A Village Romeo and Juliet

15/09/2012
Queen Elizabeth Hall

There is a particular category of classical works where you can predict before reading them that the programme notes will claim that we are about to hear a neglected masterpiece that only some dubious circumstance of its inception has prevented from entering into the standard repertoire. Every classical listener will have their personal list of obscurities that they think should have canonic status, and there is often great pleasure derived from listeners in knowing a "secret" work which they can extoll the virtues of and claim is the equal of X repertoire piece. Aside from a few orchestral bonbons, Delius' entire oeuvre might well fit into this category for some people, with the corollory that he is that most rarified and common of phenomenons - the "neglected composer". But the tendency for commentators to either accept or reject him wholesale is not fair on him - his life's work is not a monolith and rather than focussing on his biography as a reason for his lack of presence in orchestral programmes it is an evaluation of the music as notes (or in this case, the opera as drama) that needs to be considered to arrive at a fair appraisal.

The name is a bit of a red herring - apart from the theme of forbidden love, it is similar to Romeo and Juliet only in the broadest sense. The plot can be summarised as follows: two children are forbidden from playing with each other by their overbearing fathers who have a long standing feud. The children's attraction does not diminish with time and they arrange to meet illicitly - when the girl's father discovers them together he drags her off, but he is then killed by the boy. The lovers leave home and visit a fair and are told by vagabonds to take to the road, but they refuse. Their own solution is to get in a boat and sink it.

Though there is also the character of a mysterious fiddler who repeatedly makes an appearance, his pertinance to the drama is hazy and ill defined. Indeed the entire libretto seems somewhat vestigial,  with themes only partially realised and action very limited in scope. But if the work is hardly a Tosca-esque thrill ride, it also contains very little in the way of the intellectual or poetic ideas that may sustain other works that are not overabundant in decisive events (Tristan, Capriccio and Palestrina spring instantly to mind). What is it about? What is Delius trying to show or tell us? What does he want us to feel? Of course the task of the opera composer is to illuminate the libretto through the music, but again the music seems only rarely comitted to this task, and the lack of variety to the languid perambulation of its glutinous rhapsodic beauty soon tires the ear and inures one to its charms. Most damagingly, the vocal lines are only intermittently arresting and never seem to be entirely the point, and for the first 100 minutes, by far the work's most beautiful portions are those scored for orchestra only. Though not entirely bland, the result is a curious anonymity and dullness despite Delius' highly personal idiom and indulgent harmonic ripeness, and this compounded by the lack of emotional content makes it a difficult opera to engage with. Looked at from any angle it's impossible to escape the spiritual void that is at this opera's heart.

However, just as with his Mass of Life, thankfully Delius pulls himself together for the last 10 minutes and finally delivers music of exceptional beauty, focus and clarity. The orchestral colours glow and the voices soar in a mood of ecstatic exaltation that Delius surely intended to imbue the rest of the work with. In the context of the opera it may be too little, too late, but this scene may work well as excerpted in concert.

Anna Devin's light lyric soprano seemed one size too small for the leading role of Vreli, and while never inaudible, the voice lacked the vibrancy and resonance in lower lying passages to really cut through the admittedly muddy orchestral textures. I've liked her very much in the past, and she's still very young though so has plenty of time to work on these things - it's just not the right voice yet for full lyric parts. Joshua Ellicott was pleasing as her lover Sali, his well controlled and dynamically nuanced lyric tenor making the very most of his music's scant opportunities for displaying any sort of line or drama. Best of all was David Wilson-Johnson as The Dark Fiddler, whose rich, fruity timbre, and excellent diction made rather more of this fairly minor part than one might expect. Worrying signs of an incipient wobble have crept into Christopher Maltman's voice, though if nothing else he was impressively loud as the unsubtle character of Manz. The virtually identical character of Marti (who might just be labelled "Overbearing father no.2") was similarly acceptably sung by Andrew Shore. The myriad small roles were well taken by the youthful supporting cast.

Ronald Corp lead a committed reading of the score, and allowed the final scene to move and resonate as it should. Though he kept things moving nicely, more could have been done however to clarify the thick orchestrations and greater dynamic contrasts might have helped enliven the rather limited harmonic pallette. The London Chorus struggled with Delius' complex chromatic harmony, and didn't ever quite manage to bring it fully into focus. The New London Orchestra seemed more comfortable, though brighter, more incisive playing from all might have made things more lively.

It is only through occasionally resurrecting these rareties that we can come to a fairer picture of what we might be missing. Not every resurrection will be worthwhile, but The New London Orchestra and Ronald Corp's pioneering spirit is to be fully commended and one hopes that they might go onto to perform more obscurities in coming seasons.

Matthew Passion at London Handel Festival

6/4/2012

I reviewed it for Bachtrack. Read it here. A little disappointing overall, mainly due to dull direction from Laurence Cummings and dull playing of the London Handel Orchestra. Singing mostly lovely, with Anna Devin again impressing (it turns out she was the first nymph that I liked so much in the recent ROH Rusalka). Emilie Renard who I've seen before as a wonderful Sesto was not quite so impressive here, and I think it's just a tessitura issue - the "alto" arias require a real solidity down low.

Here's a preview:

Probably no other work in the repertoire has such mystical status as Bach's Matthew Passion. Phrases like "The Greatest Work in the Western Canon", trip glibly off the tongue while failing to illuminate its greatness or acknowledge its strangeness. It is the sacred cow of sacred cows. It is of course an extraordinary piece: the beauty of the arias, with their endlessly inventive Arietta-recit introductions laden with effects and affekt not to mention the amazing musical characterisation of Jesus, the feeling that we are constantly dipping into real life scenes between the Evangelist's explanations, the choral interjections, and everywhere the harmony surprising no matter how many times one has heard it. One could go on.

Rusalka at ROH

27/02/2012

I have a particular love for Czech repertoire, and Dvorak's Rusalka is one of its most precious jewels. Like Eugene Onegin, Pelléas et Mélisande and Bluebeard's castle, it's a sort of one off, never to be repeated perfectly itself opera, a serendipitous meeting of composer with subject matter, libretto and sound world that just works beautifully well to create something truly unique. The luminosity of the orchestration, superb musical characterisation and differentiation of the different roles, ravishing beauty of the harmony and melodic fecundity make this a very special work (like so much other late Dvorak - so many pieces seem uniquely special!)

Astonishingly this is the first time it's been staged at the Royal Opera House (two concert performances were given with Fleming and Mackerras in 2003), and for the occasion they have imported a 2008 production from Salzburg originally directed by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Seymour, with revival direction by Samantha Seymour. Whilst this is an "updating" to modern dress (not that the original has a date), elements of the mystical remain - Rusalka really is a water nymph initially, her sisters feral wood spirits scuttling around in their opening scene with alarming velocity and singing almost flawlessly. Along with these characters, Rusalka's father Vodnik and the witch Jezibabu, ironically herself crippled, all live in some sort of half ethereal realm (denoted by a subtly shifting, ever drifting stage and projections on the set) in a state of decay, moral and physical (both the surrounds and themselves). That Rusalka's father is sexually aroused by his daughter's sisters introduces the dark undercurrents of deviant sexuality and abuse that permeate this work - though initially at least the girls are free and wild. (Presumably they have a different father - we never meet Rusalka's mother, but a potentially polygamous woman in the background already provides a subversive and very non Christian family picture). His neglect is obvious too - whilst Rusalka sings idealistically of her longing for love (she seems very young with her cuddly toy - her craving for love at this age further suggests his neglect), he barely listens, waving to and flirting with the nymphs.

Later, in the third act, he and Jezibaba have captured and imprisoned the nymphs as sex workers in a seedy lounge brothel - they are forced to lavish their false affections on the Gamekeeper while Jezibaba hungrily undresses the Kitchen Boy. Their nervous twitching and animalistic behaviour cement this picture of desocialisation and ritual abuse, and they soon grab their chance to escape. Vodnik's sententious moralising here and at the beginning sickens though also moves: we cannot but give into this ambiguity - he seems to love his daughter whilst also hatefully controlling and destroying young women who seem so similar to her.

Meanwhile the love of a man is destroying his daughter - in this production the prince seems more torn than he is often shown to be, and comes to her rescue when she is mocked by the towns people, but mostly he is a narcisist and is mainly concerned with his own rapturous feelings. When Rusalka proudly totters out to meet him with her new legs looking like some incongruous stepford wife he serenades her endlessly (and it has to be said gloriously!), obsessed with her beauty, but seems uninterested in her true identity.

In the end Rusalka, unable to capture his attentions and possessed by grief, commits suicide, her disturbed sisters barely seeming to notice, though Vodnik weeps over her corpse. The final scene seems to be largely internal/psychological for the prince - Rusalka haunting his conscience when he realises what he's done to her. In the end she is left in a sort of terrifying limbo, static, unfeeling, destroyed.

I could go on with this sort of analysis, but ultimately of course everyone will take their own meaning from it. This is an interesting production, not always perfectly executed, but quite well thought out, visually strong, if not beautiful, and powerful in its impact. It is not, as Rupert Christiansen seems to suggest, intellectually abstruse (seriously have to wonder sometimes with this man). The constant questioning of what is real and what is imagined, what is psychological and what is magical is not a weakness and perfectly in keeping with the ambiguity of the libretto. The three views of the cat we get - as a stuffed toy, in a comic pantomime with a person in a cat costume, and then with a real cat suggests this as strongly as anything does. Sometimes the acting is not quite up to the ideas especially from the two leads, but in general the ideas came across well enough, and I was rather moved by the end.


There was a general air of incomprehension from the audience which I found perplexing - this was pretty simple person-regie and none of it seemed that difficult to interpret to me. Lots of people were grumbling about relevance (especially the young people) but all of it seemed exactly in line with the themes of the opera to me, even if not presented in a traditional fairy tale setting. The production team was met with heavy boos. Depressing that audiences are so reactionary, especially when there were were so many young people here. My guess is that people wanted romantic tragedy, not sexual immorality and grime, but in this story the two are really so far apart: it's just a matter of perspective.


Musically this was a very strong evening. Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has the measure of this score and coaxed some gorgeous playing out of the ROH orchestra particularly the winds and strings. There was always a feeling of symphonic weight and purpose, whilst simultaneously being flexible and sensitive to the singer's requirements. Pretty ideal then. One thing grated: intonation from the brass was often slightly questionable, particularly the principal trumpet which has several rather exposed solos. But overall a very strong show from both conductor and orchestra.

I didn't like Camilla Nylund's Rusalka very much I have to say. The voice is quite light, silvery when quiet which seems ideal, but there's no weight in the lower register, and the higher she sings and the louder she sings, the less focussed the sound and the wider the vibrato gets. Virtually every climactic high note was between a quarter tone and a semitone sharp. This lack of focus means the voice just doesn't cut through the orchestration in the climaxes. Additionally there's little sense of legato and not much colouring of the line or use of the text for expression. I actually didn't completely dislike it, wasn't as awful as all that - the voice is generally secure and quite attractive, it just doesn't quite deliver when it needs to. The three Wood Nymphs (Anna Devin, Madeleine Pierard and Justina Gringyte) were all Jette Parker Young Artists, and all were very very good indeed - best I've ever heard from the Young Artists programme. Whoever was singing the first nymph (the cast sheet was not specific) I would genuinely have preferred hearing as Rusalka - her tone was sweeter and her pianissimos were unbelievable.

The rest of the cast were superb too. That Czech is fantastic language to sing in was amply demonstrated by Agnes Zwierko as the witch Jezibaba and Bryan Hymel as the prince. Zwierko has a very unusual sounding voice, very large, very rich throughout (with obvious registral breaks), but she really digs into the text using the language's wonderful consonants and also has a huge palette of vocal colours to draw on. The Prince is a difficult role to cast as it needs fairytale sweetness but a significant amount of heft - Hymel was pretty ideal I thought - taking full advantage of the pure vowels of Czech to create a juicy, ringing Italianate sound. Rock steady and warm all the way through the voice, his high notes superbly rounded. He seemed to drift about a bit on stage, not the greatest actor, but seriously fine vocalising.

Alan Held was a very good Vodnik, the voice resonant and clear and big. Again absolutely rock solid all the way through the range. No complaints here. Petra Lang sang the great role of the Foreign Princess pretty well - ideally this voice should be steely, dramatic and maybe even slightly squally to contrast as much as possible with Rusalka's ultra lyrical, silvery youthfulness - which just about describes Lang's voice - just a tiny bit more volume might have been welcome. Daniel Grice, also on the Young Artists Programme offered some beautiful singing in the small baritone role of the Huntsman. Gyula Orendt and Ilse Eerens as the Gamekeeper and Kitchen Boy respectively were both also very good in their scenes together. Rare that I'm this happy with a cast!