Opera Today

Theatre of the Ayre, Wigmore Hall

Noting in his Preface to Harmonia Sacra (1688/93) that the ‘youthful and gay’ had already been entertained with a ‘variety of rare compositions’, the entrepreneurial Henry Playford addressed his new publication to: ‘others, who are no less musical though they are more devout.’ For these ‘pious persons’, who are excellent judges of both music and wit, divine hymns are the ‘most proper entertainment’, one which ‘warms and actuates all the powers of the soul and fills the mind with the brightest and most ravishing contemplations’.

The devotional songs presented here certainly foregrounded the misery of the penitential and the blisses of spiritual consolation which might be attained through devotion — a fitting focus, perhaps, for the current liturgical season. In addition to Psalm texts, there were settings penned by persons whom Playford describes as ‘eminent both for learning and piety’ and who include William Fuller, Bishop of Lincoln, and poet George Herbert.

While the lion’s share of the programme was de devoted to Purcell, whose dominant presence would surely have made the collection more attractive to potential purchasers, there were contributions by Purcell’s English contemporaries, John Blow and Pelham Humfrey, whose collaborative ‘Hark how the wakeful cheerful cock’ opened the programme, seguing from the brief canon ‘Laudate Dominum’ to which the five soloists had processed onto the platform.

The dialogue, begun by Humfrey and completed by Blow, between two penitents was spirited and theatrical: as awareness of their sins mounted so did their misery, and soprano Sophie Daneman and tenor Nicholas Mulroy joined in lamentation — ‘Since then the cause of both our grief’s the same,/ Mix we our tears for grief let’s die,/ But first our dirge let’s sing, or cry:’ — the enriched accompaniment, as theorbo was joined by viola da gamba and harpsichord, ironically deepening the sweetness of their miserere.

Pepys may have described Humfrey as a man ‘full of form and confidence and vanity’, but the anthem ‘Lord! I have sinned’ suggests that his self-assurance may have been justified, for he was clearly skilful in using flamboyant musical gesture to express sombre contrition. The Italianate idiom — drooping chromaticism, angular melodic shapes and poignant dissonances — was delivered with madrigalian vivacity by Daneman, accompanied by organ and viola da gamba, but while the soprano’s phrases were expressive, the line and tuning were not consistently controlled. In particular, I found Daneman’s tendency to slide through the chromatic sighs to be excessive; the sentiments she seemed sought are already present in the music and need no exaggerated articulation.

There was even more Italianate virtuosity to enjoy in soprano Katherine Watson’s witty and technically assured performance of Giacomo Carissimi’s dramatic motet ‘Lucifer Caelestis olim’, which enacts Lucifer’s fall from grace. Watson was equally convincing as the imperious narrator, the boastful Lucifer and when she was when delivering God’s condemnation, perhaps not surprising as the two dramatic figures are, ironically, not distinguished in terms of musical style. Lucifer’s deluded bragging — ‘O me felice, o me beatum coelestis gloriae decoratum!’ (O how happy am I, blessed and adorned with the glory of heaven!) — was delivered in nimble coloratura with a bright edge at the top and real strength in the lower register.

John Blow brought Mulroy and bass Matthew Brook together in two rich duets. ‘Help, Father Abraham!: The dialogue of Dives and Abraham’ showcased the agility and diverse hues of Mulroy’s bright tenor as he pleaded for Brook’s Abraham to show pity, while Brook demonstrated rhetorical presence — ‘What son of Hell and darkness dare molest/ This blessed saint, scarce warm yet on my breast?’, he thundered — and control of vocal nuance. In ‘Enough my muse, of early things’, it was Mulroy’s registral range which was noteworthy, as he rose from low depths to a fervent upper register, calling upon his muse to take up its lute and play ‘Happy mournful stories, The lamentable glories of the crucify’d King’. There was striking urgency as the two voices blended in thirds, and melismas were delivered with sharp musical and textual clarity.

But, this was really Purcell’s evening. Many of the Purcell’s devotional songs survive only in manuscript, and so Playford’s publication is a valuable one; the songs are some of the less familiar works among the composer’s output but also some of the finest. On his title pages to the two volumes of Harmonia Sacra, Playford noted that the continuo part should be played by ‘theorbo-lute, bass-viol, harpsichord, or organ’ and that was the ensemble gathered here, supplemented by two violins, as ‘domestic’ representatives of the renowned Twenty-Four Violins of the Chapel Royal. Brook was joined by the violins, viola da gamba and organ in Purcell’s ‘My song shall be of the loving kindness of the Lord’, and the instrumentalists provided a rich-textured symphony between the arioso and recitative passages of Brook’s intense but lyrical solo; there was some delightful interplay and dialogue between voice and instrumentalists, and Watson, Mulroy and countertenor Robin Blaze gradual heightened the exaltation of the choral Hallelujah. Brook’s performance of ‘In the black dismal dungeon of despair’ was a highlight of the evening: to the sparse accompaniment of theorbo, the bass wrought meaning from every detail of the text — for example, opening the vowels of the title line to convey the depths of suffering, or the rolling of the ‘r’ in ‘certain horrid judgement’ — and music. Here, too, the unsurpassed naturalness of Purcell’s text setting was evident, in the short-long sprung rhythms (‘Lost to all hope of Liberty,/ Hence ne-ver to remove’) which punched home meaning, and in the melismatic flourishes which reified emotion — ‘Being guilty of so long, so great neglect’. This was a masterly rendition, sustained to the final perfectly executed trill.

Contrasting trios of voices were presented in and ’I was glad when they said unto me’ (ATB) and ‘In guilty night: Saul and the witch of Endor’ (STB). In the latter, the voices moved with freedom from ensemble blend to solo prominence and build the drama with urgency. The chromatic piquancy conveying his ‘sore distress’, Mulroy’s Saul hurried fearfully through his imploration, ‘For pity’s sake tell me, what shall I do?’ but Brook’s Samuel was implacable in his magisterial authority: ‘At thou forlorn of God and com’st to me?’ Daneman was a lively witch, but at times I thought that, determined to impress upon us the passion of Purcell’s declamatory idiom, she sacrificed beauty of tone and precision for dramatic effect. In ‘I was glad’, the interjection of the two violins rivalled the voices for rhetorical impact.

The two female voices spoke with a pleasingly unified timbre at the close of Purcell’s ‘Jehovah quam multi sunt hostes’; Watson demonstrated a burnished lower range at the start of ‘With sick and famished eyes’, and again negotiated the dissonances and disjunctions of the more Italianate passages skilfully, though the virtuosity did occasionally detract from the clarity of the diction.

In the concluding items, and with the metaphorical setting of the sun, we moved closer to spiritual consolation and rest, with two ‘Evening Hymns’. The first, to an anonymous text, was warmly delivered by Mulroy and Brook, and again the interaction between instrumental and vocal bass parts brought expressive richness to the close, ‘By sleeping, how it is to die’. Robin Blaze performed Purcell’s long-lined melodic setting of Bishop Fuller’s more well-known text with gentle understatement, accompanied by Kenny’s thoughtful theorbo. Thomas Tallis’ hymn, ‘All praise to thee my God this night’, the textures engagingly varied for each verse, brought the evening to a soothing close.

The continuo ensemble also performed three trio sonatas by Purcell, with expertise and musicality. The unanimity of articulation and expression of violinists Rodolfo Richter and Jane Gordon was remarkable, and Alison McGillivray’s viola da gamba provided a lyrical even-toned bass, while Robert Howard was an alert and crisp contributor at the keyboard and organ. The increasingly complex and deeply compelling accumulations and variations of the Chacony of the Trio Sonata No.6 in G Minor (Z807) almost stole the show.

Claire Seymour

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Performers and programme:

Theatre of the Ayre: Rodolfo Richter violin, Jane Gordon violin, Alison McGillivray viola da gamba, Robert Howarth organ, Sophie Daneman soprano, Katherine Watson soprano, Robin Blaze countertenor, Nicholas Mulroy tenor, Matthew Brook baritone, Elizabeth Kenny director, theorbo.

Anon — Canon a 3 Laudate Dominum; John Blow — ‘Hark how the wakeful cheerful cock’; Henry Purcell — ‘My song shall be alway of the loving kindness of the Lord’ Z31, Trio Sonata in Three Parts No. 10 in A major Z799; John Blow — ‘Enough, my muse, of earthly things’; Henry Purcell — ‘In the black, dismal dungeon of despair’ Z190, Trio Sonata in Three Parts No. 11 in F minor Z800, ‘In Guilty Night’ (Saul and the Witch of Endor) Z134, ‘I was glad when they said unto me’ Z19, Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes’ Z135; Giacomo Carissimi: ‘Lucifer, caelestis olim’; Henry Purcell — ‘Trio Sonata in Four Parts No. 6 in G minor’ Z807; Pelham Humfrey — ‘Lord, I have sinned’; John Blow — ‘Help, Father Abraham’; Henry Purcell — ‘With sick and famish’d eyes’ Z200, ‘Now that the sun hath veiled his light’ (An Evening Hymn on a Ground) Z193, Trio Sonata in Four Parts No. 10 in D major Z811, ‘The Night is come’ (An Evening Hymn) Z77; Thomas Tallis — ‘All praise to thee my God this night’.

Wigmore Hall, London, Tuesday 23^rd February 2016.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Elizabeth%20Kenny.png image_description=Elizabeth Kenny product=yes product_title=Theatre of the Ayre, Wigmore Hall product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Elizabeth Kenny

HOT Dream in Honolulu

Director Henry G. Akina has skillfully crafted an unfussy, straight forward, tightly organized production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, that offered few surprises but ample delights. Mr. Akina’s clarity of story-telling is a welcome asset, and he moves his performers around like the seasoned pro he is, with utmost clarity of purpose.

Mortals, gods, and rude mechanicals alike are well-characterized here, not only as definitive, identifiable groups, but also as highly individualized components in the story. Some whimsical touches drew audible audience appreciation, whether it was Tytania playfully wriggling her behind onto a hammock; Puck’s astonishing defiance of gravity with weightless leaps and jetées; or Lysander’s and Demetrius’ use of Helena as a human rope for an amorous tug-of-war.

Peter Dean Beck’s set design was highly efficient: a workable center stage unit set of platforms and stairs that provided an ideal environment for varied scenes and locales. This unit was beautifully framed by a diaphanous “forest” of legs and borders on which were projected a spectacular series of images, masterfully designed by Adam Larsen. The constantly modulating, universal woods changed seasons, changed climates, and conveyed a well-calibrated sense of the passing of seasons. The ‘autumn’ leaves falling as the lovers transitioned was a feat of potent and moving imagery.

Mr. Beck complemented Mr. Larsen’s projections with a carefully considered lighting design: atmospheric, moody, and always well-judged. The simple addition of a set of “tree trunks” (in the form of stylized drapes that flew in and out) was all that was needed to complete the magical playing space. That said, I do wish that actors hadn’t kept bumping into those fabric “trees” causing them to jiggle. There was a cleverly crafted hammock for the Fairy Queen, and a simple workbench on saw horses was smoothly schlepped in and out by the rude mechanicals. In total, Beck contributed a practical environment of scenery and lighting that was admirable for its visual economy.

Helen E. Rodgers has contributed a commendable cornucopia of fantastical costumes with her inspired design, aptly defining each divergent group, while simultaneously dressing each individual in apparel distinctive to their function in the story. Rick Jarvie’s and Sue Sittko Schaefer's imaginative, spot-on wig and make-up design was a critical component in the success of the production, enhancing the performers in making their full effect.

Best of all, singing was of a uniformly high standard throughout. As Lysander, John Bellemer displayed a compact, pliant, gleaming lyric tenor. He was well complemented by Joshua Jeremiah as Demtetrius, whose warmly appealing, burnished baritone was wedded to exceptional diction. Both cut strapping romantic figures.

Rachelle Durkin was a commanding presence as a delightfully daffy Helena. Her accurate, laser-focused coloratura was counter balanced by evenly produced melismas, vocally a cross between a tuneful yapping poodle and a mournful lovesick spaniel. All that was wanting tonally was perhaps a bit more womanly allure. Claire Shackleton’s smooth, ripe mezzo gifted the role of Hermia with a luxurious lower-middle and an effortlessly floated top. These four lovers triumphed in the great Act Three quartet, their fresh, youthful instruments soaring, aching, and tumbling over each other in heartfelt, overlapping phrases. It proved to be the heart of the show and the unequivocal triumph of the evening.

Anne-Carolyn Bird and Daniel Brubeck were flawlessly paired as Tytania and Oberon, regal, statuesque, and, oh yeah, sexy. Ms. Bird’s silvery, shimmering soprano shows off a solid technique, alluring tonal beauty, and supreme clarity. Her lovely appearance and regal carriage served the role well. Mr. Brubeck’s appealing, mellifluous countertenor was freely produced and it dripped with class, both in richness of sound and in delivery. There could have occasionally been a bit more point in the lower register, but his elegant singing, lanky demeanor and ethereal movement made for a fine Fairy King.

Paul T. Mitri was near perfection as Puck. While this spoken role is greatly truncated in the libretto adaptation, Mr. Mitri made every syllable count and he accurately spoke his lines in synch with the musical stings. Moreover, he was a wiry larger-than-life omnipresence owing to an energetic, super human physicalization that leapt and tumbled and bounced and vaulted and floated like an Energizer Bunny on Red Bull channeling Roger Rabbit. A star turn, indeed, Paul.

Nathan Stark made an auspicious role debut as an uncommonly fine Bottom. His stage demeanor was by turns pompous, genial, blustering, and endearing and he captured every bit of the part’s humor, especially when portraying the overwrought Pyramus. His well-schooled bass-baritone has a steely thrust, and its easy amplitude allowed it to ring out in the house. Mr. Stark’s authoritative impersonation made us love to be annoyed by this meddlesome tinker. His loose-limbed antics as the ass were the perfect partner to Tytania’s ‘gaga’ spooning, but did the director have to let the “soundly sleeping” couple visibly get up and casually exit the stage halfway through Act II?

Buzz Tennent’s stolid, resonant baritone showed great nuance and musicality as Quince/Prologue, missing only a bit of incisive bite when the orchestration thickened around him. Leon Williams (Starveling/Moonshine) is a local favorite and it is easy to see why since he is a natural stage creature and has a rich, rolling baritone, seamlessly deployed. Kyle Erdos-Knapp’s sweet, honeyed tenor was a perfect fit for the beardless, just-post-pubescent Flute/Thysbe. As the latter “damsel” Mr. Erdos-Knapp flounced and minced around the stage with great abandon, and his melodramatic stage movements nailed every laugh.

Tyler Simpson was a definite asset to the proceedings, his bass a pleasing addition as Snug/Lion. The dual roles of Snout/Wall were in the capable care of tenor Nathan Munson, whose steady and secure comprimario singing was infused with engaging personality. Mr. Akina was especially successful in bonding this diverse band of singing comics into a finely tuned ensemble with well-judged focus and unity of purpose. Great team players, all.

Even the very smallest roles were splendidly cast. As Theseus and Hippolyta, Jamie Offenbach and Katharine Goeldner come onstage very late in the evening, but when they did it was no holds barred. Mr. Offenbach has a height and noble bearing that warrant attention, and his penetrating, dark baritone scored with the riveting outpouring of every phrase. Ms. Goeldner’s imposing, evenly produced mezzo similarly weighted each pronouncement, making her every measure a joy to hear. It is not often two performers can come in at the 11^th hour with such brief opportunity, and momentarily take over the show, but that’s just what they did, brilliantly. They left us wanting more. Much more.

Rounding out the cast was a simply stunning group of children as the fairy chorus, easily the equal of any youth group I have yet heard in any opera. Their accurate ensemble singing was surpassed only by the high quality of the four young soloists. They were consummate professionals throughout, executing their varied choral positions beautifully, always mindful of the dramatic pacing, and completely focused on the task at hand.

Benjamin Britten was a master of orchestration. He explored endless variety of effects, combined sounds in unique and challenging ways, and demanded virtuosic playing that stretches a band to its limit and provides no hiding place. Even a highly skilled orchestra that plays together almost daily is challenged by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The ethereal banks of shimmering strings, the unsettling portamenti, the chattering and skittering winds, the relentless shifting percussive effects, and the angular (dare I say, ungrateful?) arpeggiated “fanfares” in the brass are just a few of the daunting requirements.

If the result in the pit was not always idiomatically seamless, this was nonetheless a very fine, accomplished effort thanks to the inspired conducting of William Lacey. Maestro Lacey is a real find, and I always had the secure feeling that he knew how to confidently draw the very best from his players and his cast. He found just the right arc for each Act (not to mention the entire evening), and while he could certainly whip up a wickedly frenzied mosaic of sound when required, his greatest achievement may have been in allowing just the right amount of serenity to inform the introspective stretches, allowing them to “breathe.” He partnered the singers expertly, wrung every bit of color out of the score, and summoned up the comedic elements with gusto. Mr. Lacey would seem to have a great future and boy, do we need him!

If there are easier ‘sells’ than this operatic rarity, the Tuesday night audience didn’t seem to know or care, responding with unbridled enthusiasm. The overall charm and accessibility of HOT’s winningly executed production wrapped the rapt crowd in a joyous artistic embrace. Dreamy, indeed.

James Sohre

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Cast and production information:

Puck: Paul T. Mitri; Tytania: Anne-Carolyn Bird; Oberon: Daniel Brubeck; Lysander: John Bellemer; Hermia: Claire Shackleton; Demetrius: Joshua Jeremiah; Helena: Rachelle Durkin; Quince/Prologue: Buz Tennent; Snug/Lion: Tyler Simpson; Starveling/Moonshine: Leon Williams; Flute/Thisbe: Kyle Erdos-Knapp; Snout/Wall: Nathan Munson; Bottom/Pyramus: Nathan Stark; Theseus: Jamie Offenbach; Hippolyta: Katharine Goeldner; Conductor: William Lacey; Director: Henry G. Akina; Set and Lighting Design: Peter Dean Beck; Costume Design: Helen E. Rodgers; Wig and Make-up Design: Rick Jarvie and Sue Sittko Schaefer; Projections Design: Adam Larsen. Hawaii Opera Theatre, 16 February 2016.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/12716350_10153473662502712_656306428577071032_o.png image_description=[Photo by David Takagi] product=yes product_title=HOT Dream in Honolulu product_by=A review by James Sohre product_id=Photos by David Takagi

Arizona Opera Presents an Interesting Carmen

Because the subject matter was considered vulgar and inappropriate for the Comique’s family-oriented audience, it was not well received. The opera’s depiction of lawlessness and immorality broke new ground in French opera. Carmen would later be considered the bridge between opéra-comique and the verismo style of late nineteenth century Italian opera.

Although Carmen was not revived in Paris until 1883, productions outside of France drew large audiences before that and the opera was soon on its way to becoming the immensely popular work it is today. According to Operabase, Carmen is now the world’s second most popular opera. The only opera that is more popular than Carmen is Verdi’s La traviata.

On February 5, 2016, Arizona Opera presented Carmen in an updated but otherwise traditionally realistic production directed by Tara Faircloth. Douglas Provost’s functional set allowed the story to unfold in a straightforward manner.

Daniela Mack and Adam Diegel as Carmen and Don José.

As Carmen, Daniela Mack sang her lines with an exquisite palette of colorations and smooth dynamic range. A singer with dark hued sultry tones, she also had a fine sense of French style. Her personality could have been more fiery and her acting more intense in the dramatic scenes, but she did keep all eyes upon her when she sang. Her renditions of the Habañera and Seguidilla established her passionate nature and the deviousness of her character and she continued to emphasize Carmen’s fickleness as the plot unfolded. Her Chanson Bohème showed her love of unrestricted freedom and her Card Song proved her belief in the power of fate.

Adam Diegel was a rough-edged and dramatic Don José whose burnished, virile sound rang free throughout the auditorium. He delivered his lines with dramatic conviction and his acting conveyed considerable emotional impact. The Micaëla, Karin Wolverton was a great deal more than a simple country girl who wanted to marry a soldier. A brave and feisty young woman, she readily faced the dangers of looking for her boy friend among a band of soldiers and searching for him at night at an international border crossing. Best of all, Wolverton sang with silvery tones that blossomed into exquisite top notes.

Daniela Mack and Joseph Lattanzi as Carmen and Morales

Calvin Griffin as Zuniga and Joseph Lattanzi as Morales contributed effective portraits as two of the coarse, unrefined soldiers. Ryan Kuster gave a strong impression as the handsome and charismatic celebrity, Escamillo. The difficult tessitura of the Toreador Song seemed easy for him as he sang it to his fans at Lillas Pastia’s Tavern. Amy Mahoney and Alyssa Martin as Frasquita and Mércèdes, Joseph Lattanzi and Andrew Penning as El Dancaïro and El Remendado handled their assignments with alacrity. Together with Mack as Carmen the group gave a strong rendition of the tricky Quintet.

Henri Venanzi’s chorus was well prepared and sang in fine French style, but they tended to move as a group rather than as individuals. Conductor Keitaro Harada gave a balanced reading of the score that had a lucidity of musical detail and a good helping of emotional tension. He gave every phrase its proper shape and drew especially fine playing from the orchestra in the delightful entr'acte that opens the third act.

Audiences never seem to tire of Carmen and it always seems to retain its power to quicken the pulse. The many bows and the standing ovation that greeted Arizona Opera’s fine cast at the end of this performance only serve as a reminder of the opera's well deserved place in the repertoire.

Maria Nockin

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Cast and production information:

Carmen, Daniela Mack; Don José, Adam Diegel; Escamillo, Ryan Kuster; Micaela, Karen Wolverton; Morales/El Dancaïro, Joseph Lattanzi; El Remendado, Andrew Penning; Frasquita, Amy Mahoney; Mércèdes, Alyssa Martin; Zuniga, Calvin Griffin; Conductor, Keitaro Harada; Director, Tara Faircloth; Lighting and Scenic Director, Douglas Provost; Projection Designer, S. Katy Tucker; Chorus Master, Henri Venanzi; Fight Director, Andrea Robertson.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Carmen%2035.png
image_description=Daniela Mack as Carmen [Photo by Tim Trumble]

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product_title=Arizona Opera Presents an Interesting Carmen
product_by=A review by Maria Nockin
product_id=Above: Daniela Mack as Carmen

Photos by Tim Trumble

L'Aiglon in Marseille

All this would probably remain a footnote to history except Marseille born playwright Edmond Rostand (author of the famous Cyrano de Bergerac) wrote a six act play (1900) that wrung hearts in beautiful alexandrine verse about this young man who was deluded into believing he could restore the Bonapartists to France. The fabled Austrian diplomat Metternich who in fact had engineered the marriage, raison d’état, that begot the Aiglon was now a formidable counterforce for raisons d’état — not to mention his young age and fragile health.

Films based on the Rostand play were made in 1913, 1921 and 1931. In 1936 composers Jacques Ibert and Arthur Honeger joined forces to create an opera (joint compositions a practice Ibert in particular pursued it seems). The libretto was created by the prolific Henri Cain (many operas for Massenet as example) based on the Rostand play, then ruthlessly modified by the composers.

Stéphanie D'Oustrac as Napoleon II reinventing the Battle of Wagram

Ibert composed acts I and V, Honegger wrote II, III and IV, acts I, III and V are based largely on Viennese walzes much in keeping with the boulevard musical popular in Paris between the world wars. Honegger proves himself again a formidable dramatic composer in Acts II and particularly in Act IV which was an evocation of the stunning victory of Napoleon I at the battle of Wagram. Ibert interspersed some lovely airs in Act I and engineered a lovely, touching death in Act V. Both composers created sophisticated music easily accessible to a broad, early mid-twentieth century Parisian public.

The first and biggest problem of the evening was that the program booklet proclaimed no historical context for the opera. Most of us were in the dark, after all the happenings are a minor footnote to history. The program contained only the biographies of the artists plus self-congratulatory notes by the stage director. A “synopsis” stated only that the story is the pathetic attempt to restore Napoleon II as emperor of France. Period. With absolutely no context provided we were forced to keep our eyes glued on the supertitles, deciphering the alexandrines as best we could to create the story that was unfolding way down there on the stage.

And in fact it is a good story, well told by messieurs Ibert and Honegger.

Among other problems of the evening was the Aiglon herself, Stéphanie D’Oustrac who was suffering from a bad cold. In spite of this Mme. D’Oustrac managed a total performance, creating the youth, vulnerability, idealism, naïveté and delusion of the 21 year-old soldier in often very beautiful voice, and even in the passages in which she was vocally restrained the poetic voice of the Aiglon was never lost. It was a tour de force performance by a very special artist.

The remainder of the cast did not achieve the stature sufficient to support such a performance. There were those who were viable and those who were not, those who could sing and those who could not, those who were too young or too old for their roles. In particular the role of Flambeau, the faithful footman who naively deludes the young soldier, demanded an artist of accomplishment and stature. Such an artist was not provided.

Franco Pomponi as Metternich

This was a remount of a 2004 Marseille production by the metteur en scène team Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier. It is typical of their style which is quite spare but very precise both in decor and by focus of light — characters are placed in specific shafts, lines and pools of light for specific and powerful moments of revelation. It can be very effective. The remount by former Marseille Opera directeur général Renée Auphan did not effect the style, hampered by poor casting as well as by attempting to recreate such a precise production so long after it was fresh.

If anything went right it was the pit! Conductor Jean-Yves Ossonce coaxed the Marseille orchestra to beautiful playing, capturing the spirit of the waltzes, the sweetness of the airs, and the dramatic force and colors of the Honegger acts. The pit did indeed make a fine recommendation for this piece to find its way occasionally onto repertory starved, adventurous stages around the world.

Michael Milenski

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Casts and production information:

L’Aiglon: Stéphanie D’Oustrac; Thérèse de Lorget: Ludivine Gombert; Marie Louise: Bénédicte Rousseno; La Comtesse Camerata: Sandrine Eyglier; Fanny Elssler: Laurence Janot; Isabelle, le Manteau vénitien: Caroline Gea; Flambeau Marc Barrard; 
Le Prince Metternich: Franco Pomponi; Le Maréchal Marmont: Antoine Garcin; 
Frédéric de Gentz: Yves Coudray; L’Attaché militaire français: Éric Vignau; Le Chevalier de Prokesch-Osten: Yann Toussaint; Arlequin: Anas Seguin; Polichinelle, un Matassin: Camille Tresmontant; Un Gilles: Frédéric Leroy. Chorus and Orchestra of the Opera de Marseille. Conductor: Jean-Yves Ossance; Production: Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser; Metteur en scène: Renée Auphan; Décors: Christian Fenouillat; Costumes Agostino Cavalca; Lumières: Olivier Modol d'après original lighting designer Christophe Forey. The Opéra de Marseille, February 16, 2016.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Aiglon_Marseille1.png

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product_title=L’Aiglon in Marseille
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product_id=Above: Stéphanie D’Oustrac as Napoleon II [All photos courtesy of the Opéra de Marseille]

Norma , ENO

English National Opera's first ever production of Bellini's Norma opened at the London Coliseum on 17 February 2016 at a time when the company is particularly in the spotlight. The production was originally seen at Opera North in 2012. Christopher Alden directed, with designs by Charles Edwards. The young American soprano Marjorie Owens sang Norma, with Peter Auty as Pollione, Jennifer Holloway as Adalgisa and James Creswell as Oroveso. Stephen Lord, the music director of Opera Theatre Saint Louis, conducted.

The challenge for any director is to find a setting for Bellini's opera which provides the right dramatic intensity of the struggle between Gauls and Romans (one that with the benefit of hindsight we know to be doomed), without the possibly risible elements that arise from doing it in togas. Christopher Alden's production seemed to be based in a 19th century Amish-like sect of wood workers and foresters, with the 'Romans' marked out as capitalist exploiters; both Peter Auty's Pollione and Adrian Dwyer's Flavio were dressed in smart 19th century frock coats and top hats in marked contrast to the backwoods 'Gauls'. Charles Edwards set was an impressive yet simple wood clad box (admirably assisting the singers), with a huge tree trunk into which the 'Druids' carved runic like figures and which, thanks to a system of pulleys, was raised and lowered. This formed the centre-piece of the 'Gauls' cult which seemed to involve imbibing narcotic fumes to induce a trance. For my taste, Alden was a little too interested in the minutiae of the cult, with a great deal of business around the tree, the narcotics, a bible like book and a significant use of axes. And visually the beauties of the set did not carry over into the depressingly sludge coloured costuming

I think the production would have been stronger if it had been more abstract, but Christopher Alden's productions are rarely discreet. This was full of his usual trademarks including extremes of behaviour, a mistrust of the stage directions which was almost wilful and a sense of expressionist drama which, at its best, can heighten the musical experience. At the London Coliseum we have recently seen and heard how Christopher Alden's approach can work wonders with composers like Janacek, but I was less convinced by his taking this approach to Bellini. Too often the stylised behaviour and intense violence on stage seemed at odds to the music in a way which was distracting rather than producing creative dialogue.

Peter Auty, Jennifer Holloway, Marjorie Owens, Eleanor Inglis and Adrian Dwyer

As Norma, Marjorie Owens displayed a big, bright voice with an admirable freedom throughout the range, with only a hint of tightness at the very top which is entirely attributable to the effects of a prominent first night. She is a soprano in the mould of Jane Eaglen (whom I heard as Norma with Scottish Opera), and Rita Hunter (whom I only heard on record in the role). Currently she is singing the title roles in Aida and Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, plus jugend-dramatisch roles such as Senta (Der fliegende Hollander).

Norma is a big sing and the soprano is rarely off the stage and much of the drama is developed in a series of duets and trios. But the challenge for a soprano like Owens is not just the stamina required but to be able to sing the fioriture cleanly, evenly and expressively. Owens managed this with creditable honours. Her opening cavatina and cabaletta (which starts with the famous 'Casta diva') showed that Owens could spin a strong line which was not a little elegant and combine power with a sense of the shape of Bellini's music. Perhaps the passage-work was not quite pin-point but it was damn fine.

Another challenge of this role is to marry up the music and text with an intensity of purpose (something which Callas demonstrated brilliantly). Owens showed that she could do this, here scene where she contemplates killing her children was viscerally intense with every note counting, despite some ludicrous axe waving which was required of her by Alden. Elsewhere, I sometimes felt that a care for the beauty of line took precedence, and wanted her to perform with a bit more risk and a bit more bite. She enunciated George Hall's new translation admirably, but could have relished the text more. All in all this was a notable assumption and a performance which will certainly deepen and develop.

Jennifer Holloway is a lyric mezzo-soprano who has been seen at the London Coliseum as Musetta (La Boheme) and Orlovsky (Die Fledermaus). Not a bel canto specialist, she brought a lyric warmth to the role of Adalgisa and a nice intensity which chimed in with Alden's production. She managed to create a sense of youth without seeming too Mumsy yet not compromising the warmth of her tone. Not all the passage-work was free from smudging, but she combined well with Marjorie Owens in the duets. At the moment some bits seemed a little careful, but there were enough moments of magic to make me suspect that this partnership will flourish.

Peter Auty's Pollione was more of an archetype than a real person. Both Auty and Dwyer spent far more time on stage than Bellini might have expected, providing angry, casually exploitative presences. Unfortunately rather than seeming threatening, much of this verged on risible posturing. Auty sang Pollione nobly and strongly, providing a firmness of purpose in the great trio (with Owens and Holloway) which concluded Act One. Yet it was a performance which did not quite spark to anger, and the final denouement with Owens seem solidly creditable, but lacking just that edge of intensity.

James Creswell was an incisive and commanding Oroveso, dominating his fellow 'Gauls' yet singing with a sense of shape and purpose. Valerie Reid as Clotilde was certainly not the callow girl that Clotilde usually is, and Reid brought a wonderfully fierce intensity to her portrayal. Adrian Dwyer as Flavio sang his duet with Auty's Pollione with fine style, so it was a shame that he was disembowelled by the 'Gauls' for his pains! Felix Warren and Samuel Murray were Norma’s rather intense two children.

The chorus were on stunning form and were rightly applauded at the end. They brought a strength and intensity to the choruses which is necessary to make the 'Gauls' believable in their anger, the chorus also brought a sense of belief in the production so that they invested Alden's detailed action with real purpose.

This was a big boned, traditional performance, with Stephen Lord conducting an up front, sometimes loud, account of the score. There was no hint of period style (such as Charles Mackerras might have brought to the performance) and no thought at re-thinking the voice types and relationships such as happened at Cecilia Bartoli's Salzburg performances of the opera. Within these parameters, Lord and the orchestra were were fine accompanists of the singers, and brought out the marches in stirring fashion.

George Hall's admirably straightforward translation was clear and direct, though it did not quite get rid of that sense of strangeness at hearing Bellini in English. And the performance made me realise quite how intimately Bellini's music is bound up into the sound and the poetics of the Italian libretto.

I do not wish to decry the performances at the London Coliseum, and I realise that the exigencies of casting particularly in English make the perfect cast difficult to achieve. But at a time when English National Opera is under such close scrutiny, and at time when there is a sense of questioning as to exactly what the company is for, it was a shame that three of the leading roles in the opera were cast with Americans.

It was wonderful to see bel canto back at the London Coliseum, the serious operas of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti are no where near frequent enough visitors. I do hope that this production of Norma returns soon as I feel that it has the potential to grow and develop.

Robert Hugill

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Cast and production information:

Marjorie Owens: Norma, Peter Auty: Pollione, Jennifer Holloway: Adalgisa, James Creswell: Oroveso, Valerie Reid: Clotidle, Adrian Dwyer: Flavio, Felix Warren and Samuel Murray: Norma’s children. Director: Christopher Alden, Set Designer: Charles Edwards, Costume designer: Sue Willmington, Lighting Designer: Adam Silverman. Conductor: Stephen Lord
English National Opera at the London Coliseum, 17 February 2015.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/ENO%20Norma%20Marjorie%20Owens%20%28c%29%20Alastair%20Muir.png image_description=Marjorie Owens as Norma [Photo by Alastair Muir] product=yes product_title=Norma , ENO product_by=A review by Robert Hugill product_id=Above: Marjorie Owens as Norma

Photos by Alastair Muir

Schubert: The Complete Songs

The songs were grouped by poet, and we began with settings of six poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — a poet who preferred composers to take a direct approach to setting his poems: that is, to retain the structure of his texts and avoid overly fancy and heavy piano accompaniments.

Schubert often treats his poets’ work with much greater freedom, digression and complexity than Goethe desired, but the single-strophe songs offered here revealed the composer’s ability to turn these brief texts into spell-binding musical miniatures. Johnson’s chords rippled gently at the start of ‘Meeres Stille’ (Calm sea), delicately supporting the carefully unfolding tenor melody. Bostridge imbued the simple line with great profundity: the openness of the vowels, ‘Glatte Fläche’ (glassy surface), permitted a momentary flash of brightness, before the dark descent into ‘deadly silence’. The extreme slowness of ‘Wandrers Nachtlied I’ (Wanderer’s night-song) established an expressive intensity which strengthened into rhetoric with the troubled question, ‘Was soll all der Schmerz und Lust?’ (What use is all this joy and pain?). If Bostridge did not quite control the first high, quiet floating reply, ‘Süßer Friede!’ (Sweet peace!), the enriched repetition was warmly persuasive, but the consolations of this song were cruelly swept aside by ‘Wonne der Wehmut’ (Delight in sadness), where Bostridge coloured his voice with a slightly harder ‘edge’ to convey the poet-speaker’s self-consoling melancholy. Goethe’s six-line poem equates ‘eternal’ (ewigen) love with ‘unhappy’ (unglücklicher) love — a simple alteration in the two final lines (which repeat the opening lines) confirms the Romantic conceit — and Bostridge, ever alert to textual nuance, made much of the agonised dissonance, aided by Johnson’s biting accent, to convey the speaker’s pain; a pain, which was subsumed and embraced in the consonant repetitions of Schubert’s closing phrase, ‘Trocknet nicht’ (Grow not dry).

The tempo of ‘An den Mond’ was slower than my recollections of other performances by Bostridge of this song; I thought that it made the opening more tense with anticipation, and it also made for greater contrast with the subsequent forward momentum, ‘Fließe, Fließem lieber Fluß!’ (Flow, flow on, beloved river!), which was aided by Johnson’s even, undulating quavers. ‘Jägers Abendlied’ (Huntsman’s evening song) and ‘An Schwager Kronos’ (To Coachman Chronos) were marvellously intense counterparts to the single-strophe songs, though — uncharacteristically — the text of the former was distinctly approximate in places. There was imprecision, too, in the booming piano octaves which open the latter, and while the wide, glorious vistas opened magically as the horseman crested the hill, I’d have liked more staccato definition in the pounding accompaniment triplets.

Now largely forgotten as a poet, Johann Baptist Mayrhofer had a considerable influence on Schubert’s musical and personal development, and the composer set 47 songs and two operas to Mayrhofer’s texts. The poet was described by Johannes Brahms as the ‘ernsthafteste’ (most serious) of Schubert’s friends, and it was no surprise that the ten settings which followed took us into more complex and, at times, obscure psychological and mythological realms, in which pain and passion combined in an ambiguous communion.

The strange harmonic lurches of and shifts of tempo of ‘Atys’ are deliberately destabilising, and Bostridge’s telling of the tale of this self-castrating fertility deity’s tragic end was disturbing. (In Mayrhofer’s version of the myth, as the cymbals announce the arrival of his beloved goddess, the unrequited Atys throws himself from a cliff in the forest in a fit of mad frenzy. The tenor, too, staggered (alarmingly at times) as if pierced by the speaker’s pain. Here was the instinctive appreciation of the text’s nuances that we are so used to from Bostridge; the smallest details — a slight injection of intensity at the end of the first stanza was all that was needed to convey the fervour of Atys’ yearning for his homeland — made their mark. And, Johnson was an equally vivid story-teller: the softness of the major-key conclusion to this first stanza was quickly quelled by the darkness of the minor tonality, and the dryness of the punched chords at the start of Atys’ own account of his rage testified to the ferocity of his pent-up fury. The long piano postlude was a superb musical narrative. In ‘Der zürnenden Diana’ (To Diana in her wrath), however, the accompaniment at times overwhelmed the voice and again I found the thick-textured repeating chords occasionally uneven. But the duplicitous goddess’s image, which gladdens Actaeon’s heart even as he dies, was conjured by a beautiful lucidity of texture and smooth but penetrating vocal phrasing, making the hit of the arrow — which seemed almost literally to fell Bostridge — even more acute.

Bostridge’s ability to employ his extensive technical capacities to diverse expressive effect was ever evident. There was not a single song that did not have something to surprise us, or command our attention. The strength of line in ‘An die Freunde’ (To my friends) was noteworthy, emphasising the power of human love — ‘Das freut euch, Guten, freuet euch;/ Die alles is dem Toten gleich’ (rejoice, good friends, rejoice; all this is nothing to the dead) — particularly after the Gothic eeriness of the piano’s chromatic tread at the start. The high-lying melody of ‘Abendstern’ (Evening star) was sweetly and surely phrased, the major-minor alternations bittersweet, as the poet-speaker’s apostrophe to the lovely celestial light paradoxically conveyed his own terrestrial alienation. ‘Einsamkeit’ (Solitude) was, quite simply, breath-taking in its dramatic and musical range, and its philosophical insight.

While some of the Mayrhofer settings are well-known, it was good to hear some unfamiliar songs too: ‘Wie Ulfru fischt’ (Ulfru fishing) presented another indistinct protagonist who longs for refuge from man’s insecurities, dilemmas and disappointments — expressed by the furious unrelenting quavers of the accompaniment and the determined onward march of the vocal line — and whose surprising identification with the fish whom he hunts leads him to long to share the blithe tranquillity of the fishes’ sanctuary. The entry of the voice in ‘Freiwilliges Versinken’ (Voluntary oblivion) — on a weak beat and into cloudy harmonic territory, amid piano inner-voice trills — was wrong-footing. Here, the power of Bostridge’s lower register together with the fragmentation of the vocal line created a hypnotic sense of disintegration, while the intimations of release suggested by the concluding hints of major tonality, and the tenor’s wonderfully controlled upwards appoggiatura, spilled into, and were extended by, Johnson’s expressive piano postlude. ‘Auflösug’ (Dissolution) was an apocalyptic whirlwind — again, there was a danger that the voice might be overshadowed by the piano’s tumult — in which the poet-speaker longs for the world to dissolve in self-consuming exhilaration. But, there were surprises here, too, in the astonishing final line in which the low tenor phrase was subsumed within the piano’s shimmering ‘ätherischen Chöre’ (ethereal choirs).

The final sequence of six songs was devoted to settings of Ernst Konrad Friedrich Schulze. ‘Die liebliche Stern’ (The lovely star) was sung with dulcet beauty; in contrast, in ‘Tiefes Leid’ (Deep sorrow) Bostridge turned a burning, accusative gaze upon the audience, pulling the slow pulse this way and that to embody the poet-speaker’s own mental anguish — ‘Ich bin von aller Ruh gechieden,/ Ich treib’ umher auf wilder Flut;’ (I have lost all peace of mind and drift on wild waters), and retreating into introspection in the whispered lines, ‘Nicht weck’ ich sie mit meinen Schritten/ In ihrer dunlen Einsamkeit.’ (I shall not wake them with my footsteps in their dark solitude.) In ‘Lebensmut’ (Courage for living), despite the piano’s heroic summons, Bostridge seemed overcome by weariness as the poet-speaker faced the sapping struggles of life; leaning onto and into the piano (in which he had placed a score) it seemed that the tenor might succumb to the disillusionment and collapse which baits the speaker. Both ‘Im Walde’ (In the forest) and ‘Auf der Brücke’ (On the bridge) were characterised by strong unity of interpretation. Finally, after the dreamy delusions of ‘In Frühling’ (In Spring), the final song, ‘Über Wildemann (Above Wildemann), concluded our journey. The sublime mountain landscape (Wildemann is a small town in the Harz highlands) with its roaring winds, rushing rivers and verdant meadows offered tempting consolation to the tormented poet-speaker in the central major-key verses, but at the final reckoning there was only alienation, as the final verse drove onwards with grim obsessiveness.

Claire Seymour

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Performers and programme:

Ian Bostridge, tenor; Graham Johnson, piano.

Meeres Stille, Wandrers Nachtlied I, An den Mond, Wonne der Wehmut, Jägers Abendlied, An Schwager Kronos; Geheimnis, Wie Ulfru fischt, Atys, Einsamkeit, An die Freunde, Freiwilliges Versinken, Der zürnenden Diana, Abendstern, Auflösung, Gondelfahrer; Im Walde, Der liebliche Stern, Auf der Brücke, Tiefes Lied, Lebensmut, Im Frühling, Über Wildemann. Wigmore Hall, London, Tuesday 16^th February 2016.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Franz-Schubert.png image_description=Franz Schubert product=yes product_title=Schubert: The Complete Songs product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Franz Schubert

M is for Man, Music and Mystery

Characteristically cerebral yet playful, the film opens with a logo, ‘Not Mozart’, and a Magritte-like image of Mozart’s familiar silhouette, complete with periwig, minus his visage. The subsequent video-collage constructs the ‘man’ and ‘musician’ through the parts, and absences, which form the whole.

The Barbican Centre’s celebration of the music Louis Andriessen, takes its title from Greenaway. This series of performances and events, by the Britten Sinfonia and BBC Symphony Orchestra, similarly places side-by-side the eclectic influences - Bach, Stravinsky, Mondrian, Dante - from which Andriessen has drawn inspiration and reveals the composer’s distinctive musical voice.

In La Passione, Andriessen’s 2002 song-cycle on texts by the Italian poet Dino Campana (1885-1932), the two soloists, singer and violinist, are both accomplices and adversaries. Though stylistically and formally the work has more in common with Stravinsky than with Bach, there is a nod in the direction of the latter’s Passions in the quasi-obbligato function of the violin part, which, in Andriessen’s words, ‘shadows the voice in a diabolic way, exploring the threatening nature of much of the poetry, like the world of a Bosch painting’.

Britten Sinfonia [Photo by Harry Rankin]

The work was composed for, and inspired by, Andriessen’s oft and close collaborator Italian mezzo soprano Cristina Zavalloni and violinist Monica Germino; the latter was indisposed on this occasion, but her replacement, Frederieke Saeijs, playing with considerable virtuosity and composure, was as immersed in Campana’s surreal hinterland as Zavalloni. Standing to left and right of the tightly arranged ensemble, the (amplified) soloists dramatized the poet’s mental anguish - Campana was troubled by mental health problems and spent the last 14 years of his life in a psychiatric clinic near Florence - Saeijs embodying a demonic presence in the poet-speaker’s mind. Campana’s strange symbolist texts depict an autobiographical ‘journey’ - physical and spiritual - from Marradi, through Bologna, Genova and on to Argentina. Zavalloni conveyed the terrors and travails of his quest for an ‘eternal moment’ which will bring peace, with visceral engagement, entering the poet’s fantastical, sometimes gruesome, dream-collage, with total commitment: indeed, some may have found her flinching, swaying, kneeling and hand-gesturing to be distracting.

Zavanolli did not neglect the lyricism in the pain, the sweetness in despair, and demonstrated enormous vocal versatility; if at times there were shrieks or sobs, and some problems with tuning at the top, then this did not seem out of keeping with the nature of the work. The mezzo soprano’s constantly changing vocal colour captured the full range of the text’s emotions, from ennui to elation, hallucination to pained lucidity. She relished the vocal glissandi and negotiated Andriessen’s awkward intervallic leaps, which convey the emotional instability which both disturbs and defines the poet-speaker, with unnerving ease.

Biting, angular brass fanfares herald the first song, ‘Una Canzone Si Rompe’ (A Song Breaks) - and the brass form a stable core in the instrumental sound-world, against the shifting colours of synthesisers, guitars, pianos, cimbalom, woodwind, strings and percussion. Zavalloni was a theatrical presence from the first, lured into the emotional drama by the orchestra’s persuasive syncopations. ‘La Sera di Fiera’ (The Evening of the Fair) was assertive but the singer slipped into more lyrical reverie with a memory, ‘Era la notte/ Di fiera della perfida Babele’ (It was the night of the fair perfidious Babel), and span a beguiling tale whose bizarre visions of ‘grotesque whistling’, ‘angelic little bells’, prostitutes’ cries and ‘pantomimes of Ophelia’ accrued a frightening, propelling energy. The entry of the violin, slow-moving and shrouded in dissonant harmonic arguments, exposed the poet-speaker’s vulnerability, which comes from absence of love: ‘Eppure il cuore porta del dolore:/ Lasciano il cuore mio di porta in porta.’ Campana infused the swelling final syllable with all the ‘pain’ which leaves ‘my heart in portal after portal’.

The wild vigour of Saeijs’ cadenza-like outburst - fiercely punched out low tones batting with the raging of the upper strings - embodied the ‘horned black form’ which haunts the following song, ‘Una Forma Nera Cornuta’, the searing strength of the violin tone calling forth an orchestra tumult. Saeijs was an eerie interloper in ‘O Satana’ (O Satan). Zavanolli addressed her antagonist with oratorical power, before the voice withdrew, sapped of its strength, and - with a vocal slide that signalled the poet-speaker’s desperation and defencelessness - called on the dark presence to ‘take pity on my long suffering!’

‘Sul Treno in Corsa’ (On the Moving Train) began with a nightmarish melange of jerking lurches and piercing whistles, before the rhythms acquired coherence and urgency: ‘la corsa penetrava, penetrava con la velocita di una cataclisma’ (the motion penetrated, penetrated with the speed of a cataclysm). Zavanolli literally squared up to her alter ego, asking ‘era la morte?/ Od era la vita?’ (was it death? Or was it life?) The final song, ‘Il Russo’ (The Russian) gave a bleak answer. The text depicts the execution of an unnamed Russian soldier. The crystalline, high violin line - almost vibrato-less, its intensity formed by the purity of tone and the focus of the bowed strokes - the juxtaposition of high and low wind, and the infiltration of an array of percussive knocks and pluckings by the violins, electric and bass guitars, and cimbalom, recreated the harrowing landscape, literal and figurative, of WW1. Saeijs, at first soaring confidently then challenging with vicious pizzicatos, baited the singer. But, an ‘eternal moment’, if not peace, was intimated in stillness of the poet-speaker’s realisation, ‘il Russo era stato ucciso’ (the Russian had been killed).

Conductor Clark Rundell was an unobtrusive yet reassuring presence, guiding the performers fluently through the contrasting songs, which flowed as an organic, single-movement entity. The Britten Sinfonia demonstrated unflagging energy as they surged through the hurtling, insistent - at times astringent - lines of Andriessen’s score.

In a concert in which percussionists and pianists dominated - there were almost more timpani and keyboards on stage than there were string players - the strings did ‘have their moment’, in the opening work of the concert: Steve Martland’s Blake-inspired Tiger Dancing. Commissioned by the Britten Sinfonia and the Henri Oguike Dance Company in 2005, it presents 10 variations inspired by William Blake’s The Tyger, and is based on Martland’s own setting of that text. Martland, who died in 2013 at the untimely age of 58, was a pupil of Andriessen - about whom he later wrote and directed a television film, A Temporary Arrangement With the Sea (1992) - and this work is infused with Andriessen’s fervent expressiveness. The rhythmic vibrancy of the work confirmed its dance origins, and proved infectious as the standing string players swayed and pulsed, stirred by the propelling energy of the jazz-tinged syncopations. Pizzicatos zinged like flashes of light; the bright buoyancy of the score is surprising given the dark energies and mysteries of Blake’s poem. But, the juxtaposed textures created their own arguments, and sombreness was present in the deep sonorities of the centrally-placed double basses whose strong, sustained assertions underpinned vigorous development above. Incisive - especially in the homophonic, fragmented assertions and rapid, repetitive textural effects - but not always completely precise, the Britten Sinfonia gave an alert and colourful rendition.

During the lengthy stage re-arrangement which followed, Rundell commented on the expressive and structural significance of William Carlos Williams’ poem, The Orchestra, to Steve Reich’s 1983 work, The Desert Music. The 50-minute work, impressively monumental even in the chamber orchestration presented here, opposes light and creativity with human destructiveness: the ‘desert’ is both the test-ground for the first atomic bombs and also a symbol of spiritual enlightenment. The work centres on the poet’s alarming warning: ‘Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to realize his wishes. Now that he can realize them, he must either change them or perish.’

The orchestra’s dissonant harmonies and reverberations, the textural contrasts and the sudden shifts of tempo seem designed to represent mankind’s struggle to control the diverse and at times disparate possibilities and to find order; and this is impression is emphasised by the palindromic structure of the work. The characteristic elements of Reich’s music are all here - the repeating patterns, the pulsing cycles, the imitations, the fluctuating meters - but there is a striking intensity, which is enhanced by the percussion’s almost incessant battering and pounding. From the amplified 10-strong Britten Sinfonia Voices - placed behind triple string quartet, four flutes, multiple percussion and several pianos and synthesisers - fragments of Willams’s text swelled and pulsed, floating freely. Unfortunately the Sinfonia Voices were exposed by the amplification, individual voices at times assuming undue prominence, and every tuning blemish writ large. The stamina of the instrumentalists was impressive but while Rundell was again a clear and consistent guide, the ensemble rocked at times. But, the overall effect was persuasive, and the close, as the bass line dropped away leaving the upper lines unsupported, was equivocal and thought-provoking.

Cristina Zavanolli returns to the Barbican on Friday 12^th February to join the cast of Andriessen’s opera, La Commedia, accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Martyn Brabbins: http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=17559

Claire Seymour

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Programme and Performers:

Steve Martland: Tiger Dancing; Steve Reich: The Desert Music; Louis Andriessen: La Passione.

Cristina Zavalloni - mezzo soprano, Frederieke Saeijs - violin, Clark Rundell - conductor, Britten Sinfonia, Britten Sinfonia Voices. Barbican Hall, London. Tuesday 9th February 2016.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Cristina%20Zavanolli%20credit%20Maki%20Galimberti.png image_description=Cristina Zavanolli [Photo by Mark Galimberti] product=yes product_title=M is for Man, Music and Mystery product_by=A review by Claire Seymour product_id=Above: Cristina Zavanolli [Photo by Mark Galimberti]

San Diego Opera Presents an Exciting Tosca

He wrote La Tosca for Sarah Bernhardt who was fond of historical melodrama. It was an outstanding success at its 1887 premiere and for several years afterwards she toured major European cities with it.

Puccini saw the play in both Milan and Turin during its 1889 Italian run and he wrote to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, asking him to secure Sardou's permission to use the work as the basis for an opera. Puccini wrote, "In this Tosca I see the opera I need, with no overblown proportions, no elaborate spectacle, nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music." Sardou preferred to have a French composer set his play to music but he eventually allowed librettist Luigi Illica to write a scenario.

Illica did not think the work suitable for an opera and Sardou let it be known that he was not a fan of Puccini’s music. Puccini prickled at the insult and withdrew from the scene, so Ricordi assigned the work to composer Alberto Franchetti. Franchetti, however, was not at home with the play and in May 1895 it reverted to Puccini. Illica and poet Giuseppe Giacosa wrote the libretto and Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca was premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on January 14, 1900.

Greer Grimsley as Scarpia and Alexia Voulgaridou as Tosca

On February 13, 2016, San Diego Opera presented Puccini’s Tosca directed realistically by Leslie Koenig who paid a great deal of attention to detail regarding both the major and minor characters. Andrew Horn designed the scenery and Andrew Marley did the costumes. The sets for Act I, the church of St. Andrea della Valle, and Act II, the Farnese Palace, were absolutely magnificent in their ability to capture time and place. The Angel of the Castel in Act III, however, seemed a bit on the heavy side.

Alexia Voulgaridou was tragic and intense Tosca. Her diva was ravaged by anguish at her lover’s torture and she readily communicated her hatred of his torturers. She gave every word of her role a value. In the broader lyric passages she used a huge palette of vocal colors and, although she reserved her strongest notes for Tosca’s passionate outbursts, her tones were always replete with dramatic eloquence. She sang her aria, "Vissi d'arte," with creamy, lyrical tones. Behind the Castel’s angel, the brightening sky showed a glowing stroke of dawn as Tosca jumped toward her meeting with Scarpia before God.

Tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones has a large voice with a smooth, bright, resonant sound. His Cavaradossi was volatile and exciting, so it was an excellent fit with Voulgaridou’s Tosca and Grimsley’s Scarpia. Hughes Jones sang the romantic “Recondita Armonia” with a joyful sound and “E lucevan le stelle” with the pathos of a man who knows how much of life he will lose.

A master of stagecraft, Greer Grimsley’s Scarpia disguised his evil passions and cynicism with a veneer of aristocratic elegance. In the first act, his voice easily surmounted the orchestra and full chorus of the Te Deum as he proclaimed that Tosca made him forget God. In Act II, he made the audience believe he was a connoisseur of fine art while he enjoyed torturing both Cavaradossi and Tosca.

Scott Sikon’s well-crafted Sacristan was outwardly pious but secretly selfish. Kristopher Irmiter's Angelotti evoked a great deal of sympathy but later he became a frightening Sciarrone. Joel Sorensen was an obedient Spoletta and Bridget Hogan sounded like a young Shepherd boy.

Tosca is one of the most Italianate of operas and Italian conductor Massimo Zanetti brought verismo passion and a wide range of dynamics to the podium. He drew a delightfully nuanced performance from the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. On Saturday night the opera audience showed its appreciation for this rendition of the beloved Puccini favorite with a long standing ovation.

Maria Nockin
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Cast and Production Information:

Angelotti and Sciarrone, Kristopher Irmiter; Sacristan, Scott Sikon; Cavaradossi, Gwyn Hughes Jones; Tosca, Alexia Voulgaridou; Scarpia, Greer Grimsley; Spoletta, Joel Sorensen; Shepherd Boy, Bridget Hogan; Jailer, Johnny Bankens; Conductor, Massimo Zanetti; Director, Leslie Koenig; Scenic Designer, Andrew Horn; Costume Designer, Andrew Marley; Lighting, Gary Marder; Chorus Master, Charles Prestinari.
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image=http://www.operatoday.com/_B5A0682.png
image_description=Alexia Voulgaridou as Tosca and Gwyn Hughes Jones as Cavaradossi [Photo by Cory Weaver]

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product_title=San Diego Opera Presents an Exciting Tosca
product_by=A review by Maria Nockin
product_id=Above: Alexia Voulgaridou as Tosca and Gwyn Hughes Jones as Cavaradossi

Photos by Cory Weaver

Nabucco with a Rare Cast at Lyric Opera of Chicago

At the same time, emotional and familial conflicts are delineated within this Biblical context, such that both individual and group roles must be strategically cast. The title role of the Assyrian king Nabucco is sung by Željko Lučić, his presumed daughters Abigaille and Fenena by Tatiana Serjan and Elizabeth De Shong. The Hebrew prophet Zaccaria is portrayed by Dmitry Belosselskiy, the allied Hebrew youth Ismaele by Sergei Skorokhodov, and the High Priest of Baal by Stefan Szkafarowsky. The roles of Anna and Abdallo are sung by Laura Wilde and Jesse Donner. Messsrs. Belosselskiy and Skorokhodov are performing in their debut roles at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Carlo Rizzi conducts the Lyric Opera Orchestra and Michael Black has prepared the Lyric Opera Chorus. These performances are being given with no cuts to Verdi’s score.

Under Mr. Rizzi’s firm control the overture introduces a number of well-known melodies from Verdi’s tuneful score. Brass and percussion alternate appropriately without either dominating, just as the woodwinds trace a lively theme taken up by the full orchestra in repeat. Rapid portions of the overture toward the close show a similar tautness, with slides played effortlessly as a natural extension. The orchestra has been well prepared and responds to Rizzi’s clear, vigorous direction. During the final bars of the overture the audience sees projected a quote from the Old Testament “Jeremiah,” according to which the burning of Jerusalem by Nabucco is prophesied.

At the start of Act I, or Part I, inside the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, the approach of Nabucco’s forces is announced. Men dressed here in Hebrew prayer-shawls, Levites, and Virgins sing of the impending destruction. The chorus of Levites encourages the female chorus to rely on “la viva preghiera” [“fervent prayer”] to resist the “furor” of the enemy. Given the pivotal role played by the chorus throughout this early Verdi opera, it is significant that members of the Lyric Opera Chorus are so well directed in this production by Mr. Black. Each choral group leads fluently into the next as, for instance, here the harp accompaniment announces the women’s prayers in response to the Levites and the heartfelt supplication on “ottengano pietade” [“obtain mercy”]. The emphatic repeat of the assembled choral forces is powerfully delivered.

The entrance of the prophet Zaccaria, spiritual leader of those already in the temple, brings a sign of hope, hence his initial line, “Sperate” [“Raise your hopes”]. He plans to use Fenena, the captive daughter of Nabucco, as a means to force the invader to grant the Hebrews peace. In the role of Zaccaria Mr. Belosselskiy commands the stage while varying his tone from a reassuring leader to a proclaimer of divine assistance. Belosselskiy’s authoritative declamation at the start reveals the strategy of using Fenena as a hostage. His solo part, alternating with the choral groups, transforms into lyrical pronouncements on the repeated line “Freno al timor!” [“Curb your fears!”]. Although delivered at first as a reassuring statement, the sentiment swells on a high pitch with dramatic intensity and descends afterward into vocally deep pathos. In the following cabaletta, as he asks the God of Abraham to oppose the god of Baal, Belosselskiy sings with astonishingly rapid flexibility, describing the falsity of the idol with a melismatic decoration on “menzogner.” In the meantime the youth Ismaele has entered at the head of a troop of Hebrew soldiers. His announcement of Nabucco’s imminent arrival at the temple is delivered by Mr. Skorokhodov with a bright, unforced tenor that shows a natural instinct for tracing a melodic line. When left alone with Fenena, memories of Ismaele’s days as emissary to Babylon rekindle a relationship of mutual attraction. Although her sister Abigaille had also indicated her love for Ismaele, such feelings were not returned. Ismaele’s summary of those days and his resistance to Abigaille, then as now, are performed by Skorokhodov with dramatic high pitches on “l’invido e crudel vigilar di tua suora, che me … perseguitò” [“the cruel and envious vigilance of your sister who … pursued me”]. He caps his urgent devotion to Fenena with extended, repeated top notes on “il mio petto” [“my heart”]. At the moment of the pair’s attempt to flee, Abigaille, dressed as a warrior, enters the temple leading a band of Babylonian soldiers. From her opening lines Ms. Serjan makes an unforgettable impression as Abigaille. Because of the notorious vocal challenges of the role, including descents of two octaves within a passage or aria, those rare sopranos with Serjan’s agility, energy, and focused pitch are ideally cast as this obsessed woman. After her threatening address to the loving couple, Abigaille joins in a trio to express the raging fury of her love. When she offers to save Ismaele and his people, in exchange for his devotion, Serjan strikes a chilling distended top note on “salvar” [“save”], soaring magically beyond the orchestra. As a contrasting female role, de Shong’s Fenena appeals to the God of Israel for support, her vocal timbre shimmering through the tension of her partners in the trio.

Nabucco’s entrance causes a mix of awe and panic, the military force here symbolized with smoke and flashing lights. At his appearance through a rear portal Mr. Lučić responds to Zaccaria as a figure of equivalent authority. When he asks what God he has offended [“Di Dio che parli?”] and continues in his opening words with further imperious questions, Lučić tends, at first, to veer flat on emphatic pitches. This vocal habit abates during the grand ensemble that ends the act. Here the major characters participate while singing shared melodies yet verbalizing their individual concerns. Serjan sings commanding downward runs to describe her rivalry and hopes for revenge against Fenena [“colei che il solo mio ben contende” (“she who disputes my one and only love”)]. By the conclusion of Act I all the leading figures have been introduced and associated with conflicts that will be musically and dramatically developed in the following three acts.

The scene has shifted to Babylon at the start of Act II, with a prophecy from Jeremiah indicating that the Lord’s might will fall upon the wicked. Abigaille paces alone while reading a document [“o fatal scritto!”] which she has found in Nabucco’s possession. She refuses to be thwarted in her quest for power by news that she is descended from a family of slaves [“di schiavi”]. When Serjan communicates this text in recitative, her character’s growing determination is delivered with the intensity of an aria. The words “O iniqui tutti” [“O, all of you wretches”] and “furore” are hurled with dramatic top notes to express Abigaille’s indignation at Nabucco’s preferential treatment of Fenena and the future of the realm. Even more impressive is Serjan’s summation of fury with a clean descent to emotional depths on “fatal sdegno” [“fatal anger”]. Abigaille’s following two arias expand then on the complexities of her personality. In the cavatina “Anch’io dischiuso” [“I once opened (my heart)”] Serjan sings with full vocalic emphasis of a touching past in Abigaille’s life, now “perduto incanto” [“lost enchantment”]. In a rapid shift to the present, as well as a faster tempo, Abigaille sings the cabaletta “Salgo già del trono aurato” [“I now ascend of the golden throne”]. With the chorus as background Serjan produces thrilling downward runs in predicting that the nobility will come “l’umil schiava a supplicar” [“to beg favors of the humble slave”]. The second scene of this act seems by its close to fulfil Abigaille’s prophecy. At first Zaccaria joined by a chorus of Levites prays for guidance to oppose Nabucco. Once it is announced that Fenena has converted, an ensemble of the principal characters sings with the re-entry of Nabucco and Abigaille. In the struggle for power Nabucco demands to be worshipped as a god, while Zaccaria issues warnings of his “pazzo orgoglio” [“insane pride”]. Belosselskiy’s fervent vocal embellishments enhance the sense of danger facing Nabucco, yet he persists until stopped by a thunderbolt. Nabucco’s subsequent delusional appeals for help seem even more poignant given Lučić’s soft, lyrical repetitions on “Perché?” [“Why?”]. In the final moments Abigaille indeed lifts the crown fallen from Nabucco’s humbled brow.

In Acts III and IV the increased importance of Fenena is here emphasized as a key to appreciating the other characters. Her conversion to the Hebrew God has allied her to Zaccaria, at once calling forth the wrath of Abigaille. In the first scene of Act III, one of the dramatic highlights between Nabucco and Abigaille, the king signs the writ of death for his daughter Fenena by agreeing to the slaughter of the Hebrews. In “Donna, chi sei?” [“Woman, who are you?”] and the following lengthy exchange, Abigaille seems to grow in confidence while Nabucco is reduced into a positon of multiple entreaties. Serjan’s chilling declaration, “L’ultimo grado è fatto!” [“The last obstacle is surmounted!”] summarizes Abigaille’s ascent at the expense of any opponents. The hinge between this scene and the return of Nabucco’s sanity is indeed the chorus of Hebrew slaves, “Va, pensiero, sull ali dorate” [“Fly, thought, on wings of gold”] in the second scene of Act III. As here performed, the Lyric Opera Chorus communicates the dignity and sense of remembrance so vital for this group of exiles.

In the final act, signaling a reawakening of the royal sensibilities, Nabucco is moved to prayer when he hears that the imprisoned Fenena will soon be executed. In the aria, “Dio di Giuda” [“God of the Hebrews”] he now begs knowingly for divine forgiveness and pledges faith to the Hebrew God. Lučić demonstrates here a firm command of legato with a natural sense of shading after forte notes. In the second scene of Act IV Zaccaria prepares Fenena spiritually for her path to martyrdom. De Shong sings her character’s farewell to mortal life with strong top notes and lush decoration in downward runs as she looks heavenward. Nabucco’s return to sanity and to power, occasioned by the realization of this martyrdom, brings about the fall of Abigaille. Her final plea for forgiveness is directed, ironically, to the Hebrews whom she had hoped to destroy. At the point of Abigaille’s death Zaccaria can proclaim of Nabucco, “Sarai de' regi il re!” [“You shall be king of kings!”], a phrase to which Belosselskiy lends authority with a dramatically sustained, concluding pitch.

To be sure, there exists no perfect cast for Verdi’s Nabucco - yet the production at Lyric Opera of Chicago offers a collective force that comes awfully close.

Salvatore Calomino

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product_title=Nabucco with a Rare Cast at Lyric Opera of Chicago
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Die Zauberflöte , ENO

I felt ambivalent about this production of The Magic Flutefirst time around; it was certainly an improvement upon its predecessor, but other than that, I was somewhat lukewarm. At the time, I welcomed its emphasis upon theatricality and the workings of that theatricality, whilst wondering whether a little less might have been more. That I still feel; it is not clear to me what is contributed by the writing of ‘The Magic Flute’ on a screen during the Overture, save, alas, for permitting noisy sections of the audience to laugh uproariously. If they find that — and, it would seem, pretty much anything — so utterly hilarious and/or conducive to loud discussion, then I might suggest that they seek help; the rest of us certainly needed help at times in order to hear the performance.

Whether the rest had been toned down a little, I am not sure; maybe I was just feeling less curmudgeonly, in which case I owe Simon McBurney and Complicité something of an apology; I certainly enjoyed the production more than I had last time. The sound booths, in which we see and hear the making or an impression of making of sound ‘effects’ is very Complicité, of course, and I suspect that some opera-goers loved it because it was new to them. I still wish that something more were actually done with these aspects of the production, that there were more interrogation of the work and what it might mean; yet, by the same token, there is an openness to interpretation that should not necessarily be confused with non-interpretation. There was, I thought or at least felt, a stronger sense of magic this time; whether that were a product of the production’s touring in the meantime, or of greater responsivity on my part, I am genuinely not sure. Stephen Jeffreys's translation is exemplary; if one is going to perform the work in English, a witty yet serious approach such as this is unquestionably the way to go. It enables one to approach the heart of the work rather than shouting 'look at me!'

For me, however, the strongest reasons to enthuse were musical. Mark Wigglesworth led an excellent account of the score. No, of course it was not Colin Davis; but we do not need to hear unconvincing imitation of past glories. Wigglesworth’s tempi tended to be swifter, although not unreasonably so; crucially, there was no sense of harrying the score, of preventing it from breathing. There was no absurd rushing through ‘Ach, ich fühl’s’, nor indeed through any of the most tender moments. Moreover, the ENO Orchestra and Chorus, fighting back again where it matters most strongly, were on excellent form throughout. Orchestral light and shade was present in abundance, even if I did not especially care for the use of natural trumpets. (That seems to be the latest fashion with modern orchestras, a fashion I confess to finding incomprehensible, when modern instruments are otherwise used.) The chorus, presently under threat from management cuts, showed incontrovertibly why it deserves our fullest support, its members as convincing individually as they were corporately.

Allan Clayton offered a fine vocal performance as Tamino, although I think the production might have made him a little more princely. Ardent and lyrical, he was a worthy successor to Ben Johnson. Lucy Crowe’s Pamina was as touching as one could hope for, musical and dramatic qualities as one; hers was a performance that would grace any stage. James Creswell’s Sarastro was unusually light of tone; there were times when I hankered after something darker, more traditionally Germanic, but on its own terms, this was an intelligent portrayal, with considerable stage presence. Ambur Braid may not have hit every note perfectly as the Queen of the Night — who does, at least on stage? — but hers was a committed, unusually human performance; I hope that we shall see and hear more from her. Peter Coleman-Wright’s Papageno confounded expectations. Here we had a highly convincing portrayal of a bird-catcher left on the shelf, the sadness arising from society’s contempt for the ageing as much as his usual predicament. (It seems a perfectly reasonable reappraisal in a work much preoccupied with age, which really had me thinking.) John Graham-Hall’s Cockney Monostatos showed what a truly versatile artist this is; it is only a few months ago that I saw him as Schoenberg’s Aron in Paris. All of the smaller roles were taken well, showing once again how crucial a sense of company is to performance; if only ENO’s management would watch and listen.

Mark Berry

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Cast and production information:

Tamino: Allan Clayton; Papageno: Peter Coleman-Wright; Queen of the Night: Ambur Braid; Monostatos: John Graham-Hall; Pamina: Lucy Crowe; Speaker: Darren Jeffery; Sarastro: James Creswell; Papagena: Soraya Mafi; Two Priests, Two Armoured Men: Rupert Charlesworth, Frederick Long; Three Ladies: Eleanor Dennis, Catherine Young, Rachael Lloyd; Three Boys: Anton May, Yohan Rodas, Oscar Simms; Director: Simon McBurney; Revival Director, Movement: Josie Daxter; Set Designs: Michael Levine; Costumes: Nicky Gillibrand; Lighting: Jean Kalman, Mike Gunning; Video: Finn Ross; Sound design: Gareth Fry, Matthieu Maurice. Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: Stephen Harris); Orchestra of the English National Opera/Mark Wigglesworth (conductor). The Coliseum, London, Friday 5 February 2016.

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Jamie Barton and Amber Wagner in recital at Tucson

Britten wrote out the figured bass parts for these songs. Wearing a most attractive long gold dress, Barton opened with a stately rendition of Music for a While. Wagner chose a simple but elegant black gown. Together, they continued with the pensive Lost is My Quiet and the comical What can We Poor Females Do?

Wagner sang the second group, a Bellini Song Cycle consisting of: Il fervido desiderio (The Fervent Wish), Dolente Imagine di Fille Mia (Sorrowful Image of my Phyllis), and Vaga Luna che inargenti (Lovely Moon, Who Sheds Silver Light). She sang them with admirable bel canto phrasing, effective dramatic expression and a lovely tone. Jamie Barton returned with the seven Cigánské Melodie (Gypsy Songs) that Antonin Dvořák set to the poems of Adolf Heyduk. She scored a notable impression on the Tucson audience with the fourth, Když mne stará matka zpívat učívala (Songs My Mother Taught Me).

Jamie Barton [Photo by Rebecca Fay]

Amber Wagner came back with three well-known songs by Richard Strauss. Beim Schlafengehen (Falling Asleep), with lyrics by Hermann Hesse, is one of Strauss’s Four Last Songs. It was published in 1950, the year after his death. Sung by an artist with large creamy voice, listeners gave no thought to slumber as they relished the luxury of hearing such a beautiful voice in a small hall. Morgen (Tomorrow) has words by John Henry Mackay, who was partially of Scottish descent but brought up in Germany. The last of four songs, it was part of the composer’s wedding gift to his wife, Pauline. In 1885, Strauss composed Zueignung (Dedication or Devotion) to words by Austrian poet Hermann von Gilm as part of his first collection of songs. Wagner sang both with exquisite tone quality.

After a short intermission, the two singers returned with a rousing rendition of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida and Amneris duet: “Fu la sorte dell’armi a’ tuoi funesta” (“Fortune Was Cruel to Your People”). Up to this point Barton had seemed much too agreeable to show a cruel streak but, as Amneris, she turned herself into an emotionally intense rival for the hand of the man both characters loved. Wagner was a poignant Aida.

At this point the program changed completely so that the singers could have some fun with songs they probably grew up with. In the program, they provided the text and translation for each of the classical selections, but they did not give their audience any notes on these later choices. Wagner offered Charles H. Gabriel’s 1905 His Eye is on the Sparrow, a work that won Mahalia Jackson a Grammy Award. Barton followed with the traditional Spiritual, Swing Low Sweet Chariot. Wagner then sang Harold Arlen and E.H. Harburg’s song Over the Rainbow originally sung by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz, and it was fun to hear the piece done as more than an encore.

Barton countered with a song that gladdened the heart of every strong singer who has ever been told to sing alto because someone had to keep weak singers on their assigned part. The Alto’s Lament with music by Zina Goldrich and a text by Marcy Heisler was thoroughly amusing and showed Barton’s gift for comedy. Their finale was a duet rendition of Irving Berlin’s Sisters, originally seen in the Bing Crosby film White Christmas. The two young singers chose an interesting program and gave the Tucson audience a most enjoyable evening’s entertainment.

Maria Nockin

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product_by=A review by Maria Nockin
product_id=Above: Amber Wagner [Photo courtesy of IMG Artists]

The Devil Inside, Scottish Opera

The two started with two shorter works, the 15 minuteRemembrance Day which was part ofScottish Opera's Five:15 - Operas Made in Scotland in 2009 and then the fifty minuteGhost Patrol in 2012 which was a Scottish Opera and Music Theatre Wales co-production. Their latest opera, The Devil Inside is again a co-production between Scottish Opera and Music Theatre Wales, with The Devil Inside being premiered by Scottish Opera in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and then touring England and Wales, with the same cast, with Music Theatre Wales.

We caught the London premiere of the opera on 3 February 2016 at the Peacock Theatre whenMichael Rafferty conducted the Music Theatre Wales Ensemble withNicholas Sharratt as Richard, Ben McAteer as James,Rachel Kelly as Catherine andSteven Page as the Old Man and a Vagrant. The director wasMatthew Richardson with design bySamal Blak, and lighting by Ace McCarron.

It is clear from the programme notes that the opera is very much a collaboration and that Louise Welsh (best known for her novels) did not simply write a text and hand it over to Stuart MacRae. The piece they have crafted is wonderfully thrilling and gripping, with a plot updating Robert Louis Stevenson's story The Bottle Imp to the 21st century. Richard (Nicholas Sharratt) and James (Ben McAteer) are lost in the mountains, the come across a mansion owned by an old man (Steven Page). The man reveals the secret of his wealth, a magic bottle which contains an imp which will fulfil all your wishes. The only drawback, the owner's soul is damned to Hell if they own it when they die, and they can only get rid of the bottle by selling it for less than they paid for it. At Richard's urging, James buys the bottle.

Rachel Kelly as Catherine

The remainder of the opera examines Richard and James's attitude to and need for the bottle and its imp. James eventually sells the bottle to Richard, and acquires a wife Catherine (Rachel Kelly) but they have need again when Katherine is diagnosed with a terminal illness. James has moral objections to the bottle, wondering whether good can come out of evil, whilst Richard is addicted and becomes like an addict who fails to cure his addiction.

The final scene, on a Pacific island where James and Catherine try to sell the bottle (now worth virtually the lowest coin possible) is rendered morally ambiguous by the participation of Richard who makes a final buy of the bottle, for one last wish. The result is an opera which has elements of the dark thriller. Stuart MacRae and Louise Welsh really make you invest in the characters and what might happen to them. But woven into this are the themes of morality, moral ambiguity and addiction, as well as the transformative power of love.

Stuart MacRae is clearly a writer of orchestral music of great talent, his orchestral score for The Devil Inside doesn't so much accompany the singers as surround the vocal lines with a magical web of sound. The music moves flexibly between dissonance, tonality and atonality and the instrumental musicians made use of quarter tones too. This was most noticeable in the music for the bottle imp (the imp never singers but MacRae gives the orchestra a distinct and magical cast). It was a complete sound world which drew you in and carried you to the end.

Ben McAteer as James and Nicholas Sharratt as Richard

The opera had hardly a spare moment, its seven scenes encompassed 110 minutes of music, and Louise Walsh's taut libretto uses very much a spare demotic style which is not without poetry. She is clearly aware of the need to leave space for the music.

The only aspect of the opera which worried me was the vocal writing. Stuart MacRae has clearly worked hard to make the vocal lines singable and of interest. But there seemed an insufficient distinction between different emotional states so that the overall tint of the vocal writing came over as too uniform. I wanted the more straightforward conversational moments to be far more differentiated from the complex emotional passages. It seemed to be only in the final scene that he ratched things up a notch. But this is a first full length opera and an enormous achievement so I look forward with interest to what Stuart MacRae and Louise Welsh will do next.

Ben McAteer and Nicholas Sharratt formed a wonderful double act throughout the opera. Nicholas Sharratt's Richard started off nervy and excitable and then gave a stunning descent into addiction. By contrast Ben McAteer's James was the more stable and solid one, but constantly worrying about the moral qualities of using the bottle and disturbed not by addiction but by conscience. The two characters were profoundly disturbed by the moment when they asked the bottle imp to show itself. Though here, I wanted something more n the music, a sense of greater otherness. Ben McAteer's James also struggled with the transformative power as love as Rachel Kelly's Catherine came into James's life. Kelly gave a lovely portrait of someone carefree coming to terms with the grim realities of life (childlessness possible lack of love and death). Both McAteer and Kelly's characters endangered their souls for the sake of the other, in a depiction of love which wonderfully avoided the stickily sentimental. Steven Page gave to different yet vivid performances as the old man who sold the bottle at the beginning, and was gleeful to be relieved of it, and of a vagrant at the end.

Michael Rafferty conducted the 14 players of the Music Theatre Wales Ensemble who gave a dazzling performance of Stuart MacRae's often seductive and always fascinating score. The players were called upon to give us some interesting doublings, not just bassoon and contra-bassoon, but the oboist also plays a bagpipe practice chanter, and the violins play harmonicas at one point. They all brought an incisive precision to the music. Neither the instrumental ensemble nor the capable cast gave any hint that this was the first run of a new opera, so natural did the performance feel.

Matthew Richardson's production and Samal Blak's designs were imaginatively minimal, throwing focus on the performers and making us care for the characters. Blak's designs made striking use of projection, with a minimum of props.

I am not sure that the Peacock Theatre was the ideal venue for the performance; many venues on the tour are smaller. But this was a vividly gripping evening of opera which certainly made me look forward to more.

Robert Hugill

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Cast and production information:

Richard: Nicholas Sharratt, James: Ben McAteer, Old Man & Vagrant: Steven Page, Catherine: Rachel Kelly. Director: Matthew Richardson, Designer: Samal Blak, Conductor: Michael Rafferty. Music Theatre Wales at the Peacock Theatre, 3 February 2016.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/The_Devil_Inside_%20Steven%20Page%20as%20the%20Old%20Man_photo_Bill%20Cooper_1441.png image_description=Steven Page as the Old Man [Photo by Bill Cooper] product=yes product_title=The Devil Inside product_by=A review by Robert Hugill product_id=Above: Steven Page as the Old Man

Photos by Bill Cooper

Cold Mountain, Philadelphia

It premiered at Santa Fe last summer and is now launching an East Coast premiere run in Philadelphia. After nearly three hours of opera, the audience gave the performers and composer a standing ovation.

This company has a knack for assembling superb young casts. Every member of the cast—most of whom premiered the opera in Santa Fe—are comfortable in the roles, look the parts, sing well, and render the words clearly enough to render supertitles superfluous.

Two stand out. Tenor Jay Hunter Morris’s full voice, menacing aspect and Georgia drawl fit the villain Teague, and he finds a way to inflect each line with distinctive emotion and musicality. Young baritone Jarrett Ott, a local Pennsylvanian, recently replaced Santa Fe’s Nathan Gunn as W.P. Inman, the Southern deserter around whom the plot turns. Ott delivered a remarkably assured and characterful opening night performance, with no sign of nerves. If he lacks a bit of Gunn’s vocal splendor, his slightly thinner voice at the top gives Inman an appropriately vulnerable aspect.

Ada (Isabel Leonard) and her daughter Grace (Francesca Luzi) in the epilogue of the opera, which flashes forward nine years.

The rest of the cast is uniformly strong. New Yorker Isabel Leonard, a rising star singing lyric mezzo roles at major houses worldwide, looks every inch the lovely Southern belle. She portrays Ada Monroe with an even tone throughout and occasional flashes of emotion. Cecelia Hall, who comes by her North Carolina accent honestly, wove a distinctive and believable country counterpoint to Ada. A host of ensemble singers, many doubling parts, created memorable cameos, not least the veteran Anthony Michaels-Moore. Music Director Corrado Rovaris kept the band together.

Yet, unlike many who were there, and despite the fine technical performances from the singers, I found the evening disappointing, even dull. Morris aside, no one conveyed real emotional connection with the music. The fault lies not with them, but with the work itself. This relentlessly functional treatment of Cold Mountain just does not succeed as a music-drama. Overall, the result recalls what often occurs when Hollywood tries to film a popular epic book, like the 19-½ hour Tolkien series. Almost invariably such films become overlong collections of telegraphic scenes, each underwritten and underacted, held together only by the audience’s prior knowledge of the plot.

So, too, with Cold Mountain. In this case, the problem lies both in the libretto and the music. Many lines in the libretto are evocative and beautifully written for voice. Yet its overall structure is at once bland and cluttered: a three-hour slog, dialogue-by-dialogue, through the epic plot, with surprisingly few semi-arias or ensembles. What thereby goes missing, especially in Act I, is any serious engagement with the deeper emotions below.

Lila (Heather Stebbins, center) and her three sisters (LR, Olivia Vote, Lauren Eberwein, and Heather Phillips) encounter Inman ( Jarrett Ott, bottom) after he washes ashore following a dangerous trek downriver.

Cold Mountain is a profound tale—like the Odyssey, on which it is loosely based—about how extreme hardship forces us to distill our lives down to the simple thing, horrible and wonderful, that matters most. In adversity, we reveal who we really are. Such a plot should be tailor-made for an operatic libretto. After all, opera excels—and differs fundamentally from spoken theater—in its unique ability to expand interior moments of self-discovery into extended musical monologues of uncommon expressiveness. Just think of the Shakespeare operas of Giuseppe Verdi, who—despite a boundless admiration for the Bard—ruthlessly trimmed and revised major his plays into tight libretti. The result: arias and ensembles like Otello’s “Dio mi potevi!” Iago’s “Credo,” and Desdemona’s Willow Song. Or consider the operas of Benjamin Britten, in which the monologues of Peter Grimes and Lucretia let us glimpse into their souls.

The libretto of Cold Mountain goes through the motions but makes almost nothing of such moments. When Inman resolves to free himself from chains, Sara shoots the fleeing Union soldier, Ruby realizes that she loves her father, and Ada and Inman reconcile… critical moments pass in a blink of an eye, are hijacked for other purposes, or receive a clichéd treatment.

Jennifer Higdon’s bland musical score compounds the lack of dramatic focus. Higdon, who teaches at Curtis Institute, is a polished and prolific composer of concertos, chamber music and orchestral pieces. She has a flair for crafting slowly evolving mélanges of musical color and texture. Yet this is her first opera, and the challenge seems to throw her for a loop.

Ruby (Cecelia Hall) and Ada (Isabel Leonard), at right, are visited by villainous Home Guard leader Teague ( Jay Hunter Morris) and his young protégé, Birch (Andrew Farkas).

Most of Cold Mountain is written in a recitative or parlando dialogue, which hardly sustains much dramatic punch. Only a few arias or ensembles appear, and those that do lack melodic, harmonic or rhythmic novelty or focus. Higdon’s style is a (now conventional) mix of atonality and popular genres, in her case mostly open intervals (fourths, fifths and various intervals in diminished modes) somewhat uncomfortably mixed with traditional Southern themes. Her attempts to characterize more intensely generally take the form of giving different characters and moods their own colors. Soft strings provide a background, Ada gets woodwinds, Ruby gets percussion, Inman (and others) gets spiky agitated brass when he is upset, Teague receives ominous bass instruments, and so on. At best these efforts produce musical effects—some interesting, some pleasant (as with several horn ensembles) and some fleeting emotional flickers—but they create no overarching dynamic tension or flow, as an opera score should, let alone insight into the emotional or dramatic circumstances.

Even Higdon seems to realize this. Half-way through the second act, at a critical dramatic climax when soldiers come back to life to sing of the war, she throws in the towel and inserts an utterly traditional 19^th century gospel chorus. This “Ken Burns moment” is by far the most successful musical coup in the opera, yet its utter incongruity begs the question of what the rest of the music is meant to achieve. The end of Act 2 takes a stab at a few unpersuasive ariettas and duettinos, only to let the opera peter out almost accidently, with Ada in seeming mid-phrase. Throughout, the music seems incidental and emotionless, as if it were written as a movie score.

The staging, also shared with Santa Fe, exacerbates the lack of clear dramatic focus. Also in this way recalling the Odyssey, Cold Mountain turns on the contrast between the unknown and dangerous world far away and the special place we call home. Inman wanders endlessly through the varied and hazardous landscape of the wartime South, while Ada remains fixed in a bucolic Southern country valley. It is a valley with a snake, of course, but the plot ends by restoring a familial utopia free not just from war, but from sexism, racism, class prejudice and personal anxiety. The unit set—a gloomy pile of scattered timber and coal—does not do justice to either major theme. Its static, unvarying enclosed darkness gives little sense of a hostile wartime world, while it also resembles in no way the potential Garden of Eden that is Cold Mountain. The production is somewhat improved visually by uncommonly clever lighting, which permit characters to come and go through a veil of light, and scenes to change quickly during a long evening at the opera.

Andrew Moravcsik

image=http://www.operatoday.com/cold-mountain-13.png image_description=Ada (Isabel Leonard) recalls saying goodbye to Inman ( Jarrett Ott) as he leaves for the Civil War. [Photo by Kelly & Massa for Opera Philadelphia] product=yes product_title=Cold Mountain, Philadelphia product_by=A review by Andrew Moravcsik product_id=Above: Ada (Isabel Leonard) recalls saying goodbye to Inman ( Jarrett Ott) as he leaves for the Civil War.

Photos by Kelly & Massa for Opera Philadelphia

Christian Gerhaher Wolfgang Rihm Wigmore Hall

Fortunately regulars at the Wigmore Hall get to hear superb Schubert all the time, so Rihm was an intriguing prospect. Rihm (born 1952) is one of the greatest living German composers. His chamber music has featured regularly at the Wigmore Hall and his orchestral music and operas have been performed in London and elsewhere in the UK. In Germany, his songs are fairly well known, and there are several recordings, notably by Christoph Prégardien The score for Rihm's Six Songs from Goethe Lieder is available from his publishers Universal Editions.

It would be pointless to draw comparisons between Schubert and Rihm because any decent composer is an individual addressing his own time. Rihm is far more creative. His Six Songs from Goethe Lieder were a birthday homage to Wilhelm Killmayer (born 1927), another giant of modern German music. Prégardien is one of the great Killmayer interpreters. His recording of Killmayer's Hölderlin Lieder is outstanding, a milestone in modern art song. Rihm sets lesser poems from Goethe, whose output was massive This serves to distance the songs from Killmayer's highly poetical, mystical settings of Hölderlin, temperamentally very different to Goethe. Some of these poems aren't even very good. "Was wir haben was wir hatten ...und was ist's denm was wir haben." Goethe was not losing his marbles in his old age.

The translation pretties the poem up, missing earthy wit. There are Killmayer trademarks in these songs such as the dense clusters that give way to semi-silence, and lines suddenly rise upwards forming the text "Nicht ein Bild !" after "Worte sind der Seele". It's like a private joke between Rihm and Killmayer who have done so much to make us think of the abstract music which words alone can't always express. Six Songs from Goethe Lieder is genai,warm hearted fun and derves to be heard more often.

Thus esa\the last song of this set, Aus Wilhelm,Meisters Wanderjahre , from the 1807/21 version of Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre which starts "Ein Wunder ist ein arme Mensch geboren" , which, though dramatic, doesn't attract many song settings. Again it's a very pointed private joke, it refers to a crazed man, wonderstruck by the moon, who wallows in morbid thoughts. Hölderlin all over! Hearing Schubert's famous setting from Wilhelm Meister felt strangely routine.

It probably din't help that Gerhaher had contracted an infection,constricting his voice, as was mentioned several times during the evening. True fans would, I think. have preferred that he'd saved himself for Monday's higher-profile audience-friendly Schumann programme. In Rihm's setting of Goethe's long Harzreise in Winter (2012), Gerhaher showed what he can do when he's more rehearsed.

Anne Ozorio

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Götterdämmerung in Palermo

Graham Vick deconstructed Wagner’s timeless musical myth of the gods of power and wealth into twenty-first century proportions, propelling Wagner’s nineteenth century, early industrial age to a destiny unimaginable, certainly unacceptable to Romantic idealism. The original catastrophic conclusion Wagner envisioned for the gods was absolutely real then, and perhaps from those final sublime moments of Götterdämmerung our modern social democracies have emerged.

But in Palermo Graham Vick rediscovered and revealed the Wagnerian catastrophe for the post-industrial age, may we say for our post-democracy age. The outcome is devastating and there is no sublimity. But make no mistake, all this unfolds in mythically musical terms that are purely Wagnerian.

Graham Vick built this concluding episode of Wagner’s epic in Brechtian language. An empty stage, a small green mound, some plastic chairs, a white platform, an Eames chair, a beat-up old caravan plus a huge, broken metal lighting tree that was surely Wotan’s ash tree!

The Rhine, Act III

But it was far huger than these few props. The theater itself, its 1358 spectators were enveloped within the action, the foyers echoing with the fanfares, Hagen shouting insults seated in the tenth row, Gunther triumphantly dragging Brünnhilde down the center aisle onto the stage. And finally, in the end, we became aware that we were the Rhine itself, the ring thrown into our flood by the hoard lined across the stage apron, their suicide vests ticking.

Graham Vick totally humanized Wagner’s mythological compendium, Grane was a fine, strong young man with a chair onto which Siegfried mounted. During his orchestral journey to the Rhine the stage became flooded with innumerable strong, beautiful youth who moved with purpose and grace, the mighty Rhine, its mighty spirit. This was the truly sublime moment of the evening.

In the beginning the three norns had been seated at a table, the broken thread were the twigs of the ash tree that became the fuse of the bomb they constructed and placed in the backpack Siegfried picks up. At the end if Brünnhilde and Grane’s immolation was moving it was also equally terrifying as we understood that it was the same suicide that constitutes the final mass suicide image, Wagner’s sweet and beautiful music flooding into the bombers’ broad smiles — it was the ultimate Wagnerian irony.

The hero horses on Valhalla

The spine tingling moment of the evening was however not the end of the opera, instead it was the visit of the Valkyrie Waltraute who tells Brünnhilde of Wotan’s council with his gods wherein he informs them that he has constructed the pire for Valhalla’s destruction, and that he has sent two ravens to bring news of the world below. Waltraute is elegant, her horse is a handsome young compassionate hero, her entreaties that Brünnhilde sacrifice the ring are maximally eloquent — fifty or so handsome young hero horses are suddenly revealed at rigid, bare chested heroic attention. But her supplications go unheeded thus she mounts her hero horse and disappears. It was the climatic scene of the evening.

Wotan’s ravens do appear in the world below, two black clad mimes in dark glasses who introduce the prelude to the third act. In the end Brünnhilde will dispatch them back to Valhalla. You know the rest.

Graham Vick’s mastery of theatrical languages in no less than astounding. His intuitions of the terrors of our present world and their connections to our artistic past are profound. The images he creates are not simple metaphors but remain rich poetic intuitions to be embraced rather than defined.

Wagner’s score and the individual performances were subsumed into this evening of powerful theater. If conductor Stefan Anton Reck’s tempos at times seemed slow they finally well served the staging. If the winds of the orchestra of the Teatro Massimo could not help bringing inappropriate lyricism to Wagnerian line, the brass and particularly the strings created the continuum that could be beautiful, inspiring and terrifying.

Eric Greene as Gunther and Christian Voigt as Siegfried becoming brothers

Without exception all performances were total. The three norns were of fine voice and fine figure, the Waltraute of elegant, high heeled Romanian mezzo Victoria Vizin, was superb. Swedish bass Mats Almgren created a rough, brutal Hagen and American baritone Eric Green was a beautifully voiced, sensitive and gullible Gunther. Danish soprano Iréne Theorin made Brünnhilde everything you wanted in thrilling Brigid Nilsson style delivery. German tenor Christian Voigt created a Siegfried more by intent than voice, but he did indeed embody a real Siegfried.

Michael Milenski

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Cast and production information:

Siegfried: Christian Voigt; Gunther: Eric Greene; Alberich: Sergei Leiferkus; Hagen: Mats Almgren; Brünnhilde: Irene Theorin; Gutrune: Elizabeth Blancke-Biggs; Waltraute; Viktoria Vizin; Erste Norn; Annette Jahns; Zweite Norn/Wellgunde: Christine Knorren; Dritte Norn/Woglinde: Stephanie Corley; Flosshilde: Renée Tatum; Ein Mann: Antonio Barbagallo, Gianfranco Giordano; Ein anderer Mann: Carlo Morgante, Francesco Polizzi. Chorus and Orchestra of the Teatro Massimo. Conductor: Stefan Anton Reck; Metteur en scéne: Graham Vick; Scene and Costume designs: Richard Hudson; Mimic actions: Ron Howell; Light designer: Giuseppe Di Iorio. Teatro Massimo, Palermo, February 2, 2016.

image=http://www.operatoday.com/Gotterdammerung_Palermo1.png

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product_id=Above:Iréne Theorin as Brünnhilde, Jean Maurice Feist (mime) as Grane before the immolation. [All photos courtesy of the Teatro Massimo, Palermo]

Posted by michael_m at 10:10 AM