L'elisir d'amore and Les pêcheurs de perles at Opera Holland Park

Les pêcheurs de perles 03/07/13
L'elisir d'amore 16/07/13

I somehow forgot to finish and post these reviews a month ago, but include them here now for completeness' sake before my season round up.

I've already gone on at length on this blog about why I'm so keen on L'elisir d'amore (You can read my thoughts here.) but needless to say that I've never yet tired of it in all the times I've seen it. Director Pia Furtado sets the opera in the present day on a sunflower plantation, Nemorino and the chorus a group of workers, and Adina a sort of figurehead of the organisation (she's on the advertising, but far too relaxed and casual to be the owner of the business - perhaps it's daddy's business, which would fit her brattish sense of entitlement). The set (designed by Leslie Travers) is a view into the interior of a greenhouse with the back ends of two lorries which have reversed into the space.

The army inexplicably show up, Belcore apparently famous with the locals and somewhat of a laughing stock too. Right at the beginning we're introduced to Dulcamara, in this production a deeply creepy hippyish type - who sneaks around during the prelude, before we know who he is (since Nemorino is in the first scene this is quite a nice sleight of hand as we at first assume that we are being introduced to the romantic lead).

The first act is mostly well handled. Sarah Tynan's Adina is self aware, self assured and loves being admired - she thinks she knows everything about men, despite her young years. George von Bergen's Belcore feels an equal sense of entitlement, but is much more naive, and so is a laughing stock as he doesn't "get it". Aldo Di Toro's Nemorino is as sincere and serious as one could hope for. The chatty, gossipy crowd create a bustling atmosphere, though the soldier's dance moves are a bit hard to credit. The "set up", as it were felt strong for second act, but unfortunately I felt there was less detail and subtlety in the second half - the all important scene that follows Una Furtiva Lagrima not quite yielding the insights and dramatic potential that are available here. I also thought that more could have been drawn out of the women's infatuation with Nemorino, but overall it's a fun evening, it never drags, and is an engaging if not challenging view of the piece.

Sarah Tynan uncannily recalls actress Sheridan Smith in the first Act, not just in her looks, but in her flirty demeanour too, though she becomes considerably more restrained and serious in the second act. Vocally she is in control and expressive, possessing a fairly attractive full lyric sound, though the vibrato is sometimes a shade wide and slow for comfort in the upper reaches of the voice. Aldo di Toro's Nemorino is equally well sung, with long lines, a good feeling for style, and a bright, slightly "complaining" timbre that fits the character's sense of self pity. George von Bergen's Belcore is vocally a very gruff and loud, but the timbre is very "muddy" in the sense that every tone contains a lot of harmonics not in the fundamental. Geoffrey Dolton is hyperactive as Dulcamara, and the suite of characterisations he has fashioned for his character (e.g. the wobbling head, the constantly outstretched tongue) make him hard to watch. Vocally he is fine, though rather small scale. Conductor Steven Higgins leads a sprightly and beautiful account of the score, though one which doesn't always give enough dramatic thrust to the music. Still far better than one often hears.

Two weeks earlier (03/07/13) I attended Opera Holland Park's production of Bizet's The Pearlfishers. I love Bizet's music, and so really lament the fact that so much of it is marooned in dull or farfetched plots with poor librettos, which render so many of his operas all but unviable for the stage. So it is with The Pearlfishers whose plot is stock, characters bland and conclusion wholly unsatisfying. Yet this unengaging text enshrines a gorgeous score, which while not as dramatically vivid or quite as memorable as Carmen, is nevertheless just as beautiful and pleasurable to experience for those predisposed to French opera.

The singing was generally quite good. Soula Parassidis made a beautiful Leila whose very covered and dark soprano surprises in scaling significant heights. The brittle top sounded best in the dramatic outbursts of the final few scenes. Grant Doyle and Jung Soo Yun were decent as her suitors Zurga and Nadir, steady and secure, though failing to make a great impact in the very difficult acoustics of the OHP theatre.

The problem with this production is that it didn't interpret the libretto imaginatively enough: characters remained bland and unspecific, the political subtext unexplored, the setting a cod Indian society with the main set item a sheet on pulleys, put to work as a net and a tent. The real Indian dancers were a nice touch, but weren't enough to distract from the dullness of the rest. The result failed to make a compelling case for the opera as a viable dramatic entity.

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?

Clemency

Clemency
ROH2
Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House
07/05/2011

Hmm, not great. Not bad though either.

The best bit about this show is the set which is quite beautiful in an understated, dingy sort of way - all delapidation, plain living and clear natural light. The set looks like it's three hinged cuboids, folded out so that you can see the interior of each, but if they were folded back together, they'd make a box. So singers in one section sing into the audience as if looking forward into the other box segment. Quite an interesting idea and it means that all the singers are facing the audience most of the time, so we see from both parties' point of view.

The story is one of the strangest in the bible, that of the ancient Abraham and Sarah (both looking quite sprightly in this production) being told they are going to have child, and then realising that the people they've been told this by are actually angels about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham pleads with them to be lenient (Ah I see! Clemency!) and they agree, and then storm off. It's updated to approximately present day though as far as I could make out, the angels are still angels. Unfortunately only about a third of the text is intelligable, and there are no surtitles. I understand the conflict that surtitles produce in opera - that when they're there one isn't directly involved in the drama because the eye keeps flicking upwards, and reading is done in the opposite hemisphere of the brain to watching and listening, which is not good for true concentration and "losing yourself" in the drama. But without them, the drama is also vitiated, especially in a new work like this because singers so often have poor diction, and you have no idea what's going on most of the time, beyond the patently obvious.

The singing, as ever with ROH2, is fine from all involved, often very good, but rarely moving. Singing rarely seems to be the point of ROH2 productions (or contemporary opera in general for that matter, with a few happy exceptions). The score is very nice in places, occasionally exquisite, but overall fails to make much impact - James Macmillan's eclectic oeuvre relies on its immediacy, beauty and occasional strangeness for effect, but when he's not inspired, the result is often rather bland and generic, beautifully crafted though it almost always is. As an aside, there was something oddly beautiful about the look of just the strings of the Britten Sinfonia sitting in the pit too - seemed totally fitting for the lovelyness of the stage.