Opera Today

James Gilchrist at Wigmore Hall

Indeed, it was Beethoven’s six songs (To the Distant Beloved) — settings of texts by the minor poet, Alois Jeitteles (1794-1858) which are united by the idea or motif of love filtered through images of the idealised pastoral — which were most imaginative and impressive, as Gilchrist and his accompanist Anna Tilbrook swept seamlessly through the sequence, conveying the impetuousness and naivety of the enamoured young poet-speaker and the all-encompassing nature of his obsession with his beloved.

In the opening song, Gilchrist’s light tone was just right for the young man’s nostalgic recollections of the distant meadows where he first met his loved one as well as the wistful sadness of their subsequent separation. The introspective yearning of the second song, in which the poet longs to be at his lover’s side was beautifully evoked. Tilbrook crafted a lovely melodic line in the second stanza, as the voice repeated a single note over several bars, perfectly embodying the sentiments of the text which paints an image of stillness and the quiet observation of nature: ‘Still die Primmel dort sinnt, /Weht so leise der Wind/ Möchte ich sein!’ (the primrose meditates in silence, and the wind blows so softly — there would I be!).

‘Leichter Segler in den Höhen’ (Light clouds sailing on high) was light of tread but had a rhythmic persuasiveness, and the move to the minor for the final stanzas was tellingly pointed; indeed, throughout the recital Tilbrook shaped the harmonic pathways with discernment. In this Beethoven sequence the varied, developing accompaniments were fresh and compelling, and transitions between songs fluently executed, with some well-judged pauses, relaxations and surges of tempo.

After the simplicity of the first five strophic forms, Gilchrist employed the through-composed structure of the final song to shape a convincing conclusion. In the slow opening line, ‘Nimm sie hin denn, diese lieder’ (Accept, then, these songs) the legato was disarming, and he made effective use of a hushed head voice as the sun’s rays faded ‘Hinter jener Bergeshöh’ (behind those mountain heights).

The smooth grace of Gilchrist’s tenor and his unmannered attentiveness to musical and verbal nuances seemed especially well-suited to these Beethoven song. Tilbrook, too, demonstrated a dexterous technique and thoughtful touch, creating fleeting textures to capture the ‘pure’ sounds of the romantic landscape.

Scubert’s Rellstab settings which opened the concert, though they share Beethoven’s theme of love for a distant beloved, were less settled and focused; despite Gilchrist’s close observance of detail and his mellifluous delivery, he didn’t quite capture the darker side of the spirit of ‘Sehnsucht’ which is innate to these songs. The most successful of the set were the final two, ‘In der Ferne’ (Far away) and ‘Abschied’ (Farewell), in which the colours and tempo perfectly matched the poetic sentiment.

There were some engaging individual readings too: ‘Kreigers Ahnung’ (Warrior’s foreboding) was slow and ominous of tempo, and Tilbrook created a sense of resounding expanse in the incisive rhythms and broad phrases. Gilchrist was unfailingly alert to the individual words and to the poem’s rapid fluctuations of mood, although occasionally such attentiveness resulted in a loss of naturalness: the line ‘Von Sehnsucht mir so heiß’ (so afire with longing) was deliberately heightened, not without effect, but its repetition was troubled by a wavering vibrato which weakened the melodic form — a problem that was not reserved for this song.

In ‘Ständchen’ (Serenade), Gilchrist displayed a soft gentleness ideal for embodying the nocturnal song and moonlit rustlings and whispers. And, in ‘Frühlings-Sehnsucht’ (Spring longing) he used vocal colour to create a searching air; the queries which end each stanza — ‘Wohin?’, ‘Warum?’, ‘Und Du?’ — were tentatively posed, rather than rhetorical, creating a touching vulnerability and pathos.

The Heine settings had more intensity and drama, not surprisingly as the poetry leaves behind Rellstab’s sighing breezes and rippling streams and enters bleaker realms of suffering and isolation. ‘Atlas’ was powerfully rhetorical, with Tilbrook’s accompaniment fittingly heavy and laboured, but Gilchrist still did not quite convince as one wholly wretched, who has the weight of the world, and its suffering, upon his shoulders. While ‘Ihr Bild’ (Her likeness) was beautifully restrained, ‘Das Fischermädchen’ (The fishermaiden) had a bright energy and warm optimism.

The performers shaped the emotional climax of ‘Die Stadt’ (The town) with skill. The cool distance of the opening, as the turrets of the town loom mistily on the remote horizon, built to a pained intensity in the final line, ‘Wo ich das Liebste verlor’ (where I lost what I loved most) as the sun-drenched vision of the poet-speaker’s painful memory gleamed forth. An adventurously wide dynamic range was employed to suggest the insidious presence and danger of the wraith which haunts the poet-speaker in the final song of the Heine sequence, ‘Der Doppelgänger’; and, once more, Gilchrist and Tilbrook graded the escalation of the speaker’s despair, the riskily slow tempo of the first stanza surging in the last, as the tone grew ever more fierce and piercing.

Throughout the programme, Gilchrist displayed an attractive, relaxed middle register, some interesting colours at the bottom and a dreamy head voice; but in the Schubert songs when the dynamic rose in the upper range the voice seemed somewhat tense. Tilbrook was alert to the word- and mood-painting in Schubert’s accompaniments but sometimes the pictorial gestures were a little too deliberate, as in ‘Liebesbotschaft’ (Love’s message) where the brook bubbled rather than murmured; and her use of rubato was at times overly conspicuous.

Unfailingly pleasing, this recital was meticulous in preparation and execution; perhaps too much so, in that Gilchrist never seemed to ‘inhabit’ the songs, rather to deliver them albeit with intelligence and skill; it all sounded rather too ‘nice’. But, that is scarcely a criticism — and perhaps a personal taste. For, while Gilchrist may not quite have the range of tones and shades to plummet the Romantic essence of these songs, he and Tilbrook demonstrated appreciable insight and care for the music.

Claire Seymour

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Performers and programme:

James Gilchrist, tenor; Anna Tilbrook, piano. Wigmore Hall, London, Thursday 17^th July 2014.

Franz Schubert: Schwanengesang D957; Ludwig van Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte Op.98

image=http://www.operatoday.com/James-Gilchrist.gif image_description=James Gilchrist product=yes product_title=James Gilchrist at Wigmore Hall product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: James Gilchrist

Vittorio Grigolo and Angela Gheorghiu on why they love La bohème (The Royal Opera)

Maria Callas Remastered

Music for a While: Improvisations on Henry Purcell

As the four-bar circular ground basses unfolded, theorbo-player and director Christina Pluhar and her musical partners produced an ever-changing kaleidoscope of harmonic, rhythmic and textural variations, blending the ‘authentic’ Baroque with the relaxed rhythms and evocative colours of jazz, folk and world music; the idioms segued seamlessly, underpinned by a firm structural core and articulated with astonishing skill and imagination.

Around countertenor Philippe Jaroussky’s effortlessly graceful melodies, the instrumentalists invented and improvised, intuitively conversing with the other voices in the musical exchange and demonstrating consummate understanding of the art of Baroque extemporisation and ornamentation combined with the flexible responsiveness of modern jazz.

Jaroussky sings with wonderful precision and control; his beautiful, clean sound strokes the long, phrases into being, with just a dash of flexibility to bring a modern touch to the classical melodies. In ‘An evening hymn’ and ‘O solitude, my sweetest choice’ the vocal line, at times pure, then more sensuous, seemed to float in and out of the instrumental solos; in the latter, Sarah Ridy’s harp commentary was especially affecting. ‘Strike the viol’ was more rhythmically free and like the bawdy ‘‘Twas within a furlong of Edinboro’ Town’ (from The Mock Marriage) had an infectious energy, driven by Boris Schmidt’s springy bass. Jaroussky displayed a judicious feeling for the comic in ‘Man is for the woman made’, performed as a wry encore; elsewhere he emphasised the ethereal beauty of Purcell’s sighing melodies, as in ‘One charming night’ from The Faerie Queen.

One could not pick out an individual instrumentalist for especial praise; this is truly a collective performance and they all impressed both in the Purcell inventions and in the intervening instrumental items such as Maurizio Cazzati’s Ciaccona Op.22 No.14 and Nicola Matteis’s La dia Spagnola, in which the centuries between the time of composition and the modern world seemed to disappear. Doron Sherwin’s cornetto was by turns expressive and seductive, enfolding the voice, and bright and jazzy, his extravagant flourishes thrilling as they chased the racing embellishments of Veronika Skuplik’s baroque violin. All the players moved between modes and moods with total naturalness; the merest changes of articulation effected imperceptible transitions, as when Schmidt’s tender pizzicato strokes took on a brighter, jazzier hue, lifting a melancholy, introspective ground bass into a spirited dance.

When I heard L’Arpeggiata in October last year, I noted that percussionist David Mayoral’s ‘astonishing percussion playing drew gasps … as he coaxed a magical array of tones and beats, sometimes simultaneously, from the simplest of musical means: a single drum skin emitted a panoply of strokes, taps and pitches.’ Mayoral cast his percussive spell once more in an extended improvisation in which he seemed almost entranced by his own rhythmic invocation, his hypnotic riff bringing a smile of pleasure and affection to the lips of his fellow musicians.

Pluhar’s wonderful invention and technical mastery was showcased in Giovanni Kapsberger’s Toccata arpeggiata; and, in the closing song, the plaint ‘O let me weep’ from The Faerie Queen,Skuplik and Jaroussky wove a wonderfully sensitive duet for baroque violin and voice, profound with melancholy.

L’Arpeggiata did not simply perform arrangements of Purcell; rather they created entirely new, highly original, works. Their musicianship, technical prowess and the joy that their shared musical dialogue so obviously inspired, both on the platform and among the audience of the Wigmore Hall, made this performance an absolute delight. It was standing-room only, and two encores — a wry touch of self-parody followed by a beautifully simple rendition of Dido’s lament, ‘When I am laid in earth’ — just didn’t seem enough. The final bass pizzicato whispered and faded into the still air; a magical, otherworldly moment to close an utterly bewitching performance.

Claire Seymour

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Performers and programme:

Christina Pluhar — director, theorbo; Philippe Jaroussky — countertenor; Veronika Skuplik — baroque violin; Doron Sherwin — cornetto; Sarah Ridy — baroque harp; Eero Palviainen — lute; Boris Schmidt — double bass; David Mayoral — percussion; Francesco Turrisi —harpsichord, organ; Haru Kitamika — harpsichord, organ. Wigmore Hall, London, Thursday 10^th July 2014.

Cazzati, Ciaccona; Purcell, ‘Music for a while’, ‘‘Twas within a furlong of Edinboro’ Town’; Matteis, La dia Spagnola; Purcell, ‘An evening hymn’, ‘Strike the viol’; Kapsberger, Toccata arpeggiata; Purcell, ‘O solitude, my sweetest choice’, ‘Two in One upon a Ground’, ‘A Prince of glorious race descended’, ‘One charming night’; Anonymous (instrumental); Purcell, ‘How the Deities approve’; Improvisation; Purcell, ‘Curtain tune’, ‘The plaint’.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Pluhar.png image_description=Christina Pluhar product=yes product_title=Music for a While: Improvisations on Henry Purcell product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Christina Pluhar

Central City Opera’s 2014 Festival Trailer

Nabucco at Orange

It was a production by Jean-Paul Scarpitta who was stage director and scenery and costume designer. Mr. Scarpitta’s dramaturgy is informed by his fascinations for Giorgio Strehler and Robert Wilson from which many wonderful stagings have resulted during his ten year residency in Montpellier.

There was promise in the air, the breadth of the raked stage (300 feet wide, 60 feet deep) was covered in a black asphalt-like substance, the mostly intact, imposing scaenae frons (back wall of the theater) was bare, overseen from high above by the massive sculpture of the Emperor Augustus. The revelation of the evening was the lighting of the black floor by Urs Schônebaum, its enormous shiny, rough surface shone in a myriad of intensities for the huge exterior scenes, sometimes it was reduced to a brilliant square of white light to frame a singer (Nabucco’s intensely personal “Son pur queste mie membra”), other times strong directional side light cast enormous, elongated shadows across the stage that deepened emotional relationships (the Act I confrontation of Abigail with the lovers Fenena and Ismaele).

Scapitta’s staging of Verdi’s early masterpiece was sabotaged often by the video projections on the back wall. After an initial appreciation of the technical feat of accomplishing such massive projections (ranging from discretely deployed white-lighted, descending emotional shapes to the ugly, yellow-ish, sprayed styrofoam image that covered the entire back wall for the palace interior scenes) the projections became distractions to the accomplishments of the singers and lights on the black floor.

George Gagnizde as Nabucco, Maria Serafin as Abigail

Mr. Scarpita is a musical stage director, his actors moved more by musical line and musical structural rather than by dramatic motivation. Here too he was sabotaged, now by singers who were read as static lumps of color rather than as the excited singers responding to the young Verdi whose Nabucco revealed his genius for the first time.

Veteran Georgian baritone George Gagnizde made some big sounds in a strong entrance but soon fell into an almost lieder-like performance by a bored singer. Veteran Austrian soprano Maria Serafin, a noted Tosca, no longer has the bloom of voice and perhaps never had the agility of voice to create a vibrant Abigail, a character Verdi created to tear-up-the-stage vocally and dramatically.

Younger members of the cast were more effective. French mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes made a low key Fenena that conveyed a static presence and personality in her monochrome rose costume. Italian tenor Piero Pretti sang a stylish Ismaele and moved gracefully.

Dimitry Beloselskiy as Zaccaria, Karine Deshayes as Fenena.

The opera is however about Nabucco and Abigail, not Fenena and Ismaele. Russian bass Dimitry Beloselskiy made it about the Jewish high priest Zaccaraia as well. This fine young bass found the voice and presence to make his role the biggest performance of the evening. Unfortunately his performance was sabotaged by his costume, a white robe covered by black lightning bolt-like (sort of) shapes. While the powerful shapes on the costume sought to embody a force of divine strength they instead made his exhortations seem decorative rather than dramatic.

The costumes of the chorus were always identical, creating giant blocks of color on the stage, mostly static swathes of color that in theory (and if they were far larger) might have become a pedal-point musical color. The problem of how to move these blocks of color onto and off of the stage was never overcome. An additional scenic impulse backfired — thirty or so spear carrying Babylonian warrior extras wearing only loin clothes. Had these stalwart young Orangeois been clothed they might have seemed handsome and strong. Semi-nude they exposed a variety of shapes and postures that cried out for prosthetic chests.

The sight lines from the cavea (the tiered seating) of the Théâtre Antique makes the orchestra (seated in the “orchestra” of a Roman theater) a visually important part of the field of vision. This presence together with the fine acoustic of the theater leaves the orchestra as exposed as a solo singer on the stage. Here the unforgiving acoustic revealed the weaknesses of the Orchestre National de Montpellier, particularly the winds, The sound of the orchestra itself lacked the finesse expected of a fine French orchestra.

The conducting of veteran Israeli maestro Pinchas Steinberg did not come near the intense excitement that Verdi had found within himself for opera as a patriotic art form, nor for the new styles of vocal virtuosity that Verdi asked of his singers. Even “Va pensiero” came across as little more than a self-conscious hum along.

And what about the lighted, window onto upstage stage center from back stage that was left uncovered? Its light and passing figures fouled the stage picture of anyone sitting in Section 4. Is there no one home at the Chorégies?

Michael Milenski

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Casts and production information:

Abigaïlle: Martina Serafin; Fenena: Karine Deshayes; Anna; Marie-Adeline Henry; Nabucco: George Gagnidze; Zaccaria: Dmitry Belosselskiy; Ismaele: Piero Pretti; Il Gran Sacerdote di Belo: Nicolas Courjal; Abdallo: Luca Lombardo. Orchestre National Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon. Choruses of the opera companies of Nice, Montpellier, Avignon and Toulon. Conductor: Pinchas Steinberg. Mise en scène, scenery and costumes: Jean-Paul Scarpitta; Lighting: Urs Schönebaum. Théâtre Antique Romain, Orange, France, July 9, 2014.




image=http://www.operatoday.com/Nabucco_Orange1.png

product=yes
product_title=Nabucco at the Chorégies d'Orange
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above: Dimitry Beloselskiy as Zaccaria, Karine Deshayes as Fenena. [Photo by Photos Abadee]

Richard Strauss: Notturno

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s recordings of Strauss’s complete lieder may have set the benchmark (the EMI Classic 6-CD set was re-released in August 2013 on the Warner Classics Budget Boxes label), but Hampson has established himself as one of the foremost interpreters of the German Romantic repertory; and, following his much-admired 2011 recording of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn, here the American baritone celebrates Strauss’s 150^th anniversary with an imaginative recording which takes the listener on a tour through the composer’s life and confirms Hampson’s discernment and sensitivity to this idiom and language.

We begin with two early songs from the Op.10 (1885) settings of Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg. Though, like most of these songs, they are only a few minutes in length ‘Zueignung’ (Dedication) and ‘Die Nacht’ demonstrate Hampson’s directness in conveying the young composer’s rapturous moods; the voice may itself have lost some of its youthful bloom but there is great character and richness, an intelligent sense of musical line, and a strength and brightness at the top which brings vigour and ardour. Hampson is also, throughout the recording, superbly attentive to the German text. Pianist Wolfram Rieger is an eloquent partner, providing a warm foundation in the subdued passages, the delicate inter-phrase commentaries well-shaped.

Though many share a brooding intensity, these songs are by no means singular in mood and Hampson is alert to this variety and — in ‘Winternacht’, for example, with its graphic response to Adolf Friedrich von Schack’s nature imagery — to Strauss’s overt word-painting. Strauss’s setting of Felix Dahn’s ‘Ach weh mir unglückhaftem Mann’ (Alas I am an unlucky man) expands the lyric intensity into dramatic realms and Hampson’s baritone assumes a more operatic quality. The song’s direct speech is delivered with immediacy, Hampson finding a dreamy softness for the maiden’s imagined question, ‘Was soll der großen Rosenstrauß,/ die Schimmel an dem Wagen?’ (‘What are you doing with this large bouquet of roses, and these white horses and carriage?’), while Rieger summons the energy of the trotting horses with their clanging bells and the crack of the rider’s whip with éclat.

The elongated vowels of Karl Friedrich Henckell’s brief poetic phrases form extended, searching melodic lines in ‘Ruhe, meine Seele’ (Rest, my soul). As the poet-speaker seeks peace in a tumultuous world, Hampson’s baritone rises with surprising urgency and distress — Diese Zeiten/ Sind gewaltig,/ Bringen Herz/ Und Hirn in Not’ (These times are powerful, bring torment to heart and mind) — before the piano postlude gently quells the anguish.

Both performers surmount the technical challenges of ‘Heimliche Aufforderung’ (Secret Invitation) with accomplishment, Hampson surely negotiating the unpredictable melodic twists and turns while Rieger captures the ever-changing moods in the accompaniment. The poet-speaker’s yearning for the longed-for ‘wondrous night’ (‘O komme, du wunderbare, ersehnte Nacht!’) is rich and radiant; in contrast, ‘Morgen’, presaged by Rieger’s articulate introduction, is wonderfully intimate, the voice shimmering gently as Hampson dreams of ‘tomorrow’, when the ‘silence of happiness’ will settle upon the lovers. ‘Traum durch die Dämmerung’ begins with the still composure of a lullaby but surges impassionedly, before closing with an ethereal whisper, as the poet-speaker is drawn ‘through the grey twilight to the land of love, into a blue, mild light’ (‘durch Dämmergrau in der Liebe Land,/ in ein mildes, blaues Licht’).

Three songs from the last few years of the nineteenth century capture three different and quintessential Straussian moods: the sincerity and wistful melancholy of Detlev von Liliencron’s poetry in ‘Sehnsucht’ (1896), with its quiet, declamatory opening and wonderfully floating closing phrase, is complemented by the buoyant, pure joy of ‘Das Rosenband’ (Ribbons of roses) (Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, 1897), which in turn fades into the bitter-sweet passion of ‘Befreit’ (Released) (Richard Dehmel, 1898). In the latter, the baritone melody is skilfully crafted, building in concentration, powerfully projected. Indeed, Hampson’s thoughtful shaping of each individual narrative is impressive; the tempi are well-chosen, perfectly matched to sentiment, and the feelings and dramas that unfold are convincing and engrossing.

By 1929 Strauss had his great operatic successes behind him and it is perhaps not surprising that the Op.87 Rückert settings of that year are grander in scale. A reflection on approaching old age, ‘Vom künftigen Alter’ is characterised by a quasi-orchestral rhetoric in the accompaniment, and Rieger relishes the contrasts between the sweeping flourishes in the right hand and more subdued passages which intimate the waning of the poet-speaker’s youthful vigour and the pallor of the fading roses. In ‘Und dann nicht mehr’ (And then no more), Hampson’s outpouring of regret for an irretrievable moment is spacious and even, each statement of Rückert’s oft-repeated refrain imbued with an individual hue and complemented by the vivid piano commentary. ‘Im Sonnenschein’ (In the sunshine) sweeps elatedly to the final couplet, ‘Ich geh’, die süße Müdigkeit des Lebens nun auszuruhn,/ Die Lust, den Gram der Erde nun auszuheilen im Sonnenschein’ (I go now; let the sweet weariness of life rest now, and let the pleasure and sadness of the earth heal now in the sunshine), in which the broadening of the tempo and the openness of the baritone melody wonderfully capture a sense of the composer’s love of life.

The title song, ‘Notturno’ (1899), is the longest and probably the least well-known of this selection. In this powerful miniature drama, originally composed for voice and orchestra, Hampson and Rieger are joined by violinist Daniel Hope, the latter representing the figure of Death who appears as a nocturnal fiddle player who haunts a troubled dreamer. The song showcases Hampson’s control and range, of register and of colour — especially the mahogany richness of the bottom; Hope’s rhapsodic interjections are entrancing. If the song’s melodic invention is less appealing than in some of the other songs, the performance is still a captivating one.

This is a very valuable contribution to the Strauss celebrations this year. Though there is a pleasing generous acoustic, the recording does perhaps favour the voice and there are times when the piano accompaniment lacks clarity in the middle and lower registers; but, Hampson’s impeccable diction and intelligent interpretation, and Rieger’s attentive, persuasive accompaniments, work together to produce performances which are unfailingly absorbing and sincere.

Claire Seymour

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Contents:

Richard Strauss (1864-1949): ‘Zueignung’ Op.10 No.1 (1885), ‘Die Nacht’ Op.10 No.3 (1885), ‘Winternacht’ Op.15 No.2 (1886), ‘Mein Herz ist stumm’, Op.19 No.6 (1888), ‘Ach weh mir unglückhaftem Mann’ Op.21 No.4 (1889), ‘Ruhe, meine Seele’ Op.27 No.1 (1894), ‘Heimliche Aufforderung’ Op.27, No.3 (1894), ‘Morgen’ Op.27 No. 4 (1894), ‘Traum durch die Dämmerung’ Op.29. No.1 (1895), ‘Sehnsucht’ Op.32 No.2 (1896), ‘Das Rosenband’ Op.36 No.1 (1897), ‘Befreit’ Op.39 No.4 (1898), ‘Notturno’ Op.44 No.1 (1899), ‘Freundliche Vision’ Op.48 No.1 (1901), ‘Die heiligen drei Könige aus Morgenland’ Op.56 No.6 (1904-06), ‘Vom künftigen Alter’ Op.87 No.1 (1929), ‘Und dann nicht mehr’ Op.87 No.3 (1929), ‘Im Sonnenschein’ Op.87 No.4 (1929).

image=http://www.operatoday.com/DG4792943.png image_description=Richard Strauss: Notturno product=yes product_title=Richard Strauss: Notturno product_by=Thomas Hampson, baritone; Wolfram Rieger, piano; Daniel Hope, violin. product_id=Deutsche Grammophon 0289 479 2943 7 CD DDD GH [CD] price=$15.99 product_url=http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=1256710

Saint Louis: A Hit is a Hit is a Hit

Based on the life, or perhaps rather the persona of the iconic Gertrude Stein, composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Royce Vavrek have gifted us with 27, a taut, witty and affecting new piece of lyric theatre. The duo has crafted a fast-paced, multi-faceted, compressed overview of the writer’s life that touches on all of the high points that occurred at the legendary salon at 27 rue de Fleurus, resulting in a sort of highly engaging “Gertrude Stein for Dummies.”

Mr. Vavrek’s lean and mean script borrows its succinct cadence from Ms. Stein’s style and seems to have inspired Mr. Gordon to respond with a score that is equal parts effervescence, tenderness, and confrontation. Throw in more than a few moments of defiance, deliberation and defeat, and you get an idea of the variety of the aural palette. Both Gertrude and her “wife” Alice B. Toklas are individually characterized, and have a definable and consistent musical identity. There are unifying recurring motifs, such as Gertrude urging her visitors to “peruse, peruse” the art on her walls. Too, her musings of the meaning and responsibilities of being a genius are threaded through the episodic structure.

I will not soon forget the final, powerful scena in which Stein justifies the choices she actively made, and reconciles with the choices that were thrust upon her. Mr. Gordon beautifully alternates her vocal line between demonstrative jagged leaps, and introspective melismatic musings. Arguably the highpoint of the score was the moving love duet for Gertrude and Alice that was characterized by sensuous, meandering, intertwining thirds, murmured endearments and honest devotion.

In a brilliant stroke, the cast was completed by only three men who at times functioned as a finely-tuned Greek Chorus, but at others found them playing multiple major characters, to include (humorously) three nondescript “wives of geniuses.” All the usual suspects were there: Picasso, Matisse, Man Ray, to name a few.

It cannot be overstated that the peerless Stephanie Blythe was a tour de force as Gertrude Stein. Ms. Blythe’s instrument is one the glories of present day operatic life. She is a consummate artist who knows how to make every moment count. Physically imposing and absolutely right for the part, she commands the stage at every moment, as inscrutable as the terra cotta sculpture of Stein in the National Portrait Gallery. We miss her when she leaves the stage, however briefly. Although her commanding mezzo can certainly fill a room with no effort, Ms. Blythe finds a varied and well-balanced approach to her assignment. Her lyrical singing is beautifully negotiated and her cooing with Alice encompasses a grand palette of affectionate colorings. But when the situation warrants, and she pours on the steam, you are instantly served notice that this is one of the powerhouse voices of our time.

As the more reticent Alice, Elizabeth Futral has to do more with less fireworks and she succeeds admirably. Her lyric soprano has assumed a pleasing patina of maturity, and she has developed into somewhat a sought after specialist of contemporary roles. As the deferential life partner, she uses her diminutive figure to advantage and summons forth an endearing waif-like quality. Her singing is silvery and secure, and she paces herself very well so that when she does have a dramatic outburst (like when she decries violence) it is all the more startling and effective.

Given the artistic stature of these two women, OTSL invested a lot in the three Gerdine Young Artists it cast in the three men’s roles. Their trust was well-placed. Tenor Theo Lebow spends the most time of any of them as one character over the course of the evening and he scores a considerable success in recurring appearances as Pablo Picasso. His sound is gleaming and fresh, and he tore into the role’s key moments with ferocity, tempering the outbursts with singing that displayed a sweet sheen. Tobias Greenhalgh’s riveting baritone was well-suited to the arrogant Leo Stein, with power to spare, and he also brought a humorous sensitivity to Man Ray. Daniel Brevik’s imposing bass-baritone could rattle the rafters one moment and be lullingly conversational the next. Individually these three young men were exceptional, and together, they rewarded us with many impressive trios, accounting for some of the score’s best moments.

Conductor Michael Christie led an assured reading in the pit, and elicited a sense of spontaneity and discovery that were infectious. The orchestra has never sounded better or more vibrant, finding a beautiful arc to the piece and filling it with haunting detail. Allen Moyer’s evocative set design was masterful. Floor to ceiling ‘wallpaper’ panels with oversized patterns were hung at disparate heights and allowed for actors to appear and exit quite magically between the hangings. The silvery-blue color suggested eternity, and large, ornate empty picture frames were propped up or scattered about the space. A solid chair-cum-throne for Gertrude and a smaller, homier chair and side table for Alice were almost all that completed the look, but these elements provided all that was needed, including a huge sign bearing the number 27 which was flown in and out at opportune moments.

James F. Ingalls has contributed his usual excellent lighting design, one that incorporates a terrific video and projection design from Greg Emetaz. James Schuette’s spot-on costumes for the leading ladies were complemented by the men’s basic, neutral vest and knickers, to which clever, character-specific pieces were effortlessly added and subtracted. Director James Robinson has few equals when it comes to making new, untried pieces come to life on a stage. His clarity, specificity and imagination have made a potent case for 27. He has helped his performers find a truth in all they do, all the while balancing that with theatrical stage business that amuses and informs. I loved Hemingway striding on, rifle under his arm, and dragging with him a dead rhinoceros he had bagged. Ditto the fidgety, fussy business concocted for a tippling F. Scott Fitzgerald. How about the giddy visual of that life-sized, stuffed pet dog on wheels? Or the enormous piece of knitting that Alice had created suggesting years of blissful routine. But Mr. Robinson could also turn all this whimsy on its head, and suddenly turn deadly serious. When Gertrude was accused of, and exposed for colluding with the enemy in wartime, two of the lads “trapped” Gertrude in the docket by piling empty picture frames over her, suggesting a piling up of evidence. A triumph.

Saint Louis continues its tradition of performing all works in English, so the next day’s Donizetti was offered as The Elixir of Love. The company has adapted a well-traveled production in which set designer Allen Moyer places the piece in Anytown, USA just prior to WW1. The effective setting consists of a colorful, Grant-Wood-inspired backdrop, and a large white pagoda/band stand filling up stage left and center, trimmed with red-white and blue bunting. The other delightful elements are a full-sized ice cream truck that Nemorino drives on (and staffs) stage right, and a period motorcycle with sidecar steered into position stage left by Dulcamara.

The late Martin Pakledinaz’s colorful and apt costumes have been well coordinated and adapted by Amanda Seymour. The football team was especially evocative, and the suggestion of camaraderie and teamwork tellingly morphed into volunteering for the war effort. The splashy attire of that period of Americana was warmly, lovingly lit by Michael Chybowski. Tom Watson’s effective wig and make-up design was like a cherry on the top of one of Nemorino’s sundaes.

As Adina, the lovely Susannah Biller joined a growing list of highly accomplished lyric sopranos whose OTSL appearances announced their ‘arrival’ and embarkation on what will surely be a successful career in the majors. (Recently, Heidi Stober and Corinne Winters also come to mind). Ms. Biller offers a limpid, gleaming soprano with well-honed technique and beautifully judged effects. Her high notes, low notes, and all notes in between are seamlessly matched, informed with dramatic meaning, and glow with inner life.

Tim Mix’s bearded, side-burned, übercool Belcore, has a buzzing swagger in his voice, testosterone in his delivery, and he presents a total performance that is blustery and appealing. Mr. Mix is also not afraid to explore darker corners of the Sergeant’s personality, with good results. As Dulcamara, Patrick Carfizzi wowed me even more than he did last summer as Central City’s Bartolo (Barber of Seville). Not only is Mr. Carfizzi a splendid comic actor, but he is a polished singer, who offers refulgent tone, clean diction, and a well-rounded characterization. Patrick’s swindling and scheming is anything but a buffoonish caricature. Giannetta was strongly cast with a Gerdine Young Artist, the animated and appealing Leela Subramaniam. She made a sweet impression, her clear and characterful singing commanding plenty of firepower to include some excellent climactic high notes that rose easily above the ensemble.

What to say of René Barbera as Nemorino, except that he may arguably be the most effortlessly endearing, lovably bumbling, beguilingly boyish Nemorino since the great Pavarotti. I know, I know, we are always looking to anoint someone as “The Next (fill-in-the-blank).” I don’t make the comparison lightly. I saw lovable Luciano in it. Mr. Barbera has that same charisma, that star power, that indefinable magnetism that cannot be manufactured. When his round face beams in delight, we want to spread him on a cracker and eat him. When he is in despair, we want to hold him and comfort him. He makes us care to ‘connect.’

Happily, his shining, pointed lyric tenor easily fills the hall with no sign of strain. Mr. Barbera presented a flawless, wondrous Una furtiva lagrima that had us so bewitched we scarcely dared breathe, lest any sound break the honeyed perfection. It was one of “those moments” that we opera freaks live for. It is why we keep going and going, sitting through lots of “good” performances, and a few not-so-good. We keep going because we know that every so often, there is a moment like this. When René released that perfectly rendered final note, the place went nuts. I mean, World Cup soccer nuts. It was as though ‘the Pav’ had been on stage with him and passed the torch, the ovation was no less rapturous than for that legendary predecessor. René Barbera is now the Nemorino by which I will judge future interpreters.

Director Jose Maria Condemi did yeoman’s work in crafting fluid and spontaneous stage pictures, and inventing appropriate ‘period’ business. During the overture, Mr. Condemi, had Adina enter dreamily, then had Nemorino discover her, get an idea and go off stage only to return to bring her an ice cream cone. And then, just as he is about to pass it to her, starry-eyed, the ice cream scoop falls to the ground leaving him holding an empty cone. She giggles. He despairs. What a perfect way to establish the relationship and the premise. The director found countless ways to use the unit set, the steps, the moving vehicles, to create variety and meaningful movement. There was no end to the creative comic touches and everything was kept merrily bubbling along. Until. . .

In one brilliant moment, at the end of Act One, Belcore suddenly got deadly serious and began assaulting his rival Nemorino until he quite brutally shoved him to the ground to audible gasps of dismay from the audience. Nemorino was humiliated, Belcore had become fearsome, Adina had overplayed her game. When the tenor launched into Adina credimi it came from the depths of his soul and there were few dry eyes on the house.

In the pit, Stephen Lord presided with his usual skill and stylistic acumen, the Maestro totally at one with his cast and making the orchestra a full partner in the drama. Robert Ainsley had prepared the chorus immaculately. Here’s a text book lesson in how to produce rousing comic opera, with efficiency, honesty, variety, and with ultimate deference to top-notch music-making. The gauntlet has been thrown.

After the effervescence and tunefulness of Elixir, Poulenc’s musical vocabulary could not have been further on the other end of the spectrum. Dialogues of the Carmelites is based on conversational speech, internalized conflict, and spiritual transformation. It is a moody, unsettling, pulsating evening of theatre with a final glorious payoff that is unlike any other in lyric theatre. The cast is almost all women, the spare structure of the scenes often between two or three characters.

Ward Stare’s conducting found all the underlying spiritual beauty in the rhythmic, lean score. Maestro Stare layered the orchestral colors with commendable balance and taste, and he never lost sight of the musical destination of any given scene or set piece. He elicited especially incisive moments from the winds, and coaxed burnished tones from the brass section. The percussive effects were subtle yet provided a solid foundation for many climactic moments. Best of all he provided a secure cushion of sound as a springboard to encourage the best from the singers. And what a group they were!

Ashley Emerson was a definitive Constance. Her pliable soprano floats with ease, and Ms. Emerson has the glimmer of sunshine in her voice. Her winning stage presence made for a memorable star turn. No less accomplished was the imposing achievement of Meredith Arwady as the Old Prioress. This was easily the finest performance I have yet seen from Ms. Arwady, her potent contralto pulsing through her punishing death scene like it was written for her. Not merely content to pin our ears back with her steely capabilities, she found a fine subtlety of expression in her brief but memorable stage time, tugging at our hearts with her fate and her fears.

Kelly Kaduce inhabits every role she assumes, so it comes as no surprise that she found every ounce of tremulous emotion and nuance in the character of Blanche. Her focused lyric instrument was a good fit for the role, and Ms. Kaduce effectively limned all the dramatic milestones in Blanche’s trip to redemption and eternal peace. She was an exemplary proponent of this rather gentle girl who has a profound transformation. As Madame Lidoine, local heroine Christine Brewer proved yet again why she generates such loyal admiration from the Saint Louis public. Her generous, golden soprano is in fine estate, and every well-turned phrase was a cause for celebration. For my money, Ms. Brewer far out-distances that famous arch as the top local treasure.

Daveda Karanas was an especially pleasing Mother Marie, with a sizable, round soprano that was a refreshing change from the acidic approach that one often encounters with this role. In such heady company, Ms. Karanas held her own, both musically and dramatically. The ensemble of nuns was all one could wish, blending seamlessly and performing with assurance and commitment. The Ave Maria was as lovely as I have heard anywhere. Poulenc gives his men far fewer chances to shine, but Troy Cook was a solid Marquis de la Force, while Michael Porter’s pleasing tenor served well the tessitura of the Marquis. It is a testament to both that I wished the composer had given them more to sing.

Director Robin Guarino found profundity in minimalism. The ever-changing uses of furniture and isolated, moody lighting (Mr, Ingalls again) were all that were needed for this tale of religious commitment. On occasion, I felt that perhaps characters were moved about to create pictures rather than serve the text’s motivation, but the staging was clean and well-executed. While there is little chance to show off as a costume designer in a show that centers around nun’s habits, Kaye Voyce’s clothing served the actors well in communicating the characters.

I was less taken with the basic structure of Andrew Lieberman’s set. Consisting of a generic room, a sort of inner chamber that was wood-paneled, I felt it distanced us from the action on several occasions. It spun easily and got re-purposed a number of times, but no matter how it was placed, the pillars holding up the ceiling, were obstructing the view for someone in the audience. I for one watched the Old Prioress die as she moved from one side of the pillar to another and back again. Nonetheless, Carmelites wove a powerful spell, marked by exceptional English diction that was effectively coached by Erie Mills.

Uh-oh. Magic Flute program note: “This production takes place on an eternal Hollywood soundstage depicting the realms of the Queen of the Night.”

And so it began. During a staged overture (is that a requirement at OTSL now?), Norma Desmond appears high above on a stage-wide bridge, turbaned, sleek, and if I was reading her body language right, pissed off. This tiresome catwalk structure owns a set of rolling stairs that get hooked up to various “gates,” none of them interesting. A loading dock door upstage center first opens to allow grips and stage hands to scuffle their feet during the music, and later reveals a star curtain, bucolic drops, etc.

May I say that the sound stage concept is false nearly from the start? Film set pieces get rolled into place, and we are asked to believe that what we are seeing is being filmed, yet there is not a camera or boom in sight. Moreover, not one musical piece is allowed to finish cleanly (and audibly) since as soon as the singing stops, the crew rushes in to noisily dis-engage brakes, roll stuff around, and generally make extra-musical noise.

In fact, creating distractions is what director Isaac Mizrahi seemed to be all about. Mr. Mizrahi also designed the sets and costumes, something he did with considerable success for “A Little night Music” a few season back. The ‘Designer Isaac’ did ‘Director Isaac’ no favors. He hampered the staging by constraining the situations with iconic 1950’s Hollywood images. Gene Kelly (Tamino)? Check. WC Fields (Papageno)? Check. Dorothy/Alice in Wonderland (Pamina)? Gloria Swanson (Queen)? The “Triplets” from Band Wagon (Spirits)? Check, check, check.

The problem is these have no definable resonance with the Masonic trials, not to mention the basic plot of The Magic Flute. We are asked to believe that some lurking, ominous turbaned Eternal Feminine is, what? The Phantom of the Sound Stage? And why does Monastatos look like he flunked a Blue Man Group audition? (Yes, he’s blue.) Never you mind, because we are going to completely upstage them anyway with dancing! When did Mozart’s opus become The Magic Frug?

The serpent pursuing Tamino is a slinky sequined dancer, who I guess was going to sex him to death. During Dies Bildnis a Pamina dance double emerges from a living portrait to pirouette and flounce all over the stage. Poor Papageno gamely sang his entrance aria amidst a feathered Papagena ballerina, a Big Bird clone, and a pink ostrich in high heels that looked like a Lion King (or La Cage Aux Folles) applicant. They got giggles, but the P-Man could have had a sparkler in his teeth and no one would have paid him any mind, although Levi Hernandez sang well enough and put his all into the role. John Heginbotham’s choreography was well-intended but it proved generic, with some staged numbers (moving in-step like the Andrews Sisters) obvious and bland.

In contrast to this busy-ness, other direction was mostly static and straight front, with the audience on the sides of the thrust being ignored. The quintet amounted to changing the order of the straight line-up by randomly moving characters to another place in the line-up. In another inconsistency with the film concept, after having had Hollywood style representational trees and painted backdrops, the three doors to Sarastro’s temple show up primitively painted in black on a white sheet and hung like the drape for “The Fantasticks,” strictly a theatrical (not cinematic) effect.

The Speaker looked like a doofy Shriner with Fez and polka dot tie. Andrew Kroes has a pleasant (if initially quavery) baritone but did not yet have the weight to make the most of the role. He was not helped in the eloquent Tamino-Speaker scene, when all sorts of scurrying went on behind him by other Shriners (the chorus) first by onesies, then twosies, then threesies like they were bad boys sneaking into a adult movie arcade.

The three ladies are Norma’s attendants. Individually they have talent but they never jelled as an ensemble. Raquel González settled into a sturdy, playful performance once past an unfocused opening; Summer Hassan had a pleasant presence in the middle harmonies; and Corrie Stallings strove to provide a solid foundation. But no amount of singing could salvage their being unimaginatively blocked , with even sure-fire bits like wanting to stay with the handsome Tamino falling short. To be fair, the Despina-magnet control effect of the comatose Tamino was kind of fun, a rare moment of wit in a slack evening.

The Sprits were beautifully sung by Emily Tweedy, Gillian Lynn Cotter and Fleur Barron. Granted, this is a fairly easy sing for adult women, but what we lost in boyish innocence, we gained in a well-modulated blend. If only they had not been held back by playing the parts waddling on their knees in baby costumes like Fred Astaire, Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan. I so enjoyed Claire de Sévigné some weeks ago in Peter Grimes that I was greatly anticipating her Queen. Curiously, the role seemed a weak match. There was an admirable (if cautious) accuracy on top, but her mid- to low-register was surprisingly under-powered. Ms. de Sévigné was smooth, suave, and elegant but her singing did not, could not seethe. Her entrance for “Oh, zittre nicht” provided one of costumer Mizrahi’s best achievements. As she entered from the house right bowels of the stage, and mounted the stairs to the bridge, she trailed a massively long, sparkling blue train. Unfortunately, the spectacular cape upstaged her singing.

Elizabeth Zharoff ‘s Pamina was a lovely role assumption, and her tone has just the right metal, but the reliable tone is at present a bit ‘instrumental’ and ‘precise’ with a somewhat tight vibrato. Still, Ms. Zharoff commanded the stage and fully understood how to communicate the various facets of the heroine. Moreover, her diction was excellent.

Matthew DiBattista acquitted himself well as Monastatos with a straight-forward, well-schooled tenor. Wonder why his Act Two aria (well-sung if a bit slow) got moved to Act One? As Sarastro, Matthew Anchel has impressive weighty, dark hued low notes that impress, although he needs to learn to bring the tone forward more as the lines ascend. Upper proclamations were sometimes ‘cloudy with a chance of strain.’ The Chorus, all in male Shriner’s-meet-Barnum-and-Bailey red attire with saddle shoes, sang with fire, precision and commitment (thanks, Robert Ainsley).

Move star handsome Sean Pannikar grounded the production as Tamino and was its shining center. True, his tone could sometimes turn a bit metallic, and occasionally a bit more vibrant warmth would have not been amiss. His subtle phrasings and modulated effects were best at ‘mezzo forte,’ and his very best work in the Speaker scene was upstaged as noted above. Still, Mr. Pannikar’s secure technique and wonderful musicality carried the evening.

The script was adapted, truncated, paraphrased and adapted, and not always to its benefit. Much of the dialogue delivery was flat, and lacked timing and forward motion. Luckily, the orchestra sounded particularly fine-tuned under Stephen Lord who inherited the last two shows from Jane Glover. This was a luminous reading (when we could concentrate on it) even if the odd phrase or two did lose synchronicity with the stage.

James Sohre

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Casts and production information:

27

Gertrude Stein: Stephanie Blythe;
Alice B. Toklas: Elizabeth Futral;
Picasso/Fitzgerald: Theo Lebow; Leo Stein/Man Ray: Tobias Greenhalgh;
Hemingway/Matisse: Daniel Brevik; Conductor: Michael Christie;
Director: James Robinson;
Set Design: Allen Moyer;
Costume Design: James Schuette;
Lighting Design: James F. Ingalls; Choreography: Seán Curran;
Video & Projection Design: Greg Emetaz;
Wig & Makeup Design: Tom Watson

The Elixir of Love

Adina: Susannah Biller; Nemorino: René Barbera; Belcore: Tim Mix;
Dr. Dulcamara: Patrick Carfizzi; Giannetta: Leela Subramaniam; Conductor: Stephen Lord;
Director: Jose Maria Condemi; Set Design: Allen Moyer; Costume Design: Martin Pakledinaz; Costume Coordinator: Amanda Seymour;
Choreographer: Seán Curran; Lighting Design: Michael Chybowski; Wig & Makeup Design: Tom Watson; Chorus Master: Robert Ainsley

The Dialogues of the Carmelites

Chevalier de la Force: Michael Porter; Marquis de la Force: Troy Cook; Blanche de la Force: Kelly Kaduce; Thierry: Theo Hoffman; Madame de Croissy: Meredith Arwady; Sister Constance: Ashley Emerson; Mother Marie: Daveda Karanas; M. Javelinot: Zachary Owen; Madame Lidoine: Christine Brewer; Mother Jeanne: Sofia Selowsky; Sister Mathilde: Stephanie Sanchez; Mother Gerald: Jennifer Panara; Sister Claire: Lacey Jo Benter; Sister Antoine: Rachel Sterrenberg; Sister Catherine: Leela Subramaniam; Sister Felicity: So Young Park; Sister Gertrude: Felicia Moore; Sister Alice: Hannah Hagerty; Sister Valentine: Eliza Johnson; Sister Anne: Elizabeth Sutphen; Sister Martha: Jessica Harika; Father Confessor: Kyle Erdos-Knapp; First Commissioner: Christopher Hutchinson; Second Commissioner: josh Quinn; First Officer: Elliott Hines; Jailer: Erik Van Heyningen; Conductor: Ward Stare; Director: Robin Guarino; Set Design: Andrew Lieberman; Costume Design: Kaye Voyce; Lighting Design: James F. Ingalls; Wig and Make-up Design: Tom Watson; English Diction Specialist: Erie Mills

The Magic Flute

Sarastro: Matthew Anchel; Tamino: Sean Panikkar; Pamina: Elizabeth Zharoff; Queen of the Night: Claire de Sévigné; Papageno: Levi Hernandez; Monostatos: Matthew DiBattista; Spokesman of the Temple: Andrew Kroes; Papagena: Katrina Galka: 
Lady: Raquel González; Lady: Summer Hassan: Lady: Corrie Stallings; Baby Spirit: Emily Tweedy; Baby Spirit: Gillian Lynn Cotter; Baby Spirit: Fleur Barron; Priest: Spencer Viator; Armed Man: Frederick Ballentine; Armed Man: Zachary Owen; Conductor: Stephen Lord; 
Director: Isaac Mizrahi; Set and Costume Design: Isaac Mizrahi; Choreography: John Heginbotham; Lighting Design: Michael Chybowski; Wig & Makeup Design: Tom Watson; Chorus Master: Robert Ainsley

image=http://www.operatoday.com/27_71.gif
image_description=Elizabeth Futral as Alice B. Toklas and Stephanie Blythe as Gertrude Stein in Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ 2014 production of “27.” [Photo by Ken Howard]

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product_title=Saint Louis: A Hit is a Hit is a Hit
product_by=A review by James Sohre
product_id=Above: Elizabeth Futral as Alice B. Toklas and Stephanie Blythe as Gertrude Stein in Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ 2014 production of 27. [Photo by Ken Howard]

La Flûte Enchantée (2e Acte)
at the Aix Festival

These are the folks who brought down the 2003 Aix Festival after disrupting the opening night La traviata, and are threatening to bring down the current Aix and Avignon festivals, the crown jewels of estival high art in France. Recognizing the periodic nature of employment for workers in theatrical arts, including cinema, the French government awards the intermittants unemployment compensation well above that provided unemployed workers in fields that offer permanent employment.

This enlightened and much abused program of the French state subsidizes the ferment of the theatrical arts in France by allowing technicians and artists to pursue careers in theater rather than by forcing them to seek careers in fields that provide full employment. The Aix and Avignon festivals are the most vulnerable battlefields for working through the inevitable fiscal and political tensions created by such a program.

All of the intermittents of the Aix Festival filled onto the stage at a bit after 7 PM last night (July 2, opening night), one of whom read a brief, dignified statement about the contribution of the intermettents to French arts. The audience applauded and they filed off, not delaying the performance sufficiently to allow those of us who arrived mistakenly at 7:30 for an 8 pm curtain to catch the first act.

Never mind, Act II is the masterpiece act. It was a great pleasure to be able to enter the auditorium, finally, the chorus seated in a spread out auditorium fashion facing us (the audience) on the bare, black stage. Sarastro walked through the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra (seated house level) mounted the podium to deliver the Masonic creed in a precious, very precious German (like you might use to speak to idiots). This address was on what is called the “God” microphone (the microphone held by the stage director during the final theater rehearsals) that reverberates in volumes only known to overpowering deities (stage directors). It was an impressive trick. Promising.

Trail by Water to sound effects (not to music)

The production, by London theater personality Simon McBurney, was first done last winter at the English National Opera in the English language. What may have been real words (in English) to a British audience became cute, caricatured Germanic sounds for a very French audience in very French Aix that enclosed the entire production (well, the second act) within quotation marks — Die Zauberflöte quoting itself. Add this to Mr. McBurney’s highly self conscious theatrical vocabulary — all scenic effects were physically performed in miniature on one side of the stage and projected onto the stage backdrop, all sound effects (multitudinous) were physically created in miniature on the other side of the stage and amplified throughout the hall. The presence of theatrical manipulation was overpowering.

Mr. McBurney and his collaborators have a fecund recollection of advanced theater vocabulary, virtually every avant-garde gimmick that has been over-used in theater crazed Berlin over the past 30 or so years found its way onto the Grand Théâtre de Provence stage during the next hour or so, very long hour or so. The few very fine moments of theatrical success — the opening Act II council, the Queen of the Night’s Act II wheelchair aria ("Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen"), Tamino and Papageno’s final encounter with the Three Ladies, and the choreographic shapes created in the final chorus unfortunately did not contribute to a comprehensible exposition of the philosophy of this masterpiece.

McBurney’s Flute set out to amaze and amuse. On this level it well succeeded with the opening night audience. However Mozart’s massive singspiel was never intended to be an ordinary little entertainment for the Viennese hoi polloi of yesteryear or the Parisian haute bourgeoisie of today. It set out to exemplify the encompassing nobility and the eternal importance of the Masonic process, not to make theatrical fun out of it. Die Zauberflöte was completely forgotten in McBurney’s theatrical gluttony. But no matter, the audience was impressed and the powers that be of the Aix Festival are pleased as Punch.

Presentation of the flute by members of the orchestra

Bernard Foccroulle (foe-crew-yeh), general director of the Aix Festival is committed to co-productions as a cost-cutting measure. Therefore any production you now see in Aix may not be specific to the time (now) and place (Aix). In this case Mozart’s Flute was created last year by an Englishman for an English audience. What then remains to make the Aix Flute a production of the Aix Festival is the cast, chorus, conductor and orchestra.

It is a prestigious festival. Its efforts to assemble the musical personnel are intelligent, interesting and far-reaching. The Flute cast reached perfection in the Pamina of young Norwegian soprano Mari Eriksmoen with just the right blond look who possesses of voice of pure tone befitting of the purity and innocence of Mozart’s heroine. The same may be said of young French tenor Stanislaus de Barbeyrac who found the perfect balance of innocent manhood and enlightened aspiration.

Papageno was Dutch baritone Thomas Oliemans who was given so much business on the stage and within the audience that his presence was irritating to those of us (surely there were at least a few of us) who did not buy into Simon McBurney’s onslaught. This included a virtuoso level keyboard performance by Mr. Oliemans on a keyboarded glockenspiel, an imagined version of an instrument Mozart included but of which no example has survived.

The balance of the cast from around Europe and the U.S. were handsome singers, very ably fulfilling their requirements. German bass Christof Fischesser as Sarastro suffered the indignity of competing with the very loud, extraneous sound effects McBurney added to the Sarastro scenes. The contrast between these volumes and the natural acoustic of Mr. Fischesser’s voice rendered, by comparison, his arias too softly delivered to be impressive.

The three boys, named only as soloists of the Knabenchor der Chorakademie Dortmund, were big, finished performers who grandly did McBurney’s bidding of turning the purity of young boys into instruments of the Queen of the Night’s chaos.

Freiburg’s famed baroque orchestra (Freiburger Barockorchester) was in the pit bringing spectacular colors to Mozart’s transcendental music. The 32 youthful voices of Britain’s English Voices created a magnificently clear, beautifully pure and very loud "Die Strahlen der Sonne" (the final chorus). Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado presided over the occasional periods the production allowed the Mozart score to take over. His efforts to make an impression then became too obvious. Even so, there were many splendid musical moments.

Mr. McBurney skipped in to take his bows in jeans, a shirt carelessly (wanna bet) tucked in, and a baseball cap worn backwards. Cool, very cool.

Michael Milenski

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Casts and production information:

Tamino: Stanislas de Barbeyrac; Pamina: Mari Eriksmoen; Queen of the Night: Kathryn Lewek; Papageno: Thomas Oliemans; Papagena: Regula Mühlemann; Sarastro: Christof Fischesser; Monostatos; Andreas Conrad; Erste Dame: Ana-Maria Labin; Zweite Dame: Silvia de La Muela; Dritte Dame: Claudia Huckle; Der Sprecher: Maarten Koningsberger; Erster Priester/Zweiter Geharnischter: Krzysztof Baczyk; Zweiter Priester/Erster Geharnischter: Elmar Gilbertsson. English Voices (chorus) and the Freiburger Barockorchester. Conductor: Pablo Heras-Casado; Mise en scène: Simon McBurney; Décors: Michael Levine; Costumes: Nicky Gillibrand; Lumière: Jean Kalman; Vidéo: Finn Ross; Sound: Gareth Fry. Grand Théâtre de Provence, July 2, 2014.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Flute2_Aix1.png
image_description=Kathryn Lewek as Queen of the Night [Photo by Pasal Victor courtesy of the Aix Festival]

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product_title=Die Zauberflöte at the Aix Festival
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above: Kathryn Lewek as Queen of the Night [all photos by Pasal Victor courtesy of the Aix Festival]

Ariodante at the Aix Festival

All for Lodovico Ariosto’s brief histoire of Ginevra and Ariodant in his send-up of chivalry in his epic farce Orlando Furioso. By the time this little story got to opera it had lost the famous indulgent smile Ariosto cast on knights and damsels and now needed about twenty-five arias to resolve a truly complicated mess.

This production by British director Richard Jones was created just now in Aix, the start of its travels to Amsterdam, Toronto and Chicago — the Aix Festival has an incessant belief that co-productions are economical.

Somehow Ariosto and Handel and the American Midwest made Mr. Jones think of American Gothic painter Grant Wood’s “Dinner for Threshers” (or maybe it was Ultz’s idea, his mono-named designer). The set was an exact copy. We would not have known where Handel’s opera takes place had not Ariosto’s King of Scotland worn a kilt. But Richard Jones’ American threshers of the Wood painting were on the stage much of the evening keeping the action firmly in the western hemisphere, a presence that did not endear them to the exasperated audience (there was whistling when these valiant participants took their 2 AM bows).

Patricia Petibon as Ginevra, Sarah Connelly as Ariodante, Luca Tittoli as Il Re di Scozia 

Mr. Jones determined that Ariosto’s poetic immolation of fallen damsels might be poetically well represented by implying the brutally restrictive mores he imagines imposed by American gothic principles. It is an amusing premise, probably more amusing to Europeans than to Americans like me who think that Europeans should mind their own moral business.

Handel’s Ariodante is different than most Handel operas because it includes dance interludes (Handel inserted them to be able to include the participation of a famous dancer and her company at the Covent Garden 1735 premiere). Since Ginevra is believed to be a fallen woman these interludes made Mr. Jones think of burlesque pole dancing (an art form born in Canada during the Great Depression by the way) that he was able to include by turning Ginevra, at least as imagined by American threshers, into a puppet who was stripped of her chaste garments, then scantily clad in black vinyl and red spike heels and made to masturbate abstractly on a rake handle.

But Mr. Jones did not exclude dancing after all, as he had his American threshers shed their shoes and line them up across the front of the stage in the old death ovens image and happily do a country dance to the arias that announced the “they-lived-happily-ever-after” resolution (The king of Scotland was spared from burning his daughter who married her intended, Ariodante, after all).

Mr. Jones’ real Ginevra however bought none of this. She packed her suitcase, slipped out of her bedroom, walked onto the stage apron and when last seen was hitching a ride, presumably to Toronto or Chicago.

Maybe there was Ariosto’s famous smile after all. The audience indulged Mr. Jones with rapt attention in the second and third acts (it was hard to concentrate in the first act — read on), and rewarded him with thunderous boos (huées in French), meaning that we had had a very good time and loved every minute and that we did not know what to think. Mr. Jones’ wide smile never left his face.

Where was Handel in all this, you may ask. Well, he was right there and having a very good time too, though none of this was what he had in mind.

The esteemed Freiburger Barockorchester is in residence in Aix for this 66th Festival d’Aix with its period brass and wind instruments, and its gut strings making its uniquely cultured sound that placed Handel’s score in another time and another place. Just when you might have thought that it does not really matter what orchestra is in the pit for a Handel opera an aria would come along that was infinitely enriched the with colors that could emanate only out of this superb orchestra.

Handel surely could have only rejoiced to the matched cast of excellent singers brought to Aix for the occasion. French soprano Patricia Petibon overshadowed all others in an over-the-top performance as Ginevra, able to float beautiful high, straight (vibrato-less) tones and to cut loose in full voiced lyricism. As Mr. Jones’ Ginevra she introduced a pathos to her Act II lament (she believes Ariodante is dead) that went beyond brilliant Baroque singing to arrive, almost, at whispered tones. In total her very clear voice melted into a beautifully defined and determined character — it was a complete performance.

David Portillo as Lucanio, Sandrine Piau as Dalinda, Sonia Prina as Polinesso

No less striking was the Polinesso of Italian contralto Sonia Prina as Handel’s vindictive Duke and as Mr. Jones’ morally corrupt fundamentalist preacher who stood over Grant Wood’s harvest table during the overture to deliver the blessing (an understandably exasperated audience member shouted “oh sit down”). Mme. Prina sang with color and assurance as if she were a famed castrato, her staccato fioratura genuinely astonishing, her brilliant wig (a long gray, troublesome lock on either side fell onto her face, plus a long, sexually ambivalent braid) made us detest her even more.

The balance of the cast gave high-wire vocal acts as well. Dalinda (Ginevra’s maid) as sung by French harpist turned soprano Sandrine Piau was not Handel’s confused soubrette but a full-scaled vocal villain who raged magnificently at love and not because Polinesso had raped her (on stage) but because he did not love her. Ariodante’s brother Lucanio was sung by American tenor David Portillo who was the junior member of the cast, and even so managed to hold his own and render his inexperience and youth as Lucanio’s innocence and naiveté. Italian bass Luca Tittoco straddled the poles of an isolated, old fashioned farmer who should have felt a bit silly in a kilt while he had to be a mythical personage from the age of chivalry at the same time.

Ariodante, British mezzo-soprano Sarah Connelly, brought an encompassing warmth to Handel’s hero, having suffered setbacks worthy of Ariosto’s erstwhile knight on her way to the stage, escorted from her dressing room to the stage by police who protected her from the intermittents who had broken into the backstage of the theater, knocked over a stagehand and blocked her way (first act). Later (second act) she waited to deliver her exquisitely chiseled lament (Polinesso had deceived Ariodante into believing that Ginevra was unfaithful) while a screaming car alarm was located and removed from the auditorium.

Italian early music conductor Andrea Marcon [sic] presided, evidently unflappable, over the evening, not stopping when the intermittents began a barrage of noise just outside the open air theater during the first act. Though later he coolly halted his pit musicians and the stage when security measures needed to be undertaken, started again as if nothing had happened. Thankfully in Act III (1:30 AM) he did not stop when lightning, thunder and raindrops competed with Handel and Richard Jones for our attention. The wind whipped costumes of the singers must have created some consternation among those on the stage who surely were, like us, praying for the end to come.

And yes, finally, the twelve valiant threshers from English Voices, the excellent chorus, took off their shoes and danced one last time. We booed gleefully and went back to our hotels.

Michael Milenski

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Casts and production information:

Ariodante: Sarah Connolly; Ginevra: Patricia Petibon; Dalinda: Sandrine Piau; Polinesso: Sonia Prina; Lurcanio: David Portillo; Il Re di Scozia: Luca Tittoto; Odoardo: Christopher Diffey. English Voices (chorus) and the Freiburger Barockorchester. Conductor: Andrea Marcon. Mise en scène: Richard Jones; Décors et costumes: Ultz; Lumière: Mimi Jordan Sherin; Chorégraphe: Lucy Burge; Metteur en scène et concepteur des marionnettes
Finn Caldwell. Théâtre de l’Archvêché, Aix-en-Provence, July 3, 2014. 

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Ariodante_Aix1.png

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product_title=Ariodante at the Aix Festival
product_by=A review by Michael Milenski
product_id=Above: Puppet figures of Ginevra and Ariodante [All photos by Pasal Victor courtesy of the Festival d"Aix-en-Provence]

Lucy Crowe, Wigmore Hall

Sibelius’ musical responses to the Finnish folk legend Kalevala are diverse in idiom and form, and they were pivotal in the development of the composer’s musical language and identity. Kullervo (a symphonic poem for soprano, baritone, chorus and orchestra) and the orchestral suite, Lemminkäinen (which includes the ever-popular The Swan of Tuonela are well-known, but few will be familiar with Luonnotar (1913), a tone poem for soprano and orchestra, which the Sibelius arranged for voice and piano in 1915. Luonnotar is the Spirit of Nature and Mother of the Seas and the text, from the first part of the Kalevala, tells of the creation of the world and the oceans.

Tilbrook’s quiet, rapid oscillations opened the work, creating an air of anticipation suggestive of a tense, poised moment before creation, as Luonnotar, the ‘maiden of the air’, floats alone in the ‘vast plains of the sky’. Crowe’s first entry lies low in the voice, but it was rich and strong, rising powerfully and with clarity, supported by simple, middle-register held chords; it was an ancient incantation, an expression of the goddess’s loneliness as she soars aloft. Luonnotar then descends into the fertile sea and — exploiting the open vowel sounds of the Finnish text, which she articulated convincingly — Crowe’s arcing, yearning lines were paradoxically both achingly beautifully and laden with anxiety as Luonnotar drifts in the turbulent waters, the latter evoked by Tilbrook’s sensitively graded rippling accompaniment.

Crowe mastered the fiendishly difficult, often very suddent, changes of register and, pronouncing the mythical spirit’s words of self-pity and fear, she whispered the eerily sighing vocal line with absolutely true intonation, the wide gap between the climbing soprano line and Tilbrook’s dark resonant bass intimating her alienation and despair. The hushed tremblings of the subsequent piano interlude were wonderfully controlled and veiled, before the re-entry of the voice initiated a sense of release: a bird appears, seeking the shores upon which to build its nest, and Crowe’s expansive line seemed suspended in the air as it built to the bird’s climactic other-worldly cries, ‘Ei! Ei!’ (No! No!), expressing the bird’s distress and exhaustion. Crowe’s breath control was incredibly impressive as she maintained a focused tone while grading the dynamic peaks and lows with sensitivity and skill.

After an astonishingly tumultuous piano commentary, the ensuing calm was deeply poignant: the Water Mother lifts her knee from the seas, upon which the bird can make its nest. Crowe’s variant of the lyrical phrases which had previously depicted Luonnotar’s regrets now assumed a more mysterious air, Tilbrook’s low fifths quietly but sonorously echoing far below. When the nest falls into the waters and the egg is broken into fragments, the essence of the sky and firmaments are released, and here the performers retreated almost to nothing, creating an ethereal tranquillity, Tilbrook’s ever-widening tessitura conjuring the limitless cosmos as Crowe’s final melody climbed with the crystalline exquisiteness of a star in the sky: a mystical close, but one whose sense of scarcely comprehensible vastness was also suggestive of the bleak horrors of the First World War.

Despite the enormous stamina demanded by Sibelius’s epic chronicle, Crowe had plenty in reserve for Berg’s Sieben Frühe Lieder which followed. Written in 1905-08, when the composer was still under the tutelage of Arnold Schönberg, the songs look back to the late Romantic musical worlds of Strauss, Mahler and Wolf, sideways to the compositional rigour of his teacher and at times — as in the whole-tone scales of the first song, ‘Nacht’ — to the harmonic palette of Debussy, and forwards to the expressive richness of Berg’s own later writing for the voice. ‘Die Nachtigall’ (The Nightingale, a setting of Theodor Storm) was powerfully direct, Crowe’s ecstatic exclamation, ‘Die Rosen aufgesprungen’ (The roses have sprung up) an outpouring of optimistic fervour.

‘Schilflied’ (Reed song) was wonderfully lyrica:,’ Crowe’s account of a lover’s journey along a secret forest path whose reedy borders symbolise the traveller’s inner emotions — passion and despair — was imbued with Romantic longing. The broad melodic gestures of ‘Traumgekrönt (Crowned with dreams) were confident and exuberant, while ‘Im Zimmer’ (In this room) demonstrated a more focused approach to the nuances of the text. The affecting harmonic nuances, and the voice’s semitonal fall, in the closing phrase of ‘Liebesode’ (Ode to love) wonderfully captured the indissoluble blend of Romantic joy and suffering. ‘Sommertage’ (Summer days) shone with gleaming brightness.

Throughout, Tilbrook was a communicative, thoughtful accompanist. The dark postlude to ‘Nacht’ was a portentous representation of the singer’s closing admonition, ‘O gib acht!’ (O take heed!), as the stars shine in the silent night above the gloom of the deep valley. In ‘Die Nachtigall’, the gentle, staccato syncopations in the central section of the song injection a subtle tension which propelled the music forward. Overall, a spirit of elation tinged with wistfulness was perfectly sustained throughout the sequence.

European Romanticism was superseded by the English folk tradition in the second half of the recital. First came four songs by Michael Head. The performers brought discerning drama to ‘Nocturne’, from the recitative-like opening, depicting the solitude of the moonlit scene, to the more urgent anguish of the abandoned lover’s recollections of love in the central verse. The much-loved ‘The ships of Arcady’ was serene, Crowe’s melody conveying the onlooker’s nostalgia for his vision of the passing ship, while ‘Beloved’ was a more impassioned representation of music’s erotic power.

Traditional folk songs, arranged variously by Britten and Phyllis Tate, highlighted the sweet purity of Crowe’s soprano, but also the intelligent way that she uses the voice to communicate an expressive narrative — the unaccompanied Irish ballad, ‘She moved thro’ the fair’, was particularly engaging. United by their repeated searches for lost love amid a natural world whose birds, flowers and fauna simultaneously embody, salve and agitate the singer’s emotions, these songs revisited — though in less anguished form — the Romantic vistas of the first half of the evening. In particular, the simple canon of ‘The ash grove’ was almost Schubertian, and while Crowe’s beautiful melody in ‘The Salley Gardens’ evoked a simpler mood, depth was added by Tilbrook’s attentiveness to the harmonic complexities of the accompaniment; the final lines, ‘But I was young and foolish/ And now am full of tears’ were discreetly moving. Much technical skill and vocal control is required to make these songs so effortlessly appealing and enthralling.

Walton’s virtuosic song-cycle A song for the Lord Mayor’s Table brought the concert to a rousing and impressive conclusion. Commissioned by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths for the Festival of the City of London in 1962, the songs encapsulate the striking, absorbing juxtapositions of London life, presenting resounding church bells and street cries. Crowe sang with commanding vitality, injecting energy into the vocal lines, the tone lustrous and the intonation well-centred. The entrancing melody of ‘Glide Gently’, a setting of Wordsworth, was utterly beguiling and the concluding song, ‘Gay go up and gay go down’ (Text: anon.) particularly lovely.

There was much to admire and enjoy in this recital. However, the opening four songs by Schubert were disappointing; Crowe did not seem comfortable with the idiom and her tone was somewhat withdrawn. While Tilbrook’s introduction to ‘Der Fluss’ (The river) was eloquent and the accompaniment full of diverse colours, Crowe’s melody was rather unobtrusive; ‘Auf dem Wasser zu singen’ (To be sung on the water) was similarly unfocused, although there were some judicious expressive rubatos. ‘Am den Mond’ (To the moon) found the soprano in brighter voice, and in ‘Nacht und Träume’ (Night and dreams) Crowe’s characteristic elegant lyricism was evident in the delicately articulated opening phrase, ‘Heil’ge Nacht, du sinkest nieder’ (Holy night, you float down). Sadly, in general in these lieder consonants were barely audible and vowels inaccurately shaped. Thankfully, Crowe quickly got into her stride, and we enjoyed an unusually diverse programme, communicated with directness and passion, concluding with a relaxed encore, ‘Summertime’.

Claire Seymour

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Performers and programme:

Lucy Crowe, soprano; Anna Tilbrook, piano. Wigmore Hall, London, Thursday, 3^rd July 2014.

Schubert, ‘Der Fluss’, ‘Auf dem Wasser zu singen’, ‘An den Mond’, ‘Nacht und Träume’; Sibelius, Luonnotar; Berg, Sieben frühe Lieder; Head, ‘Nocturne’, ‘On the wings of the wind’, ‘The ships of Arcady’, ‘Beloved’; Folksongs from the British Isles: ‘The Ash Grove’ (arr. Britten), ‘The Salley Gardens’ (arr. Britten), ‘The lark in the clear air’ (arr. Tate), ‘She moved thro’ the fair’ (Trad/ Irish), ‘She’s like the swallow’ (arr. Britten); Walton, A Song for the Lord Mayor’s table.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Lucy_Crowe_1519.png image_description=Lucy Crowe [Photo courtesy of Askonas Holt Limited] product=yes product_title=Lucy Crowe, Wigmore Hall product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Lucy Crowe [Photo courtesy of Askonas Holt Limited]

The Turn of the Screw, Holland Park

Make him think the evil, make him think it for himself, and you are released from weak specifications’. So wrote Henry James in the Preface to his short story, The Turn of the Screw.

James’s novella is characterised by the author’s characteristic literary evasion: the ‘gaps’ in the narrative, which frustrate and provoke the reader, are an invitation to musical intimation and allusion — and the suggestiveness of Britten’s score perfectly complements, even enhances, the author’s tantalising elusiveness. By contrast, Annilese Miskimmon’s new production for Opera Holland Park — the first Britten opera to be performed at OHP — makes the ‘evil’ explicit and specific, and, paradoxically, adds further conjectures and inferences.

One might think that the ruined walls of Holland House which form the backdrop for the stage would offer copious opportunities to evoke the shadowy recesses of James’ country mansion, Bly — a repository of psychological and psychic instability. However, Miskimmon and her designer Leslie Travers choose to construct a school-room to house the entire action of the opera, picking up on James’s insinuations that Miles’ undisclosed ‘crime’ — which sees him expelled from school and which confirms that he is ‘bad’ — is that he has contaminated or corrupted his school fellows, presumably by divulging the sexual knowledge he has been taught be Quint. During Act 1, Miles draws a rectangle in one corner of the blackboard; in Act 2 this becomes the door through which Quint enters. In this way, Miskimmon takes an inference and escalates it into the production’s central rationale.

So, we enter a classroom — presumably Bly has been converted into a boys’ preparatory school in the years following the tragedy depicted in the opera — spanned by an elongated blackboard along one angled wall and a piano nestled at the other end, with school-boys’ desks and a series of black panels suggesting a library in between. In Act 2 the panels swivel and form slanting screens casting shadows from which Peter Quint and Miss Jessel can surreptitiously emerge and fade.

The Prologue is sung by a laboratory-coat attired teacher (Robin Tritschler). As Tritschler ends eloquent, self-composed introduction to the ‘curious story’ which we will witness, a class of schoolboys in shorts and caps scamper to their desks. During the score’s instrumental interludes — which mark the passing of time and convey the ‘gaps’ in the novella — the teacher and his young charges will re-appear, sometimes serving a practical purpose as stage hands, at other times enforcing Miskimmon’s central idea about the ubiquitous threat to ‘innocence’. As they are shepherded through the school rooms, one boy lingers, engaging in an ambiguous and sinister gaze with his schoolmaster — we are encouraged to ask the Jamesian question, ‘who has corrupted whom and what is the nature of that corruption?’

In the original production, Peter Pears took the role of both the Narrator and Peter Quint; by assigning two roles to one singer, Britten increased James’s ambiguity, but here a different singer is cast as Peter Quint, and Miskimmon’s parallels between Bly past and present are more overt. Similarly, Britten’s instrumental variations on the ‘screw theme’ which is presented at the end of the Prologue create accumulating intensity through ever-changing permutations and elaboration. But here — while conductor Steuart Bedford’s appreciation of the musico-dramatic structure is deeply insightful and the rich array of affecting instrumental timbres that he coaxes from players from the City of London Sinfonia astonishingly detailed — the same visual image is repeated as the musical variations progress, growing in emphasis with each repetition.

Mark Jonathan’s lighting design is imaginative at times: in the opening scene, the black wall panels are made translucent and through them we see the Governess travelling to Bly, cleverly creating a sense of physical distance and of her isolation. Similarly, the shapeless spaces beyond the panels form dark recesses in which hints of Quint’s menacing form can be glimpsed. But, although performances start at 8pm, presumably to take advantage of the fall from twilight into night, there was little sense of nocturnal enchantment. In Scene 8 ‘Night’, when Quint makes his seductive appeal to Miles, a cobalt glow infused the set but it did not match the unearthly beauty and enigmatic enticements of Britten’s instrumental colours, and Quint’s very obvious position atop the panels was too blatant, lacking mystery.

The singular set posed other problems, mostly relating to the fact that there was no opportunity to juxtapose the suffocating interiors which are the Governess’s domain at Bly with the excitement and expanse of the world beyond the mansion’s walls into which Quint lures Miles. So, when the Governess takes young Flora down to the lake which the former governess, Miss Jessel, spectrally inhabits, the schoolmaster’s desk must do service for the ghostly waters while Flora clutches her doll standing upon a shore formed by a line of chairs; when she identifies the waters as the ‘Dead Sea’, she is naming not the dark depths across which she, we guess, communes with Miss Jessel, but rather identifying a geographical location on a map pulled down by the schoolmaster to cover the blackboard. (It’s interesting to recall that originally Britten and his librettist Myfanwy Piper planned to name the opera, ‘The Tower and the Lake’ — a title latent with Freudian overtones).

There are some neat directorial touches. Miss Jessel is first seen writhing on the master’s desk, and it is upon this desk that Miles dies. Tritschler’s red hair becomes a powerful visual symbol, as both Miles and Flora share his auburn colouring, perhaps suggesting shared lineage, and recalling James’s scandalous, red-headed Quint.

But, overall I lamented that the juxtaposition between repression and freedom was neglected in favour of a narrative of child abuse. For, Quint may be dangerous but he also represents a liberating freedom in the face of the Governess’s stifling over-protectiveness — the latter is just as potent a threat to childhood innocence. In the course of the opera Quint and Governess battle for the right to act as surrogate parent to the children, who have been neglected by their guardian and are inadequately served by the unsophisticated, rather limited Mrs Grose, but Miskimmon offers little sense of the intensity or perilousness of their struggle — although the intended recipient of Miles’ final cry, ‘Peter Quint, you devil!’ is intentionally equivocal. Certainly we are led to deduce that public school is ‘horrid’; but in James and Britten, Miles senses that Governess has other reasons for keeping him at home: ‘Well, I think also, you know, of this queer business of ours … the way you bring me up. And all the rest!’

Miles wants to see more of ‘life’, and we need to see, or at least sense, the opposition of the indoors and out, for it is when Miles roams in the garden at Bly, away from the Governess’s claustrophobic embrace, that he submits to Quint’s enchantment and indulges his own desire for ‘adventure’. And, just as Miskimmon’s Peter Quint is a flesh-and-blood villain, there is little sense also of the Governess’s decline from the strong, confident young professional arriving at Bly to a fragile girl wracked by self-doubt, tormented by her sense of her own culpability.

Thus, while Ellie Laugharne sang with energy and passion, revealing a full, rich soprano, she was unable to convincingly portray the Governess’s growing instability as her fears escalate and inhibit her judgement. There were occasional signs of her emotional deficiencies and weaknesses — a physical stiffening in the warm, honest embrace of Diana Montague’s Mrs Grose, for example. But, her passionate outburst of grief at the close — ‘Ah, Ah don’t leave me now! Ah! Miles! … What have we done between us?’ — was directed away from the child weakening on the desk behind her, and thus did not fully reinforce her awareness of her shared guilt.

The two children were particularly striking — thrillingly engaging both musically and dramatically. Dominic Lynch’s Miles was a wonderful portrait of adolescent precocity and powerful emotional manipulation. His pure soprano was astonishingly penetrating and strong; in his night-time rendezvous with Quint, Lynch’s focused, confident responses to Quint’s alluring cries were a potent sign of his receptiveness to promises of freedom, establishing the intensity of the boy’s communion with Quint. Lynch’s ‘Malo Song’ — still and calm, accompanied by a lovely cor anglais solo — was a wonderful moment of eerie, bewitching quietude. Rosie Lomas was chilling as Flora, incredibly youthful in demeanour, convincingly vicious in her childhood ‘games’ with her younger sibling, her soprano crystalline yet sympathetic.

Diana Montague (replacing Anne Mason who was originally cast in the role but who is now indisposed for the run) was absolutely superb as Mrs Grose; the expanse and depth of her mezzo was utterly redolent of the sweeping maternal embrace which Mrs Grose offers the children, modulated by notes of unease and concern.

As Peter Quint, Brendan Gunnell sang with poised and sure tone, and if the seductive runs of his nocturnal enticement scene lacked a little ‘other-worldliness’ they were smoothly and clearly articulated. Gunnell’s Act 2 Colloquy with Elin Pritchard’s Miss Jessel was fervidly theatrical; Pritchard brought copious physical and vocal presence to the rather weakly characterised role.

In many ways, this Colloquy — which sets W.B.Yeats, ‘The Second Coming’ — is the linchpin of the opera, yet once again I felt that Miskimmon didn’t find quite the right dramatic note. The ghosts chillingly proclaim that the ‘Ceremony of innocence is drowned’; that is, Yeats and Britten assert, the ceremony of innocence, its rituals, must be ‘drowned’ in order to liberate the individual so that the child can progress to adulthood — though Yeats’ image of apocalyptic agony, ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’, certainly intimates that breaking conventions may have good or bad results. But, this ambiguity is removed by ubiquitous presence of the science master and his prepubescent charges which shifts the focus onto destruction of innocence itself — and, in so doing, the ‘meaning’ of opera is relocated, or at least some of the shades of ambiguity removed.

Miskimmon takes a focused line and she sticks to it. There are some clever and imaginative touches and she is well served by her cast. But, this Screw would benefit from being more sensitive to the Jamesian silences and to the score’s enigmas and equivocations.

Claire Seymour

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Cast and production information:

The Governess, Ellie Laugharne; Peter Quint, Brenden Gunnell; Mrs Grose, Diana Montague; Miss Jessel, Elin Pritchard; The Prologue, Robin Tritschler; Miles, Dominic Lynch; Flora, Rosie Lomas; Director, Annilese Miskimmon; Conductor, Steuart Bedford; Designer, Leslie Travers; Lighting Designer, Mark Jonathan. Opera Holland Park, Tuesday, 1^st July 2014.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Screw_1_OHP.png image_description=Image courtesy of Opera Holland Park product=yes product_title=The Turn of the Screw, Holland Park product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above image courtesy of Opera Holland Park

Plenty of Va-Va-Vroom: La Fille du Regiment, Iford

La Fille has certainly been derided over the years for its vulgarity and jingoistic tendencies. Yet dig a little deeper and you find that the canny Donizetti was also in fact essaying a new direction away from the all-conquering Italian opera of his time and, by a slick piece of “art concealing (or revealing?) art”, he was on the way to creating a new style. Indeed he had more than 20 years of compositional experience behind him by the time Fille hit the stage in 1839/40, and he used all his considerable wiles to achieve his aims. Perhaps Theophile Gautier best summed up this work as “facile et spirituelle” — and certainly it seduces with its infectiously gay (in the original sense),light, and bright music as much as it explores the weightier themes of nationalism, feminism and the human response to loss and war, despite skimming over them with a gossamer thread of catchy tunes. So how to bring all this to a tiny space in the Wiltshire countryside?

Suzanne Shakespeare as Marie

Director Jeff Clarke and his designers Nigel Howard & Graham Wynne and conductor Toby Purser simply threw away the rule book for this English-language version and solved the production “problems” with panache, wit, imagination and, well, plenty of va-va-vroom. Literally almost, as the Regiment is converted to a South Californian Hell’s Angels-type biker gang, all six of them beautifully kitted out in full leathers, tattoos and bandanas riding some interesting-looking “Darley Havisons”. They are “at war” with a rival gang and so immediately we understand what Clarke is doing and are seduced into this early 1960’s version of the Napoleonic wars. Marsha Berkenfield, social climber in LA, her daintily-camp butler Mr.Hortensius, Sulpice is “president” of the Regiment gang, Dulcie Crackenthorpe an appalling old heiress, Tonio a Hispanic immigrant (serendipitously cast) and Marie as in the original, an orphan “found” by the Regiment as a baby. True, there is the odd surgical cut: no room, literally, for the opening scene with the “Marquess” and Tyrolean peasants praying for deliverance en masse — but apart from that Clarke has kept very close to the original opera. The libretto however was definitely given a far freer rein by Clarke: plenty of choice biker language, plenty of near-the-knuckle anti-Hispanic invective.

Any “Fille” anywhere has always been an opera which stands or falls by the success of its Daughter of the Regiment; over the decades it has been defined by many by the quality of the soprano singing the role of Marie — from Jenny Lind, via the great Dame Joan Sutherland, and on to such modern day successes as Natalie Dessay. So it was a delight and a relief to hear young Australian-born soprano Suzanne Shakespeare take on the mantle with a fearless display of sparkling coloratura, trills and even a few decorations of her own. Her voice has both a warm middle and a shining top: E flats popped with aplomb, yet with “Il faut partir...” her goodbye to the gang in Act One, she found a touching pathos, ably drawn. A bravura performance from start to finish — a young star on the high road for sure. So then, of course, there is the “will he, won’t he” aspect of Tonio’s (in)famous “Mes amis....”. If young Spanish tenor Jesus Alvarez was nervous, it didn’t show. We might have been nervous for him for in that intimate space and orchestration for just eleven instruments, but yes he delivered all nine of those high Cs with conviction and bang in tune.

Jesús Álvarez as Tonio

However, no matter how thrilling the young leads were, or how convincing their acting, here at Iford it was the role of Sulpice, sung by the excellent Adrian Clarke which held the whole show together. Totally in the part from start to finish, beautifully observed, expressively sung, what a tour de force he gave us. Almost as impressive was Katharine Taylor Jones’ Marsha Berkenfield, a statuesque figure wearing the vintage dresses with assurance and poise, her warm mezzo voice supple through the range. A comically-awful Dulcie Crakenthopre was played in drag by one of the bikers, Philip Cox who obviously had a lot of fun mixing his roles. James Harrison’s mincing butler was the right side of caricature and kept the laughs coming. A word must be said here for the biker gang: sung by Cox, Richard Belshaw, Graham Stone, Martin George, Angus McAllister and Richard Woodall, this was no ordinary “chorus” job. With only six voices to fill out Donizetti’s wonderful music each was a true soloist, each a significant actor. The same must be said of the 11 players of that music: from opening solo trumpet to resounding final chords, nowhere to hide and nowhere needed.

The production team kept it simple but effective with the cloister converted to a tract of dry desert and cacti. The Music Lesson was ingeniously staged with an electronic keyboard masquerading as a grand piano, in turn doing duty as a dance-stage. Clever, witty, and it worked. Which, really, sums up this mini-triumph of the imagination. A must-see if you can.

Sue Loder

La Fille du Regiment (sung in English), Iford Opera, Saturday, July 5^th 2014.

Opera della Luna at Iford Opera playing: July 8^th, 10^th, 12^th, 15^th, 17^th and 19^th.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/La%20Fille%20du%20Regiment%20Iford%202014.png image_description=Image by Nitrox-Marquez courtesy of Iford Arts Music Festival product=yes product_title=Plenty of Va-Va-Vroom: La Fille du Regiment, Iford product_by=A review by Sue Loder product_id=Above image by Nitrox-Marquez courtesy of Iford Arts Music Festival

Photos by Rob Coles

La finta giardiniera, Glyndebourne

Theseus’ words to his wife, Hippolyta, spoken before the Mechanicals’ theatricals in the final act of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, would be an apt epigraph for Frederic Wake-Walker’s new Glyndebourne production of Mozart’s La finta giardiniera — the first time the House, for whom Mozart has been the cornerstone, has staged the composer’s adolescent experimentation with opera seria. For, Wake-Walker’s basic concept rests upon that old theatrical conundrum: reality or fantasy?

The artifice takes two forms: in Act 1 it is the stylisation of the eighteenth-century theatre, in the final two Acts it is the fickleness and elusiveness of the human heart — or, as Shakespeare put it: ‘O me! What eyes hath Love put in my head,/Which have no correspondence with true sight’ (Sonnet CXLVIII). So, in the opening Act the exhibitionism and stagecraft are foregrounded, before the very edifices of the stage itself are literally torn down in an effort to uncover the truth about love.

In interview in the Glyndebourne programme book, the director declares his intention to make the characters seem ‘not quite rooted in the real world’, a decision supported by the set which ‘removes the characters from any outside world’. He may define the ‘outside world’ as ‘any sense of politics or religion or anything’, but here ‘anything’ could also mean matters horticultural, for Wake-Walker places more emphasis on the ‘pretence’ indicated in the work’s title than on the disguised heroine’s assumed profession. The virtual absence of a garden is a pity, for the symmetries and geometries of the eighteenth-century formal garden both infer the desire to impose artificial order upon nature, but also permit much intrigue and subterfuge — as evidenced later by Mozart’s in Così and Figaro.

Instead, designer Antony McDonaldpresents us with what the director describes as a Lustschloss, ‘aplace where people can behave differently … where people can come out of themselves and go crazy’. This feeding ground for folly is a gracious, if slightly worn-around-the-edges, rococo cupola room, appointed with towering windows, shadowy niches and firework recesses. In Act 2, this ‘real’ chamber is replaced by a papery pastiche; the crumbling façades are violently swept aside and amid the ruins the doting protagonists find themselves transformed into shepherd and shepherdess, adrift in a pastoral wilderness with only a dented mantelpiece and a dainty parlour sofa to hint at the ‘artifices’ of the formal, class-stratified society from which they have escaped. After the overt theatrical effrontery of Act 1, the direction makes little attempt subsequently to communicate directly to the audience with the result that character and situation are sometimes hard to fathom.

Christiane Karg, Joélle Harvey and Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke anchor an expert Mozartean ensemble. Glyndebourne’s new Music Director Robin Ticciati conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Lighting designer Lucy Carter does provide some striking chiaroscuro effects, boldly complementing the directorial juxtapositions. But, overall it feels as if Wake-Walker is trying rather too hard to make sense of the nonsensical. Indeed, productions of the opera tend to be justified by the historical importance of this youthful example of Mozart’s musico-dramatic genius, and weaknesses blamed upon the inane libretto rather than the music.

The opera tells of Violante, who has been beaten and left for dead by her lover Count Belfiore — here we witness the aristocrat’s desperate bid to escape the crime-scene during the overture — and who takes refuge amid the flower beds in order to save her skin and her reputation. (It’s not clear why in the ensuing action she should selflessly save her abuser from accusations of murder, then forgive him and go to such lengths to win him back). Don Anchise, the Podestà (Mayor) of Lagonero, loves his new gardener, Sandrina (the disguised Violante), to the chagrin of his enamoured servant, Serpetta. Serpetta, though, has her own admirer in Sandrina’s cousin Nardo (actually her servant Roberto, in disguise). Arminda, the Podestà’s niece, casting aside her former lover, Ramiro, now adores Belfiore — Violante’s former lover and assailant. By the end, one can sympathise with Podestà who just seems to wish they’d all get on with it and marry someone, and give him some peace!

In the title role, Christiane Karg blends expressive grace with technical virtuosity, her gleaming soprano soaring through effortless, long-breathed phrases. Sandrina’s end-of-Act 1 aria was imbued with romantic pathos, and Karg characterised the seria situations without undue caricature. She didn’t quite convince as a horticulturalist though but this wasn’t her fault, as she was not helped in this regard by the direction or costuming: attired in cornflower blue silk gown, as she sighed and waned, this Sandrina did not look ideally made for agricultural exertion beyond a touch of gentle rose-pruning.

Her troubled lover, Count Belfiore, was pleasingly sung by Joel Prieto. The Spanish tenor’s physical elegance was matched by his beautifully shaped vocal lines and tenderness of tone, although perhaps Prieto’s voice is a little too slight to convey Belfiore’s insane ardour. More commanding of presence was Nicole Heaston as Arminda, whose strong tone and ability to carry off some fantastically extravagant costumes impressed equally. Arminda’s rejected lover, the black leather-clad Ramiro, was sung with flexibility by mezzo soprano Rachel Frenkel, her rich lyricism sparked by a flash of fire in her excellent Act 2 aria. Joèlle Harvey was acerbic and spirited as the spurned Serpetta, and she used her bright soprano most expressively. As Podestà, tenor Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke delivered an arresting Act 1 aria and was a picture of buffo bumptiousness throughout.

Romanian baritone Gyula Orendt was indisposed, and was only able to sing the recitatives of the heroine’s devoted servant Nardo, his mute, lively acting supplemented in the arias by Gavan Ring’s warm bass resounding from the side of the circle. Ring deservedly received the most appreciative applause of the evening — and, it would have been fitting if he had been able to join the other principals on stage rather than receive his accolade from the shadows of the auditorium.

Wake-Walker has judiciously applied the pruning shears to both arias and recitative, and there is some re-ordering, but — even with such a uniformly excellent cast, and especially in the long second half — there are a few redundant arias, showing that the precocious composer might have acquired musical mastery but had not yet sharpened his dramatic instincts. That said, there are many moments which look ahead to the treasures to come, most particularly the two Act final ensembles where conductor Robin Ticciati moved things along swiftly, highlighting the juxtapositions between characters. And, there was a directorial nod towards Don Giovanni with the cloaked entrance of the masked gang, searching for Sandrina, at the end of Act 2, as the characters mistook other’s identity in the darkness.

Ticciati expertly guided some of today’s finest baroque specialists, from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, through a graceful, limpid performance. The pace was neither too leisurely nor too frantic, Ticciati responding thoughtfully to the juxtaposition of comic and serious, and the dramatic details were judiciously pointed with some fine instrumental solos and the astute, sensitive continuo playing of Andrew Smith and cellist Luise Buchberger.

At the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream when the four lovers return to regularities of the Athenian court after the lunacy of the fairies’ wood, one of the beloveds, Demetrius, remains bewitched — order is restored but it is an order that depends upon enchantment and fantasy. This seems to be Wake-Walker’s essential argument: that the moment of most clarity, when Sandrina and Belfiore recognise the artifice about them, is also the moment of most madness. The director has moved Nardo’s Act 1 aria — which asserts the folly of loving women, accompanied by the mad frolics of the violin — to the final Act, preceding the closing duet in which the lovers realise that madness and love are indivisible bed-fellows. It’s a neat idea, but one might counter-argue that in fact the route to madness is to try to make sense of the absurd plot. In this case, depth and credibility of characterisation might be a surer path to ‘truth’ rather than artifice.

Claire Seymour

La finta giardiniera Podcast — Festival 2014

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Cast and production information:

Don Anchise (Il Podestà, Mayor of Lagonero), Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacker; Sandrina (La Marchesa Violante Onesti), Christiane Karg; Ramiro, Rachel Frenkel; Serpetta, Joèlle Harvey; Nardo (Roberto), Gyula Orendt/Gavan Ring; Arminda, Nicola Heaston; Count Belfiore, Joel Prieto; Director, Frederic Wake-Walter; Conductor, Robin Ticciati; Designer, Antony McDonald; Lighting Designer, Lucy Carter; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Saturday, 28^th June 2014.

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Sophie Karthäuser, Wigmore Hall

All these qualities were much in evidence in this diverse programme of songs by Mozart, Clara and Richard Schumann and Poulenc, in which Karthäuser was sympathetically accompanied by pianist Eugene Asti.

Classical poise and grace were the order of the day in the opening four songs by Mozart. However, Karthäuser did not fail to bring considerable dramatic energy to the small forms. In ‘Das Veilchen’ (The violet) the folk-like vivacity was superseded by darker shadows in the minor key central stanza — in which the violet, ripe for picking by the shepherdess, laments the transience of its beauty — the veiled pianissimo unison between voice and piano characteristic of the sensitive communication between the performers throughout the recital. A rasping ‘Ach’, as the unheeding shepherdess draw near, brought a note of humour and realism to Goethe’s Romantic imagery.

The languorous falling 6^th which commences ‘An die Einsamkeit’ (Be my consolation) was expressively shaped, and the strophic melody delicately phrased; this song also offered a glimpse of the soprano’s impressively focused and plush lower register. In the more expansive and rhetorical ‘Abendempfindung’ (Evening thoughts), the performers switched readily between lyrical and dramatic moods. Asti’s piano postlude was particularly expressive, reflecting the sentimentality of Joachim Heinrich Campe’s text. In contrast, ‘Der Zauberer’ (The magician) sparkled from Asti’s initiating upwards sweeps, through the melodic chromatic twists, to the piano’s final impetuous, spiralling demisemiquaver descent. Karthäuser and Asti made a persuasive case for this neglected region of Mozart’s oeuvre.

The tempestuous opening of Clara Schumann’s ‘Er ist gekommen’ (He came in storm and rain) marked a striking shift to a world of Romantic turbulence, and Karthäuser took pains to inject an urgent thrill into her powerful soprano as the poet-speaker sings of her fervent communion with her beloved. Asti’s airy postlude perfectly captured both the mood of quiet resignation and the image of the fading figure of the lover as he journeys onwards.

Richard and Clara Schumann collaborated on settings of texts by Rückert in 1840 and Richard wrote to his publisher, Friedrich Kistner: ‘My wife has composed some very interesting songs, which have inspired me to compose a few more from Rückert’s Liebesfrühling. Together they should form a very nice whole, which we should like to publish in one book.’ These songs (Clara’s Op.12 and Richard’s Op.37) are deeply expressive of their love. Karthäuser does not have a naturally velvety tone, but in ‘Liebst du um Schönheit’ (If you love for beauty) she controlled the lyrical lines with assurance and expressivity. The transparency and delicacy of ‘Die gute nacht’ (The good night) closed the sequence with poetic intimacy, but the best of the Clara Schumann songs was ‘Warum willst du and’re fragen’ (Why enquire of others), the piano introduction establishing a flowing momentum and Karthäuser showing meticulous care as she responded to the text. After the radiance of the rising, exclamatory assertion, ‘Sondern sieh die Augen an!’ (look at these eyes!), the third stanza began with a beautifully hushed whisper, ‘Schweigt die Lippe deinen Fragen’ (Are my lips silent to your questions), growing in intensity and with well-judged ritardando, ‘Oder zeugt sie gegen mich?’ (or do they testify against me?). This was singing of deep insight.

Richard Schumann’s Frauenliebe und —leben Op.42 (A Woman’s Love and Life) concluded the first half and again Karthäuser’s wide-ranging tessitura and rounded lower register enhanced the tenderness and elation of these songs. ‘Er, der Herrlichste von allen’ (He the most wonderful of all) was expansive, conveying a deep Romantic ardour, Asti’s repeating quavers quivering like a beating heart, and the well-crafted bass line providing a sure foundation for the voice’s outbursts of passion, while the dotted rhythms of the rising counter-melodies in the right hand engaged effectively with the voice. The changes of tempi and subtle rubatos of ‘Ich kann’s nicht fassen’ (I cannot grasp it). in which the woman exclaims her disbelief at having been chosen by her beloved. were skilfully handled; and the piano’s staccato chords help to generate excitement and restlessness, which were ultimately subdued by the closing major tonality cadence.

The low register of ‘Du Ring an meinem Finger’ (You ring on my finger) suggested the woman’s confidence and security, and the soprano unleashed her powerful instrument in avowing, ‘Ich will ihm dienen, ihm leben, ihm angehören ganz’ (I shall serve him, live for him, belong to him wholly). A brighter vocal tone conveyed the exuberance and joy of the wedding preparations enacted in ‘Helf mir, ihr Schwestern’ (Help me, O sisters), while the performers shaped ‘Süsser Freund’ (Sweet friend) with dexterity, driving towards the moment when she tells her new husband of her dream that one day she will awaken and find his visage gazing up at her. The lullaby ,‘An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust’ (On my heart, at my Breast), was perhaps less successful, Karthäuser’s voice less focused and the oscillating piano motif lacking absolute clarity; but, the sudden sweeping away of happiness in ‘Nun has du mir den ersten Schmerz getan’ (Now you have caused my first pain) was affecting, as both voice and piano steadily plummeted, as she bows over her now-dead husband, Asti’s eloquent postlude encapsulating the tragedy of this brief lyric.

After the interval, Karthäuser and Asti presented a comprehensive selection of songs by Poulenc representing the full spectrum of the composer’s eclectic idioms and diverse forms — from flippancy to serenity, declamation to lyricism. However, the nine settings of the symbolist poet, Paul Éluard, which ‘Tel jour tell nuit’ (Such a day, such a night) are remarkably consistent in their mood of calm mystery, and from the opening song, ‘Bonne journée’ (A good day), Karthäuser’s appreciation of the relationship between the flowing contours of Poulenc’s idiosyncratic melodies and the harmonic twists and nuances which underscore the text setting was vividly apparent. Both this song and the subsequent ‘Une ruine coquille vide’ (A ruin empty shell) conveyed the elusiveness of Éluard’s imagery through the soprano’s limpid tone and the tranquillity of the accompaniment. The rippling accompaniment of ‘Le front comme un drapeau perdu’ (My forehead like a surrended flag) shattered the composure and built into a whirling agitation, and the brief song, ‘Une roulotte couverte entuiles’ (A tiled gypsy wagon) added to the unsettled mood, for Karthäuser’s low voice was focused but restrained, and the ending — ‘Ce melodrama nous arrache/ La raison du coeur’ (this melodrama rips from us the hearts’ sanity) — disturbingly abrupt.

‘A toutes brides’ (Riding full tilt) was full of brightness and spirit; the striking clarity of line in ‘Une herbe pauvre’ (A meagre blade of grass), and the placid high piano chords were reminiscent of the controlled aloofness of Satie. A brisk, intense account of ‘Je n'ai envie que de t'aimer’ (I long only to love you) was followed by ‘Figure de force brûlante et farouche’ (Image of force fiery and wild) which retreated from its initial passionate imagery of black hair tinted with gold and engulfed tainted stars, restoring the predominant serenity. In the closing lines — ‘Intraitable démesurée/ Inutie/ Cette santé bâtit une prison (obstinate immoderate/ useless/ this health build a prison) Karthäuser’s soprano assumed a cold steeliness, capturing the stiltedness of the text. She adroitly shaped the gradually intensifying melodies of the concluding ‘Nous avons fait la nuit (We have created night), rising to an ecstatic passion which was prolonged in Asti’s moving postlude.

The first of three mélodies to texts by Apollinaire, ‘Voyage à Paris’ — one of Poulenc’s more glib frivolities — was exuberant. In contrast ‘Montparnasse’ was introspective, conveying the self-reflective doubt of the poetry; Karthäuser’s elegant melodies possessed a nonchalant stillness, the falling vocal glissando at the close spilling into a dark, exploratory postlude suggestive of the beloved’s balloon-like eyes which float away haphazardly in the air. Completing this trio of songs conjuring images of Paris, the closing bars of the dreamy ‘Hôtel’ delicately evaporated like the speaker’s cigarette smoke, ‘Je ne veux pas travailler je veux fumer’ (I do not want to work I want to smoke).

The seven songs which form ‘La courte paille’ (The short straw), settings of Maurice Carême), were more whimsical and mischievous. The gentle lullaby-rocking of ‘Sommeil’ (Sleep) swelled in intensity as Karthäuser dramatically painted the dream landscape. ‘Quelle Aventure!’ (What goings-on!) and ‘La Reine de coeur’ are fairy-tale absurdities, the first depicting a flea in a carriage pulling along an elephant who is absentmindedly sucking up a pot of jam, and the second presenting a Queen who waves an almond blossom. Asti and Karthäuser were alert to the humorous chromaticisms and dissonances which add musical piquancy to the nonsensical texts; and the understated lyricism of the soprano’s undulating, asymmetrical melody in ‘La Reine’ were beautiful.

The juxtapositions of mood were clearly defined (often the performers made a significant pause between the songs). After the playful diversions of the sequence, the slow final song, ‘Lune d'Avril’ (April moon), re-established a subdued stillness; in the descending vocal melody of the final lines Karthäuser wonderfully captured the dreaminess of the imagery — ‘soleilleux de primevères, /On a brisé tous les fusils …’ (sumlit with primoses/ all the guns have been destroyed) — concluding with the repeated chant, ‘Belle lune, lune d’avril, Lune’.

In ‘A sa guitare’ (To his guitar), Asti’s trembling textures and overtones mimicked the poet-speaker’s beloved instrument, beneath a beautiful placid vocal line. ‘Les chemins de l’amour’ (The paths of love) journeyed into twilight worlds, an elusive pianissimo conjuring ‘the paths of memory’. Here, the smooth, stepwise vocal line, ornamented with expressive leaps, conversed with the piano’s entwining countermelodies and was supported by a steadily moving piano bass, wonderfully displaying the simple profundity of the composer’s means and message. Karthäuser and Asti left us no doubt of their appreciation of Poulenc’s expressive nuances, and lured us into his imaginative world.

Claire Seymour

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Programme and performers:

Mozart: ‘Das Veilchen’, ‘An die Einsamkeit’, ‘Der Zauberer’, ‘Abendempfindung’; Clara Schumann: Four Lieder to texts by Rückert; Robert Schumann: Frauenliebe und —leben; Poulenc: Tel jour, telle nuit, ‘Voyage à Paris’, ‘Montparnasse’, ‘Hôtel’, La courte paille, ‘A sa guitare’ ‘Les chemins de l’amour’.

Sophie Karthäuser, soprano; Eugene Asti, piano. Wigmore Hall, London, Monday 30^th June 2014.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Sophie_Karth%C3%A4user.gif image_description=Sophie Karthäuser [Photo © Alvaro Yanez] product=yes product_title=Sophie Karthäuser, Wigmore Hall product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Sophie Karthäuser [Photo © Alvaro Yanez]