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.
Showing posts with label Wozzeck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wozzeck. Show all posts
Saturday, 2 November 2013
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Wozzeck at the ENO
13/05/13
If there is one essential 20th century opera, it is Wozzeck*. It was fascinating to see and hear it so soon after the WNO's Lulu last month (see the review for my thoughts on the piece) and be reminded of how different it is. In Lulu there is a floating meaningless to everything, a dislocation of emotion, music, event; Wozzeck is overloaded with meaning, portents, extreme emotional and psychological states, such that madness is the only rational recourse. The music of Wozzeck glowers, exalts, soughs, weeps, screams; the music of Lulu unfurls, luxuriates, courses, throbs, coruscates. Both are supreme masterpieces, but why is Wozzeck essential? To me it seems one of the few genuinely positive developments from Wagner which fully captures the zeitgeist, in an era of kitsch, schlock, sleaze, bad taste, sentimentality, shock tactics - Strauss, Schreker, Korngold, much as I love them all (really I do), represent a decline from Wagnerism, doubtless fertile and with boundless energy, but nevertheless a collapsing end to Teutonism where extraordinary beauty of surface, infallible technique and guiltless vulgarity conspire to make a style of total excess that simply cannot support itself indefinitely. On the other side, and very closely related in my opinion, is Schoenberg who after his equally luxuriant beginnings, and wonderful early "free atonal" modernism, castrates himself in the 20s by eschewing beauty, colour, pleasure and it's left to others who also adopt serialism to reclaim these aspects of music, which it transpires are essential to the meaning, not just the style, of music. In Wozzeck, Berg builds something new and very powerful that really has not been seen in music before - using an 80 year old text, he manages to portray madness, human frailty, alienation, sickness, and extremes of psychology on stage using a musical language and dramatic framework that can for once totally bear the requirements of the task.
Carrie Cracknell updates the piece to contemporary Britain, the working classes dealing with the fall out of the Iraq (?) war. For once the physical and visual aspects of a production actually manage to capture modern Britain with honesty, realism, and mercifully without the feeling of "playing at poverty". The set is a sort of dolls house arrangement with a pub at the bottom, Wozzeck's house on the second floor, and a mysteriously unused top floor. Despite the static layout, it never bores visually and provides an excellent backdrop for Cracknell's idea. Cracknell takes the drama deadly seriously, not making light of anything, trying always to lead us through the tortured narrative with maximum clarity and relevance. Some things are superbly handled - Marie's infidelity, the crowd scenes, Wozzeck's mental fragmentation, and his death. In the original, Wozzeck drowns possibly as an accident because he is concerned with hiding the knife that he has killed Marie with. Here, the whole scene takes place in his kitchen, the situation entirely enacted in his mind, and he commits suicide using the same knife, slumping onto the table facing the already murdered Marie. At this moment, the walls begin to run with blood. I left the theatre shaken and physically sick, wanting to cry but being unable to. Berg's genius was surely the main constituent, but any production that manages to allow this to happen must surely be deemed to be an overall success.
There are problems however. The huge number of nature references in the libretto, go as for nothing. In Wozzeck, Nature is imminent, terrifying, loaded with significance, full of bad portents, all of them are true. While it is true that society in our time very alienated from nature, and so it would be out of place to depict much of it on stage, the text is the text, and to ignore it because your setting doesn't allow it, even if it is a prime ingredient of the drama, seems to me to be an eschewal of responsibility. The bigger problem however derives from a certain inauthenticity in depicting modern working class Britain. As I say, visually the illusion is complete, but Richard Stokes' translation of the libretto retains the classical references and sometimes artful language of the original, and everyone insists on using (or perhaps were forced to use) the ENO's generic "proper English" diction, which is broadly BBC English. It just doesn't ring true. At the same time, Americanisms (e.g. asshole, rather than arsehole) sit beside old fashioned grammatical constructions. Marie's recourse to Christianity seems unlikely in an age where religion has been replaced by mass media. There's also a spurious and slightly confusing drug dealing subplot which didn't really add anything beyond giving the characters something to do on stage. There are always challenges to an updating, but it would have been better art if the ENO had been braver in allowing the concept to lead the translation and accents, especially as English is a language so particularly laden with class implications. It all made me wonder what a Regency Wozzeck would look like. What about one set in the upper classes of that time? Is poverty essential to the drama? Would be fascinating to find out.
Leigh Melrose is a vocally excellent Wozzeck, fully managing the huge range of expression and intensity that the character requires vocally. Acting wise, I found it a mixed bag - he was very good in the latter, madder half of the opera, often very touching, but at first was not very believable and registered as the least defined character that we were introduced to.
With the caveat that it was sung in English, I really cannot imagine a more vocally ideal Marie than Sara Jakubiak. The voice is beautiful in every register at every volume, and sounds positively large even in the Coliseum, which is basically unheard of (pun not intended). I am greatly looking forward to seeing Karita Mattila perform the same role at the ROH next season, but honestly would be as happy hearing Jakubiak. Same would go for the ROH Ariadne actually. I couldn't quite believe how good she was. Acting wise, she was unfortunately less convincing and in the early scenes would continually just sing straight at the audience rather than to her son/Wozzeck/lover. Again though, she improved as the opera progressed.
The rest of the cast are also vocally very good. Tom Randle's bare chested Captain is brilliantly characterised, and James Morris' impressive Doctor quite horrible in his fascination with and clear exacerbation of Wozzeck's madness. Clare Presland's Margret revealed a voice of unique colour, and Bryan Register's Drum Major is a brilliant physical embodiment of the part (though provides the most jarring dislocation of accent and character).
The orchestra is a marvel. This is in my opinion one of the best things that Ed Gardner has done: his passionate advocacy shines through in every bar, his tempos always excellent, his support of the singers exemplary, and even in the horribly pallid acoustics of the Coliseum, every one of Berg's extraordinary orchestrations emerges beautiful, glistening, wilting under its own overwrought intensity and density. At some points it felt like we were hearing Mahler's 11th Symphony, and there were places that I just have never heard Berg's textures so tellingly or beautifully revealed. Had this been in the ROH's acoustic it would have been aural perfection. The orchestra of course are at least half the deal here - the playing was simply superb throughout. A sterling achievement.
*I would also urge the four mature Janacek operas as the sane, moral, healthy counterweight to Berg's masterpiece, but would be loathe to choose just one. Maybe Vixen for the greatest contrast?
If there is one essential 20th century opera, it is Wozzeck*. It was fascinating to see and hear it so soon after the WNO's Lulu last month (see the review for my thoughts on the piece) and be reminded of how different it is. In Lulu there is a floating meaningless to everything, a dislocation of emotion, music, event; Wozzeck is overloaded with meaning, portents, extreme emotional and psychological states, such that madness is the only rational recourse. The music of Wozzeck glowers, exalts, soughs, weeps, screams; the music of Lulu unfurls, luxuriates, courses, throbs, coruscates. Both are supreme masterpieces, but why is Wozzeck essential? To me it seems one of the few genuinely positive developments from Wagner which fully captures the zeitgeist, in an era of kitsch, schlock, sleaze, bad taste, sentimentality, shock tactics - Strauss, Schreker, Korngold, much as I love them all (really I do), represent a decline from Wagnerism, doubtless fertile and with boundless energy, but nevertheless a collapsing end to Teutonism where extraordinary beauty of surface, infallible technique and guiltless vulgarity conspire to make a style of total excess that simply cannot support itself indefinitely. On the other side, and very closely related in my opinion, is Schoenberg who after his equally luxuriant beginnings, and wonderful early "free atonal" modernism, castrates himself in the 20s by eschewing beauty, colour, pleasure and it's left to others who also adopt serialism to reclaim these aspects of music, which it transpires are essential to the meaning, not just the style, of music. In Wozzeck, Berg builds something new and very powerful that really has not been seen in music before - using an 80 year old text, he manages to portray madness, human frailty, alienation, sickness, and extremes of psychology on stage using a musical language and dramatic framework that can for once totally bear the requirements of the task.
Carrie Cracknell updates the piece to contemporary Britain, the working classes dealing with the fall out of the Iraq (?) war. For once the physical and visual aspects of a production actually manage to capture modern Britain with honesty, realism, and mercifully without the feeling of "playing at poverty". The set is a sort of dolls house arrangement with a pub at the bottom, Wozzeck's house on the second floor, and a mysteriously unused top floor. Despite the static layout, it never bores visually and provides an excellent backdrop for Cracknell's idea. Cracknell takes the drama deadly seriously, not making light of anything, trying always to lead us through the tortured narrative with maximum clarity and relevance. Some things are superbly handled - Marie's infidelity, the crowd scenes, Wozzeck's mental fragmentation, and his death. In the original, Wozzeck drowns possibly as an accident because he is concerned with hiding the knife that he has killed Marie with. Here, the whole scene takes place in his kitchen, the situation entirely enacted in his mind, and he commits suicide using the same knife, slumping onto the table facing the already murdered Marie. At this moment, the walls begin to run with blood. I left the theatre shaken and physically sick, wanting to cry but being unable to. Berg's genius was surely the main constituent, but any production that manages to allow this to happen must surely be deemed to be an overall success.
There are problems however. The huge number of nature references in the libretto, go as for nothing. In Wozzeck, Nature is imminent, terrifying, loaded with significance, full of bad portents, all of them are true. While it is true that society in our time very alienated from nature, and so it would be out of place to depict much of it on stage, the text is the text, and to ignore it because your setting doesn't allow it, even if it is a prime ingredient of the drama, seems to me to be an eschewal of responsibility. The bigger problem however derives from a certain inauthenticity in depicting modern working class Britain. As I say, visually the illusion is complete, but Richard Stokes' translation of the libretto retains the classical references and sometimes artful language of the original, and everyone insists on using (or perhaps were forced to use) the ENO's generic "proper English" diction, which is broadly BBC English. It just doesn't ring true. At the same time, Americanisms (e.g. asshole, rather than arsehole) sit beside old fashioned grammatical constructions. Marie's recourse to Christianity seems unlikely in an age where religion has been replaced by mass media. There's also a spurious and slightly confusing drug dealing subplot which didn't really add anything beyond giving the characters something to do on stage. There are always challenges to an updating, but it would have been better art if the ENO had been braver in allowing the concept to lead the translation and accents, especially as English is a language so particularly laden with class implications. It all made me wonder what a Regency Wozzeck would look like. What about one set in the upper classes of that time? Is poverty essential to the drama? Would be fascinating to find out.
Leigh Melrose is a vocally excellent Wozzeck, fully managing the huge range of expression and intensity that the character requires vocally. Acting wise, I found it a mixed bag - he was very good in the latter, madder half of the opera, often very touching, but at first was not very believable and registered as the least defined character that we were introduced to.
With the caveat that it was sung in English, I really cannot imagine a more vocally ideal Marie than Sara Jakubiak. The voice is beautiful in every register at every volume, and sounds positively large even in the Coliseum, which is basically unheard of (pun not intended). I am greatly looking forward to seeing Karita Mattila perform the same role at the ROH next season, but honestly would be as happy hearing Jakubiak. Same would go for the ROH Ariadne actually. I couldn't quite believe how good she was. Acting wise, she was unfortunately less convincing and in the early scenes would continually just sing straight at the audience rather than to her son/Wozzeck/lover. Again though, she improved as the opera progressed.
The rest of the cast are also vocally very good. Tom Randle's bare chested Captain is brilliantly characterised, and James Morris' impressive Doctor quite horrible in his fascination with and clear exacerbation of Wozzeck's madness. Clare Presland's Margret revealed a voice of unique colour, and Bryan Register's Drum Major is a brilliant physical embodiment of the part (though provides the most jarring dislocation of accent and character).
The orchestra is a marvel. This is in my opinion one of the best things that Ed Gardner has done: his passionate advocacy shines through in every bar, his tempos always excellent, his support of the singers exemplary, and even in the horribly pallid acoustics of the Coliseum, every one of Berg's extraordinary orchestrations emerges beautiful, glistening, wilting under its own overwrought intensity and density. At some points it felt like we were hearing Mahler's 11th Symphony, and there were places that I just have never heard Berg's textures so tellingly or beautifully revealed. Had this been in the ROH's acoustic it would have been aural perfection. The orchestra of course are at least half the deal here - the playing was simply superb throughout. A sterling achievement.
*I would also urge the four mature Janacek operas as the sane, moral, healthy counterweight to Berg's masterpiece, but would be loathe to choose just one. Maybe Vixen for the greatest contrast?
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