentiments about Manon. It’s good to make changes with different singers at different times, it keeps things interesting. A director can’t just tell a singer ’in bar 52, walk stage left’. You need to be able to work with each other so it feels natural”.
“I gravitate towards Massenet. Des Grieux is good to sing because he touches a lot of things that are important to me in my life. He’s an honest guy, and he’s moved by his heart. I was just talking to Christian Rath, Pelly’s associate director, about how Des Grieux’s feelings work. Soon after they meet he calls her ‘Enchanteresse’. He’s no longer master of himself. Then, in the seminary, he wants to place God between himself and the world, but goes off with Manon when she turns up. He calls her “Sphinx etonnant… que je t’aime et te hais”. He’s not taking responsibility for himself, he lets himself be manipulated because he won’t own up to what happens. A part of me understands that youthfulness, yet as a father myself, although my sons are much younger, I can understand how his father feels. The Comte wants what’s best for his son, and what’s good for the family, but sons are headstrong”.
“French repertoire is good for my voice, even more so than Italian, though I sing both. I like roles like Werther, Hoffmann and des Grieux because I can get myself around them nicely. It’s a real joy! In America, we don’t get enough French opera. Even Faust doesn’t come round too often”. Polenzani works regularly in Europe, and has worked at the Royal Opera House, the Bayerisches Staatsoper, the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, Frankfurt, the Deutsches Oper Berlin and elsewhere, but his career is rooted in the United States.
“I was so happy to sing Ferrando for James Levine when he returned to the Metropolitan Opera last year for Cosí fan tutte. He was in unbelievably good form after that hiatus. My music making has been strongly shaped by his hand, especially in Mozart which he does in the Romantic style, which I love. It feeds my soul. Hopefully I will work with him for many years yet. Where I am as a musician and where I want to go has very much been shaped by watching him work, not only with me but with many others”. Polenzani’s first big role at the Met was David in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg under Levine in 2001. He also sang recitals with Levine on piano. “It’s been a lovely journey since then”, smiles Polenzani, warmly.
“When we singers go on stage we put everything we have into giving the best possible performance. We pour out our souls. How can you portray emotions if you aren’t sensitive to feelings ? We’re trying to infuse the words of the librettist and the music of the composer with feeling so the audience will care about what happens to the parts we sing. It’s dangerous to get too emotional of course, because you can get verklammt (jammed up) but it’s what we do. I have a beautiful wife, a singer whose ears I can always trust. I can sing for her and know that her feedback will be on the mark, and can suggest ways of fixing things that I don’t notice myself. When I’m on the road, I tape things. Criticism should be constructive. That’s one of James Levine’s greatest strengths. His musicianship is off the charts. He finds a way to help a singer get the most out of his performance”.
For more on Massenet Manon at the Royal Opera House, see here. Matthew Polenzani's website is here.
Anne Ozorio
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Polenzani.png
image_description=Matthew Polenzani [Photo by Dario Acosta]
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product_title=Matthew Polenzani sings Des Grieux, Massenet Manon.
product_by=An interview by Anne Ozorio
product_id=Above: Matthew Polenzani [Photo by Dario Acosta]
Cosi fan tutte in Montpellier
Back in 2007 the scandals created by Scarpitta’s libidinous Don Giovanni were those of a troubled young man who burst into hysterical laughter in the Act I finale. This set the stage for a gifted young cast to bare its soul in flights of lyricism that became the core and substance of all action. Scarpitta’s staging took us inside Mozart's music, his set and costume design offered minimal decor that supported but never defined this interior space. Versailles’ Le Concert Spirituel then in residence in Montpellier resonated with primitive sounds that transported us into this rarefied space.
Les Noces de Figaro did not appear until 2012, now with players of the Orchestra National de Montpellier. Austrian conductor Sascha Goetzel delicately and obsessively shaped its many instrumental voices into flights of melodic splendor. The cast was absolute perfection, finished young singers whose lithe bodies slid into luxuriously refined costumes created by Jean Paul Gaultier. When voices and orchestra finally united in Act IV an ultimate level of pure lyricism was achieved — the simple humanity of opera’s most succinctly human opera long forgotten.
And just now Cosi fan tutte finishes the cycle, again with splendid players from the Orchestra National de Montpellier here conducted by Alexander Shelly. This young English conductor made immediate musical impact in the overture by imposing musical depth rather than dramatic thrust. Each moment of Mozart’s music was explored, there was no beginning nor end. The program booklet optimistically anticipated a duration of three hours ten minutes for the performance. It came in at just under four hours.
Photo by Marc Ginot / Opéra national de Montpellier
Like Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro Jean Paul Scarpitta created the setting. Here it was a green floor and a blue wall. Just that. There were six chairs and a couple of little tables that found their way onto the stage from time to time. Nothing more, except quite sophisticated and beautiful lighting by Urs Schönebaum.
Though costume design was credited to Mr. Scarpitta, like Les Noces it was understood and obvious that the elegance could only be the work of a grand couturier — well known names flew around the theater. The costumes were splendidly minimal, a plain green gown for Dorabella, a yellow one for Fiordiligi, the gowns easily shed from time to time to reveal shapely legs surmounted by a high style bustle undergarment of the same color. Ferrando and Guglielmo were first seen in white long underwear, then shapely morning coats that were changed to vaguely Harlequinesque vests when they became Turks.
Everyone knows that Cosi has no real story, that it is an abstraction of youthful love as lived by young singers with beautiful voices and good bodies. Scarpitta moved his bodies in blocks of color, the chorus in black silhouette, and movement was mostly in abstract relationship to the music, much like balletic choreography. No emotive pulse of Mozart’s score was left without a correspondence of position or movement, and this transported us to the depths of decorative 18th century music. And very great musical pleasure.
Scarpitta most often envisioned the famous arias as ensemble statements, not just of singer and wind instrument, but of the singer amongst all the other singers on the stage, the meanings becoming more overtly public. The famous trio “Soave sia il vento” was a musical expanse of frozen emotion, its breezy triple meter only enough to reposition a feeling. Duets were synchronized exposition of studied movement, never broken nor forced. Time stood still.
Italian soprano Erika Grimaldi gave clear, rich, Italianate voice to Fiordiligi, well able to maintain her fine technique from prostrate positions, French mezzo Marianne Crebassa boasts elegant technique and has an innate sense for elegant movement. Scarpitta (as the general director of the Montpellier opera at the time the opera was cast) placed the more important vocal and musical responsibilities for his production on these two roles — as has Mozart.
American tenor Wesley Rogers as Ferrando however was quite alone on stage to sing his “Un’aura amorosa del nostro tesoro,” his insecure technique illuminating the vulnerability of his character. Tyrollean baritone André Schuen moved and sang with innocent grace as Guglielmo. Italian bass Antonio Abete brought grizzled elegance and aged vocal cynicism to the figure of Don Alfonso and French soubrette Virginie Pochon was a used-up, seen-it-all Despina who reenforced Don Alfonso’s disaffection for youth.
Director Scarpitta quickly downplayed the minimal dramatic outline of da Ponte’s plot by demonstrating very early on that basic sexual instincts superseded any emotional loyalty (there was lots of pawing). This directorial insight however undermined the a development of character that could support the intense lyricism of the second half of the opera. It was here that the evening became long, very long, and the maestro’s musical probings fell upon deaf ears.
Photo by Marc Ginot / Opéra national de Montpellier
Scarpitta ended his Cosi fan tutte with the utter physical disruption of its nuptial banquet and emotional disarray of its protagonists, much as Scarpitta had ended his Don Giovanni by having waiters, da Ponte’s demons, destroy the Don’s final banquet, leaving its survivors bewildered. Both banquets were the symbolic feasts of young love feasting on itself. Both ended in the deceptions of mature human values, and emotional bewilderment.
This Mozart da Ponte cycle was a stellar achievement, and majestically crowns Jean Paul Scarpitta’s fifteen years at the Opéra de Montpellier.
Michael Milenski
Links to Mr. Milenski's reviews of the Montpellier Giovanni and Nozze:
Don Giovanni in Montpellier
Les Noces de Figaro in Montpellier
Casts and production information:
Fiordiligi: Erika Grimaldi; Dorabella: Marianne Crebassa; Guglielmo: André Achuen; Ferrando: Wesley Rogers; Despina: Virginie Pochon; Don Alfonso: Antonio Abete. Chorus of the Opéra national Montpellier. Orchestre national Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon. Conductor: Alexander Shelley; Mise en scéne, sets and costumes: Jean-Paul Scarpitta; Lighting: Urs Schönebaum. Opéra Comédie, Montpellier. January 9, 2014.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Cosi_MontpellierOT1.png
image_description=André Schuen as Guglielmo, Marianne Crebassa as Dorabella [Photo Marc Ginot / Opéra national de Montpellier]
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product_title=Cosi fan tutte in Montpellier
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above: André Schuen as Guglielmo, Marianne Crebassa as Dorabella [Photo Marc Ginot / Opéra national de Montpellier]
January 10, 2014
Rameau: Les Surprises de l'Amour
By Tim Ashley [The Guardian, 8 January 2014]
The definitive version of Rameau's Les Surprises de l'Amour was first performed in Paris in 1758, though the work began life as a small-scale entertainment of the same name written a decade earlier for Madame de Pompadour's private theatre in Versailles. A big opera-ballet that gives song and dance equal dramatic weight, it never really allows us to forget its initial associations with the most famous of royal mistresses. Exhorting us, almost at the outset, to "hear the voice of pleasure," it's a restrained yet hedonistic celebration of carnality that juxtaposes a succession of contrasting erotic narratives from classical literature.
January 8, 2014
Matthias Goerne — Mahler and Shostakovich, Wigmore Hall
Who but Goerne would dare such an eclectic juxtaposition, framing six songs from Shostakovich's eleven song cycle with songs drawn from Mahler's entire output, each of which presents formidable challenges?
Most singers would pale at the very prospect of singing songs from the Rückert Lieder, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Kindertotenlieder, and transcriptions from the symphonies, but by throwing Shostakovich into the mix, Goerne drew out new perspectives in both Mahler and Shostakovich. This was a daring, even shocking programme, and technically a formidable undertaking, but Goerne carried it off with conviction and superlative artistry.
The Mahler anniversary year brought forth Mahlerkugeln, commercially palatable but poisonous to art. Goerne's Mahler isn't like that, but as uncompromising and demanding as the composer himself. He's been singing Mahler for nearly 20 years, his interpretations enhanced with an intuitive appreciation of the music as a whole. I've seen him sneak into the audience after singing, and watched him listening intensely to the orchestra and conductor he'd just worked with playing symphonies with no vocal part. This in itself is an insight: song infuses all of Mahler's music and vice versa. Mahler's songs aren't really made for celebrity showcases, but for those who care about the idiom as a whole.
Hearing Mahler on equal terms with Shostakovich broadens the equation, shedding light on Shostakovich and his admiration for Mahler. Goerne has made a speciality of Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti op 145, 1974. Here he did the piano and voice original with Andsnes, but the memory of the much richer, more complex orchestral version hung over it inaudibly, much in the way that knowing Mahler's orchestral music enhances appreciation of his songs.
The programme was divided in themes based around each of the Shostakovich songs. in Utro (Morning), the poet describes his lover's golden tresses, garlanded by flowers. The mood is sensual, perfumed with the promise of love. Goerne began with the most delicate of Rückert songs, Ich atmet' einen Linden Duft, where the music sways like an invisible fragrance. Melancholy infuses Shostakovich's song, as if in the moment of embrace he can foresee parting. Seamlessly, Goerne and Andsnes flowed into Wo die schõnen Trompeten blasen, where the woman thinks her lover has returned. But he's an illusion, foretelling death. These songs aren't to be taken at face values. Goerne's hushed tones suggested sadness, quietly understated.
The expansive long lines in Razluka (Separation) express distances, in time and in space. The poet cannot live without love, and dies, leaving the memory of his devotion as a pledge. Michelangelo, being an artist, lives eternally in the works he left behind. Goerne followed Razluka with Es sungen drei Engel einen súßen Gesang, the transcription for solo voice and piano of the Wunderhorn song that appears in Mahler's Symphony no 3. In the symphony, the youthful chorus sounds innocent, but the song deals with life after death. Similarly, in Das irdische Leben the child dies because its needs are unfulfilled. Goerne emphasized the word "Totenbahr" to drive home the point.
Two songs from Kindertotenlieder followed, Nun seh' ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen and Wenn dien Mütterlein, where Rückert describes seeing the images of his dead children. "Was dir nur Augen sind in diesen Tagen" sang Goerne, purposefully, "in künft'gen Nächten sind es dir nur Sterne". Death is just one of those "separations" (Razluka) that will be overcome. Yet again, Goerne and Andsnes performed the piano/voice transcription of Urlicht from Mahler's Symphony no 2. We don't need to hear the mezzo and the choir, but we remember them and the part the song plays in the symphony, extending the "borrowed landscape" of the song.
In Noch, Michelangelo describes a marble angel that breathes, both a work of man and of God. Shostakovich wrote this cycle as he approached his own death, possibly anxious that once he was dead, the Soviets might suppress his music, so the connections to Rückert and to Mahler are clear. "Ich bin gestorben" sang Goerne with quiet dignity, rising to forceful restraint "In meinem Himmel, in meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied". Ich bin der Welt Abhandedn gekommen as a song of protest? In this performance, totally convincing.
Hence Goerne and Andsnes launched without a break into Shostakovich Bessmertiye (Immortality). with its defiant capriciousness. "No ya ne myortv, khot i opushchen v zemlyu" (I am not dead, though I lie in the earth). The critical line rises gloriously, agilely upward "I am alive in the hearts of all who love" Andnes played the "shining" motif evoking a balalaika, a folk instrument that can't be suppressed, but in this performance, the Mahler images of light and "Urlicht" were more dominant than in performances with a true Russian bass like Dmitri Hvorostovsky. But deep basses can't quite manage the agility needed for Mahler.
In Dante, Shostakovich unleashed the pent-up savagery he must have felt, living in a repressed society. Dante's writings, the text reminds us, were "regarded with scorn by the general mob", bur Michelangelo would prefer to suffer than deny art. Ya b luchshey doli v mire ne zhelal!" sang "I could wish for no finer earthly life". Goerne has spoken Russian since childhood. He was young enough to receive the benefits of a DDR education without suffering hardship, but any sensitive person can identify with the idea of art overcoming obstacles. One has only to think of Masur and the Leipziger Gewandhaus Orchester in the tense times of 1989.
Hearing Mahler's Revelge in this context makes the song much more pointed than a mere ghost story. The dead soldiers march through the town at night, singing "tralalee, tralalay, tralala" but the words were sung with a hollow mechanical edge. Entirely appropriate because in war, men are turned into machine fodder. The point might have been made even more savagely if Goerne and Andnes had included Shostakovich's Gnev (Anger) which specifically pins the blame on the abuse of power. "For Rome is a forest full of murderers". However, I suspect that would have shifted the balance too far from Mahler.
Instead, we had Smert (Death), whose slow, sinking lines move in penitential procession. The strings of Andsnes's piano were suppressed to create a sense of hollowness, like footsteps treading implacably towards death. Shostakovich's full cycle ends on an upbeat, light motifs skipping into eternity. This performance ended with Mahler's Der Tamboursg'sell, where the drummer might seem unconcerned about his imminent execution. He says goodbye to the military, rank by rank, but we don't know what he's done to deserve being killed. Perhaps, to interpret this song, we need to consider other sources,the times and even the context. When we listen to anything, we hear more than what's immediately before us. This recital had such an impact on me that I was thinking about how Mahler and Shostakovich fitted into a wider musical scheme of things. Goerne and Andsnes sang Beethoven An die Hoffnung Op 94 for an encore, with the glorious, "O Hoffnung", glowing with hope and the references to angels, midnight and transcendence, I could almost visualize composers moving in succession : Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Mahler, Shostakovich and many more, and think of performers, performances and music other than song. The recital was over, but still having an impact on me.
Anne Ozorio
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image_description=Matthias Goerne [Photo by Marco Borggreve]
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Otello in Genoa
There was some foreign intervention, the Otello of American (Wisconsin) tenor Gregory Kunde and the Iago of Spanish baritone Carlos Àlvarez. The American is one of Europe’s leading bel canto tenors who sang Rossini’s Otello long before taking on Verdi’s Moor, in fact his role debut as the Verdi Otello was in the premiere of this production that happened in Valencia, Spain in June 2013 with these same three principals (Zubin Mehta conducting).
Kunde is a bel canto singer who finds unexpected lyricism in this gigantic showpiece usually undertaken by the spinto voices. Kunde’s voice resonated with more depth and beauty than his Rossini roles elicit, with a substantial force of voice somewhat rounder rather than the cutting tone that serves him well in Rossini. The result of this lighter voice in Genoa was a vulnerable Otello, a man neurotically tormented by jealousy, not simply possessed by it. This lyricism grounded the Livermore production as an exposition of neurosis, Desdemona and Iago components of Otello's neurosis.
Àlvarez possesses a darkly colored voice, a black tonality often found in basses who must create the dread associated with opera’s villains — though a baritone Iago is maybe the ugliest of all operatic villains. Àlvarez’ lack of tonal warmth plus his reserve of power, that of a true Verdi baritone, his slim stature and his head endowed with snaky black locks of hair made an evil character who oscillated between feigned passivity and triumphant domination. True to the end he did not dash toward a cowardly escape but ceremoniously descended off the upper edge of the stage, no longer a player in Otello's hell.
Maria Agresta as Desdemona, Gregory Kunde as Otello. Photo by Marcello Orselli
Soprano Maria Agresto as Desdemona revealed levels of vulnerability to human instinct that Shakespeare ignores (the Bard hides deeper character revelations in the phrase picked up by Verdi and Boito — “born under an evil star”). This splendid young soprano is of powerful and complex voice, fearlessly mounting to pianissimo high notes that permitted hints of risk which added edge to character. Of complex persona as well she circled Otello in the Act I duet almost dancing as an animal in rut. And there was more circling — flirtatious at the least — in her Act II meeting with Cassio. La Agresto sang her final prayer lying face down on the floor, a fallen angel, reflected as the whore Otello had made her.
This spectacular casting was topped off by the Cassio of Angelo Fiori, a very tall, very present, young Italian who moved a bit like a dancer. Like Desdemona he was wigged in long blond hair unabashedly establishing a physical connection to her that ignited Otello’s neurosis and palpably inflamed the innate terror of the corni (horns) of all males (Italians) present in the theater.
Like melodramma and like verismo, these characters were possessed by big emotions, clearly stated at the beginning and simply awaiting brutal dénouement. This was Act III, the Venetian scene, when 26 year-old conductor Andrea Battistoni let loose with volumes that equaled, maybe exceeded the opening storm, volumes that were spine chilling in intensity, and dramatically ironic in that they established the enormity of the murderous emotion yet to come. This young conductor obviously relished the brutality of the Livermore conception, visibly participating with the stage by demonstratively pushing the chorus to and beyond its limits. All chorus scenes were huge, the Act II garden chorus seated, aggressively taunting more than praising the purity of Desdemona.
Act II Garden Chorus. Photo by Marcello Orselli
These days metteur en scène Davide Livermore is the most visible stage director on Italy’s more adventurous stages. Like all of his recent projects here he was not only stage director but also the set designer with the collaboration of Giò Forma, a Milanese design company that does big events like the America’s Cup 2012 and the MTV Awards. Here the concept was a vortex like structure (descending concentric circles) with a central, focal disk, like the pupil of an eye. The pupil moved, rising above the structure to transport Otello and Desdemona to the heavens of desire in their love duet. It elevated its front edge from which Iago delivered his “Credo in un dio crudele” at which point the edges of the concentric circles illuminated in red lines (Mr. Livermore is credited for the lighting).
Costume design is credited to Mr. Livermore, wigs a signature element of character (the long blond wigs of Desdemona and Cassio, the long black tresses of Iago that may or may not have been a wig, the identical ship-like, punk shapes of the wigs for the women’s chorus). The swaths of cape colors illuminated character — Iago in luminous metallic silver, Otello ultimately in priestly vestment, a red-lined white cape, that he carefully took off to administer death to Desdemona. Stage movement was abstract, actors moving on the vortex lines of an unstoppable downward vacuum, finding the most powerful, emotional place on the structure to deliver their signature statements. Otello at the end again elevated on the pupil of the eye, this time alone reliving the “bacio” to Verdi’s trombones whispering the opera’s opening storm.
Rarely do operatic forces converge with the artistic power created on the Carlo Felice stage by this production.
Michael Milenski
Cast and production information:
Otello: Gregory Kunde; Jago: Carlos Àlvarez; Cassio: Angelo Fiore; Roderigo: Naoyuki Okada; Lodovico: Seung Pil Choi; Montano: Claudio Ottino; Un Araldo: Gian Piero Barattero; Desdemona: Maria Agresta; Emilia: Valeria Sepe. Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro Carlo Felice. Conductor: Andrea Battistoni; Metteur en scène: Davide Livermore; Scenery: Davide Livermore and Giò Forma; Costumes: Davide Livermore and Marianna Fracasso; Lighting: Davide Livermore. Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa, Italy. January 3, 2014.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Otello_Genoa3_OT.png
image_description=Iago and Otello [Photo by Marcello Orselli]
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product_title=Otello in Genoa
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above: Carlos Àlvarez as Iago, Gregory Kunde as Otello [Photo by Marcello Orselli]
January 7, 2014
Les Contes d'Hoffmann in Lyon
There were in fact two just now in the Opéra de Lyon remounting of its 2005 production of Hoffmann, both collective hitches.
Not only has Mr. Pelly created a figurative nightmare, he has created a technical nightmare as well. The usual four sets — the tavern, the workshop, the bedroom, the salon — morph into thirty or forty or so scenes, a seemingly countless progression of scenic moments that evolve through the unfolding of Hoffmann’s narration in dream form. And the dream is a bad one in which the macabre surreal is suspended in abstract, dark space.
The Pelly concept is complex indeed. Not for a moment does Pelly allow us to forget that human motivations push the bizarre psychological and philosophical impulses of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s morbid tales. He accomplishes this by making us watch smart, strong stagehands push and pull walls and platforms and operate machines that transport Pelly’s phantoms through the dream world he has created for Offenbach’s opera.
John Osborn as Hoffmann, Patrizia Ciofi as Olimpia. Photo © Jean-Pierre Maurin
Offenbach never lets up on his teasing of the world of art — E.T.A. Hoffmann was a poet, Offenbach’s Hoffmann is a poet and singer, Stella is a singer, etc. Pelly and his brilliant scenographer Chantal Thomas have created a production that is continuous creation, and like the roles of Hoffmann and Stella in all her transfigurations — roles that demand great virtuosity and superhuman strength — their production teases the art of stagecraft by teetering it on the edge of what mechanical stagecraft can possibly achieve.
The efforts of mind and muscle expended to operate its scenic mechanism are enormous, and amazingly and precisely timed to messieurs Offenbach and Hoffmann. But in a real dream all this movement would seem effortless, even magical. It did not quite work that way just now in Lyon — there were occasional thumps, pounding now and again, walls chasing singers, platforms that jerked their way across the stage. The production simply does not sit comfortably within the confines of architect Jean Nouvel’s theater.
But you can imagine that when this production does move effortlessly it easily becomes the star of the show. The production was reborn last year in Barcelona and San Francisco before returning now to Lyon. In San Francisco it achieved, more or less, the smoothness of a dream (though there were still technical glitches) and it was in fact the star of the show. However the star was supposed to be Natalie Dessay who finally sang only Antonia (appropriately and ironically the iconic French diva announced her retirement from the opera stage after the second performance).
Of course the name of the opera is Hoffmann thus the star of the show should be Hoffmann. In fact in Lyon American tenor John Osborn achieves the artistic stature to fulfill the demands of Laurent Pelly’s concept, and hold the stage vocally and histrionically through this monumental competition. Mr. Osborn is a very physical performer, a real actor and a beautifully voiced, finished singer. Vocally he is a tenore leggero allowing him to negotiate the role’s high tessitura with ease, maybe even interpolate a few high notes for added effect. At the end however when we expect the pathos of an emotionally and vocally exhausted Hoffmann Mr. Osborn sounded like he could take it from the top all over again.
The Pelly production begins with Stella alone onstage singing Mozart's “Non mi dir” from Don Giovanni. It was Italian diva Patrizia Ciofi, an esteemed artist who quite resembles Natalie Dessay, in what seems to be her role debut as Stella. It was easy to forgive this bit of wobbly Mozart, harder to forgive the wooden tones of Olimpia with truncated high notes, painful to hear the hoarse sounds of her lower voice as Antonia, and irritating to perceive her struggling tiredness as Giulietta. Though dramaturgically Offenbach’s Tales may beg a single opera star to fulfill an impossible array of voices, this example vindicates casting three different singers who can compete vocally with Hoffmann himself, not to mention a conceptually demanding production.
Laurant Alvaro as Dr. Miracle. Photo © Jean-Pierre Maurin
French bass-baritone Laurent Alvaro made big voiced, sinister villains, moving through the roles with force and aplomb though he does not exude a vocal, musical or histrionic refinement that rises to the sophistication of the Pelly production. The same may be said of young Cyrille Dubois as the four servants. Belgian mezzo-soprano Angélique Noldus was over-parted as Nicklausse, neither her voice nor her persona able to cross over the pit into the auditorium. The roles of Luther and Crespel were clumsily executed by British baritone Peter Sidhom.
Offenbach’s score is one of opera’s most engaging masterpieces. But even the pit could not save this performance. This sixth performance (of eight) was conducted by Philippe Forget (Kazushi Ono conducted the first four). This young French maestro conducts minor projects at the Opéra de Lyon and elsewhere. While the Lyon orchestra ably fulfilled its role and the maestro and singers were comfortable with one another, the wit, power and pathos of the score were sorely lacking. Perhaps the young maestro was unnerved by the roughness of the production and its singers.
Michael Milenski
For additional perspective on this production please see Les Contes d’Hoffmann in San Francisco
Casts and production information:
Hoffmann: John Osborn; Lindorf/Coppelius/Docteur Miracle/Dapertutto: Laurent Alvaro; Olympia/Antonia/Giulietta/Stella: Patrizia Ciofi; Muse/Nicklausse: Angélique Noldus; Andrès/Cochenille/Frantz/Pitichinaccio: Cyrille Dubois; Hermann/Peter Schlemil: Christophe Gay; Nathanaël/Spalanzani: Carl Ghazarossian. Chorus and Orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon. Conductor: Philippe Forget. Mise en scène and costumes: Laurent Pelly; Scenery: Chantal Thomas; Lighting: Joël Adam. Opéra Nouvel de Lyon. December 26, 2013.
image=http://www.operatoday.com/Hoffmann_Lyon2_OT.png image_description=John Osborn as Hoffmann [Photo © Jean-Pierre Maurin] product=yes product_title=Les Contes d'Hoffmann in Lyon product_by=A review by Michael Milenski product_id=Above: John Osborn as Hoffmann [Photo © Jean-Pierre Maurin]January 1, 2014
From Student To Teacher: Marilyn Horne
By Joanie Brittingham [Classical Singer, January 2014]
Marilyn Horne, one of the best known singers in the world and whose singing career spanned four decades, continues to dominate the field of vocal music as a sought-after teacher. Celebrating her 80th birthday this month, Horne has achieved the kind of career longevity that singers dream of accomplishing. Opera News proclaimed that she “may be the most influential singer in American history.”