Showing posts with label Ariadne Auf Naxos. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ariadne Auf Naxos. Show all posts
Sunday, 26 May 2013
Ariadne auf Naxos at Glyndebourne: take 2
25/05/13
I don't often go to a show twice, but in the past few months I have revisited a few - the RAM Onegin, the ROH Don Carlos, the ENO Wozzeck and this Glyndebourne Ariadne, each excellent in its own way. I am very glad to have seen this Ariadne again - the second viewing brought a better performance from all the leads, and it confirmed to me everything that I had written in my first review - namely that this is one of the best pieces of Regie theatre that I have seen, and probably the best production of Ariadne auf Naxos that I have experienced. Read my first review to find out why.
This time, the Prologue flowed better musically I thought, Jurowski building more momentum and leaving the players more room to breathe. The orchestra sounded simply magnificent in the main opera, with Jurowski's fleet pacing more controlled, as well as greater confidence in the orchestral playing resulting in an even more convinving and beautiful reading than the already extremely impressive first night.
Soile Isokoski's Ariadne was more steady and beautiful this time, as was Sergey Skorokhodov's Bacchus who was still coughing but sang quite magnificently in the finale with a beautiful ringing tone - he can surely only improve as he returns to full health. Laura Claycomb's Zerbinetta is really a very good interpretation - this is Strauss singing to get very, very excited about - again it's the great legato, musicality, and controlled pliancy that sets her apart from her colleagues who currently interpret this role - it's a rare thing when the big show-piece aria doesn't just dazzle, but is musically satisfying and moving too. The nymphs and dance troupe were again very impressive, and far more exciting than usual.
Sunday, 19 May 2013
Ariadne auf Naxos auf Glyndebourne
18/05/13
This was the first opera of the Glyndebourne 2013 season, and what a magnificent start. Amazingly, the last time Glyndebourne staged Ariadne auf Naxos was in 1981, surprising because it seems such an ideal work for the house. Director Katharina Thoma seems to realise this connection and sets it in a English country house during the Second World War, where a rich gentleman has decided to put on an opera in his house (therefore mirroring the early Glyndebourne story). The Prologue sees the participants struggling to get the entertainment together as usual (except we see the guests taking a turn on the lawn) but somehow it falls a bit flat - Jurowski is tentative with his orchestra, the jokes are laboured, and the dramatic arc doesn't ignite fully (though the love duet is beautifully intimate). But in the chaos of the end ("Was ist das? Wohin?") a bomb is dropped on the house, and everyone rushes to safety - the entertainment is cancelled, and the Composer is distraught that real life has so painfully and mercilessly intervened with his ideals.*
The opera proper is superb though. Ariadne's scenes are difficult to stage because her drama is an internal drama - as Strauss realised immediately (we know from the letters), Hofmannsthal did not manage to invent a dramatically vivid reflection of the symbolism (nevertheless a beautiful poetic and intellectual idea), and so the meaning of the piece remains not fully realised in the final work. That said however, I have never seen Hofmannsthal's central idea so brilliantly or movingly put forward, nor have I ever been moved to care about the characters so much (my passion for the piece has thus far been largely for the wonders of the score). With the entertainment cancelled, the "opera" second act is instead turned into a real discussion between Zerbinetta and Ariadne (Ariadne, it transpires, is simply the name of "The Soprano" from the Prologue.) The country house has been converted into a hospital ward (which is historically accurate), with Ariadne a resident and Dryad, Echo and Naiad the nurses. So the piece becomes not so much a disputation of high/low art (though that is implicit in the music), and not even just about love, but about attitudes to life in the face of adversity - be it abandonment, death, war. Maybe the single common thread of Hofmannsthal's work is the conflict in life between staying principled and true to your ideals (Ariadne) in the face of life's flux, change and the constant ineluctable and mysterious transformation that we find in ourselves (Zerbinetta). Ariadne is a real woman shattered by her abandonment (we might infer that Theseus may actually have been killed in the war), but Zerbinetta explains that life must go on, and besides there's so much fun and fulfilment to be had. This attitude to love/the erotic is mirrored in the entire Commedia dell'arte troupe's attitude to the war - they dance with the residents and generally muck around in the face of the horrors of war - making do, laughing because the only other option is tears.
I've never been so convinced by Zerbinetta as a real flesh and blood character - Laura Claycomb lives and breathes her ethos of enjoyment, flux, change without resorting to shallowness - the emotions and pleasures are real, they just also happen to be fleeting. Her imploring of Ariadne to change is for once heartfelt, and her subsequent saucy antics convincing and non pornographic (that is, emphatically not for show) - her Joie de vivre, joyous sexual freedom, generosity of spirit, and warm heartedness are all palpable in every gesture. The sense of jealousy that the others feel when she finally chooses her man from the Comedy troupe is also keen and sad - we see the cost of freedom, and the deceptions we tell ourselves about why we are not more romantically successful are laid very bare. Hofmannsthal's beautiful language resonates fully at every turn - the positive effect of a German director who really understands the words? What a shame then that the surtitles are so poorly translated - often not just clumsily, but incorrectly - a rare lapse on Glyndebourne's part, particularly painful in the circumstances when for once text, music and drama are working so well in accord.
When Ariadne returns she is ready for death. Bacchus is just a man (as he keeps telling her) but notices that she is a very distraught and tortured woman. His simple act of total empathy for a fellow human being is enough to save her from her despair and begin the process of transformation and recovery for her. His potentially cheesy words "Dann sterben eher die ewigen Sterne, Als dass du stürbest aus meinen Armen!" (roughly "The eternal stars will die before I'd let you die in my arms") have never been more touching, meant or hopeful. And through her transformation and blossoming into love, he, against his own expectations, is also is transformed in love - he has found solace from war in providing comfort and showing love for another human being.
This all sounds very high minded, but in Thoma's production, at every point the symbolic meaning hits home and becomes moving on a human level. Though laughs were effortful in the Prologue, the thoughtful character regie and attention to detail in the main opera means that it is consistently amusing, poignant, gripping. I mean, the three nymphs as nurses sounds twee and sort of filled me with dread when I first saw it, but it just works so well. Thoma also takes very careful notice of the score - the mood, tempo and texture - and closely matches it with actions and visuals. Such a rare thing to see done well.
Musically things are very good indeed. Conductor Vladimir Jurowski, in his final season as Glyndebourne's musical director, shows once again why he will be so sorely missed. As I said, the Prologue felt undernourished and lacked momentum, but once we got to the Opera proper, Jurowski presented us with a treasure trove of delights. I haven't heard it felt so convincingly to be a "chamber opera" as in his hands, and the "numbers" so well integrated into the dramatic whole - the thing rolls forward with a pellucid lightness and a refreshing, vernal beauty, sections melting into each other, the contrast between the seria and buffa sections wonderfully hazy. It's a great achievement and just as the production made me see the drama anew, the conducting and playing made me hear the music anew. The binding of aural and dramatic aesthetics is total.
The cast is very strong. Soile Isokoski is a far more moving and engaged actress than I thought she would be, having read many of her previous reviews in other roles. She is fully in the line of silvery, shimmery Ariadnes - the Lisa Della Casa school if you will. The voice is not quite in its prime any more, but is still very beautiful indeed, and after some slightly spread top notes in her opening scena, she got better and better, and in the final duet produced some glorious singing. Ariadne is role that has frequent excursions beneath the stave, and I was pleasantly surprised at how matched Isokoski's chest voice was to the rest of her instrument- it's not particularly rich, but it is very present and well integrated.
As already mentioned Laura Claycomb embodies Zerbinetta very movingly too, but vocally she is also excellent. It's not always the most effortlessly beautiful voice, but the legato is simply superb, and her musicianship gives her singing a great beauty and expressivity. The very highest notes (all those E6s!) are a little harsh, but it's a small price to pay when the rest is so good: generally the voice is warm, pliant, the coloratura accurate and smooth. Kate Lindsey is a pleasing Composer (both her first time in the role and like the other principal women, her first time at Glyndebourne), possessing a very rounded, well integrated sound with a beautiful soprano like top. She acts the part well. Often the timbre is so shiny and rounded that the diction suffers, and the voice is perhaps a shade small in the climaxes but this is a lovely début.
There are no really weak links in the rest of the cast. The nymphs' music appears as a particular musical highlight (usually such a bore!), very richly and beautifully dispatched by Ana Maria Labin, Adriana Di Paola, and Gabriela Istoc, and their acting is great. Thomas Allen is his usual best as the Music Master, the four comedians (Dmitri Vargin, James Kryshak, Torben Jurgens, Andrew Stenson) better integrated and also more beautiful sounding than the usual character singers we get in these roles. The big one I haven't mentioned is Sergey Skorokhodov in the thanklessly difficult and demanding role of Bacchus. He really wasn't bad for most of it, but by the final phrases he was clearly ailing, coughing once between phrases (was he ill?), and not quite managing to get to the end with all engines blazing. Still, there's plenty to admire in his singing, and one hopes he will improve throughout the run as he acclimatises to the role.
You'll notice that I use the phrase "never before" a lot in this review, because so many things are revelatory in this production. Overall then a brilliant start to the season, and I cannot wait to see Falstaff next Friday.
EDIT: Mark Berry @Boulezian, who takes a diametrically opposed view in his assessment of this staging in his review, raises concerns that Thoma raises some laughs by using Zerbinetta's supposed mental illness as fodder (and further also suggested on twitter: "Misogyny of Thoma's Ariadne: woman sings high notes, therefore 'mad', thus molest and straitjacket her, therefore she is fodder for hilarity"). Tim Ashley at the Guardian makes related allusions. This would obviously be very serious and offensive if it were the case whether intentional or accidental, but I must register my disagreement with this analysis. To me, the fussy nurses are not "the voice of Thoma", but the "voice of conformity and prudishness". They don't know how to deal with a woman who is so unbeholden and enjoys/understands her sexuality so thoroughly, and seeing the world through 1940s medical eyes, attempt to straight-jacket and sedate her (all brilliantly choreographed and sensitive to the changes in the music in my opinion) - but she's not held down for long and soon escapes to have fun with her men again - there's was no sense at all I thought that Zerbinetta was either a) genuinely mentally ill, or b) being disapproved of by the production as a whole (indeed, quite the opposite). Opinions will vary of course, and everyone will interpret what they see from a different perspective, but I was so surprised at this analysis, that I just had to write my "version of events".
*disturbingly, lots of audience members guffawed when the bomb was dropped, and chuckles were also heard when a patient had to be sedated because he was spasming in his sleep in the aftermath of some unspeakable horror. I couldn't quite believe it.
This was the first opera of the Glyndebourne 2013 season, and what a magnificent start. Amazingly, the last time Glyndebourne staged Ariadne auf Naxos was in 1981, surprising because it seems such an ideal work for the house. Director Katharina Thoma seems to realise this connection and sets it in a English country house during the Second World War, where a rich gentleman has decided to put on an opera in his house (therefore mirroring the early Glyndebourne story). The Prologue sees the participants struggling to get the entertainment together as usual (except we see the guests taking a turn on the lawn) but somehow it falls a bit flat - Jurowski is tentative with his orchestra, the jokes are laboured, and the dramatic arc doesn't ignite fully (though the love duet is beautifully intimate). But in the chaos of the end ("Was ist das? Wohin?") a bomb is dropped on the house, and everyone rushes to safety - the entertainment is cancelled, and the Composer is distraught that real life has so painfully and mercilessly intervened with his ideals.*
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| all photos (c) Alastair Muir |
The opera proper is superb though. Ariadne's scenes are difficult to stage because her drama is an internal drama - as Strauss realised immediately (we know from the letters), Hofmannsthal did not manage to invent a dramatically vivid reflection of the symbolism (nevertheless a beautiful poetic and intellectual idea), and so the meaning of the piece remains not fully realised in the final work. That said however, I have never seen Hofmannsthal's central idea so brilliantly or movingly put forward, nor have I ever been moved to care about the characters so much (my passion for the piece has thus far been largely for the wonders of the score). With the entertainment cancelled, the "opera" second act is instead turned into a real discussion between Zerbinetta and Ariadne (Ariadne, it transpires, is simply the name of "The Soprano" from the Prologue.) The country house has been converted into a hospital ward (which is historically accurate), with Ariadne a resident and Dryad, Echo and Naiad the nurses. So the piece becomes not so much a disputation of high/low art (though that is implicit in the music), and not even just about love, but about attitudes to life in the face of adversity - be it abandonment, death, war. Maybe the single common thread of Hofmannsthal's work is the conflict in life between staying principled and true to your ideals (Ariadne) in the face of life's flux, change and the constant ineluctable and mysterious transformation that we find in ourselves (Zerbinetta). Ariadne is a real woman shattered by her abandonment (we might infer that Theseus may actually have been killed in the war), but Zerbinetta explains that life must go on, and besides there's so much fun and fulfilment to be had. This attitude to love/the erotic is mirrored in the entire Commedia dell'arte troupe's attitude to the war - they dance with the residents and generally muck around in the face of the horrors of war - making do, laughing because the only other option is tears.
When Ariadne returns she is ready for death. Bacchus is just a man (as he keeps telling her) but notices that she is a very distraught and tortured woman. His simple act of total empathy for a fellow human being is enough to save her from her despair and begin the process of transformation and recovery for her. His potentially cheesy words "Dann sterben eher die ewigen Sterne, Als dass du stürbest aus meinen Armen!" (roughly "The eternal stars will die before I'd let you die in my arms") have never been more touching, meant or hopeful. And through her transformation and blossoming into love, he, against his own expectations, is also is transformed in love - he has found solace from war in providing comfort and showing love for another human being.This all sounds very high minded, but in Thoma's production, at every point the symbolic meaning hits home and becomes moving on a human level. Though laughs were effortful in the Prologue, the thoughtful character regie and attention to detail in the main opera means that it is consistently amusing, poignant, gripping. I mean, the three nymphs as nurses sounds twee and sort of filled me with dread when I first saw it, but it just works so well. Thoma also takes very careful notice of the score - the mood, tempo and texture - and closely matches it with actions and visuals. Such a rare thing to see done well.
Musically things are very good indeed. Conductor Vladimir Jurowski, in his final season as Glyndebourne's musical director, shows once again why he will be so sorely missed. As I said, the Prologue felt undernourished and lacked momentum, but once we got to the Opera proper, Jurowski presented us with a treasure trove of delights. I haven't heard it felt so convincingly to be a "chamber opera" as in his hands, and the "numbers" so well integrated into the dramatic whole - the thing rolls forward with a pellucid lightness and a refreshing, vernal beauty, sections melting into each other, the contrast between the seria and buffa sections wonderfully hazy. It's a great achievement and just as the production made me see the drama anew, the conducting and playing made me hear the music anew. The binding of aural and dramatic aesthetics is total.
The cast is very strong. Soile Isokoski is a far more moving and engaged actress than I thought she would be, having read many of her previous reviews in other roles. She is fully in the line of silvery, shimmery Ariadnes - the Lisa Della Casa school if you will. The voice is not quite in its prime any more, but is still very beautiful indeed, and after some slightly spread top notes in her opening scena, she got better and better, and in the final duet produced some glorious singing. Ariadne is role that has frequent excursions beneath the stave, and I was pleasantly surprised at how matched Isokoski's chest voice was to the rest of her instrument- it's not particularly rich, but it is very present and well integrated.
As already mentioned Laura Claycomb embodies Zerbinetta very movingly too, but vocally she is also excellent. It's not always the most effortlessly beautiful voice, but the legato is simply superb, and her musicianship gives her singing a great beauty and expressivity. The very highest notes (all those E6s!) are a little harsh, but it's a small price to pay when the rest is so good: generally the voice is warm, pliant, the coloratura accurate and smooth. Kate Lindsey is a pleasing Composer (both her first time in the role and like the other principal women, her first time at Glyndebourne), possessing a very rounded, well integrated sound with a beautiful soprano like top. She acts the part well. Often the timbre is so shiny and rounded that the diction suffers, and the voice is perhaps a shade small in the climaxes but this is a lovely début.
There are no really weak links in the rest of the cast. The nymphs' music appears as a particular musical highlight (usually such a bore!), very richly and beautifully dispatched by Ana Maria Labin, Adriana Di Paola, and Gabriela Istoc, and their acting is great. Thomas Allen is his usual best as the Music Master, the four comedians (Dmitri Vargin, James Kryshak, Torben Jurgens, Andrew Stenson) better integrated and also more beautiful sounding than the usual character singers we get in these roles. The big one I haven't mentioned is Sergey Skorokhodov in the thanklessly difficult and demanding role of Bacchus. He really wasn't bad for most of it, but by the final phrases he was clearly ailing, coughing once between phrases (was he ill?), and not quite managing to get to the end with all engines blazing. Still, there's plenty to admire in his singing, and one hopes he will improve throughout the run as he acclimatises to the role.
You'll notice that I use the phrase "never before" a lot in this review, because so many things are revelatory in this production. Overall then a brilliant start to the season, and I cannot wait to see Falstaff next Friday.
EDIT: Mark Berry @Boulezian, who takes a diametrically opposed view in his assessment of this staging in his review, raises concerns that Thoma raises some laughs by using Zerbinetta's supposed mental illness as fodder (and further also suggested on twitter: "Misogyny of Thoma's Ariadne: woman sings high notes, therefore 'mad', thus molest and straitjacket her, therefore she is fodder for hilarity"). Tim Ashley at the Guardian makes related allusions. This would obviously be very serious and offensive if it were the case whether intentional or accidental, but I must register my disagreement with this analysis. To me, the fussy nurses are not "the voice of Thoma", but the "voice of conformity and prudishness". They don't know how to deal with a woman who is so unbeholden and enjoys/understands her sexuality so thoroughly, and seeing the world through 1940s medical eyes, attempt to straight-jacket and sedate her (all brilliantly choreographed and sensitive to the changes in the music in my opinion) - but she's not held down for long and soon escapes to have fun with her men again - there's was no sense at all I thought that Zerbinetta was either a) genuinely mentally ill, or b) being disapproved of by the production as a whole (indeed, quite the opposite). Opinions will vary of course, and everyone will interpret what they see from a different perspective, but I was so surprised at this analysis, that I just had to write my "version of events".
*disturbingly, lots of audience members guffawed when the bomb was dropped, and chuckles were also heard when a patient had to be sedated because he was spasming in his sleep in the aftermath of some unspeakable horror. I couldn't quite believe it.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Ariadne Auf Naxos with Renée Fleming take 2
Some thoughts on the second night. On the whole I enjoyed it more, and musically it seemed like a slightly better night than last time too.
It was a very badly behaved audience - stuff getting dropped, people talking, so much unstifled coughing. In virtually every one of the major arias there was some huge noise. Horrible. Astonishingly there were loads of unsold seats in the balcony...
Renée seemed more relaxed vocally this time, giving slightly more in her opening scena. The top pianissimo B flat was wonderful, but there was audience noise around that moment so one can only hope that it wasn't picked up by the mics. The duet bloomed even more than it did last time too, and her passage from 'Gibt es kein Hinuber?' was really breathtakingly lovely. We'll see how it all turns out up close on the recording. It's being broadcast on Saturday at http://www.medici.tv/ apparently, and will be available for 3 months for free (not sure whether it will be in every country). Expect youtube clips too. Not sure whether it will the first night, or that Saturday night.
Sophie Koch was better this time as well, some truly radiant singing in the middle of the act and then the duet, everything seeming more in control but with more risk taking. The sound and focus reminded me somewhat of Christa Ludwig. Only the final "Musik ist eine heilige Kunst" wasn't quite as lovely as the rest.
Robert Dean Smith sounded better than last time too, the famous climactic highs delivered as if they were no trouble at all. I was again hugely impressed.
More things irritated in the production, but I won't go into them. The rest of the singers were much the same as last time.
It was a very badly behaved audience - stuff getting dropped, people talking, so much unstifled coughing. In virtually every one of the major arias there was some huge noise. Horrible. Astonishingly there were loads of unsold seats in the balcony...
Renée seemed more relaxed vocally this time, giving slightly more in her opening scena. The top pianissimo B flat was wonderful, but there was audience noise around that moment so one can only hope that it wasn't picked up by the mics. The duet bloomed even more than it did last time too, and her passage from 'Gibt es kein Hinuber?' was really breathtakingly lovely. We'll see how it all turns out up close on the recording. It's being broadcast on Saturday at http://www.medici.tv/ apparently, and will be available for 3 months for free (not sure whether it will be in every country). Expect youtube clips too. Not sure whether it will the first night, or that Saturday night.
Sophie Koch was better this time as well, some truly radiant singing in the middle of the act and then the duet, everything seeming more in control but with more risk taking. The sound and focus reminded me somewhat of Christa Ludwig. Only the final "Musik ist eine heilige Kunst" wasn't quite as lovely as the rest.
Robert Dean Smith sounded better than last time too, the famous climactic highs delivered as if they were no trouble at all. I was again hugely impressed.
More things irritated in the production, but I won't go into them. The rest of the singers were much the same as last time.
Sunday, 19 February 2012
Renée Fleming's first Ariadne Auf Naxos in Baden-Baden
18/02/2012
Festspielhaus Baden-Baden
Ariadne Auf Naxos is another of my all time favourite operas, but like Rosenkavalier it is a bit of a fragile creature and its imperfections make it hard to pull off: it is very difficult to stage well, and I think I can honestly say I've never seen a production that entirely convinced, especially in the final half hour. Hofmannsthal's central poetic idea about the conflict in life between maintaining our principles in the face of the mystery of transformation and renewal is a beautiful one and a constant theme of his work - we see it between Elektra and her sister Chrysothemis, in the Marschallin, and then also in the Kaiserin in Die Frau Ohne Schatten. Hofmannsthal was at great pains to explain it all to Strauss in a number of interesting letters which explain his ideas, so we are in no doubt about his intentions. The problem though, which Robin Holloway points out in one of his superb essays on Strauss, is that the central poetic idea is not fully realised in the libretto, and further, as Strauss realised straight away, Hofmannsthal does not produce a convincing enough dramatic scenario to support the symbolism (as he would also fail to do in their remaining collaborations, to ever more painful degrees).
It is absolutely imperative then, that a production of Ariadne auf Naxos is helped along by a sensitive director who can make something of the drama and really make it clear what is going on. Additionally, the whole piece plays so much with style (a Strauss speciality) that there needs to be a convincing aesthetic that can artfully encapsulate both the seria and buffa elements, making them feel sufficiently contrasted and yet part of a whole. Not an easy undertaking.
The Vorspiel, added to the revised "1916" version to make it viable for the operatic stage, is in fact the work's finest portion both from composer and librettist; one is inclined to say it is the greatest of all their collaborations along with the Marschallin's monologue in Der Rosenkavalier. The fleet dramatic pacing, the effortless mix of parlando and aria, the feeling of well sketched character, setting, events, details, the hubbub and bustle, all in perfect accord between composer and librettist, make it a very special half hour of music. It almost doesn't need directing beyond what is written on the page.
René Kollo was a far less cynical Haushofmeister than usual, and I missed the ironic pointing and general skepticism that the character usually treats the musicians and artist with. Christian Baumgartel was a very hoarse voiced tanzmeister, but Eike Wilm Schulte was a superb Musiklehrer, with some of the best diction I have ever heard. Though there were some nice moments of comedy, overall this was too chaotic and directionless a version of the Vorspiel for it to render the tightly wrought dramatic arch moving or even convincing.
Then to the opera proper. Here Arlaud opted for constant (wordless) interjections from characters in the vorspiel that properly are no longer a real part of the action, giving the whole thing a work-in-progress feel where one was never meant to take any of the action seriously. Needless to say I found this very distracting, it seemed as though the characters didn't give a damn about giving their audience a convincing show, and were all just trying to show off. While this may be true in the play within a play idea, it doesn't make for a very involving evening of opera, and it very quickly got boring. The composer comes onstage to hand the three nymphs their sheet music on stands during the prelude whilst they all prepare in front of a dressing room mirror. Ariadne, sitting on stage behind a screen quickly darts off to retrieve her forgotten veil. The line between the onstage "stage" and onstage "backstage" was not well defined however which makes this potentially interesting idea rather lazy and charmless in execution. At the back of the stage sits a bewigged and glamourously dressed opera audience, though of course the singing is delivered to the real audience in the other direction. Later, in Zerbinetta's aria, the men of the on stage audience flood onstage to the horror of their female partners and surround the pink dressed Zerbinetta a la Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend.
The characters for the buffa comedia del'arte scenes are dressed like circus performers or french mime artists, but their antics aren't really that funny. Throughout, I felt that Arlaud failed to really listen to the character of the music and libretto in order to inform his directional choices and the same was true of Andrea Uhmann's costumes - from both too broad, too bold, too plain - the result was that it was hard to reconcile the visuals with the sound and the subtlety of the music was lost. The seria characters are essentially dressed in concert dress with accoutrements - Ariadne gets a black veil and a red gown to reveal when she undergoes her spiritual transformation, and Bacchus gets a little white sash to go over the top of his creme suit. But there's not enough sense of character and contrast in these choices, and with the stage just a set of white steps, a few curved panels and a photo of a sky projected at the back, it all falls rather flat. The final duet essentially just becomes a concert performance of an opera, the two leads just standing and singing in evening dress with the amount of acting one would expect at such an event (i.e. there, but minimal and audience directed).
The one scene that doesn't drag is Zerbinetta's aria, which of course is a gift for directors with its flirtations, easy to stage events and final orgasmic cadenza. Afterwards Ariadne is hauled in by a minotaur (obviously it raised a laugh, but I couldn't tell you why it happened, beyond the obvious Theseus link). Right at the very end, Arlaud does something rather beautiful: Ariadne and Bacchus ascend to the back of the stage and appear hand in hand as black silhouettes in front of a white background, a simple image of loving companionship walking into an uncertain but hopeful future. Overall though, it felt like Arlaud had failed to engage with the opera and didn't seem to see its dramatic structure beyond a series of largely disconnected scenes. It made for a long evening.
Renée Fleming started talking about doing Ariadne auf Naxos in 2008 and finally, four years on, she's realised that goal. She is still the world's leading Strauss soprano and this is her fifth full Strauss role and first new role of any kind in seven years. (Previous Strauss role debuts: Marschallin 1995, Arabella 1998, Madeleine 2004, Daphne 2005). I doubt she'll sing it often (or ever again?) as it is really a size too big for her voice but I have always preferred more silvery lyric and lyric spintos in this role than the ever heavier dramatic sopranos that seem to be the current casting preference. Having heard her recent Met Rodelinda I was a little worried I have to say, but back in Strauss territory she seemed much more comfortable, the voice sounding better than it has done in the last year. For her initial entrance scena she was clearly holding back and failed to make the impact that the part requires, but she was saving herself for the final duet in which she really soared and did some lovely things. She is one of the few sopranos currently singing with a really well developed chest register and that was on full show here, thrilling as always. I was struck again by her extraordinarily good German diction, everything clear and nicely pointed whilst never sacrificing the line, which of course is why she is the esteemed Strauss interpreter that she is, but I did wish that she had done this role five or even ten years earlier when the voice was sounding a little more fresh. But then heavier roles tend to the age the voice, which might have curtailed her career. We can't have everything!
It cannot now be denied that the voice, whilst still beautiful, is past its effortless, ravishing prime, and the difference even from the Ariadne excerpts she recorded 3 years ago is noticeable. Basically there are less overtones in the sound which means it doesn't sound as full or rich up high, and the apparently endless breath of her prime is now reduced to more mortal levels. As a Fleming admirer and devotee this is very sad for me, but realistically it must be accepted. We can be supremely grateful for the many superlative recordings she has left as a legacy, whilst also still admitting that there are still quite a few years of healthy singing ahead of her. We'll see how she tackles the role on subsequent nights.
Acting wise, she was given little to do and so sort of floundered - she's always at her best acting wise when playing realistic women similar to herself (intellectual, poised, wistful) with some sort of yearning and nostalgia to do text/music wise - hence the Marschallin, Tatyana, Rusalka, and the Figaro Countess are all ideal, and not coincidentally her most engaging stage creations. Ariadne is certainly related to this sort of figure but needs a sort of epic solidity to go with the nostalgia, which is not out of Fleming's range, but certainly needs to be helped by the staging. And here, no help was forthcoming.
Robert Dean Smith as Bacchus managed this ridiculous part incredibly well, never once sounding strained. His tone was firm and full throughout and his diction decent, so I was extremely impressed. It's not my favourite voice, but he sung every note, and sang it well which is largely a thankless task. Acting was minimal largely for the reason already stated - no direction.
Jane Archibald is a talented coloratura and whilst starting a little bland warmed up during the evening. In a production like this, of course she sort of stole the show with her holographic pink glitter bodice, pink ostrich feather tu-tu, huge cleavage and Cleopatra wig. Vocally she was pretty good, the coloratura all in place with the second half of her aria being particularly fine, lacking only a trill. If I'm being really harsh however, I would say that she isn't yet a very distinctive singer, but she's still quite young and time will tell if she turns into a true vocal personality. Basically I'm trying to rationalise why I wasn't bowled over. Will have a think after seeing her second performance.
Other roles were all nice whilst never being exceptional - I felt that the buffo scenes could have been a touch more stylish in delivery. Thielemann led an exceptional Sächsischen Staatskapelle Dresden, the playing always refined, beautiful and with exceptional ensemble - really very special, and made me wish we had an opera orchestra of this quality in England. Thielemann always kept things on a chamber scale, which suited the singers, but it did mean that occasionally this fine music making was swamped by the garish visuals of the stage. He remains, with Eschenbach, my favourite living Strauss conductor.
The production is being filmed for DVD so it will be interesting to hear what the microphones hear, and what the close ups reveal acting wise. It seemed like a missed opportunity that it should be such a dull, unengaged staging, especially since this is the Ariadne that Fleming has been recorded in for posterity, if indeed she does any others.
Festspielhaus Baden-Baden
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| Photo: Andrea Kremper |
Ariadne Auf Naxos is another of my all time favourite operas, but like Rosenkavalier it is a bit of a fragile creature and its imperfections make it hard to pull off: it is very difficult to stage well, and I think I can honestly say I've never seen a production that entirely convinced, especially in the final half hour. Hofmannsthal's central poetic idea about the conflict in life between maintaining our principles in the face of the mystery of transformation and renewal is a beautiful one and a constant theme of his work - we see it between Elektra and her sister Chrysothemis, in the Marschallin, and then also in the Kaiserin in Die Frau Ohne Schatten. Hofmannsthal was at great pains to explain it all to Strauss in a number of interesting letters which explain his ideas, so we are in no doubt about his intentions. The problem though, which Robin Holloway points out in one of his superb essays on Strauss, is that the central poetic idea is not fully realised in the libretto, and further, as Strauss realised straight away, Hofmannsthal does not produce a convincing enough dramatic scenario to support the symbolism (as he would also fail to do in their remaining collaborations, to ever more painful degrees).
It is absolutely imperative then, that a production of Ariadne auf Naxos is helped along by a sensitive director who can make something of the drama and really make it clear what is going on. Additionally, the whole piece plays so much with style (a Strauss speciality) that there needs to be a convincing aesthetic that can artfully encapsulate both the seria and buffa elements, making them feel sufficiently contrasted and yet part of a whole. Not an easy undertaking.
The Vorspiel, added to the revised "1916" version to make it viable for the operatic stage, is in fact the work's finest portion both from composer and librettist; one is inclined to say it is the greatest of all their collaborations along with the Marschallin's monologue in Der Rosenkavalier. The fleet dramatic pacing, the effortless mix of parlando and aria, the feeling of well sketched character, setting, events, details, the hubbub and bustle, all in perfect accord between composer and librettist, make it a very special half hour of music. It almost doesn't need directing beyond what is written on the page.
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| photo: Andrea Kremper |
The director, Philippe Arlaud, gave it a slightly surreal contemporary setting, with big white hanging panels, a piano centre stage and various crates and signs dotted around. Sophie Koch as the composer was dressed in a suit with a mop of curly hair and delivered this melodramatic part looking and acting not unlike Rollando Villazon. I can't imagine that this wasn't a deliberate reference. Koch is a singer who perplexes me - she can be quite wonderful, and her high register particularly is extremely beautiful, but the middle often has too much vibrato for comfort and her German diction renders her largely incomprehensible. She has a ridiculously flexible mouth and insists on stretching it in every dimension: surely if she calmed this down she would be easier to understand. The chaos of this particular staging meant that the contrast between her desperate outbursts and her more noble, innig music was somewhat lost, though her tone colour might have been varied more too. Still she shined where she was meant to and got a rapturous reception at the curtain.
René Kollo was a far less cynical Haushofmeister than usual, and I missed the ironic pointing and general skepticism that the character usually treats the musicians and artist with. Christian Baumgartel was a very hoarse voiced tanzmeister, but Eike Wilm Schulte was a superb Musiklehrer, with some of the best diction I have ever heard. Though there were some nice moments of comedy, overall this was too chaotic and directionless a version of the Vorspiel for it to render the tightly wrought dramatic arch moving or even convincing.
Then to the opera proper. Here Arlaud opted for constant (wordless) interjections from characters in the vorspiel that properly are no longer a real part of the action, giving the whole thing a work-in-progress feel where one was never meant to take any of the action seriously. Needless to say I found this very distracting, it seemed as though the characters didn't give a damn about giving their audience a convincing show, and were all just trying to show off. While this may be true in the play within a play idea, it doesn't make for a very involving evening of opera, and it very quickly got boring. The composer comes onstage to hand the three nymphs their sheet music on stands during the prelude whilst they all prepare in front of a dressing room mirror. Ariadne, sitting on stage behind a screen quickly darts off to retrieve her forgotten veil. The line between the onstage "stage" and onstage "backstage" was not well defined however which makes this potentially interesting idea rather lazy and charmless in execution. At the back of the stage sits a bewigged and glamourously dressed opera audience, though of course the singing is delivered to the real audience in the other direction. Later, in Zerbinetta's aria, the men of the on stage audience flood onstage to the horror of their female partners and surround the pink dressed Zerbinetta a la Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend.
The characters for the buffa comedia del'arte scenes are dressed like circus performers or french mime artists, but their antics aren't really that funny. Throughout, I felt that Arlaud failed to really listen to the character of the music and libretto in order to inform his directional choices and the same was true of Andrea Uhmann's costumes - from both too broad, too bold, too plain - the result was that it was hard to reconcile the visuals with the sound and the subtlety of the music was lost. The seria characters are essentially dressed in concert dress with accoutrements - Ariadne gets a black veil and a red gown to reveal when she undergoes her spiritual transformation, and Bacchus gets a little white sash to go over the top of his creme suit. But there's not enough sense of character and contrast in these choices, and with the stage just a set of white steps, a few curved panels and a photo of a sky projected at the back, it all falls rather flat. The final duet essentially just becomes a concert performance of an opera, the two leads just standing and singing in evening dress with the amount of acting one would expect at such an event (i.e. there, but minimal and audience directed).
The one scene that doesn't drag is Zerbinetta's aria, which of course is a gift for directors with its flirtations, easy to stage events and final orgasmic cadenza. Afterwards Ariadne is hauled in by a minotaur (obviously it raised a laugh, but I couldn't tell you why it happened, beyond the obvious Theseus link). Right at the very end, Arlaud does something rather beautiful: Ariadne and Bacchus ascend to the back of the stage and appear hand in hand as black silhouettes in front of a white background, a simple image of loving companionship walking into an uncertain but hopeful future. Overall though, it felt like Arlaud had failed to engage with the opera and didn't seem to see its dramatic structure beyond a series of largely disconnected scenes. It made for a long evening.
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| Photo: Andrew Kremper |
It cannot now be denied that the voice, whilst still beautiful, is past its effortless, ravishing prime, and the difference even from the Ariadne excerpts she recorded 3 years ago is noticeable. Basically there are less overtones in the sound which means it doesn't sound as full or rich up high, and the apparently endless breath of her prime is now reduced to more mortal levels. As a Fleming admirer and devotee this is very sad for me, but realistically it must be accepted. We can be supremely grateful for the many superlative recordings she has left as a legacy, whilst also still admitting that there are still quite a few years of healthy singing ahead of her. We'll see how she tackles the role on subsequent nights.
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| photo: Andrea Kremper |
Acting wise, she was given little to do and so sort of floundered - she's always at her best acting wise when playing realistic women similar to herself (intellectual, poised, wistful) with some sort of yearning and nostalgia to do text/music wise - hence the Marschallin, Tatyana, Rusalka, and the Figaro Countess are all ideal, and not coincidentally her most engaging stage creations. Ariadne is certainly related to this sort of figure but needs a sort of epic solidity to go with the nostalgia, which is not out of Fleming's range, but certainly needs to be helped by the staging. And here, no help was forthcoming.
Robert Dean Smith as Bacchus managed this ridiculous part incredibly well, never once sounding strained. His tone was firm and full throughout and his diction decent, so I was extremely impressed. It's not my favourite voice, but he sung every note, and sang it well which is largely a thankless task. Acting was minimal largely for the reason already stated - no direction.
Jane Archibald is a talented coloratura and whilst starting a little bland warmed up during the evening. In a production like this, of course she sort of stole the show with her holographic pink glitter bodice, pink ostrich feather tu-tu, huge cleavage and Cleopatra wig. Vocally she was pretty good, the coloratura all in place with the second half of her aria being particularly fine, lacking only a trill. If I'm being really harsh however, I would say that she isn't yet a very distinctive singer, but she's still quite young and time will tell if she turns into a true vocal personality. Basically I'm trying to rationalise why I wasn't bowled over. Will have a think after seeing her second performance.
Other roles were all nice whilst never being exceptional - I felt that the buffo scenes could have been a touch more stylish in delivery. Thielemann led an exceptional Sächsischen Staatskapelle Dresden, the playing always refined, beautiful and with exceptional ensemble - really very special, and made me wish we had an opera orchestra of this quality in England. Thielemann always kept things on a chamber scale, which suited the singers, but it did mean that occasionally this fine music making was swamped by the garish visuals of the stage. He remains, with Eschenbach, my favourite living Strauss conductor.
The production is being filmed for DVD so it will be interesting to hear what the microphones hear, and what the close ups reveal acting wise. It seemed like a missed opportunity that it should be such a dull, unengaged staging, especially since this is the Ariadne that Fleming has been recorded in for posterity, if indeed she does any others.
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