The Siege of Calais (L’assedio di Calais) at ETO

09/03/13
Hackney Empire
Sung in Italian with English surtitles

all photos copyright ETO and Richard Hubert Smith

Donizetti's L’assedio di Calais receives its "UK professional premiere" by the English Touring Opera and such an obscure choice is vindicated here by some excellent singing and a score of unusual richness for this composer. It's a rather dour story, short on dramatic events, but in this two act presentation (with an allegedly redundant and trivial "happy ending" third act excised, though with the best of the music salvaged and inserted into the first two acts) it is concise and engaging in James Conway's staging. Conway updates it to Stalingrad ("the definitive siege of modern times", though there was a Siege of Calais in 1940 during WWII) though it might well be any of the appalling conflicts of the 20th century - what registers is the awful deprivation and desperate circumstances of the characters. There are some interesting ambiguities - the besieged people rebel against their leader Eustachio claiming that he is selfishly not giving himself up, but when confronted, without evidence he denounces the rebel faction's leader as a spy, and whips up his credulous citizens with talk of war and fighting to the last man. Throughout there's the uncomfortable feeling that we might not be sympathising with the "good guys" - Eustachio's son Aurelio is fearsomely dedicated to what seems to be his father's ideal rather than his wife and family to which he is nevertheless dutifully committed (risking his life at the beginning to get food for himself and them).

Samal Blak's set slightly confusingly utilises a pipe as it's main focus (its myriad functions don't give us a clear sense of orientation between siegers/besieged), but overall works well to create the dilapidated tenor of the evening. Everything is in a state of squalid disrepair, and hanging up are pieces of urban wreckage which disturbingly resemble carcasses in a butchers.

Helen Sherman, Eddie Wade and Paula Sides

The score as I say is uncommonly rich for Donizetti, and has some lovely set pieces - most notably a sextet for the condemned men, and a gorgeous duet in thirds for Eleonora and the mezzo breeches role of Aurelio. This is the strongest cast yet of the three ETO productions this spring, with some outstanding contributions from the leads and not a weak link in the cast. Paula Sides is even better as Eleonora than she was as Despina in Cosi, and Helen Sherman, (on whom the make-up department have done wonders) the "hero" of the piece is spectacularly good as Aurelio, singing with verve, accuracy and commitment and possessing a voice of exciting beauty, evenness and fullness in all registers, and with a thrilling edge in the sound. She's singing Nero in the ETO's Autumn Coronation of Poppea so we have that to look forward to. Eddie Wade is a new voice to me: he is excellent as Eustachio, striding through Donizetti's writing with ease. The ETO chorus also sound magnificent in the extensive crowd scenes, and the ETO orchestra under Jeremy Silver respond once again with full bodied tone and excellent ensemble. Great stuff.

Tickets for all three shows are very reasonable indeed - go see them!

sextet

Helen Sherman as Aurelio

Simon Boccanegra at ETO

08/03/13
Hackney Empire
Sung in Italian with English surtitles.

Craig Smith and Elizabeth Llewellyn as
Simon and Amelia.
all photography copyright ETO and
Richard Hubert Smith

English Touring Opera's second opera this season is extremely ambitious. General director James Conway has selected Simon Boccanegra, his first ever Verdi, but a good one for the ETO to do because of its intimacy, non outrageous vocal requirements and the fact that it's one of Verdi's finest works in this reviewer's opinion. The very complex story is brought easily into focus by Conway who doesn't get bogged down in the specifics of the politics and focuses on what Verdi is really most interested in: the human interactions and moments of very personal emotion. The endless criticising of Verdi's plots is a tiresome red herring, because they're all so clearly designed to give Verdi what he wants and needs to write his best music. The period is updated to post war Italy for the Prologue, a period of political chaos in the country, which places the rest of the action in the early 1970s. Never is there a conflict between text and interpretation - it's refreshing in fact not to have the Doge encumbered by his traditional robes/cassock/man-dress.

Simon Boccanegra is one of Verdi's most musically interesting and rewarding works despite containing fewer obvious hit tunes than the more popular operas in his oeuvre. The centre of gravity of the vocal writing is very low indeed - two basses, two baritones, a tenor and a soprano are the leads - and this darkness is matched in the glowering opacity of the beautiful orchestral writing - Verdi finds endless dark hues and inky depths in his orchestration and the piece feels unusually integrated and all of a whole as a result - it's as if he tried in this opera to produce a study in dark colours. Samal Blak's simple and austere designs work well and reflect both score and the nautical references in the text without ever becoming too literal - a much better offering here from him than for yesterday's Cosi.

Grant Doyle and Keel Watson

Craig Smith's Simon Boccanegra is vocally quite brilliant, tireless, full, and heartbreaking in the finale of Act 3  where his endlessly supported pianos are searingly pained and tender. Acting wise he is unfortunately less convincing - his body language does not read as that of a leader, and his actions contain little conviction. Charne Rochford's Adorno is also awkwardly acted and though secure vocally, the voice becomes strident and metallic in the upper half of the voice. Grant Doyle's Paulo is the cast's best actor and he's very, very good vocally too in this smallish but important villain role. Keel Watson sounded strained in the Prologue as Fiesco and continued to sing on heroically through a coughing fit - clearly something was awry. He was however much more secure in the second half and vocally excellent. His massive frame made him an imposing nemesis for Boccanegra but unfortunately also limited his ability to move effectively on stage.




Many people will be most curious about up and coming soprano Elizabeth Llewellyn's debut in the beautiful role of Amelia which is at the top end of lyric repertoire and is entering the spinto territory. Hearing her "up close" in the Hackney Empire revealed things that I couldn't hear during her recent ENO Micaelas. The voice has a very smoky/husky lower register, dark middle range and incisive, full bodied top. The vibrato I find quite slow and wide for her voice category, but overall it is a sound of some beauty. The viscosity and density of the voice suggests that more spinto repertoire awaits, but it doesn't always feel fully in control yet - diminuendos aren't smooth and just cut out to off the breath singing, and occasionally a note doesn't sound fully engaged or supported until a quarter of a second into the note. The contrast between the smooth top and husky lower middle voice and chest voice gives the voice a raw edge which some will like, but to me it suggests raw potential that is yet to be fully capitalised on. She's still at the very early stages of her career so I look forward to seeing her continue to develop. Acting wise she is not very fluent either and seems inhibited in her interaction with her father and with Adorno, her lover. As mentioned already though, her two colleagues also had issues in this regard, and it was the only thing that marred the evening for me. The beautiful and important scene in which Boccanegra finds his long lost daughter is an unfortunate casualty.


Overall though this is a good evening of opera, with great musical rewards and the emotional pay off in Act 3 is overwhelming. The ETO's orchestra continue to go from strength to strength and are even better in conductor Michael Rosewell's hands than they were in their already impressive showing in yesterday's Cosi. The orchestral sound is simply magnificent for a band of this size, yielding nothing to the ROH orchestra (who will play the opera this summer), the strings' richness and fullness belying their small numbers and the wind and brass blending beautifully and never overpowering them. The sense of ensemble is excellent. What more can you ask for?

Cosi fan Tutte at the ETO

Hackney Empire
07/03/13

The English Touring Opera launch their Spring 2013 tour with Cosi Fan Tutte, Mozart's most mysterious, amoral, diaphanous, warm and easy going opera. The cruel symmetries, profound human insights and lunacies, ultra suave music and curious blankness at the heart of it are all the cause of much fascination which make writers and audiences return to it again and again. It can be played for laughs, it can be played for tears - its openness allows it to easily reflect back almost any interpretation that one may have of it.

photos copyright ETO and Robert Workman

Samal Blak's designs are mostly bland, but border on the ugly: the set reminds one of the similarly vanilla ROH Jonathan Miller Cosi with its two large cream panels, against a cream back drop and floor; the addition of crude willow stencils and inelegantly shaped apertures are the only adornment we get on otherwise flat panelling. The libretto makes constant reference to nature and the elements, and there's the intimation of a cycle from day to evening to night to morning again - but the relentless fluorescent beige doesn't allow for any of this to be suggested, and the willow design and flowery dresses do not do enough to suggest the beauty and majesty of natural forces or even the Mediterranean warmth and lightness that floods the score.

To continue briefly along the design aspect of the show: why also is the maid Despina's costume grander and more fetching than her two preening mistresses' relatively tame attire? I'll stop going on about it, but I thought this production really suffered from its boring and ungraceful design.

Laura Mitchell and Anthony Gregory

With so little to look at, and with no surtitles to distract* (a good thing!) the focus was squarely on the acting, which is as it should be, but this is a double edged sword. I found most of the acting quite approximate, as if all the singers were doing impressions of the emotions they were meant to be feeling rather than their actions coming from the necessity of genuine emotion. This was confirmed to me instantly when the cast went to bow and instantly we got relaxed, very natural movement, and genuine smiles and interaction with one another. To do this whilst in character is of course the difficulty and art of acting! Paul Higgins' direction offers a light hearted and unradical view of the work, though Despina is given a bit more depth than usual - her motive for leading the girls astray is that she is embittered by a past wracked by romantic disappointment. She is otherwise sarcastic and rather flippant with her mistresses in the first scene, though by the end does feel genuine regret at her part in matters when the deceit is unveiled. There is no "solution" proferred at the end either - the couples first pair up with their original lovers, then with their new ones, then with their friends and no decision is come to.

Vocal honours go to Paula Sides' Despina, with her attractive soubrette timbre, easy fluency of line and ringing top (note that she is not the Despina in the photo above). Fiordiligi is famously virtually impossible to cast entirely adequately even in the biggest houses and Laura Mitchell has a good stab - Her "Per pieta" was  good I thought - the lows almost matching the highs, and with a nice sense of the character's frailty and vulnerability, but her first act aria, "Come scoglio", virtually designed by Mozart to expose an uneven strength of the registers, proved less successful. More worrying throughout was a strong tendency to sing sharp when any force was applied to the chords. Kitty Whately has a more naturally appealing tone and proved more successful in the far less demanding role of Dorabella. The boys' strongly contrasting voices was a nice piece of casting - Anthony Gregory's sweetly sensitive lyric tenor as Ferrando and Toby Girling's less careful, beefier baritone as Guglielmo. The two duets in Act II were vocal highlights, keenly felt by the singers and beautifully accompanied, but the other ensembles were all poorly balanced, each allowing one or two voices to dominate far too much. Don Alfonso gets some of the best arias in the piece, all of very short duration and with the most inspired orchestral accompaniments. Richard Mosley-Evans had the right sort of voice for the role, but sadly got out of time with the pit in every single solo passage.

The highlight of this performance was undoubtedly the contribution from the pit. The overture revealed charming virtuosity from the winds which set the standard for the rest of the evening - nary a note was out of place, and the orchestra, conducted by James Burton, sounded fresh, engaged and unified. The score is cut in Act II.

A slightly disappointing start to the ETO season but you can't win them all and the following evening's Simon Boccanegra was much more convincing.

*sung in English

Flawed Masterpiece?

La Clememza di Tito

12/03/2011

Hackney Empire

English Touring Opera

Mozart's last opera is problematic because it's patently so much worse than the four towering masterpieces that preceed it. The clichées for once are true - The secco recitatives are for the most part dull (the work of another hand), the arias only intermittently inspired. It has a curious atmosphere of simplicity, and a certain reserve that seems at once befitting of it's old fashioned seria style, and not quite enough to make the drama really live. Although the situations presented in the opera are in principle quite interesting, the libretto itself is really very plain (occasionally ridiculous, usually with regard to Tito's much put upon goodness), all the characters except Vitellia fairly simple and the action badly paced. The second act particularly drags - one just wishes that each of the scenes had been cut in half, so emminently and easily achievable since all are so longwinded and repetitive. Many people nowadays proclaim it as an unfairly neglected masterpiece, and of course there are moments of brilliance, a few arias that delight (none thrill) but however hard I try to convince myself that this is a hidden gem, the feeling of etiolation and exhausted churning in Mozart's music is hard to stave off. Whether the fundamental plainness and classical reserve of the score can truly be chalked up to a stylistic decision on Mozart's part remains very questionable, especially when one returns to the endless vitality, depth and extraordinary beauty of the "big four".



The ETOs new production sets the action around war time (who is Tito meant to represent amongst European leaders of that era though?!) which has been done before with this opera, and at least rescues it from the distancing effect of togas and spears - we need all the help we can get if we are to identify with these characters. The staging is simple and fairly static, and seems apt for the music - bizarre then that the ETO would so completely mischaracterise the piece in their publicity for the show. They don't manage to ameliorate the langours, but moments in the score do emerge with an understated poignance, particularly Tito's monologue on the travails and pains of leadership, and Vitellia's final monologue which verges on the heartbreaking (again perhaps it's good that it doesn't go all the way, as there isn't any weepiness in the music). I'm struggling for things to say - basically as a whole it's fine, but hardly revelatory. It's sung in English which takes a long time to adjust to. I really don't see the need for this when there is not one, but two sets of surtitles bookending the stage.

The singing was mostly of a very high standard indeed and the intimate scale of the Hackney Empire means that every word and nuance can be heard with clarity and precision. The diminuative Mark Wilde made an ideal Tito, vocally as sweet and pliant as his character. Only a couple of times did he seem overstretched during the climaxes and the coloratura required in his act two aria just wasn't in place, but the timbre and demeanour seemed just right. Gillian Ramm as Vitellia also convinced - both her arch manipulativeness in the first act and touching contrition in the second were made convincing by her acting. The voice is really quite beautiful, but rarely blooms as fully as you want it to and feel that it probably could. Julia Riley, Rhona McKail, Charlotte Stevenson and Philip Spendley are all good vocally and do the best they can with their more one dimensional characters. If only the music they had to sing was a touch more inspired!

Photos copyright English Touring Opera.