The Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne on Tour

28/11/13

The Rape of Lucretia makes a return to Glyndebourne after a hiatus of 67 years, and for me it wasn't quite the triumphant revival that others have found it. The opera has never held its place in the repertoire despite the fact that it comes from Britten's most musically fertile decade; the score has many beauties, but the central problem is all too obvious - the fanciful, wanky libretto by Ronald Duncan which Britten has to work around, rather than with to make this a viable drama. (Britten cannot be excused in this - after Auden he was too proud and insecure to work collaboratively with creative artists of his own level, and his work suffered as a result*.) Lucretia represents a retreat from the splendid grandeur of Peter Grimes, a stripping down and thinning out in the post war years. These tendencies are of course essential to the character of all of Britten's work, so it's not a break with the expected, and the fundamental themes - loss of innocence, and society against the individual and the same as in all his other operas, though very unusually we're dealing with a woman protagonist and there's not a prepubescent boy in sight.

Fiona Shaw's production uses a single set which is suggestive of several layers of reality all lying on top of one other. The two narrators (the Male and Female Chorus) are archaeologists, themselves romantically involved, poring over the ancient walls of their dig. (Hmm... archaeologist narrators who become involved in the action - sounds a lot like Katie Mitchell's production of Written on Skin...). But as much as a historical excavation, Michael Levine's set also suggests a crime scene investigation. Shaw attempts to salvage the libretto by making the "historical" Greek characters earthy, gritty and human, bypassing entirely Duncan's florid language and purple prose by focussing on its content over its style. But this creates its own problems - part of the strange aesthetic of this piece is its dissociation and classical distancing of the characters and subject matter, which should grant the dramatic rupture of the crucial rape scene its shocking power. Again and again in this production the action we also see on stage directly contradicts what the libretto and music is telling us is happening. I couldn't figure out why this was, but the thwarting of the textual narrative is so overt that it can't have been due to carelessness - is Shaw showing us that the history that the archaeologists are piecing together is wrong in some important details? And simply ignoring the far-fetched words (e.g. the soldiers' egregious exchanges in the first scene) doesn't make them go away. Shaw makes it hard to take Lucretia's rape seriously because the characters aren't even addressing each other in the crucial scene, and there no sense of genuine threat from Duncan Rock's Tarquinius. Weirdly the rape makes the male archaeologist horny - even normal, healthy relationships are poisoned by this rape. There are other dramatic misfires - when Lucretia then tells her servants what to, the singers are singing but not communicating, and it's not obvious why the servants aren't getting what's going on. When David Soar's Collatinus finds out that his wife has killed herself there is absolutely no physical or aural reaction to be discerned in his character. All very strange - was this just the evening I went?

Claudia Huckle is a vocally pleasing Lucretia, possessing a genuine contralto voice of impressive colour. Unfortunately in the lower half of her voice she is repeatedly covered by the chamber orchestra - it's not the largest voice, but conductor Nicholas Collon could have done a lot more to help her out. Kate Valentine is vocally strong as the Female Chorus and an engaging stage presence. She is matched by Allan Clayton's Male Chorus who also sings admirably. Soprano Ellie Laugharne is one to watch in the small role of Lucia - singing as limpid, sweet and pure as this is always welcome; Catherine Wyn-Rogers as Bianca is also very good. The other men are more problematic. Duncan Rock's Tarquinius is acceptably sung, but as mentioned is totally without threat despite his powerful physicality. David Soar's Collatinus is also OK musically, but again there are dramatic issues. I have to say my suspicion is that the direction is off here - when lots of singers exhibit the same sort of problems, you have to assume the director is culpable. Oliver Dunn didn't on this occasion seem quite comfortable singing Junius. Britten's score seems translucent, brittle and thin in Nicholas Collon's hands. The direction is similar in feel, so it's not an unreasonable approach to take, but it's an evening light on lyricism, instrumental colour, and energy, and so doesn't make the case that this is one of Britten's forgotten masterpieces.


*he wasn't nearly so threatened by top level performers, hence the work with Rostropovich, Baker et al.

Photos (c) Richard Hubert-Smith/Glyndebourne

Eugene Onegin

ENO
18/10/2011

This was quite enjoyable. It didn't quite work that well and isn't as good a production as many seem to think, but there are lots of lovely details, and it's worth going to see. Deborah Warner appears to be a fairly talented director, but more in her sense of telling a cohesive, involving story, than in her visual sense (the sets I found clunky), or even, strangely, in the way the characters act moment to moment on stage. Of course her starting point is one of the finest operas ever written, but the sense of story arc for all the characters I thought was brilliantly achieved, the pacing almost always superb. The action was updated, as so often, to the time the piece was composed - the late 19th century, so it still looks "period" enough and romantic enough that people who like "traditional" stagings will still be able to escape into it. (I'm not one of these people, I have no preference for period or updated productions, I just want it to be beautiful and make sense. It's all I ask.)

The first act was set in a cavernous barn, and the opening "number" with its focus on the plight of women at the hands of men (with only female maids bustling around in the background) I already found more moving than usual - it wasn't just the sort of pastoral scene setting approach that usually is the norm. (Is this a feminist opera? Certainly the women are by far the strongest, most intelligent, most measured characters in the piece.) Unfortunately I'd seen the same sort of set much better done recently at the National Theatre in their superlative production of The Cherry Orchard. What really didn't work though was having Tatyana's bedroom also in the barn. Not onl did this make no sense but also the huge size of it took away from the extraordinary intimacy of this scene. She barricades herself in with chairs and throws her mattress across the floor, but when Filippyevna comes back she seems to think nothing of this. Mental. But then we get wonderful directorial touches such as Onegin kissing Tatyana after his chastising monologue in the next scene, before coolly making his exit. Truly amazing how much this simple action reveals so much about his character.

The second and third acts feature a shiny silver floor, and it's not immediately obvious why this is the case... it seems out of place in the shabby home where the party scene takes place. But then for the duel scene, the curtain rises on a misty marsh, by far the most beautiful set of the evening, the silver floor, greyish sky and few desolate trees providing one of the most evocative settings I've ever seen for this scene. But then the silvered side wall was terribly badly made which partially ruined the visuals. Why this lack of attention to visual detail when the rest was so great? Lensky's monologue was beautifully delivered, but unfortunately Onegin, as his emotions become more extreme, reverts to ever more hammy acting to demonstrate this. He gives Lensky a big hug before the duel which is laughable. And by the third act he's writhing on the floor or kneeling with arms outstretched facing the audience directly rather than Tatyana. Stuff like this makes one think of West End musicals, rather than the intimate drama of this Pushkin tale. The set to the third act is badly thought out - several huge columns in rows which means that it's very hard to see the action a lot of the time, until they just stand in front of them, at which point the set becomes a passive backdrop which the characters don't in any way interact with. It also just looks cheap. But then the many mirrors within the plot are again matched by a nice directorial touch - Tatyana kisses Onegin after she says "goodbye for ever", which summarises all the reversals that have taken place, whilst also being an immensely powerful emotional gesture and signifier of the two protagonists' defeat by circumstances and stupidity.

The singing was uniformly excellent - about as good a cast that you could ever expect at the ENO. Everyone sings beautifully, Audun Iversen making a vocally compelling Onegin, though his acting is fairly appalling, and he's hardly the romantic Darcy like heart throb that he should be. He's just mostly quite boring, and as I already said, in the final scene he acts like he's in a west end musical. Much the same could be said of Toby Spence as Lensky, who completely overacts (though his character is more adolescent than Onegin), but the voice sounds absolutely magnificent, gleaming and full, and he's giving it everything he's got. Truly wonderful piano singing too. I was trying to work out what his ideal repertoire would be: it's not pingy enough for the Italian rep, and not big enough for German stuff. Mozart and Janacek? Probably French rep would suit him wonderfully - can imagine him as a great Pelléas. Amanda Echalaz is a great Tatyana and a very good singer. What's odd is that there's a little bit of squall in her middle register, say B up to the passagio, but the top is absolutely radiant, and the fact that we heard the top so rarely reminds us of how low lying this soprano part is. She's a good actress too on the whole, just lacking the last measure of vocal finesse and gestural subtlety that would make her a big "name". All the minor parts were also superbly cast: Diana Montague's Madam Larina and Catherine Wyn-Rogers' Filippyevna made a fantastically moving in the opening scene, and Brindley Sherratt a very well sung Gremin. Claudia Huckle as Olga was really wonderful too - so even and strong and beautiful vocally, according to her website, she's a true contralto. A real discovery.

The orchestral playing was mixed I thought: Every one of the wonderful cello tunes had out of tune notes, there was a general lack of passion to the playing, though several woodwind solos were meltingly delivered. Pacing from conductor Edward Gardner was superb, but as I say he couldn't rouse the players enough to produce something really special. The thing is, it's so well composed that even a mediocrely played performance will still make it's effect on some level.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this evening, and despite my complaints it somehow hangs together well and is a good night at the theatre. Go see it!

Peter Grimes

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
24/06/2011

Britten's opera Peter Grimes is one of the most moving in the repertory, and despite the fact that it was his first attempt at a full scale opera, and it certainly has its crudities and problems, it has since its first performance been universally recognised for what it is: a masterpiece. It's a work that requires no explanation or commentary almost - the message is so clear, the drama so brilliantly drawn, the music so perfectly wrought that it is its own explanation - and so I won't try to provide one.

This production by Willy Deckers (revival direction by Francois de Carpentries) strips the work of overt references to small town life, englishness and the sea, the intention being to focus on the extraordinary psychological power of the work and make the crowd versus individual theme more abstract and universal. The stark chiaroscuro of the set seems rooted in the dense atmosphere of the score and though this production veers perhaps a little close to Regie tropes for comfort (enormous diagonally painted panels), supported by the superb lighting it works very well at what it tries to achieve. Choreography of crowd scenes is often very impressive and as a concept the whole thing is well thought out and executed.

But actually this stripping away of context I think vitiates the drama - the oppressive small minded village hysteria simply becomes hateful mob antics which I found far less disturbing than Britten's original vision: lots of individuals, normal but with their own puculiarities, are galvinised and united by their hatred of a single man. In this production the townspeople aren't established as "normal" so their rejection and persecution of Grimes and Ellen Orford isn't so jarring - they just all seem like unequivocal badies from the start. This was also the cause of another problem: it took quite a while for the individual character portraits of the towns people to come through too - not until Act II did they really establish themselves.

Still, this production is powerful in its obvious way and I found myself extremely moved several times during the evening. Unfortunately almost none of the singers were up to the vocal demands of their roles. The exceptions were Matthew Best who made a powerful and commanding Swallow in the prologue and Jonathan Summers as Balstrode who sung beautifully here (and I was very pleased with myself for recognising his voice from the Grimes excerpt on the a CD of opera scenes which Renée Fleming made in 1997). Catherine Wyn-Rogers as auntie and her nieces all acted very well and sung mostly well, though the quartet with Ellen Orford From the gutter strained them all. Jane Henschel is a fantastic character mezzo and was really horrible as Mrs. Sedley. Martyn Hill can't actually sing it seems, he just bellowed through his lines as the Reverend Horace Adams, but he was still good and made a horrifying rector.

Vocally the real problems were the two leads though. Ellen Orford's music is extraordinarily beautiful in this opera, and requires an extremely good lyric soprano to do it justice. Amanda Roocroft is a magnificent actress as we've seen in her assumption of the Janacek heroines at ENO, but unfortunately vocal problems persist. She once had an extremely beautiful full lyric voice, and while it remains this in the warm middle voice, the top is strident and metallic, rather than blooming and full. The quiet top B flat in the Embroidery aria wasn't even attempted, instead she just stopped halfway through the interval and sang the line from where she stopped. Ben Heppner is well past his prime, and is completely beset by vocal problems - he can't sing quietly, all wide intervals are heavily scooped into, everywhere there are tuning issues, the top is extremely strained, the line bulges as he applies force about half a second into each note. Apparently he's doing Tristan with Stemme next month at the Bayerische Staatsoper - something to dread.

I usually can't stand singers who aren't up to scratch technically. But I forgive this production's extreme vocal shortcomings (some of the worst this season) because it did something that few other shows at the ROH did this year: it moved me. The acting from both leads, especially Roocroft, was so engaging, realistic and touching that I didn't at all mind that they couldn't sing the music as Britten intended. This was a thrilling piece of drama, I felt involved, I cared about the characters. Compare this to Butterfly also on at the ROH at the moment - vocally so much more accomplished, but a dreary, shallow affair.

The ROH orchestra, lead by Andrew Davis, seemed tentative to begin with, but warmed up throughout and gave a very good performance of this score. I wanted a bit more warmth and body sometimes, and occasionally Davis' conducting felt closer to efficient rather than inspired, but the overall result was emotionally arresting and true to the spirit of the score.

So, far from a definitive performance of this masterpiece, but certainly a very good one and one of the best things on offer in London this summer.

As an aside, the Renée Fleming album that I mentioned has an extraordinary recording of Ellen's Embroidery in Childhood aria on it, and makes me wish that the Met would release an archival recording of her sole assumption of this role - a voice of such liquid beauty singing this role would be such a welcome addition to the recording catalogue of Peter Grimes - the Were we mistaken duet at the start of the second act, or to hear Fleming's commanding power in Let her amongst you would be such a thrill. Are you reading this the Met? Get on it.