DVD Review: Der Rosenkavalier 2009 Baden Baden with Fleming, Koch, Damrau, Kaufmann and Thielemann

Decca

Feldmarschallin: Renée Fleming
Octavian: Sophie Koch
Sophie: Diana Damrau
Baron Ochs: Franz Hawlata
Faninal: Franz Grundheber
Italian Singer: Jonas Kaufmann
Annina: Jane Herschel
Valzacchi: Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
Marianne Leitmetzinen: Irmgard Vilsmaier

Conductor: Christian Thielemann
Direction, set, costumes: Herbert Wernicke





Herbert Wernicke's production of Der Rosenkavalier is updated but not to a specific historical time, which saves it from the pedantry and overload of so many "traditional" Rosenkavalier productions. It is however also relatively uninterventionist in terms of presenting the opera, so there's no Regie theatre excesses to worry about either - the adjective "timeless" for once seems a reasonable word to use. The revival direction is surprisingly good, with lots of lovely details of characterisation, and most of the principals seem totally physically and vocally at ease with their roles, giving them a real freedom and immediacy on stage. Christoph von Bernuth is listed as director's assistant but considering that Wernicke had long been dead when this was filmed can we assume that this is a synonym for revival director?

The set is comprised of enormous mirrors which reflect different backgrounds (mostly of ultra opulent 18th century interiors) and can be quickly rotated to produce different atmospheres and settings. A smaller mirrored screen demarcates a more intimate area for the opening bedroom scene (and subsequently also the seamier bedroom in Act III); the floor is also a mirror. Costumes and hairstyles do not anchor anything down and come from a mix of eras - the lackeys look 18th century, the rest 20th century. It doesn't feel like a mishmash because these questions of style are never the point of the production. I have expressed my reservations before about totally "traditional" 18th century Rosenkavaliers - I simply don't think that the glutinous beauty and frenetic nervosity of Strauss' score reflects that era at all, and the excuse for clutter, fussiness and ahistorical kitsch that Der Rosenkavalier seems to bring out of directors of a certain bent is happily sidestepped if it's updated in some way. (I think Strauss' own time of composition works wonderfully with the music and makes sense dramatically too - the fading upper classes, rising middle classes, the feeling that old Vienna was on the way out, the coming of the Great War - we are dealing with a Feldmarschal remember, and it's oft forgotten that Faninal has made his millions as an arms dealer...) Non-historical settings can sometimes be bland and characterless, but somehow this production does manage to conjure a sort of fictional society that is reasonably believable, if not quite as meticulously detailed as what Hoffmannsthal and Strauss intended. We can however imagine these characters out of their immediate context, which for me is a decent measure of how believable the story telling is.

The Act II duet is a coup de theatre and time stands still: Octavian arrives on a huge flight of stairs, the couple in a curious suspension above the main stage, only descending down the steps and back to earth at the end. The servants have disappeared, making it a more intimate scene than is normally the case. The lederhosen donning Ochs turns out to be not just unbearably impolite, but in fact totally outrageous to Sophie, and her anger is very real and wholly justified, much as she tries to make the best of it at first. When he sings his waltz song she is sobbing on the floor, and he leers over her, clearly enjoying his power. Grim. The Act III farce is only intermittently funny, acceptably choreographed to the music, but relies a little too much on Hawlata's improvisational ingenuity - if he didn't know the role so well I think it would be very dry indeed and many actions are expanded far too much in time. I've never seen the masquerade totally convincingly staged I have to say, and like in most productions, things focus again at the re-entrance of the Marschallin.

This Marschallin has an iron fist inside the velvet glove and her dismissal of Ochs is extremely firm (and therefore satisfying). The final trio and its preceding scene are beautifully handled. Sophie's costume subtly mirrors the Marschallin's, underlining the hinted at similarity between the two women from the first act, which is of course the reason for the Marschallin's vexation with Ochs. The young couple's blissful love is for once as believable and stirring as the Marschallin's sighing resignation, making the conflict and eventual resolution bittersweet yet tolerable, when so often there's the suspicion that the new relationship is flimsy and only skin deep. At the final curtain Mohammed, here a Pierrot (presumably for reasons of political correctness), appears and replaces the silver rose with a real one - a symbol of nature and true love triumphing over formalised, arranged, economically prudent courtship.

I've noted before on this blog that Renée Fleming is not at her best as an actress in light comedy mode, so despite some nice moments from her in the opening scene, she comes across as a bit artificial (though nothing like as bad as in the Met production, see below). But at "Mein lieber Hippolyte" and then from "Da geht er hin" to the end of the first act she suddenly focuses vocally and acting wise to give one of the best performances of her career. For that glorious half hour scene and indeed the rest of the opera she fully becomes the Marschallin and in this exceptionally pained portrayal she takes the role further than any of her colleagues on DVD. Catching every subtle play of emotion in the score, she channels it through the myriad colours of her voice, and her superb attention to the text combined with her perfect legato gives full thrift to Strauss' inspired vocal writing. Physically too the embodiment becomes completely natural, and her interactions with Octavian are heartrending as he struggles to understand why she is pushing him away. What is so impressive is how specific and improvisatory everything feels: there is no question that this is coming from a place of very genuine emotion.

[As an aside: anyone who saw the Met Rosenkavalier HD Broadcast that Fleming did in early 2010 will be very surprised with this DVD. In fact, I'm staggered at the difference in quality between that broadcast and the present DVD. Filmed in 2009 (in my opinion the last year of her vocal prime) her voice is in much better shape in Baden Baden: a better supported line, unexaggerated, and simply more beautiful, (listen for instance to her unbelievable opening phrase in the trio) but what differs most markedly is her physical and emotional portrayal of the Marschallin. Whereas in the Met production she is completely self indulgent, mugging and swanning about, and as a result is not very likeable, in Baden Baden she gives one of the most compelling performances of the Marschallin that I have ever seen. The only explanation I can proffer is the different direction that she's responding to. It doesn't help of course that the Met one is filmed like a soap opera and is in the Met's mega kitsch, tackily costumed and now dated looking production (demonstrating so much of what is wrong artistically with the Met).]

Initially I didn't at all like Sophie Koch as Octavian, finding her vibrato too wide, her acting overdone, and her ultra mobile mouth too distracting with all the closeups. But having seen this DVD several times now, I think she makes an excellent casting choice in being so contrasted with Fleming's precision and vocal beauty - in the latter half of Act I, the difference between Octavian's youthful ardour and unsophisticated bluff and the Marschallin's philosophical wistfulness has never seemed so irreconcilable or poignant. This alone is worth the price of admission and makes it one of the moving versions on DVD.

Diana Damrau's Sophie is not an unqualified success - there are some good things vocally, but the phrasing frequently bulges unmusically (explosions of vibrato after straight tones), and she doesn't have that crystalline purity of tone that one associates with the greatest Sophies. However, I like her minxy acting and that in this production she's not an air headed ditz - we know that she's a proud, slightly spoiled brat, but she's clever and sympathetic too, and her joy in the final scene is palpable. Her final conversation with the Marschallin is another lovely piece of characterisation.

Franz Hawlata's Ochs is brilliantly horrible: his half closed, inward looking, plaice-like eyes and unflagging sense of entitlement perfectly produce a portrait of insuperable egocentricity and supreme self satisfaction. He is in no way a manipulator or intriguer: he genuinely believes in his own superiority and irresistibility, the real world merely bouncing off his unassailable self belief. Vocally Hawlata is far from opulent, but his experience with the part makes this demanding and not particularly grateful role seem like a walk in the park.

Franz Grundheber is vocally far past his best, but he makes more of Faninal than we often see. Jonas Kaufmann is a very unitalian Italian tenor, but oh my what a delicious cameo - certainly the best sung I've heard this infamously difficult aria.

Christian Thielemann conducts the Munchner Philharmoniker and the sound is glorious - full and rich, the orchestral picture always detailed, with superb phrasing and large contrasts of weight and character. It's not quite as subtle or ravishing as Eschenbach is with the Wiener Philharmoniker on the wonderful Fleming Strauss Heroines disc, but Thielemann is sprightly and driven, and supports the singers just as well.

A very worthwhile DVD, absolutely essential for anyone who loves this repertoire.

DVD Review: L'incoronazione di Poppea 2008 Glyndebourne

Decca

Poppea: Danielle de Niese
Nerone: Alice Coote
Ottone: Iestyn Davies
Ottavia: Tamara Mumford
Seneca: Paolo Battaglia
Drusilla: Marie Arnet
Arnalta: Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke
Nutrice: Dominique Visse

Director: Robert Carsen
Set Designer: Michael Levine
Costume Designer: Constance Hoffman

Conductor: Emmanuelle Haim
Orchestra of the Age of Englightenment



This is a slightly odd production of Monteverdi's great masterpiece. Carsen gets his cue almost solely from the Prologue which sees Cupid victorious in an argument with Fortune and Virtue about who has the most power. Carsen makes it a play within a play of sorts - Cupid hijacks an already started production of some other parable, to present his own story in which love is shown to be the most important force in shaping the lives of the characters. Garbed in red velvet like the omnipresent red velvet curtains and sheets that feature in the production, Cupid is present as an invisible shaper of events for much of the rest of the opera. While it is true that this opera is eros obsessed, the minimalism of the setting and the stripping away of political and social context takes with it much of the piece's richness, subtlety and interest. It's clear from the opening that Nero's world is meant to be that of the Glyndebourne audience's and so the blanks are meant to be filled in by this audience reflection, but this common director's trick rarely comes off in my experience. All in all there's just so much more that this piece can offer.

But there are positives. This production does do the sex very well indeed - the arching eroticism of the scenes between Nero and Poppea is extraordinarily intense (though perhaps doesn't evolve as much as it could do.) and the visual aesthetic supports this luxuriant intimacy. I find Alice Coote to be an awkward stage presence, especially in trouser roles, but she sings gloriously here, with huge dynamic and timbral range. Danielle de Niese is a fascinating and gorgeous presence as Poppea, not just physically, but vocally too - she's really committed to communicating every syllable of the text. Her breathing is very rough here which sometimes interferes but it's not a major defect. Her Poppea is turned on by Nero the man as much as she is by power - like Nero, she is a creature of emotion, and as a result for her the two can't be separated - her ambition is in a sense innocent. Nero's character is given a disturbing darkness in the scene following Seneca's dispatch - a homosexual encounter at a drunken party devolves into a cold blooded murder: his power unchecked, it seems only extremes of emotion can please him. The ending is strong: Poppea envelops herself in her enormous regal gown, but cannot leave it behind despite Nero's promptings, and we see that without external obstacles they are already drifting apart. Famously of course, Nero killed her less than a year later (as everyone is keen to point out in the DVD extra), kicking her in the stomach when she was pregnant with their second child, so this ending is clearly intended as an early intimation of this rift.

Tamara Mumford as Ottavia reveals an absolutely gorgeous voice, and she's a touching actress too, even if her role in this production is more rich woman spurned, than empress wronged. I also very much liked Paolo Battaglia in lovely voice as Seneca, and Iestyn Davies as a gentle, boyish Ottone.

Possibly the greatest beauty of this production comes from the pit though - Emmanuelle Haim leads the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in a ravishing account of this score, endlessly shaded through sensitively selected changes in instrumentation. This is possible largely due to the enormous cavalcade of continuo players (10 in all plus Haim at the harpsichord and organ!) and the orchestral support in the love scenes is particularly noteworthy, surely accounting for a major part of their spine tingling intensity. Probably best that you just experience for yourself:

DVD Review: Stefan Herheim's Eugene Onegin 2012 De Nederlandse Opera

Opus Arte

Tatyana: Krassimira Stoyanova
Onegin: Bo Skovhus
Lensky Andrej Dunaev
Olga: Elena Maximova
Madame Larina: Olga Savova
Filipyevna: Nina Romanova
Prince Gremin: Mikhail Petrenko

Director: Stefan Herheim
Set designer: Philipp Furhofer

Conductor: Mariss Jansons
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
De Nederlandse Opera


This is not an Onegin for those that haven't seen the piece before - it's not impenetrably complex, but a very good knowledge of the "standard" narrative would help hugely in unravelling the games being played here with plot and memory. It opens on a brilliant coup de theatre - a "split screen" introducing the the dual worlds that are being depicted in this production - the Russian oligarchy of today, and a sentimentalised kitsch vision of peasant Russia. It's not totally clear why Tatyana remembers her youth as occurring so long before it actually did though; perhaps Herheim is suggesting that Russians sentimentalise their own history and youths? Olga is a vision of naive peasantry, youth and happiness - a reminder to Tatyana of what she has left behind as we see Tatyana amongst her high society guests. Olga's aria becomes accusatory, or at least some sort of expression in Tatyana's guilt.

The letter scene is presented as the fulfilment of Tatyana's wish (Onegin is present, at least in her mind), and simultaneously, Onegin writing his letter with the same message to her as he does later in Act III in the conventional narrative. (Though of course we don't normally get to see it on stage, reference is made to his letter in the final scene, and Onegin gets the same letter writing music when he realises he's in love with Tatyana). We already know this second letter writing event happens, so I'm not sure how much of an insight this is beyond the initial surprise of the new staging. For newcomers it'll be totally baffling and inexplicable. It's tempting to have Tatyana address the actual Onegin onstage because the letter is doing this, but for me, the sense of the unknown is what makes this scene so moving and tense - we know she is fantasising - do we need to see the fulfilment of this fantasy onstage? Still, it's much more subtly and discreetly handled than the comparable version in Kasper Holten's dramatically null ROH staging, the first of many parallels between the two productions (not all of which I've mentioned here). I also didn't quite get what was added  in the following scene by having Onegin address his rejection to a double of Tatyana- yes we get to see the older Tatyana reliving the scene, but by this stage the theme is so clear, that it's weird to just get the same thing again, especially when the double Tatyana (a dancer) is so bad at acting.

Herheim sees the whole piece as being about the loss of ideals - most obviously Tatyana and Lensky's loss of the ideal of innocent romantic love - and mirrors this in the staging with the loss of the big ideals that Russia has suffered during the 20th century. At the end of the Larina ballroom scene Lensky seems to embrace Tatyana's little red book - replacing his naive poetic Romanticism with Communism, and he goes on to direct some troops to exact his revenge on the crowd. But soon the star of Communism is seen in flames and then smashed on the floor during the duel - the communist ideal being replaced with Onegin's playboy Capitalism and the rich Russian oligarchs of his world. It's interesting that Herheim makes these parallels, but what is it actually adding dramatically here? Again after the initial surprise has faded and we've worked out Herheim's code, I can't help feeling that this is a little jejune. Perhaps I'm missing a subtlety.

The Larina ballroom scene is somewhat clumsily staged and the revolving room feels artificial almost the whole time. Maybe it was different in the theatre but the feeling of larger and smaller spaces that the set design is meant to enable doesn't really come across - the pure aesthetics of the "stage picture" are probably the weakest aspect in almost all of Herheim's productions. In the intro to Act III we get a view of 20th century Russian cliches as seen by western Europe (which gets a round of applause from the audience!). Gremin reappears at the end of the final duet (again just as in Holten's production) as does the rest of high society at Gremin's instigation, who witness Onegin's failure, shame and impotence.



Krassimira Stoyanova, in her role début, gives a radiant account of Tatyana, with committed acting that serves the staging very well. She has a little trouble convincing physically as the young Tatyana, but this production plays so much with time frames that this isn't a huge obstacle. She has a rich chest register, warm middle and lovely top, and sings with expressive nuance and technical expertise. It's a very beautiful timbre and sounds great up close on the mics, but the top is very covered which certainly doesn't sound as good in the theatre and was one of my main reservations about her in live performance earlier this year that I saw in the Holten ROH production. Still, a remarkable debut.

Bo Skovhus is a classic barihunk; possibly only Hvorostovsky is better looking of the major international baritones. He often moves awkwardly on stage, hunched and stumbling, which works reasonably well in this production with its characterisation of Onegin as constantly being on the back foot. Vocally he is entirely adequate, but he is not a first choice with all the excellent Onegins currently performing. Skovhus has a passing resemblance to Herheim himself looks wise, but weirdly so does tenor Andrej Dunaev, to an even greater degree. Again he's more than acceptable in the role, but the timbre is not the most beautiful and one might wish for a little more nuance from a character who is meant to be a poet. The rest of the cast are all more than acceptable.

Mariss Jansons gives a slightly weird account of the score, extremely lush and beautifully played by the Concertgebouw Orchestra, but somehow too polished and smooth to sound truly Russian. Where's the raw Slavic soul? A nebulous and intangible criticism perhaps and few will complain when the playing is of such high quality.

The first ten minutes of this production had me thinking that this might be one of the best DVDs on the market, but overall, though very enjoyable, I'm not sure that the interventions add enough to our understanding of the piece for this to escape being an egoistic project - too often I felt this was merely "Herheim's Onegin". That is the production made me think of Herheim rather than the opera, and for me for Regie theatre to be successful, it has to reveal the piece to us anew and bring us closer to the work and its meaning, rather than being a canvas on which the director is allowed to exercise his fantasy, however well intentioned. There's a creeping way in which this is every bit as camp and "fabulous" as any Franco Zeffirelli extravaganza. Others will disagree, and your mileage may vary; it's certainly worth a watch.

DVD Review: Königskinder 2010 Jonas Kaufmann Opernhaus Zurich

Decca

Königssohn: Jonas Kaufmann
Gänsemagd: Isabel Rey
Spielmann: Oliver Widmar
Hexe: Liliana Nikiteanu


Conductor: Ingo Metzmacher
Director: Jens-Daniel Herzog









Engelbert Humperdinck actually wrote several operas, though he is remembered for only one - his astonishing masterpiece, Hansel and Gretel (1893). Königskinder, another fairytale opera, is probably the most famous of the rest, and it has been performed and recorded surprisingly often, especially recently. Written in 1910, Humperdinck had by this time actually regressed compositionally since Hansel and Gretel, apparently entirely unaffected by the tumultuous upheavals that were shaking music from every side - in fact it's so calm and restrained that it feels reactionary. The score is drenched in Wagnerisms, but it is lamentably generic compared to Wagner's music, and lacks also Wagner's sense of momentum (which the vital and vivid Hansel and Gretel certainly doesn't lack). It's perfectly pleasant and professional moment to moment, and there are a few quite beautiful stretches which clearly emanate from the pen of a significant musical mind, but for the most part it's strangely characterless, the music and text lacking tension, and so the result is a little dull and unmemorable when taken as a whole.

This production updates the piece to some point in the recent past, with some people looking vaguely 50's-ish, but there are burger king hats and goths so it can't be that early. Basically we're seeing a society struggling to come to terms with new wealth and a new social order: the people are craving a ruler and have articulated this desire en masse. The child heroine, the Gänsemagd ("goose-girl") lives with her abusive Witch grandmother in a castle which here appears to be an abandoned school which the Witch has converted into a lab in which she is growing some sort of herb (possibly cannabis?). As a result of this isolation and abuse the Gänsemagd has retreated into an imaginary world (she plays with cardboard cut out geese) and her innocence and joy is untarnished by the Witch's cynicism. When the prince, travelling incognito as a poor huntsman, finds her he is a fulfilment of her fantasy, but she is unable to come to terms with reality so quickly and so she doesn't follow him. When in the second act they are reunited, the crowd laugh that this pair of poor children might be crowned king and queen, even although they have fulfilled all the "official" requirements - the crowd want people to rule them who appear worthy of their affluence. In Act III, the opera totally changes tone and is no longer a comedy, instead becoming a stern warning to societies who don't look after the meek and needy - the fiddler who helped the Gänsemagd in the first act is now blind and destitute, the two Konigskinder in a similarly bad state of affairs. The Prince trades his crown for some bread, but the bread happens to be the poisonous Witch's bread that was baked in the first Act (a minor event which I didn't remember until I reread the synopsis), and the two die after receiving ecstatic visions. The fiddler returns to sing the questionable moral of the tale. It all sort of works, but it never feels engrossing, the comedic elements are laboured to non existent, and visually it's not exactly generous on the eye.

This is a brave role for Jonas Kaufmann - not just because the Königssohn is vaguely paedophilic (it's suggested that he's much older than the Gänsemagd) and a woman beater - but also because it's not that spectacular vocally - one does wonder a bit why he took it on until the third Act where there is a half hour duet for the romantic couple. Except in the romantic scenes his acting is not at all convincing and he simply cannot do comedy. He sings gloriously: manful, heroic and beautiful, as is fully to be expected of this artist in his prime, though one might argue that a more youthful timbre would be more apt for the role.

The rest of the cast are nowhere near his standard vocally. Isabel Rey has a rather hard and mature sounding soprano, though she gets away with it because she controls the voice well, and she totally convinces in her acting as a young girl. Oliver Widmar is totally acceptable vocally (but nothing more) as the fiddler. The rest of the cast are vocally OK but dramatically null. The Zurich opera orchestra with Ingo Mezmacher at the helm give a slightly routine performance of the score, only intermittently giving it the extra push that it needs.

Overall, this is possibly not the best way to get to know the work as this is not a musically ideal performance, and it's not a very inventive production, but Kaufmann fans will no doubt want to see it, and it is the only available DVD of the work.

DVD Review: The Cunning Little Vixen 1965 Felsenstein Film

Sung in German as Das Schlaue Fuchslein

Vixen: Irmgard Arnold
Fox: Manfred Hopp
Forester: Rudolf Asmus
Badger/Priest: Josef Burgwinkel
Dog/Schoolmaster: Werner Enders
Cock: Frank Volker
Forester's wife: Ruth Schob-Lipka

Director: Walter Felsenstein
Sets: Rudolf Heinrich, Herbert Michel
Costume Design: Rudolf Heinrich, Gundolf Foizik

Conductor: Vaclav Neumann
Orchestra and choir of the Komische Oper Berlin




This opera film was made in 1965 by the great Austrian director Walter Felsenstein. It looks back to an even earlier period of film making in terms of style, an approach which works beautifully here for the subject matter and style of the piece. I don't usually like opera films because of lip syncing, but unusually it really didn't bother me here, and in fact I liked the intimacy of the studio setting.

As The Cunning Little Vixen is one of my favourite operas, I've seen a lot of productions. The animal costumes and choreography in this film are probably the best I've ever seen as both capture something very accurately about the way animals move, look and even breathe. I sometimes despair of productions where it seems like the designers and choreographers have never witnessed any nature first hand, or are simply not sensitive to it, so this is a major plus point of this production. In the love duet between the Vixen and the fox, there's a real sensuality, without recourse to anything that couldn't be shown before the watershed.

All of the singers sing in a very parlando style, stressing diction and characterisation above line and ideal timbre. All are "character" singers in this regard. It works well in the context, though I wouldn't want to hear it like this every time.  The fox is unfortunately cast as a tenor rather than a soprano, and he resorts to barking a bit during the duet. Subtitles are serviceable but aren't always very accurate, in the already changed Max Brod/Felsenstein German libretto which is a bit of a shame.

This performance by conductor Václav Neumann and the orchestra of Komische Oper Berlin links the piece as strongly as possible to the German operatic tradition, via Dvorak and Viennese operetta - the approach to phrasing, sonority, texture and timbre are all very mid century German and quite unlike what we'd hear in this piece today. Overall, I think the opera loses something in this approach as it irons out many of Janacek's quirks, charms and inspirations, smoothing them into something less glistening, less gawky, less sexy and more Romantic, symphonic, Teutonic than the piece really is. But this is still a fascinating historical document in that it lets us hear Janacek how he was seen pre critical editions (and just as importantly pre Charles Mackerras). For that reason (and the fact that it's not in Czech) it can't be a first choice, but for anyone who already has a measure of the work, there is much to enjoy here, and dramatically, this is a touching, superbly observed, and very traditional production of the work. It's the sort of thing I would have loved as a kid, having been given a taste for old style children's shows (Watch with Mother, early-mid Disney (especially Fantasia and Dumbo) and German books from my mother's childhood).

There are two versions of this DVD on the market. I'm told the Arthaus/Naxos one is the better transfer, and is the one I have reviewed here, but I haven't seen the "Immortal" one.

DVD Review: From the House of the Dead 2007 Vienna Festival with Boulez and Chéreau

Deutsche Grammophon

Director: Patrice Chéreau

Conductor: Pierre Boulez
Mahler Chamber Orchestra














"Into the minds of criminals and there I find a spark of God. You will not wipe away the crimes from their brow, but equally you will not extinguish the spark of God. Into what depths it leads - how much truth there is in his work! See how the old man slides down from the oven, shuffles to the corpse, makes the sign of the cross over it, and with a rusty voice sobs the words: 'A mother gave birth even to him!' Those are the bright places in the house of the dead." *


In an operatic oeuvre that can already seem thin on conventional operatic niceties, in From the House of the Dead, Janáček goes several steps further along his path towards his vision of artistic truth, stripping the score back to the absolute essentials, paring down his musical language to its strangest, toughest, most intimate, and as it turned out, final iteration. The result can be painfully bare and raw, more so than ever before, and the total lack of sentimentality, sensationalism or pandering to an audience's need for orchestral exaltation and rapturous vocal catharsis sets him apart from virtually every other great opera composer.** And to a greater degree than any "Verismo" composer, Janáček is committed to putting real characters on the operatic stage; in From the House of the Dead by portraying people at their lowest ebb, he creates his ultimate paean to the value and beauty of all human life, in all its difficulty, pain, humour and occasional joy. In this score, moments of softness and wonder are minute and fleeting where in his previous operas he may have offered a sonorous paragraph of beauty (if the drama called for it!) against his oft uncompromising realism. Some listeners will find it all too much to bear, with too little to sustain them, the wild collage like patch work of the score remaining steadfastly tonal but rarely ingratiating, especially in Boulez's modernist treatment of it. But the richness and gawky beauty of this oddest of operas is there for any who are open to it and willing to persevere, and I and many others are convinced that it is a very, very great masterpiece.

In this production Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Boulez are reunited 30 years after their landmark Bayreuth Ring and the result is again extraordinary. Janáček's last opera is based on Dostoyevsky's novel of 1861 which was written after the author's experiences of prison. The dramatic structure is elusive and extremely unconventional, which is to say that there is little in the way of conventional plot - there's a number of prisoner monologues of increasing length, interspersed with crowd scenes and various interactions and conflicts, and a sick eagle's recuperation binds beginning to end. But this material needs a masterful director to make sense of, and Chéreau does really admirably: the clarity and vision with which we are lead through the opera is at times even revelatory, Chéreau choosing to focus things on certain members of the ensemble cast without losing the overall meaning that Janáček is aiming at. For these men, time has stopped, and most survive not just by recounting, but by reliving their fractured pasts - lost loves, jealousy and tenderness are common themes. In this production, Chéreau catches almost every moment with unstinting intensity, with character regie that is far more detailed than one is used to in operatic productions, and there isn't a weak link in the cast. The sets by Richard Peduzzi are superbly evocative whilst being suitably minimal and monotone.

As the disturbed Skuratov, John Mark Ainsley is the only "household name" in the cast, and he turns in a superbly detailed and touching portrait of the madman. But this level of quality is mirrored in the rest of the cast and it seems foolish to pick out individuals in what is so obviously an ensemble effort. Crowd scenes are well handled too, with a clear social hierarchy amongst the prisoners, camaraderie and tensions never seeming stagey or forced. The childlike joy that radiates from the prisoners in the opening scene from the simple act of touching the eagle is wonderfully observed. The general quality of the voices is good, more glamorous voices would seem completely out of place and beside the point. Something to note: Boulez has famously mixed attitudes to opera and its artificialness and it was surely his idea to cast the young boy Aljeja as a tenor rather than a mezzo as in Janáček's score.

I imagine that this was a near perfect theatrical experience in the opera house, but unfortunately the video direction occasionally gets in the way - very often it's a bit too frenetic, with too many cuts, and lots of shots where the camera is on the stage so you feel like you're in the centre of the action. It's clear that immediacy is being aimed for, but it actually makes things unclear sometimes, in an already hard to follow opera.

Although this might seem to be a strange choice of repertoire for Boulez, of all Janáček's scores this is surely the one which Boulez has most to say about, with its stark timbres, violent energy and thrusting rhythms and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra bring an appealingly fresh touch to this unorthodox music, Boulez firmly ensuring that nothing even remotely lapses into sentimentality. The classic Charles Mackerras recording with the Vienna Philharmonic is perhaps unsurprisingly more lyrical, and brings greater contrasts of light and darkness as well as more accomplished singers to the work. More importantly the profound affinity and extremely deep understanding of the idiom as well as peerless orchestral playing keeps Mackerras a firm first recommendation, but Boulez's very different perspective is extremely welcome as a point of comparison and must be recognised as a major addition to the discography of this work.


*These words were found on a piece of paper in the clothes of the deceased Janacek (with thanks to Gavin Plumley for supplying this translation)
**not that he can't or won't compose music like this - Vixen, Katya and Makropulos all contain truly ravishing music, and in fact there's barely a note I don't love in these operas - but he's never consciously "giving us what we want" like Puccini or Strauss or Mozart obviously are, and surely even Wagner does occasionally.

DVD Review: Il Trovatore 2011 Metropolitan Opera

Deutsche Grammophon

Il Conte di Luna: Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Leonora: Sondra Radvanovsky
Azucena: Dolora Zajick
Manrico: Marcelo Alvarez

Director: David McVicar

Conductor: Marco Armiliato
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus







Il Trovatore is not overall my favourite Verdi opera but it does contain a hell of a lot of great music and has the potential to be very interesting drama if staged sensitively and the "four greatest singers in the world" that have no doubt been hired for the production also happen to be excellent actors. These famously impossible demands make great performances of the opera few and far between, and this Met broadcast DVD makes clear the difficulty of staging a great Trovatore while providing just about enough pleasure to make it worthwhile.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky is probably the pick of the cast as Il Conte di Luna. The legato is unmatched, the voice very beautiful, and though he can be hectoring in more dramatic phrases (he's really a lyric baritone) he is clearly still a world class voice. Acting wise he does rather well, convincing as a complex bad guy made evil only by love/lust - the Act II aria "Il balen del suo sorriso" is wonderfully delivered. Still, as ever with this artist, the voice is the thing.

Sondra Radvanovsky's voice is very distinctive and she makes a vocally excellent Leonora. Some will find the very fast, "always on" vibrato a little disconcerting and indeed the line between beauty and ugliness in her sound is often dangerously close - in less beguiling moments there is a tendency towards both shrillness and being flat. On the whole though she is on top form here and to my ears her beautiful singing greatly outweighs the less pretty moments - the voice is clearly of Verdian size, the legato is truly excellent, the dynamic range enormous, the coloratura is in place, and technically she manages every hurdle. The trill is lacking, but it seems that one can hardly expect this these days. The top has a diamond brilliance and a total solidity that is very appealing, and she has a very convincing chest register which is mostly well employed. The middle is where the vibrato can sound strange - occasionally there's a sort of metallic hollowness - though the metal is capable also of soft caress and great smoothness. As I say a quite distinctive voice.

Unfortunately she is let down by shallow acting and a lack of grace on stage that conspire to make her uninvolving as a stage personality. David McVicar clearly sees Leonora as a silly girl who is out of her depth but it makes for a boring characterisation. Much worse in this regard however is Marcelo Álvarez as Manrico who gives a painfully caricatured performance, a perfect impression of the "Italian tenor" that we all like to think the opera world has moved on from: stock gestures, mugging, never one movement when eight will do, little interaction with other characters. Vocally he is fine though produces nothing that is that special and it's difficult to see past the abysmal acting.

Azucena has been a calling card for Dolora Zajick for her entire career, but this DVD captures her at a late stage when the voice has become very work hardened and the sound quite unattractive. The vibrato is still fast and so couldn't be called a wobble, but it has become very wide, such that her (admittedly reduced) trills are essentially indistinguishable from the vibrato. Still her formidable technique has kept everything in place and no one could accuse her of not being able to sing it. Dramatically it is difficult to imagine that this role is so closely identified with her - the blankness and lack of life behind the eyes is hard to fathom. Marco Armiliato is fine though entirely unexceptional in the pit.

Players of David McVicar Bingo will be pleased to find all of his hallmarks here - the massive rotating wall, the inexplicably shirtless men, the unrealistically coloured sets, the updating to the 19th century, and men and women behaving badly. It's rather plain and I don't think it's one of his better productions, though maybe it would work better in the theatre without the interference of the unbearable Met Opera video direction. As so often with these broadcasts, the camera is constantly in motion, forever gliding, panning, zooming and/or tracking so that one's attention is constantly drawn to the filming and not the performance. Of course an opera DVD will not be like being in the theatre because of the close ups and cuts, but these directorial decisions don't even come from the realm of cinema - large camera movements tend to be used sparingly in films because the effect is so stylised and "filmic". It might not annoy everyone, but I find it maddening and it speaks to me of the lack of taste and understanding that the Met has for what the art form is really about.

DVD Review: Dido and Aeneas 2008 L'Opera Comique

Francois Roussillon

Dido: Malena Ernman
Aeneas: Christopher Maltman
Belinda: Judith van Wanroij
Sorceress: Hilary Summers
Prologue: Fiona Shaw

Director: Deborah Warner

Conductor: William Christie
Les Arts Florissants






A wonderful performance of Purcell's only opera which brilliantly balances the comic and tragic elements of the drama - the only thing one regrets is that it is over so quickly. In a DVD extra feature William Christie voices his suspicions that the piece is incomplete and notes points in the score where ad lib is written, as well as known about scenes that have gone missing (e.g. for the Sorceress) and also that much of the separately published libretto has apparently not been set to music. We cannot know because Purcell's music comes to us only through 18th century copies, from sympathetic hands who were determined that this music should last.

What does remain is of course magnificent, an ultra condensed, intense drama that is one of the most brilliant instances of the genre composed before Mozart. Christie is brave in fleshing out the ad libitum parts, and crafting a short Prologue with director Deborah Warner. Actress (and now sometime opera director) Fiona Shaw takes on this role, reciting portions of Ted Hughes' Echo and Narcissus, T.S. Eliot's the Wasteland and the famous Yeats poem "Aedh wishes for the cloths of Heaven". In common with most authentic Baroque prologues it's not directly relevant to the opera, but it proves an interesting opening. Fiona Shaw's skill in declamation and obvious knowledge of vocal resonance can only be compared with operatic singing - the utilisation of vocal registers and colours is unerring and virtuosic. Occasionally the voice cracks from too much pushing, and also she's more at home with the storytelling than the poetry, but she is engaging and sets the tone admirably.

Deborah Warner's production takes as its starting point the story that Purcell composed this opera for a girls school in London, and so there is a huge sea of little faces that invade the action at certain moments. The chorus are in modern dress at the sides of the stage, observing and commenting on the action and occasionally interacting, and the central characters are all in 17th century costume and mostly act on a slightly raised central stage like in a Noh play. The whole thing appears to take place in a 17th century courtyard. It's understated but visually very striking and evocative of all the layers that are being combined here. Quite an achievement.

But what is even more impressive is the knitting together of the disparate dramatic styles to create a cohesive whole that entertains and moves at every point. Malena Ernman is a magnificent Dido, vocally beautiful, with a rich chest register and a beautifully pure soprano like top. She is also a superb actress, one of the most natural and subtle that I have ever seen in opera and her interactions with the equally superb Christopher Maltman as Aeneas are worth the price of the DVD alone. Maltman could also simply not be bettered either dramaitcally or vocally - the vibrato is maybe a teensy bit wide at times, but the text is beautifully articulated and his acting again a model of sensitivity and nuance. His character registers far more fully than normal and in some ways is the linchpin of the production. Very special indeed.

On the comedy side, Hilary Summers is a really fantastic sorceress, her acting hilarious and commanding, and her trademark timbre, hollow, androgynous and eerie, quite unlike any other singer's that I have heard, is quite ideal for the role. Deborah Warner makes her as contrasted as possible from Dido, removing any sense of grace or elegance by giving her aggressive and manly mannerisms and a terrifyingly capricious sense of humour. She does not neglect the character's central sadness either, and one is most frustrated that her part isn't bigger. Her assistant witches are maybe the only slight weakness of the production and they can become a little irritating, but not enough to spoil anything.

The contribution of the choir and orchestra of Les Arts Florissants and William Christie is as faultless as ever, and if I wouldn't quite put this alongside their absolute best ever work, it would be difficult to name people who could do it better.

This is probably the best version of the opera on DVD then as Connolly is scuppered by the terribly boring ROH production and the Hickox/Ewing 1995 one is an "opera film", a genre which I have a very hard time enjoying. Highly recommended.

DVD Review: Eugene Onegin 1994 Glyndebourne

Tatyana: Elena Prokina

Eugene Onegin: Wojciech Drabowicz

Lensky: Martin Thompson

Olga: Louise Winter
Madame Larina: Yvonne Minton

Filippyevna: Ludmilla Filatova

Gremin: Frode Olsten

Director: Graham Vick

Conductor: Andrew Davis
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The Glyndebourne Chorus

Graham Vick's Glyndebourne Onegin has attained a sort of legendary status amongst English opera goers since it was premiered in 1994 and so I thought I better check it out to see what the fuss was all about. Set in 1820s Russia, with accurate and understated period costumes, this is a very traditional looking production which is nonetheless rather spare aesthetically. The sets often add a degree of abstraction to the period feel - Act I has a painterly sky with a single row of corn at the back, and otherwise leaves the set as a wide open space. The Polonaise that opens Act III is presented as a sort of comedy pantomime ballet that is quite surreal and unlike the rest of the production in style, and the set, comprised only of swooping mint green curtains, is also at its most abstract here. The effect is uncomfortably artificial which is the intention I suppose, but it also feels like a set piece that is separate from the rest of the action which I am not so much a fan of. The staging for the Act II Ballroom scene is the most naturalistic and comes off as the most successful - a feeling of real atmosphere and specific setting is created here where elsewhere these things remain vaguer.

Largely then, Graham Vick chooses to focus on character Regie, which relies on having a cast that is capable of delivering strong and subtle acting performances.

Wojciech Drabowicz is vocally wonderful, and apart from occasional scoops into high notes, his beautifully rich and fluid baritone is completely ideal for Onegin. For once the character also looks believably youthful, with his slim frame, wild hair and posturing stance. Unfortunately, Drabowicz can be too ambiguous acting wise and indulges in the head shaking mode of emoting, which the production's Lensky is also guilty of. In general though he does a pretty good job as a dead pan Mr Darcy-esque figure, though his expression is more jovial/mocking which I'm perfectly happy with as an interpretation generally, and he is very good in the final scene. In this production, this scene mirrors the garden scene where Onegin rejects Tatyana - just two chairs placed at a distance from each other in the space. A nice idea, but unfortunately the earlier scene makes very little impact because there's no interaction whatsoever between the two characters and the aria is basically delivered as if Tatyana isn't there - we don't get to see her reaction at all.

Elena Prokina is also excellent in the last scene, and generally excels as the mature Tatyana both vocally and dramatically. Her piano singing is very beautiful, but I wonder how it sounded in the theatre - I suspect at times it is less than fully supported. If I'm being picky, which I always am, I'd say her chest register is a little underdeveloped for the role, but more critically her top becomes harsh when pressure is applied, and intonation in this region can also be unsteady. Acting wise, just as with Onegin, I imagine that she was good in the theatre, but up close her facial expressions are quite limited in range (wide eyed surprise, along with wildly darting eyes which it would be difficult to imagine doing alone, sadly feature a lot in the letter scene and elsewhere) and too often she seems to be demonstrating an emotion rather than really feeling it as the character.

Martin Thompson makes a fine Lensky. After a dicey first phrase in the famous Act II aria "Kuda, kuda vï udalilis" he turns in what is maybe the best account I have ever seen of this beautiful aria. Truly gorgeous. The "golden days of youth" are genuine for this Lensky and we have witnessed them: unusually, he is as playful as Olga in the opening scene, he has a sense of humour about himself, and for once Olga is not either turned off or merely amused and indulgent of Lensky's poetic overtures to her. Louise Winter is a decent Olga, but the production is not that concerned with her plight and doesn't attempt to flesh out the character too much.

With the exception of Frode Olsten as Prince Gremin, the minor characters are not well cast. Olsten has a very bright sound for a Gremin and is surely a bass baritone, but the voice is even and smooth and his aria is very well delivered. Ludmilla Filatova is simply dreadful as Filippyevna, barely in control of a not very beautiful voice. Yvonne Minton is barely better as a dramatically uncommitted Madame Larina. The production's Monsieur Triquet is also a disappointment and gets quite out of time in his aria.

Orchestrally, this performance is pretty spectacular. Andrew Davis' conducting is superb, drawing endless colours and nuance out of the orchestra, with a sweep and sense of large scale pacing that can only be described as symphonic. Every detail is in place, every string line is beautifully shaped, every phrase speaks and soars. Glyndebourne's commitment to the rehearsal process again pays dividends.

There are problems with the filming. Some are technical stage things - e.g. wig lines are irritatingly visible and in no way disguised. This detail as well as many of the complaints that I have listed above with regards to the acting would probably not have registered so much in the theatre, but the opera recording is a much less forgiving medium as each acting choice is more explicitly revealed, and so less is ambiguity is left for the viewer to fill in with their imagination. There are a lot of close ups, and sometimes I wanted to see more of what was going on on the whole stage. I can see why this would have got raves in the theatre, but on DVD it's not quite so convincing as a total performance. Still, despite there being better performances on DVD, this is a fine production, with excellent singing from the boys, and well worth watching for fans of the opera.

DVD Review: Glyndebourne Rodelinda 1998

Warner Music

Rodelinda: Anna Caterina Antonacci

Bertarido: Andreas Scholl

Grimoaldo: Kurt Streit

Garibaldo: Umberto Chiummo

Eduige: Louise Winter

Unolfo: Artur Stefanowicz

Director: Jean-Marie Villégier

Conductor: William Christie
Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment

Glyndebourne





Rodelinda dates from 1725 which puts it bang in the middle of Handel's operatic development - just a little after the more commonly encountered Giulio Cesare. It's a very beautiful score consisting of 25 solo arias (plus recitative), just three ensembles, and not a chorus to be seen. This does make it rather difficult to stage as so much of the work is devoted to solo scenas in which interaction between the characters must be either arrested or invented, but the musical rewards are great, and the situation interesting.

The story is too complicated to give a synopsis of here, but it involves a love quadrangle wrestling for power and love. Standard Baroque opera shtick then, but the novelty is that Rodelinda has to choose between her child's life and betraying her husband. Director Jean-Marie Villégier has a very reasonable stab at presenting the incredibly complicated plot, but where his production succeeds best is in marrying a very stylised visual and dramatic aesthetic with real emotion so that one is never alienated. The sets and costumes look 1920s, but the colour palette is very muted indeed (with makeup to make faces paler) suggesting 1940s film noir visuals, and the acting is consistently stylised to match the dramatic conventions of the silver screen. It all works remarkably well, and the opening act is particularly powerful. Unfortunately, in Act III the same intensity is not maintained, but overall this is a very well executed piece of directing.

The singing from all is very decent without being world class. Anna Caterina Antonacci is rightly the star of the show, very committed to the role and she perfectly understands the style that is being aimed at. Vocally she is good, communicating with conviction and she is adept at the coloratura, though the fundamental timbre is not glamorous (and even becomes quite rough in places) and there are not many vocal niceties (forget about trills). Andreas Scholl makes his operatic début here and is in very good voice and though not bad dramatically, his actions are a bit balletic and unmasculine, so the character is not that convincing. Kurt Streit does well as Grimoaldo, and while it's not the most beautiful voice, this is a major tenor role requiring a lot of coloratura in which he acquits himself admirably. Louise Winter's unfortunately lacks any sort of reasonable chest register which the rival mezzo role of Eduige clearly calls out for and so is miscast, but she makes a pleasing schemer along with the excellent Umberto Chiummo as the villain Garibaldo. William Christie is simply beyond reproach in the pit with the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment - gorgeous, characterful playing as almost always with this band.

Well worth seeing.

Here is the gorgeous duet which closes Act II, for me the musical highlight of the opera. I'm not sure I've heard it more beautifully sung than here.

DVD Review: La Traviata 2009 Renée Fleming Royal Opera House

Opus Arte

Violetta: Renée Fleming
Alfredo: Jospeh Calleja
Germont: Thomas Hampson

Conductor: Antoni Pappano
Royal Opera House Orchestra and Chorus
Director: Richard Eyre










As with most Traviatas, this DVD is all about the soprano, and this version was surely filmed almost entirely for Fleming's sake. Fleming's singing of the Italian repertoire has been the most controversial aspect of her very broad ranging career, some complaining that her singing in this repertoire is fussy, mannered and stylistically wrong, but this is a very personal and individual performance from her that offers a great deal and was ecstatically reviewed at the time.

Richard Eyre's production is quite traditional and very adaptable to the strengths of the soprano which is probably why it has lasted so long at the ROH. He returned especially for this revival as he is a fan of Fleming, and as a result the direction is extremely detailed and there are countless moments of subtle but brilliant insight. Act I is the plainest and the set feels a bit cramped for a party and it isn't nearly seemy enough, but Eyre effectively and convincingly traverses the insane pace of Verdi's exposition. Fleming brings an unusual elegance, glamour and nobility to the role that is quite magnetic. I was actually surprised at how well Fleming acts in this Act - usually she is merely adequate when being happy on stage - she's generally much, much better at acting the bittersweet, the wistful, the sad, and even the angry parts of an opera, which is lucky, because that's basically what full lyric sopranos do for a living. Still the acting becomes quite artificial here especially when she's thinking about singing the right notes during "Sempre Libera" which taxes her enormously, noticeably more so than it had done in her previous outings of this role. In an interview she has said: "I don't think anyone enjoys singing this... I don't know a single soprano who likes it... it's not written well for the voice." She certainly gets through it just fine, but it's not quite as effortless as we're used to from her (but then we must remember how astonishing that she is singing this well at 50). Calleja is at his weakest here too and seems not at all engaged dramatically. Luckily they both warm up in the following acts.

Act II is also conventionally staged, but again there are lots of lovely details of characterisation and points of telling interaction between the characters. Violetta's anger and panicked outburst in Act II seems to surprise her even more than it does Germont: she isn't aware of the strength of her own feelings until this moment, and this threat to her relationship unexpectedly and explosively forces her to face up to her own mortality - the crisis we realise has been bubbling beneath the surface for some time. It's very powerfully presented. Fleming's "Dite alla giovine" is truly exceptional, and now that she's in her home ground dramatically, the emotion feels completely genuine for the first time. Interestingly Fleming's Violetta is very forthright and far more upstanding than we usually see - Fleming's view is that Violetta is popular because she has such strong moral integrity and this certainly shows in her portrayal. Traditional productions such as this do tend to ignore the sleazy aspects of the story, going with the "courtesans were immensely cultured women" line, which suits Fleming's character and attitude, but it's clear that its only part of the story, and a sentimental dishonesty too.

Despite some questionable acting, Thomas Hampson manages to be an extremely unpleasant Germont - he's not just misguided and oblivious to the seriousness of his actions as he is often portrayed - here he merely plays dumb, and is otherwise manipulative, callous, cold, violent, entirely self serving and without remorse. Vocally Hampson is very accomplished, though by his own high standards seems not entirely comfortable as it's not really his fach, but he is of course a very talented singer and is more than capable of singing the part.

Fleming's Act III is perhaps not surprisingly her strongest, and it's simply heartbreaking. I can't think of any other currently performing soprano who could deliver this much pathos vocally in this scene. The beauty of the voice, so sensitively coloured and frail, is quite miraculous. Violetta's passionate outbursts are huge releases of energy which we see she must recover from, every show of strength has its immediate cost - all this Fleming manages to put into the music without endangering the line. I would say that 2009 is the last year of Fleming's prime - the last year where real feats of coloratura are still possible, the support remains absolutely rock solid, and her trade mark timbre is still full and beautiful in every register. But it's clear that the voice isn't quite as pristine as in her 2006 Los Angeles La Traviata DVD, and certainly less so than her 2004 Met Traviata (of which bootlegs easily available online for free, and there are clips on youtube). Still, much of the vocal beauty that she is famed for remains on this DVD, and there is great sensitivity to the text, maybe more so than ever in some key moments, the result of hard work on this with Pappano.

Joseph Calleja has an extraordinary tenor that becomes firmer, more secure and more even the higher he sings. Very unusual. The vibrato is very fast and narrow which works well up high, but this intense quality is taken down into the low voice which as a result can become slightly unstable and unpredictable. This is exactly the right repertoire for him though. His acting varies between simply walking the part, and quite acceptable (especially when he's angry in Act II) but it's clear that this is a vocally led performance from him.

Pappano leads a thrilling and nuanced account of the score, bursting with colour, and he carries the whole cast brilliantly along. This is the sort of repertoire that he excels in and he's clearly having a great time. There's a very interesting DVD extra which is an interview between Pappano and Fleming, which can be viewed on youtube.



Here's a clip of the very ending that someone's cheekily filmed in a cinema (hence weird framing!)

DVD review: Pelléas et Mélisande 1992 WNO Boulez

Deutsche Grammophon

Mélisande: Alison Hagley
Pelléas: Neil Archer
Golaud: Donald Maxwell
Arkel: Kenneth Cox

Director: Peter Stein
Conductor: Pierre Boulez

Welsh National Opera

This production was important in its time and received good reviews and continues to be highly regarded amongst lovers of this most recherche score. I thought I better check it out.

Alison Hagley's Mélisande is very youthful and natural both vocally and dramatically, and she gives a pleasingly simple, innocent and other worldly performance. The voice is attractive, fragile, sweet and slightly brittle sounding in climaxes and so is in some ways ideal. The other clear stand out is Kenneth Cox's wonderfully orotund Arkel, absolutely solid and ripe throughout his range. Wonderful singing. Neil Archer (Pelléas) and Donald Maxwell (Golaud) both sing their music very respectably indeed, one can hardly complain, but neither is very dramatically committed which is particularly hard to take with so many close ups.

Peter Stein's production is a decent staging if you like your productions vanilla and your singers to be accurate rather than having strong personalities of their own. The costumes strongly suggest the late 19th century, as Golaud looks like Debussy and Pelléas like Oscar Wilde, but it obviously remains a fantasy setting with set designs that are slightly abstract, shadowy and plain but recognisably what is written in the score. It's not at all interventionist, and doesn't try to explain or elucidate the symbolism or elliptical drama too much which is fine, but don't expect any easy insights. It basically works well, but didn't draw me in that much, though I think this also might have been to do with the conducting.

Though I have heard Boulez in plenty of Second Viennese stuff and contemporary music, surprisingly this is the first time I have ever heard him conduct something tonal that wasn't by Stravinsky (a composer for whom his conducting was made). His approach here is icy and precise, but there's no bouquet, no aroma, no seduction, not enough sickness, and though it's very clear that this is what he wants, in this piece it just seems inappropriate to me. He also can't sustain a line or anything slow which is a bit of a problem in this score. Maybe some will like his absolute eschewal of any sentimentality, but for me he also strips the piece of half of its genuine sentiment and atmosphere too.

Something to bear in mind: the filming is oddly antiquated considering this was filmed in 1992. There's a lot of grainyness and bright colours bleed when the camera moves quickly.

P.S. Most gratuitous use of animals ever award goes to this production where a live sheep is onstage for all of four seconds for Yniold's solo scene. Great.

Les Indes galantes 2003 Opéra National de Paris DVD: A Question of Camp

Opus Arte

Hébé: Danielle de Niese
Bellone: Joao Fernandes
L'Amoure: Valérie Gabail

Osman: Nicolas Cavallier
Emilie: Anna Maria Panzarella
Valere: Paul Agnew

Huascar: Nathan Berg
Phani: Jael Azzaretti
Don Carlos: Francois Piolini

Tacmas: Richard Croft
Ali: Nathan Berg
Zaire: Gaele le Roi
Fatime: Malin Hartelius

Adario: Nicolas Rivenq
Damon: Christoph Strehl
Don Alvar: Christophe Fel
Zima: Patricia Petibon

Conductor: William Christie
Les Arts Florissants

Director: Andrei Serban
Set and costume designer: Marina Draghici
Choreographer: Blanca Li



After Hippolyte et Aricie, Rameau's second foray into opera Les Indes galantes might come as a shock - the intimacy, incredible drama and newness of the previous opera is eschewed in favour of stock situations and divertissement. But Les Indes galantes is an opéra-ballet rather than a Tragédie en musique, and therefore is a much lighter, frothier affair, with the focus more firmly on ballet than on singing.  This shift of focus and also the shift of tone prevents it from being one of my more favourite Rameau operas though there's plenty to enjoy for those who like this music. (Though I love numbers here and there of all Rameau's operas, my favourites as total entities are largely the five Tragédies en musique.)

It is difficult to be an opera lover and not have at least some taste for the Camp aesthetic. I for my part identify with Susan Sontag's position in her extraordinarily brilliant essay Notes on Camp. As she did, I admit "a sharp conflict in my own sensibility. I am strongly drawn to Camp, and almost as strongly offended by it." There are situations where I like it, and some where I don't; as mentioned in the essay, as a general rule, naïve Camp is usually more satisfying than "camping" aka deliberate Camp. (As an aside, I cannot recommend the essay enough, one of my favourite essays ever. I wish I had written it.)

this sort of thing

Everyone will have their own internal standards and sensibilities on this issue, even if they have not yet been fully considered and verbalised, so mileage will vary on how much each viewer will enjoy this production. For me, Andrei Serban's production crosses the line into camping so far that I find it difficult to enjoy. It's sort of fun moment by moment, but there's a joyless superficiality and denial of the Spirit in pointing out obvious absurdities and avoiding true emotion if Camp can be substituted, which is what this production tends heavily towards. It's also difficult to sustain an audience's interest over a period of music this long if their emotions are not engaged. As a result, for me at least, the whole thing feels prolix and uninvolving. Baroque opera suffers hugely from these sort of productions because broadly, what they offer as drama usually is the endless emotional contortions that surround romantic love and its denial. Rameau can come so close to Camp as it is - the powdered ultra decadence of the Ancien Régime is often invoked in less musically and lyrically inspired passages, where means seem to so far outstrip the ends that it becomes difficult to take it seriously. Camp is just around the corner. For me, the solution to make it viable as a piece of stagecraft is not to turn it into a joke, basically because the joke isn't funny enough. I don't mind directors being what some might call "disrespectful" to a piece if ultimately it deepens our appreciation of the artwork, but an ultra decadent panto without the smut or jokes pretty quickly becomes a bit of an inflated bore rather than a guilty delight.

Act IV

Perversely, part of the problem may be that this production doesn't go far enough. If you're going to do it, make a real meal of it! The bright primary colours, twee costumes and set pieces, and panto acting do make it ultra stylised, artificial and sort of fabulous, but it doesn't evince the overstuffed cavern of delights that it's aiming for because the ideas are a bit literal and could be more flamboyant, subversive and decadent. This approach would be truer to Rameau in a way, because he was the ne plus ultra of these things in his time - but we need to feel this now, with our modern sensibilities, ideas and standards, if it's going to work on that level.

Act IV: Christoph Strehl as Damon and
Patricia Petibon as Zima

The Prologue and Act I Le Turc généreux are the worst offenders for camping design wise, and the the singers completely fail to engage with their characters (either because of the alienating production, or because they've been explicitly told to camp it up). Act II, Les Incas du Perou is stronger visually, and takes itself more seriously, at least for the centrepiece, a stirring mass invocation to the gods followed by a Rameau staple, a lightning and thunder/natural disaster scene. It helps also that the music is more interesting and varied in this act. The resolution though is let down again by poor attention to detail in the acting, and the singers revert to rather uninvolved, static declamation. Act III Les Fleurs we are back to panto, and in Act IV Les Sauvages we get some mildly offensive, but mostly just very bad choreography, which throughout has been of very variable quality.

Paul Agnew in Act I

The cast is entirely serviceable - all sing with immaculate intonation and with meticulous attention to proper Ramistian style. But Christie seems to favour very very light voices in this repertoire, and I wish he would work with slightly bigger voices with more colouristic options. In studio recordings they can sound beautiful, but already on DVD you can hear that they are struggling to fill the huge modern day opera houses that are staging these works. Not one singer has a strong low register here, particularly an issue for the women as so much of Rameau's writing sits relatively low. The singers of that era must have had approximately the same distribution of vocal weights as today, and many parts are not very florid, so I somehow doubt that Rameau would only have utilised soubrettes and light tenors and spiel-baritones.

Richard Croft stands out as the disguised prince Tacmas in Act III, with some gorgeous lyrical singing in the quartet, and a quite lovely falsetto before he goes into his joke female voice. Patricia Petibon also produces some very nice sounds as Zima in Act IV, though is completely over the top acting wise. A very young Danielle de Niese already shows huge promise at 24 as Hébé in the Prologue, easily singing as well as her respected co-stars - you realise that it's not just her stage presence that is dazzling, but that the voice has real star quality, particularly the upper register which already is fuller and more exciting than any of the other female principles. The more I hear of her live, the more impressed I am - OK, she's not one of the Great Voices, but it's still a very decent voice, she is a charming actress, can sing with sensitivity to the text, is clearly engaged on stage, and as a whole package is way, way above what we normally get in soubrette roles at the moment on the big stages.


William Christie as ever is exemplary in this repertoire, and Les Arts Florissants play with their usual panache.

Doesn't it look like it should be great from these costumes? But by the end my expression mirrored Danielle's here. (This is a screen shot from the prologue)

DVD Review: Les Boréades 2003 Opus Arte

Alphise: Barbara Bonney
Abaris: Paul Agnew
Calisis: Toby Spence
Borilée: Stéphane Degout
Borée: Laurent Naouri
Adamas, Apollon: Nicolas Rivenq
Sémire: Anna-Maria Panzarella
Une nymphe: Jael Azzaretti

Opéra National de Paris
Les Arts Florissents

Conductor: William Christie
Choreography: Édouard Lock (feat. La La La Human Steps)
Director: Robert Carsen
Sets and Costume Design: Michael Levine


Written when the composer was 80, Les Boréades is Rameau's final opera. Even at this age Rameau was exploring, and though it's not the most compelling of his operas, there is still much to admire. The exceptionally inventive, unusual and beautiful ballet music in Acts 3, 4 and 5 form the core of the work's musical appeal, but there are lovely moments for the solo voices and choir too, one particular highlight being the final brief duet for the lovers.

This opera does not have the richest libretto, and Robert Carsen has done a very admirable job in fleshing it out, creating a coherent and simple concept that binds the piece together, is visually strong, and is entirely respectful to the piece - absolutely no ironic quotations marks here. Carsen depicts a dour northern civilisation which the queen Alphise is from, and from which also come the two sons of Borée (Les Boréades), one of whom she is meant to choose as a suitor. They are affected, artificial, controlled and authoritarian. But her true love Abaris comes from a much warmer culture which is subjugated by the colder, officious civilisation. Overprinted on this is the play of seasons, and the very large dance element of this opera. It seems to be quite rare that dance sequences are well served in operas, at least in the UK, so it's a pleasure to see such accomplished dancers and interesting choreography. In fact, a large part of the character of the northern civilisation is communicated through the skittish, efficient, and alarmingly fast dances that this culture favours.

Barbara Bonney is the premier youthful lyric soprano of her generation, but has made a career primarily out of the German repertoire and she does not seem entirely in her element here. It's not just the language though - the role of Alphise requires dramatic declamation and weighty, angular coloratura which seem to really challenge her (disconcerting for us admirers that are used to everything seeming effortless for this singer). That said, she still does well as she is a superb actress and a captivating stage presence, and the basic timbre of the voice itself is quite lovely of course. Dramatically she's the complete opposite of Paul Agnew who plays her lover Abaris with superb delicacy and beauty of voice - with Agnew the acting and drama is all internal, and he seems surprised when he finds himself interacting with other people. Bonney is radiantly outward focused, reacting to and truly interacting with everyone and everything, especially touching and real in the final act when it is revealed that she is allowed to marry her lover.

The rest of the cast is good. Laurent Naouri is a bit hyperactive and small voiced to be really scary as Borée though he sings idiomatically and well. Toby Spence makes a horribly affected prince and a nicely sung one too. Stéphane Degout as his brother Borilée is a less accomplished singer and doesn't register so clearly as a character. Nicolas Rivenq makes a good Apollon and Adamas.

One can only be thankful for living in an age where William Christie conducts Rameau with Les Arts Florissents. All I can say is that this is music making of the first order* - exciting, characterful, sensitive, intelligent, beautiful. Truly beyond praise.

One really irritating aspect of this DVD is the terrible English subtitles - all theeing and thouing, often with very awkward word order. This makes them difficult to follow and while watching I spent far too much time trying to translate them into real English.

This video shows some of my favourite dance music in the opera - the first piece is the gorgeous Entree from Act IV, and then that charming and wonderful Gavotte for flute and bassoon, and then the final number with its rhythmic dislocations. You see also quite how brilliant the playing is in this production.

*At the moment we are actually lucky enough to have another Rameau conductor of the very highest level: Marc Minkowski