Rosenkavalier with Schwanewilms, Connolly, Crowe, LSO, Elder

With Glyndebourne's new Der Rosenkavalier not yet opened, and the Birmingham performance just around the corner, this concert acted as a wonderful taster menu of this opera, taking all the most delicious cuts of that score, immaculately prepared with the finest ingredients. The good music of Der Rosenkavalier is so great that the opera always comes to mind if I'm asked to list my favourite ten operas (or whatever the latest twitter game might be.) In a great performance with three great female voices, there is little to match it for sheer sonic beauty. The whole thing is made even more moving by Hofmannsthal's wonderful libretto, and again in the hands of an artist who can respond to its nuance and gentle colours, there is little like it in the repertoire. But the appalling languors of the opera, the huge stretches of routine, always stick in my throat, and make the piece exceptionally difficult to stage effectively in my experience, that is, to make it a fully convincing, engaging evening.

These concerns don't arise in a concert performance of highlights, and this generous selection, lasting well over an hour, was pure pleasure from start to finish. We first got the opening sequence - the sex/orgasm overture, afterglow, morning light, Mohammed's interruption, and coffee. The chemistry between Anne Schwanewilms' Marschallin and Sarah Connolly's Octavian was so believable and tender, that I'm not sure I've seen anything more erotic on an operatic stage this year. Funny how the acting can be so much more natural, intimate and engaging without all the other trappings of grand oper: sets, wigs, 'realistic' period costumes, and perhaps most crucially without a long rehearsal process which can kill spontaneity. A 50 year old woman trying to look like a 17 year old boy isn't sexy. A 50 year old woman playing male teenage passion and frustration is. I often find opera singers' acting to be more moving in concert performances, perhaps also because one is often so much nearer (other people on twitter were quick to blame nefarious directional interference (read: regie theatre directors) for this discrepancy when I mentioned it there.I think it can be a straw man - how many of those sorts of productions are there really? In my experience, singers are just as often disengaged and just "walking a part" in traditional productions).

Then with the same two singers, we got the Marschallin's monologue, the final half hour of the first act. Where in the first act Schwanewilms had been all smiles and hand caresses, here she was preternaturally still, and barely even looked at Connolly, who looked not just upset, but destroyed, her eyes red lakes of fear and sadness. Text book being an obstacle to your fellow actor from Schwanewilms! She has one of the most interesting and strangely beautiful soprano voices on the stage today, and chooses to access an enormous palette of vocal colours so that each phrase, each word, is delicately but precisely shaded. Though she can spin a shimmering legato line with the best of them (Her "Da drin ist die silbernc Ros'n" and "Hab' mir's gelobt" were both exquisite), in Strauss she more often chooses to utilise an intimate parlando, and the gentle strength and resonance in the middle and lower register means that this approach works. Her great forebear in the infinitely nuanced vocal line is of course Schwarzkopf, and though the approach is similar, the effect is very different - with Schwarzkopf you get the feeling that every single detail was sculpted and polished in advance, immaculately prepared, but animated in the moment by her smiling spirit. With Schwanewilms it all feels much more spontaneous, that she "lets" the voice do what it will in that moment, whilst playing the intention that she has. This has benefits and drawbacks. On the one hand she is able to truly react physically and vocally to anything her stage partners might throw at her, which means she is always engaging and always "on"; on the other hand, the voice can occasionally do something quite unexpected and unbelcanto - one of her mannerisms is a single bell like note that is totally disconnected from the line, especially for a sudden leap above the stave. I often get the feeling with her voice that she is masterfully, but constantly, navigating a fundamentally 'bumpy' vocal topography that is intrinsic to the voice. Again there is a similarity here to Schwarzkopf (though with Schwarzkopf the feeling is much less acute as the basic vocal technique was so exceptionally well controlled), who one also feels sometimes has found a creative technical or expressive solution to a fundamental, intrinsic unevenness in the vocal mechanism, however beautiful the timbre is. The opposite would be say Tebaldi, whose vocal registration has an absolutely smooth topography as she moves up and down the scale. I personally enjoy the colours and quiddities of Schwanewilms's voice because the expressive intent is always so clear, the connection with text is immediate and nuanced, and the voice has just combination of shimmer and depth. She will often do something quite unexpected with a familiar phrase which means one can hear this much loved music afresh.

This is all to say that she is an exceptionally accomplished and moving Marschallin, and now that Fleming, the greatest Marschallin since Schwarzkopf, is declining and only inconsistently at her best, Schwanewilms may well be the finest exponent of this role on the stage today. Refined, noble, wistful, thoughtful, beautiful: I certainly don't know of anyone I would prefer to hear in this role currently.

Sarah Connolly is still surely the most handsome performer of travesti roles around, and one hopes that she will continue to sing them into her sixth decade, when traditionally mezzos start giving them up. The voice and approach is very different from Schwanewilms' which makes her an excellent partner in this opera. Connolly has a much more traditional, consistent vocal production, capable of delivering Octavian's glorious, powerfully soaring outbursts without strain or compromise. One hears in the timbre that the voice is beginning to age, but the line remains firm and the voice in control. Though her German pronunciation is very good, one senses that the words are not being lived one by one in the moment - the whole phrase has the right emotional colour, but it doesn't sound like she has fluent German. The same was true of Lucy Crowe, whose pronunciation was also very good, but lacked that hard to define sense of true fluency and nuance. Perhaps this is expecting too much, but in Strauss of all composers, I miss that last degree of textual acuity because Strauss often composes word by word rather than by phrase, so any loss of specificity in the response to the text notices far more than many other operatic composers. I'm being insanely fussy perhaps and that this was even in question is partly an indication of the high standard of the whole performance.

Lucy Crowe was very nice as Sophie: a lovely shimmery vibrato, just right for her fach, and a very slight hoarseness in the sound that adds colour and bite. Her musicianship and vocal solidity in the lower registers means she can more than tackle an oft underestimated role. What is slightly uncomfortable is a pronounced wobble above the stave, the vibrato widening and relaxing at just the point when it should be most gleaming and vibrant. I don't know if this was a one off problem or a recurrent issue, but one hope it will be addressed soon, lest the voice decline before its time. The collection of tenors and baritones that made up the Marschallin's coachmen and then Faninal's single phrase in the last scene were true luxury. I have never heard these parts better sung, ever. Unfortunately I can't find my programme, and they're not on the Barbican website, so do comment below if you know who they were!

The LSO under Mark Elder played with great vigour, utilising a big boned, lustrous tone - appropriate for the Barbican's acoustics, but I can imagine that it might have covered the singers a little too often had I not been sitting so close to the stage. What was missing was that refined Viennese glow in the sound and lissome flexibility in the rhythm, but with playing as accurate, juicy and confident as this it's hard to complain. The final trio, which is somehow more special in live performance even than on record, was superbly delivered from all. From my seat, seeing and hearing every nuance from these singers, in the most glorious sections of maybe the most sumptuously beautiful opera ever composed, this was one of the most enjoyable concerts I've been to this season.

Wozzeck at the ROH

31/10/13

Keith Warner's production of Wozzeck reminds me somewhat of his production of The Ring. There are lots of ideas, many of them quirky and thought provoking, but he seems so intent on them sometimes that he loses sight of the bigger picture. The libretto of Wozzeck, like the play on which it is based, has an unconventional narrative structure and Warner does at least provide a clear line through the action by reducing the number of settings and using repeating motifs which bind the whole to some extent. Wozzeck's house is suggested by three pieces of shabby furniture, and a screen slides across to demarcate the space, producing a forbidding "black box" environment. The silent child hardly leaves the stage and becomes a real focus, though we don't much see how this abuse is affecting him. The rest of the opera's world seems to be the domain of the doctor, who is the architect of Wozzeck's madness, and the manipulator in charge of Wozzeck's other oppressors. Every surface of the doctor's room is covered with oversized ceramic tiles, miniaturising Wozzeck, and suggesting less a laboratory than an abattoir. The greatest beauty of this production is the back wall: a huge angled mirror which reflects an invisible scene behind the stage. It gives the simple yet startling illusion of people being able to walk, dance and lie on a vertical wall, the effect is sometimes magic and dreamlike, and sometimes deeply disorienting. An additional point on the design: it was amazing how much covering the ROH's fussy, gold proscenium arch with black panels transforms the space - suddenly it feels much more modern and serious. An object lesson in psychological framing.

For Warner, Wozzeck's story doesn't represent a progression from sanity to madness, and neither do we see Marie's descent from fidelity to adultery - we enter into both of these stories fully formed, and then just also happen to witness the murder that results of them. It's not clear what, if any, point is trying to be made by this. In reducing the number of locations, Warner also strips the work of some important social contexts - the party scene takes place in Wozzeck and Marie's house, and Marie barely notices it going on - it could almost be her hallucination. The drum major and Captain hardly seem to be militaristically involved - again a thread of social complexity is undernourished.

Wozzeck's death is weirdly mishandled - he dies in a tank of water, but it neither seems like an accidental drowning nor desperate suicide - when he Keenleyside finished singing he just ducked under the water and without struggle became still. Hard to make sense of. Despite all these niggles, the show as a whole isn't at all bad, I just felt that Wozzeck, infinitely rich as it is, could be much more than this. I still enjoyed it very much, but then I am a Wozzeck superfan.

Simon Keenleyside's Wozzeck has moments of real inspiration in the physical characterisation, but the voice sounds very hard, and he bellows his way through a lot of this score. Karita Matilla's Marie is much better sung than I expected based on her recent Salome final scene - the voice is more stable than then, though the slight hoarseness and lost of lustre is hard to ignore. Still, she is as physically committed as Keenleyside, and so is a compelling presence. Their relationship is hard to credit though. John Tomlinson makes a highly energetic doctor, one so sensually involved with his experiments that his reminder to himself about quelling his passions (lest he be unscientific) might well be a common self admonition for him. Vocally the role still sits entirely within his means, and the German diction remains as peerless as ever. Gerhard Siegel is an exceptionally loud Captain, though has to look at the conductor very often, and ends up shouting quite a lot. Endrik Wottrich is luxury casting as the Drum Major, as impressively heroic and powerful vocally as he looks physically. Robin Tritschler reveals a lovely voice as the Half-wit, consolidating my admiration for this young tenor after a recent Wigmore Hall recital.

Possibly the best part of this revival is Mark Elder's wonderful contribution from the pit - the ROH orchestra sound like a million dollars and play with a dazzling precision and range of colour. Elder brings extraordinary beauty and sensuality to Berg's writing when it calls for it; in other places the orchestra hums, shrieks and wails with terrifying force. So often I wished I could just hear the orchestra without the voices. Is Elder in the running for the ROH principal conductor position? He should be.

Falstaff at Glyndebourne

24/05/13

all photos (c) Tristram Kenton

This revival of Glyndebourne's 2009 production of Falstaff I found to be a mixed bag. The opera is updated to wartime Britain (or 1946 as we are informed in the director's note), everyone having a jolly old time, the horrors of the worst war in the history of mankind having left no mark whatsoever on the rambunctious inhabitants of Windsor (though they are now growing their own veg). The sets by Ultz (just Ultz...) posess a boxy artificiality - a self consciously set-like tudorbethan backdrop for the contrived antics. The direction by Richard Jones (revival direction Sarah Fahie) mirrors this artificiality, and the movement is very choreographed throughout. Sadly it doesn't at all avoid the obvious dangers of this approach and the character's motions very rarely seem to come out of palpable intention. It's worst for the women who don't seem to be able to do anything on their own, always moving as a pack (though of course Nannetta keeps breaking away for her love scenes). There are a few smirks to be had, but most of it felt so overly staged and lacking in spontaneity that titters rather than belly laughs laughter were the order of the day.

Still there's much to enjoy, not least Laurent Naouri's rather personal take on Falstaff which included certain stylistic things that are unusual for Verdi singing. The extremity of the dynamic contrasts within the phrase and the concern for text over the long line worked for me here, as did his energetic and quite charming stage manner. Unfortunately the one serious moment of reflection in the opera, the beginning of Act II, where Falstaff laments the state of society and realises that he is ageing, is played completely for laughs - he strips off, revealing his flabby (but disappointingly normally proportioned) body to huge laughs from the audience (there would definitely have been several members at least as amply proportioned though) and so the one place where the wartime theme might have enriched the poignancy of a scene, passes as for nothing. I have to say also that the trick playing was strangely joyless and Alice comes off rather badly as a cruel rouser of large scale bullying: we are mainly party to the infliction of humiliation and fear on an individual for the entertainment of the crowd. Part of the problem might be that the upper class Falstaff has lost most of his status and power by the 1940's and so the punishment for his his self delusion and desperate but not altogether very threatening lechery seems completely at odds with the crime - I mainly felt sorry for him and the end left a bitter taste.

After hearing many good things about her from various sources, Ailyn Pérez disappointed as Alice Ford. She is an extremely beautiful woman with a very smiley demeanour, but the voice has very little presence in the theatre and failed to create the character in sound. The top, while covered, is her best range and at least projects. But Alice sits quite low as soprano roles go, and Pérez's middle voice and chest voice severely lack colour, bloom and volume. There's no trill and the small amount of flexibility that this role calls for seemed hard fought for. I was greatly looking forward to her ROH Manon next season, but now I'm quite wary: despite the fact that it's seen as a coloratura role, it requires tremendous support in the lower registers, and sits there for long periods of time. Curious, as there's a lot of buzz around her at the moment, so perhaps she was having an off night?

Susanne Resmark is a very decent Mistress Quickly, nicely acted and vocally assured, though just short of ideal. There's something awe inspiring about the true contralto voice that creates a special excitement and there are certain contralto roles that when sung well augment the appeal of an opera immeasurably - Mistress Quickly, Erda, Gaia, Ulrica all fall into this camp. Resmark has some of the elements and certainly has a very nice voice, but the very lowest notes lack body - this is a talented dramatic mezzo managing an alto role.

The young lovers both impressed, with Antonio Poli an appealing Fenton, but it was Elena Tsallagova's Nannetta that was the vocal highlight for me - this is a role sung near the beginning of many a light lyric's career, and Tsallagova nailed it on all accounts - those endless piano high notes were totally bewitching, and the timbre and colour of the voice is simply ideal. More please.

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are a mixed blessing in the pit. In what is by far Verdi's most refined and beguilingly subtle score, the attention to detail and colour that these superb musicians bring should be fully welcome, but strangely it feels undernourished in the score's quieter portions, while the grander moments of the score blaze with delightful colour. In the best bits, Mark Elder imbues it all with a soft hued beauty - it's the more baroque elements, the bustling detail, that ironically elude the orchestra, mostly played with a lot of attack but not enough body in the sound.

Two brides at the Royal Opera House

Fidelio and Tsar's Bride
ROH

I've been so busy the last few weeks that I didn't manage to comment on these two productions when they happened. Full reviews seem beside the point now that they're both over, but I did want to post a few thoughts on them.

Rimsky Korsakov's 15 operas are largely an unknown quantity for me, so it was good to finally see one - one wonders when the next one will be performed in London. I thought this production was one of the best things that the ROH had done this year - cleverly and stylishly updated, visually stunning and with direction and musical values particularly notable for their quality. Maybe I was just relieved after the relative mediocrity of Fidelio, Aida and Anna Nicole that had preceded it.

This is an example of an intelligent piece of Regie (the action took place in approximately present day, and centred around Russian mob activities) - never does the libretto fight what's on stage, and the brutality of the characters actions is both more explicable and more sinister. The acting and direction were particularly notable for their naturalism and subtlety, both A Good Thing in my book. Kevin Knight's sets were some of the best that the ROH has had this year - capturing that curiously Russian mix of periods and lack of taste, they had a very strong sense of atmosphere and place, and in every scene, the set really added to the drama and visual spectacle in a grimy, low key way.

Marina Poplavskaya as Marfa, the Tzar's bride, was completely uninvolving, and rumours from rehearsals suggest that she was impossible to work with, badly behaved and completely narcissistic. But we could have told this from the performance, which even in the climactic mad scene (which seems an anachronism this late in the 19th century) left the audience unmoved - some nights there wasn't even any applause afterwards, and this from her "home crowds" - she is one of the ROH's most famous Young Artists Programme graduates. The voice is quite large and quite beautiful in places but her technique is lacking and as a result the voice feels squeezed and not quite fully in control. Her stage presence isn't exactly commanding either and her strange looks don't really register at a distance (now that Joan Sutherland has died is she the biggest jaw in opera?). Blandness is the issue, which perhaps explains the diva-ish antics. Her glacially ungracious manner with the audience afterwards rendered her even less endearing.

The rest of the cast were generally very good, particularly Ekaterina Gubanova's captivating performance as Lyubasha, the furiously obsessed love rival, whose refulgently warm mezzo, stage presence and superior acting made her the centre of the action. She's also an ex-ROH Young Artist and seems to me to be a far better ambassador for the House. Mark Elder in the pit gave the strongest possible advocacy for what is an exciting and passionate score, even if one knows and feels throughout that it is not a first rate opera.



A couple of days before, I saw the ROH's Fidelio, and it was not a pleasurable evening. This Met production is drab and dull and is thankfully being retired now - why did the opera house ever take it in the first place? I literally can't be bothered to comment on it any further, so I'll move onto the singing which was mostly fine, but never spectacular. Steven Ebel is a tenor currently in the ROH's Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, and took on the relatively large role of Jaquino. His bleating, mosquito like buzz of a vibrato is just not at all pleasant, and his cumbersomely gangly lope means he only moves badly on stage. This might seem unfair, as he's theoretically still developing as a singer and artist, but the ROHJPYA scheme is meant to be a finishing school, a last port of call before the terrifying ocean of professional operatic life. I just cannot see that he will ever be successful.

The only other singer I feel moved to talk about is Nina Stemme as Leonore/Fidelio. I have never seen a bad word written about Stemme, especially from London audiences, and this was the first time I'd seen her live, so I was quite excited. And then very disappointed. I was near the front of the stalls and found it hard to hear her much of the time. I don't know if the direness of the production meant that she wasn't trying, as it's clearly a voice of some power and resource but the voice just seemed rather dry and didn't carry at all. Maybe she was having an off day. But like my recent Glyndebourne experience with Anna Gabler as Eva there was just no sense of line whatsoever. It's not that she's sacrificing line for textual clarity either, it just wasn't pleasurable to hear. I have heard her Strauss disc which is fine for the Salome excerpt and the Four Last Songs (though vocally doesn't compete with the leading rivals. The orchestra is amazing), but related problems arise in the last scene of Capriccio - the voice just powers through the thing without any regard for musical detail or the text, and the huge dramatic vibrato and tone just seems completely inappropriate for the role. In an interview she classifies herself as a lyric-dramatic soprano and there are indeed a lot of lyric roles in her repertoire but I would not want to hear her in a single one.

I really wanted to like her too! I'll endeavour to see her in one of her Wagner roles...