28/09/13
Academy of Ancient Music
This "concert hall staging" of L'Orfeo was the first in a projected Monteverdi cycle that the Academy of Ancient Music plans to undertake over the next three seasons. Director Orpha Phelan updates the piece to the present day, the wedding guests marching down the isles of the stalls in preparation for what looks like a typical British wedding. Security guards stand around in the foyer and onstage, one of whom it turns out is conductor/musical director Richard Egarr who surprisingly takes his place at the harpsichord. As Orfeo awaits his bride Eurydice, who it seems is not that keen to marry Orfeo, it is announced that she has been killed by a snake, though it seemed here that she might actually have been in some way murdered. Orfeo is lead by a nurse (Speranza) to Eurydice cadaver on a mortuary bed, and is discouraged from staying by an angry doctor (Coronte). Orfeo's grief here becomes a sort of mad scene, where he merely imagines going to hell. John Mark Ainsley is extremely moving here as he casts around desperately looking for a way out of his predicament. After the interval we see that Orfeo has hit the bottle, and he makes a scene in front of the party guests - the madness has not yet subsided as he hallucinates images of his dead wife. One of the guests (Plutone) takes pity on him at the urging of his wife (Prosperina) by giving Orfeo more drink and dressing him. Orfeo's father (Apollo) intervenes, telling his son to get a grip and Orfeo listlessly returns to society.
This basically coherent retelling of the story is a clear attempt to remove any classical references or supernatural elements from L'Orfeo, but it's not clear what the audience gains from this. Much of the libretto is rendered bizarre by the new context and it takes a long time to get used to the fact that what the characters are singing is meant to be only an approximation of what they actually mean. I find this sort of production distancing and alienating because you can't rely on your normal expectations of where suspension of disbelief is and isn't required - in short you have relearn the rules of the theatre. Or to put it another way, the realist setting suggests a realist/non-supernatural interpretation of the text, but since that is not attempted here (references to supernatural elements are merely ignored), the dramatic effect is jarring for longer than is comfortable or surely intended. Caroline Hughes' design is simple but serves the idea perfectly well - her lighting is the best part of this and she manages to create a real sense of atmosphere in Act III's mortuary mad scene.
Musically things were much more convincing. John Mark Ainsley is a moving Orfeo, still extremely controlled and expressive, though the voice has lost some of it's former bloom and flexibility. I instantly recognised Katherine Manley's voice having been so impressed with her as Creusa in the ENO's Medea earlier this year. She once again revealed a gleaming, expressive full lyric soprano with an excellent technique in the roles of Prosperina and one of the Nymphs - I would love to hear her in more recent repertoire. Sophie Bevan is luxury casting in the small role of Eurydice. Daniela Lehner was good as La Musica and Speranza, particularly in her low register which has an attractive colour. Thomas Hobbs made a powerful Apollo, beautifully matching John Mark Ainsley in their Act V duet. The smaller roles were mostly excellently taken by the rest of the young cast, though Paul Gerimon was sounding a little choked in the usually fearsome role of Coronte.
Richard Egarr's direction of the Academy of Ancient Music orchestra is energetic and large scale, an approach announced in the magnificent opening fanfare which here didn't so much dance as march into action. The continuo accompaniment is tasteful and varied, if not quite as colourful as seems to be the fashion in some French baroque ensembles. Orchestral playing is unerringly excellent, supporting the singers as gracious equals and Egarr doesn't underline anything - the sighing beauty of the string and woodwind lines, and the blaring majesty of the brass is left to speak for itself.
Showing posts with label Sophie Bevan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sophie Bevan. Show all posts
Sunday, 29 September 2013
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Siegfried at the ROH
08/10/2012
I have tickets to all the Ring operas! Annoyingly I'm seeing them out of order (Rheingold, Siegfried, Gotterdammerung, Walkure), so it will be difficult to appraise the cycle properly as a piece of story telling, but better this than nothing!
On the whole I really enjoyed Siegfried. I usually find that Act I drags until the forging song, because up until then it might uncharitably be described as an argument between a malevolent midget and an angry simpleton, but here I was completely captivated throughout, both by the dramatics and the music. In the opening minutes of the opera we are shown chronological slices of Siegfried's youth from pram to adolescence with Mime's increasingly desperate attempts to forge him a sword. Gerhard Siegel offers a Mime that combines his humorous patheticness with a genuine pathos and sadness. He is disturbing not because he is evil, but because his normality is just a shell: he has many of the familiar drives that we have, but at his core there is a vacuum, where something very fundamental is missing (In this he is a much like Hagen). There is no doubt, for instance, that his scheming for the ring is only half the story - there is a genuine desire towards parenthood, even if he can only be a terrible parent. We question what Mime's own awful upbringing might have been like with Alberich, and what psychological scars is he trying to heal with his "own" son. Siegel put this all across in a rather understated way and vocally his truly perfect diction, power and sensitivity are a model for the other singers.
Siegfried's own inarticulate longing for his mother are ravishingly captured in the music of Act II, and one wonders even whether there is not some erotic tension present in the music as well, what with his already sexually confused heredity, and him sharing direct lineage with Brunnhilde in the form of Wotan; indeed he confuses her for his mother in Act III. (As an aside, because of the incestuous genetics, both Brunnhilde and Siegfried have half of Wotan's genes. Second aside: It has been noted by feminist writers that the physical between a mother and her child is an erotic one, centred on the breast, and that intense pleasure is often derived from both parties.) Staging wise, this bit is the best thing about Act II: Siegfried disappears down a hole in the middle of the stage, the roof of which then rises to reveal a star lit sky and green paddock: apart from anything it's just a rather beautiful, if typically quirky image. I heard grumbles in the interval about the deer on wheels that appear, but Keith Warner's slightly light hearted aesthetic is very firmly established by this point, so I didn't find it jarring. The difficult to stage dragon scene is acceptably presented - the dragon head is quite scary, and moves with a threatening air, though the fight is rather perfunctory as usual, and though Siegfried is meant to see the whole thing as a sort of joke, at one point he just runs round the stage to make the scene last longer it seems, which is clumsy and undramatic.
Stefan Vinke's Siegfried is a very different matter from Siegel's articulate, needy Mime - Vinke never once genuinely connects with another person on stage, and although I don't think this is an intentional acting choice, it works as an interpretation: the only human contact that Siegfried has had has been from his emotional cripple of a parent, and so he would clearly be a rather underdeveloped or even damaged young man, incapable of the normal range of human emotions. He feels closer to the animals he sees, and what saves him is his radiant energy, love of freedom and instinctive feeling that Mime's actions are wrong. I like this almost autistic interpretation - but if this was the intention it could have been more precise, definite and troubled. Vocally it's not exactly the most exciting voice, but this is an impossible role, and he sings all the notes, largely in tune, and can even sing quietly when needed. He was clearly saving himself for the final duet in which he truly erupted volume wise, and I don't think I've ever heard an ovation so loud at the ROH.
Wagner of course broke off after Act II, as he felt he couldn't yet compose the music he needed to for the close of Siegfried, and so honed his skill with two little compositional exercises commonly referred to Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg. The abrupt and inevitable change in style between Act II and Act III is hard to complain about when the later music is of such manifest inspiration and consistent beauty and power: Act III combines the ecstatic erotics of Tristan, with the magnificent grandeur of Meistersinger, making it one of the most sheerly pleasurable Act of any of Wagner's operas in terms of aural beauty. What also changes though is the pacing - Wagner slows things right down, and suddenly psychology and philosophy are meant to do the heavy lifting drama wise. I liked Wotan's casting aside of his books and objects of power as he prepares to reject the Will, though the scene with Erda is slightly underwhelming. He does hurry along his desire to end the gods' power by goring her which was rather strong. Vinke's goonishly smiling Siegfried is well contrasted to Terfel's wracked Wanderer though again the scene didn't quite resonate with the energy it needed. Then the fated meeting of Siegfried and Brunnhilde: this is where Warner's staging begins to falter, and he finds it difficult to consummate the eroticism that is in the text and music. First is the botched scene when Siegfried awakens Brunnhilde - it all occurs behind a large wall, which Siegfried pops out from behind occasionally to tel the audience about what he's thinking/doing. When Brunnhilde has actually woken up and the duet occurs they are barely touching, let alone interracting - often they are stationed at opposite sides of the stage singing about the feel of warm breath and bodies. Does Warner not believe in their genuine attraction? At one point we see them either side of a table: Brunnhilde's domestication - the transformation from goddess to woman, but still there's no intimacy. Strangely her horse is dead, and only the head remains - are they both delusional about this? Is it a clue to the rest? (This doesn't resolve itself in Gotterdammerung either...) The ending then is unsatisfactory and a disappointment after the compelling first two acts.
Terfel's Wanderer is quite interesting - subtly acted and with a lot of vocal nuance - but also problematic. He doesn't quite register with the quiet import that he should, and though he can more than sing all the notes, the timbre is very bright and metallic for a bass baritone - not quite what we have come to expect in this role. Having missed Susan Bullock's Brunnhilde in Walkure (I'm seeing it 18th Oct), my first experience of her was much less bad than the reports I had been hearing. She certainly wasn't too quiet as so many have claimed, at least from where I was sitting, though she is clearly working quite hard, and can't truly "ride" the orchestra in the fashion of the truly great Brunnhildes. It's not a very beautiful sound and there is significant wobble on the high notes which are squally and metallic, but she can sing quite beautifully in the quiet moments, and anything below about a g above the staff is basically OK. Her diction is good and she manages to get the text across quite well. (I liked her more in Gotterdammerung, so will talk more of her there.) Similarly to Rheingold, I thought Maria Radner had the right colour, but not enough weight for Erda. I really don't think Sophie Bevan is cast well when doing these light, high lyric coloratura roles (as here with the Woodbird)- she can sing the notes, but the voice is heavier and darker than is ideal. Wolfgang Koch and Eric Halfvarson both more than did the job as Alberich and Fafner.
Pappano takes an almost Straussian delight in the wonderful orchestral effects of the first two acts and makes them exciting and surging, while sensitively accompanying the cast. The orchestra are sounding magnificent under him at the moment, and the warmth and beauty of Act 3 was quite wonderful. It's not the grandest or deepest Wagner you've ever heard in terms of long range structure or shape, but that possibly wouldn't play ideally to the slightly fragile cast. In the purely orchestral sections he really lets the orchestra go, and the momentum and power is infectious - I couldn't wait for the conclusion in Gotterdammerung (which I have now seen).
I have tickets to all the Ring operas! Annoyingly I'm seeing them out of order (Rheingold, Siegfried, Gotterdammerung, Walkure), so it will be difficult to appraise the cycle properly as a piece of story telling, but better this than nothing!
On the whole I really enjoyed Siegfried. I usually find that Act I drags until the forging song, because up until then it might uncharitably be described as an argument between a malevolent midget and an angry simpleton, but here I was completely captivated throughout, both by the dramatics and the music. In the opening minutes of the opera we are shown chronological slices of Siegfried's youth from pram to adolescence with Mime's increasingly desperate attempts to forge him a sword. Gerhard Siegel offers a Mime that combines his humorous patheticness with a genuine pathos and sadness. He is disturbing not because he is evil, but because his normality is just a shell: he has many of the familiar drives that we have, but at his core there is a vacuum, where something very fundamental is missing (In this he is a much like Hagen). There is no doubt, for instance, that his scheming for the ring is only half the story - there is a genuine desire towards parenthood, even if he can only be a terrible parent. We question what Mime's own awful upbringing might have been like with Alberich, and what psychological scars is he trying to heal with his "own" son. Siegel put this all across in a rather understated way and vocally his truly perfect diction, power and sensitivity are a model for the other singers.
Siegfried's own inarticulate longing for his mother are ravishingly captured in the music of Act II, and one wonders even whether there is not some erotic tension present in the music as well, what with his already sexually confused heredity, and him sharing direct lineage with Brunnhilde in the form of Wotan; indeed he confuses her for his mother in Act III. (As an aside, because of the incestuous genetics, both Brunnhilde and Siegfried have half of Wotan's genes. Second aside: It has been noted by feminist writers that the physical between a mother and her child is an erotic one, centred on the breast, and that intense pleasure is often derived from both parties.) Staging wise, this bit is the best thing about Act II: Siegfried disappears down a hole in the middle of the stage, the roof of which then rises to reveal a star lit sky and green paddock: apart from anything it's just a rather beautiful, if typically quirky image. I heard grumbles in the interval about the deer on wheels that appear, but Keith Warner's slightly light hearted aesthetic is very firmly established by this point, so I didn't find it jarring. The difficult to stage dragon scene is acceptably presented - the dragon head is quite scary, and moves with a threatening air, though the fight is rather perfunctory as usual, and though Siegfried is meant to see the whole thing as a sort of joke, at one point he just runs round the stage to make the scene last longer it seems, which is clumsy and undramatic.
Stefan Vinke's Siegfried is a very different matter from Siegel's articulate, needy Mime - Vinke never once genuinely connects with another person on stage, and although I don't think this is an intentional acting choice, it works as an interpretation: the only human contact that Siegfried has had has been from his emotional cripple of a parent, and so he would clearly be a rather underdeveloped or even damaged young man, incapable of the normal range of human emotions. He feels closer to the animals he sees, and what saves him is his radiant energy, love of freedom and instinctive feeling that Mime's actions are wrong. I like this almost autistic interpretation - but if this was the intention it could have been more precise, definite and troubled. Vocally it's not exactly the most exciting voice, but this is an impossible role, and he sings all the notes, largely in tune, and can even sing quietly when needed. He was clearly saving himself for the final duet in which he truly erupted volume wise, and I don't think I've ever heard an ovation so loud at the ROH.
Wagner of course broke off after Act II, as he felt he couldn't yet compose the music he needed to for the close of Siegfried, and so honed his skill with two little compositional exercises commonly referred to Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nuremberg. The abrupt and inevitable change in style between Act II and Act III is hard to complain about when the later music is of such manifest inspiration and consistent beauty and power: Act III combines the ecstatic erotics of Tristan, with the magnificent grandeur of Meistersinger, making it one of the most sheerly pleasurable Act of any of Wagner's operas in terms of aural beauty. What also changes though is the pacing - Wagner slows things right down, and suddenly psychology and philosophy are meant to do the heavy lifting drama wise. I liked Wotan's casting aside of his books and objects of power as he prepares to reject the Will, though the scene with Erda is slightly underwhelming. He does hurry along his desire to end the gods' power by goring her which was rather strong. Vinke's goonishly smiling Siegfried is well contrasted to Terfel's wracked Wanderer though again the scene didn't quite resonate with the energy it needed. Then the fated meeting of Siegfried and Brunnhilde: this is where Warner's staging begins to falter, and he finds it difficult to consummate the eroticism that is in the text and music. First is the botched scene when Siegfried awakens Brunnhilde - it all occurs behind a large wall, which Siegfried pops out from behind occasionally to tel the audience about what he's thinking/doing. When Brunnhilde has actually woken up and the duet occurs they are barely touching, let alone interracting - often they are stationed at opposite sides of the stage singing about the feel of warm breath and bodies. Does Warner not believe in their genuine attraction? At one point we see them either side of a table: Brunnhilde's domestication - the transformation from goddess to woman, but still there's no intimacy. Strangely her horse is dead, and only the head remains - are they both delusional about this? Is it a clue to the rest? (This doesn't resolve itself in Gotterdammerung either...) The ending then is unsatisfactory and a disappointment after the compelling first two acts.
Terfel's Wanderer is quite interesting - subtly acted and with a lot of vocal nuance - but also problematic. He doesn't quite register with the quiet import that he should, and though he can more than sing all the notes, the timbre is very bright and metallic for a bass baritone - not quite what we have come to expect in this role. Having missed Susan Bullock's Brunnhilde in Walkure (I'm seeing it 18th Oct), my first experience of her was much less bad than the reports I had been hearing. She certainly wasn't too quiet as so many have claimed, at least from where I was sitting, though she is clearly working quite hard, and can't truly "ride" the orchestra in the fashion of the truly great Brunnhildes. It's not a very beautiful sound and there is significant wobble on the high notes which are squally and metallic, but she can sing quite beautifully in the quiet moments, and anything below about a g above the staff is basically OK. Her diction is good and she manages to get the text across quite well. (I liked her more in Gotterdammerung, so will talk more of her there.) Similarly to Rheingold, I thought Maria Radner had the right colour, but not enough weight for Erda. I really don't think Sophie Bevan is cast well when doing these light, high lyric coloratura roles (as here with the Woodbird)- she can sing the notes, but the voice is heavier and darker than is ideal. Wolfgang Koch and Eric Halfvarson both more than did the job as Alberich and Fafner.
Pappano takes an almost Straussian delight in the wonderful orchestral effects of the first two acts and makes them exciting and surging, while sensitively accompanying the cast. The orchestra are sounding magnificent under him at the moment, and the warmth and beauty of Act 3 was quite wonderful. It's not the grandest or deepest Wagner you've ever heard in terms of long range structure or shape, but that possibly wouldn't play ideally to the slightly fragile cast. In the purely orchestral sections he really lets the orchestra go, and the momentum and power is infectious - I couldn't wait for the conclusion in Gotterdammerung (which I have now seen).
Monday, 6 February 2012
Der Rosenkavalier at ENO
01/02/2012
Der Rosenkavalier is one of my favourite operas, but it is also one of the most problematic operas in the standard repertoire, and I do not love it uncritically. On the whole this is top drawer Strauss, one of the most vital and brilliant scores that he ever wrote, allied to one of the finest librettos of any opera. There is so much to love - the classic bits that are often excerpted (the Act I monologue, Act II presentation of the Rose, Act III trio and duet) are amongst the most gorgeous set pieces in opera since Mozart. It is, like its predecessors in Strauss' oeuvre, meticulously crafted, millions of notes splurged across hundreds of pages of score, the whole an unbelievably opulent and ravishingly beautiful aural tapestry which glows with a genuine warmth and a saccharine beauty that Strauss never quite equaled in his other operas. As always his orchestration is absolutely masterful, never misjudged, the breathtakingly beautiful instrumentatations as apt for the aching harmonies as Salome's frothing counterpoint was for the sexually febrile phantasmagoria of that work. Der Rosenkavalier is however about an hour too long, or rather, there is an hour of music in it which is second or even third rate - principally the middle of act II, and beginning of Act III - where Strauss slips into notespinning and dross, and I have never seen a production which has been able to save the audience from these appalling languors. It is an operetta story, given a Wagnerian musicdrama treatment both in the music and in the libretto so whilst it certainly goes further and deeper than any operetta of this period, it also can't quite support it's own massive, glutinous weight.
As already mentioned, the libretto is superb, with Hofmannsthal delighting in providing providing endless "period" details, both actual and from the stage of the time it was set (Marie Therese's Vienna of the 1740s) culled from diaries, his beloved Moliere (from which sprung the later Ariadne auf Naxos also), commedia dell'arte, traditional farce, Beaumarchais and seemingly a hundred other sources to create a complete and vivid Vienna that never existed. This sentimental nostalgia for some notion of "old Vienna" was very common at this time in Viennese culture, even amongst forward looking modern writers and thinkers like Hofmannsthal. That he should be so interested in accurate period detail is fascinating when the overarching concerns of the piece are so clearly contemporary to his time. The plight of women, the atmosphere of sexual infidelities of his time, the ending of old empires in decadence and decay and the rise of the middle classes, the breaking down of class barriers - these were all highly pertinent issues in Vienna in 1909.
One particularly piquant source of inspiration for Hofmannsthal is Hogarth's Marriage a-La-Mode series. Piquant because it is Strauss' polar opposite, Stravinsky, with his own genius librettist, Auden, who also looked to Hogarth to produce their own 18th century pastiche, with such different results.
Anyone who knows the first act of Rosenkavalier well will have fun spotting the number of details Hofmannsthal culled from the above Hogarth. Even the sexual tones of the act are here (though only implicitly): the paintings on the walls all depict scenes of biblical seduction. Elements of act II derive from another of this series.
Operatically then, what are the precedents? Most obvious is Beaumarchais via Mozart and Da Ponte in Le Nozze di Figaro - in fact it was Strauss' initial idea to produce a modern Figaro. The parallels between the Countess and the Marschallin are clear - she is trapped in wedlock to a husband who has ceased to love her and though saddened she is not embittered and remains noble and strong. Dramatically too she functions similarly in the piece: she has the most beautiful music and adds a seriousness and wistful melancholia to the work, though in the earlier work the quasi-sexual undertones to the relationship that she has with her young (travesti) Godson are only hinted at rather than explicit. The passionately impulsive, confused young man played by a woman, who then dresses up as a woman is also an idea Hofmannsthal takes from the earlier piece, though is a classic element of Viennese farce and adds curious elements of sexual ambiguity (and sexual frisson) to proceedings. But the character of the Marschallin also derives from Wagner's Hans Sachs - her reflective monologues on the subject of aging and the passing of time and also her relinquishing of a younger lover. Both are amongst the most moving and complete characters that these two composers created, and are a gift for talented performers.
This is the first revival of David McVicar's 2008 production for the ENO. It's all very traditional looking, with crinolines, lace and chandeliers, so traditionalists need not be afraid. The set is appropriately grand, but not overdetailed, and looks like a palace in the first stages of disrepair - the Marschallin is reflected in her surroundings. Act I was well paced, and if there wasn't quite enough bustle in the central portion the romantic scenes which frame it were very movingly directed. At the end of the act, as the Marschallin lies sobbing silently in her bed, the lighting in the room becomes dimmed and autumnal, and this evocation of day changing to night and of summer becoming autumn intimated in its understated way a death scene.
Act II is difficult to direct because it climaxes so early musically and the rest seems like tedious working out. Unfortunately, the set hardly changed although the location had, which meant it was visually fairly boring, and McVicar failed to make the action characterful enough for it not to drag. The presentation of the Rose was at least well handled, and with such a large cast watching from onstage, and such restrained action from both of the young lovers, one was really drawn into these characters trying to contain their rapture and ecstasy in such an embarrassingly public space.
The farce of the third act was great, largely due to John Tomlinson, and meant it hardly dragged at all. Unfortunately again the set had hardly changed meaning that the Marschallin's bedroom turned out to be little different from a room in a brothel. Maybe McVicar was trying to show the moral equivalency of the three social classes here, but I don't think so. Hmm. Though the Marschallin's entrance was commanding, I found the final trio strangely underwhelming both dramatically and musically.
This brings me on to the biggest problem with this production: The ENO. The problems are two fold. First, the Coliseum. The acoustics are just awful, and in this of all works you need a combination of detail and power for it to make its impact. Both of these things were lacking here and what emerged from the pit was a sort of hazy, pasteley, mezzo-piano mush. I had an excellent seat (row B of the Dress circle), so it wasn't the famously terrible boxyness of the large overhangs. At first I thought it might have been the fault of Edward Gardner with the ENO orchestra who seemed to be holding everything on a leash, but I think it was as much to do with the building as anything. It's impossible to be enveloped in the sound in there.
The second problem is that it is sung in English. I've complained about this before, but again, in this of all works, the marriage of text and music is one of the most beautiful in all of opera, and to divorce them is to lose something fundamental to its appeal. Though this translation is a good one as far as it can be, it has not one tenth of the beauty of Hofmannsthal's original German. And though I speak German, even for someone who doesn't understand German I think this is an issue: the way that Strauss uses the language, the rhythm of the speech, the colours of the words and contours of each phrase, these things are all compromised so heavily as to be disfiguring when sung in translation and a very significant part of the beauty of the work is lost.*
Before I attended this, I was very worried about Amanda Roocroft's Marschallin after the highly uneven singing I witnessed from her at the ROH last year in Peter Grimes. Here things were more under control, though we weren't treated to the luxury silk on velvet that we have come to expect from singers in this role. Her acting was largely good, though in her Act I monologue she was singing it to the audience too much - we are meant to feel that we are witnessing an extremely intimate moment of reflection and self doubt - the drama needs to be internal and draw us in, rather than presented to us as if she really is talking to an audience, even imagined. Sarah Connolly is a good Octavian, though I can't trumpet her like others seem to - the voice is a little mature sounding and she seems a bit too commanding as a man - the vulnerability that we might expect in a 17 year old just isn't there. Sophie Bevan I thought sounded a little dark for her role - this is the apogee of silvery soubrette roles, it needs to be effortless and girlish and shimmering. She can certainly sing the notes though, but I think she might be better cast in something else (Donna Elvira? Gluck? Handel?)
The role of Ochs is one of the lowest and highest of all Bass roles, and John Tomlinson barely made it at either end of the tessitura. But the middle is still firm and powerful, and he is a superb actor - absolutely inhabiting this role, he brings to Ochs a tremendous energy and vitality that make him almost too likable - certainly the most likable Ochs I've ever witnessed! A joy to see him as ever, despite the vocal wear. The many lesser roles were mostly well taken, though Gwyn Hughes Jones was a horribly forced and nasal sounding Italian tenor.
All in all then, not the most enjoyable outing of this lovely work, and not quite worth it for its defects. But it was nice to see it just before Figaro at the ROH and so soon after Meistersinger.
*The ENO will, for the first time do an opera in it's original language in three years time - Ariadne Auf Naxos with the prologue in English and the Opera in German - so there is hope!!! I know so many people who actively avoid the ENO mainly because of the English singing. I really think it's one of the things which holds them back. I don't know anyone who likes going because it's in English.
Der Rosenkavalier is one of my favourite operas, but it is also one of the most problematic operas in the standard repertoire, and I do not love it uncritically. On the whole this is top drawer Strauss, one of the most vital and brilliant scores that he ever wrote, allied to one of the finest librettos of any opera. There is so much to love - the classic bits that are often excerpted (the Act I monologue, Act II presentation of the Rose, Act III trio and duet) are amongst the most gorgeous set pieces in opera since Mozart. It is, like its predecessors in Strauss' oeuvre, meticulously crafted, millions of notes splurged across hundreds of pages of score, the whole an unbelievably opulent and ravishingly beautiful aural tapestry which glows with a genuine warmth and a saccharine beauty that Strauss never quite equaled in his other operas. As always his orchestration is absolutely masterful, never misjudged, the breathtakingly beautiful instrumentatations as apt for the aching harmonies as Salome's frothing counterpoint was for the sexually febrile phantasmagoria of that work. Der Rosenkavalier is however about an hour too long, or rather, there is an hour of music in it which is second or even third rate - principally the middle of act II, and beginning of Act III - where Strauss slips into notespinning and dross, and I have never seen a production which has been able to save the audience from these appalling languors. It is an operetta story, given a Wagnerian musicdrama treatment both in the music and in the libretto so whilst it certainly goes further and deeper than any operetta of this period, it also can't quite support it's own massive, glutinous weight.
As already mentioned, the libretto is superb, with Hofmannsthal delighting in providing providing endless "period" details, both actual and from the stage of the time it was set (Marie Therese's Vienna of the 1740s) culled from diaries, his beloved Moliere (from which sprung the later Ariadne auf Naxos also), commedia dell'arte, traditional farce, Beaumarchais and seemingly a hundred other sources to create a complete and vivid Vienna that never existed. This sentimental nostalgia for some notion of "old Vienna" was very common at this time in Viennese culture, even amongst forward looking modern writers and thinkers like Hofmannsthal. That he should be so interested in accurate period detail is fascinating when the overarching concerns of the piece are so clearly contemporary to his time. The plight of women, the atmosphere of sexual infidelities of his time, the ending of old empires in decadence and decay and the rise of the middle classes, the breaking down of class barriers - these were all highly pertinent issues in Vienna in 1909.
One particularly piquant source of inspiration for Hofmannsthal is Hogarth's Marriage a-La-Mode series. Piquant because it is Strauss' polar opposite, Stravinsky, with his own genius librettist, Auden, who also looked to Hogarth to produce their own 18th century pastiche, with such different results.
Anyone who knows the first act of Rosenkavalier well will have fun spotting the number of details Hofmannsthal culled from the above Hogarth. Even the sexual tones of the act are here (though only implicitly): the paintings on the walls all depict scenes of biblical seduction. Elements of act II derive from another of this series.
Operatically then, what are the precedents? Most obvious is Beaumarchais via Mozart and Da Ponte in Le Nozze di Figaro - in fact it was Strauss' initial idea to produce a modern Figaro. The parallels between the Countess and the Marschallin are clear - she is trapped in wedlock to a husband who has ceased to love her and though saddened she is not embittered and remains noble and strong. Dramatically too she functions similarly in the piece: she has the most beautiful music and adds a seriousness and wistful melancholia to the work, though in the earlier work the quasi-sexual undertones to the relationship that she has with her young (travesti) Godson are only hinted at rather than explicit. The passionately impulsive, confused young man played by a woman, who then dresses up as a woman is also an idea Hofmannsthal takes from the earlier piece, though is a classic element of Viennese farce and adds curious elements of sexual ambiguity (and sexual frisson) to proceedings. But the character of the Marschallin also derives from Wagner's Hans Sachs - her reflective monologues on the subject of aging and the passing of time and also her relinquishing of a younger lover. Both are amongst the most moving and complete characters that these two composers created, and are a gift for talented performers.
This is the first revival of David McVicar's 2008 production for the ENO. It's all very traditional looking, with crinolines, lace and chandeliers, so traditionalists need not be afraid. The set is appropriately grand, but not overdetailed, and looks like a palace in the first stages of disrepair - the Marschallin is reflected in her surroundings. Act I was well paced, and if there wasn't quite enough bustle in the central portion the romantic scenes which frame it were very movingly directed. At the end of the act, as the Marschallin lies sobbing silently in her bed, the lighting in the room becomes dimmed and autumnal, and this evocation of day changing to night and of summer becoming autumn intimated in its understated way a death scene.
Act II is difficult to direct because it climaxes so early musically and the rest seems like tedious working out. Unfortunately, the set hardly changed although the location had, which meant it was visually fairly boring, and McVicar failed to make the action characterful enough for it not to drag. The presentation of the Rose was at least well handled, and with such a large cast watching from onstage, and such restrained action from both of the young lovers, one was really drawn into these characters trying to contain their rapture and ecstasy in such an embarrassingly public space.
The farce of the third act was great, largely due to John Tomlinson, and meant it hardly dragged at all. Unfortunately again the set had hardly changed meaning that the Marschallin's bedroom turned out to be little different from a room in a brothel. Maybe McVicar was trying to show the moral equivalency of the three social classes here, but I don't think so. Hmm. Though the Marschallin's entrance was commanding, I found the final trio strangely underwhelming both dramatically and musically.
This brings me on to the biggest problem with this production: The ENO. The problems are two fold. First, the Coliseum. The acoustics are just awful, and in this of all works you need a combination of detail and power for it to make its impact. Both of these things were lacking here and what emerged from the pit was a sort of hazy, pasteley, mezzo-piano mush. I had an excellent seat (row B of the Dress circle), so it wasn't the famously terrible boxyness of the large overhangs. At first I thought it might have been the fault of Edward Gardner with the ENO orchestra who seemed to be holding everything on a leash, but I think it was as much to do with the building as anything. It's impossible to be enveloped in the sound in there.
The second problem is that it is sung in English. I've complained about this before, but again, in this of all works, the marriage of text and music is one of the most beautiful in all of opera, and to divorce them is to lose something fundamental to its appeal. Though this translation is a good one as far as it can be, it has not one tenth of the beauty of Hofmannsthal's original German. And though I speak German, even for someone who doesn't understand German I think this is an issue: the way that Strauss uses the language, the rhythm of the speech, the colours of the words and contours of each phrase, these things are all compromised so heavily as to be disfiguring when sung in translation and a very significant part of the beauty of the work is lost.*
Before I attended this, I was very worried about Amanda Roocroft's Marschallin after the highly uneven singing I witnessed from her at the ROH last year in Peter Grimes. Here things were more under control, though we weren't treated to the luxury silk on velvet that we have come to expect from singers in this role. Her acting was largely good, though in her Act I monologue she was singing it to the audience too much - we are meant to feel that we are witnessing an extremely intimate moment of reflection and self doubt - the drama needs to be internal and draw us in, rather than presented to us as if she really is talking to an audience, even imagined. Sarah Connolly is a good Octavian, though I can't trumpet her like others seem to - the voice is a little mature sounding and she seems a bit too commanding as a man - the vulnerability that we might expect in a 17 year old just isn't there. Sophie Bevan I thought sounded a little dark for her role - this is the apogee of silvery soubrette roles, it needs to be effortless and girlish and shimmering. She can certainly sing the notes though, but I think she might be better cast in something else (Donna Elvira? Gluck? Handel?)
The role of Ochs is one of the lowest and highest of all Bass roles, and John Tomlinson barely made it at either end of the tessitura. But the middle is still firm and powerful, and he is a superb actor - absolutely inhabiting this role, he brings to Ochs a tremendous energy and vitality that make him almost too likable - certainly the most likable Ochs I've ever witnessed! A joy to see him as ever, despite the vocal wear. The many lesser roles were mostly well taken, though Gwyn Hughes Jones was a horribly forced and nasal sounding Italian tenor.
All in all then, not the most enjoyable outing of this lovely work, and not quite worth it for its defects. But it was nice to see it just before Figaro at the ROH and so soon after Meistersinger.
*The ENO will, for the first time do an opera in it's original language in three years time - Ariadne Auf Naxos with the prologue in English and the Opera in German - so there is hope!!! I know so many people who actively avoid the ENO mainly because of the English singing. I really think it's one of the things which holds them back. I don't know anyone who likes going because it's in English.
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