Agrippina at ETO

08/10/13
Britten Theatre, Royal College of Music

Though both were composed for the Venetian stage, the musical differences between Giasone and Agrippina are immense. This is perhaps understandable as they are separated by a span of 60 years, but it feels like a greater divide is represented here. Giasone (1649) comes at the end of the early Italian Baroque, derived as it is mostly from Monteverdi's innovations of the early 1600s. Agrippina (1709) on the other hand is the work of a young man of the high baroque - it is very close in style and essence to the latest German Baroque of the 1730's-50's, that is Bach and Handel in grandest, fullest maturity.

Handel represents the greatest flowering of the move in the late Baroque towards "number opera" - that is the ever clearer separation of the music into recitatives (musically negligible moments of action) and "numbers" (musically fecund reflection). From Monteverdi (where it could be argued that the text/dramatic situation is more important than displaying the singer's vocal talents), the pendulum has now swung entirely in favour of the singer - the words are commonly repeated to the point of abstraction, and are often only peripherally matched to the musical phrasing. Displays of vocal prowess and coloratura are the order of the day.

As Stravinsky so insightfully observed, Handel never surprises (as opposed to Bach, who always surprises) and the reason must surely be that his harmony is so fundamentally plain. This is not to slight Handel, indeed this is a part of his huge popular appeal, and also a large part of the effectiveness of the oratorios in the context of the cathedral acoustics they were composed for. He actually can occasionally surprise, but he does so via texture and orchestration, and his range in this increases in later years - the arias in the supreme late operatic masterpieces like Alcina have a real individuality and variety. Handel is difficult to stage, partly because of the balance between action and emotion, and partly because the pacing is driven by musical, rather than textual considerations. To put it another way, there's a hell of a lot of time that the characters have to be on stage for the quantity of text that they have to declaim, and to fill the time meaningfully without resorting to mere "stage business" requires real ingenuity and imagination from the director and performer.

Agrippina is a splendid score, absolutely within the mould of everything else you know by Handel, and though early Handel is often a bit of a blind spot for me, I found this to be a very satisfying evening musically. I was not so enamoured with James Conway's production. Though in his programme note he professes to be a "Handel fanatic" and steadfastly believes in Handel's dramatic sense, he determinedly keeps the characters at arms length throughout this production by directing it as a comedy. The whole thing flirts with a panto like atmosphere; we are never encouraged to take the characters seriously as people and instead are encouraged to simply laugh at their vanities, pains and plots. This directorial approach is common with a lot of Baroque opera, because the stories and psychology often strain credulity. But for me ironic distancing is too glib and post modern a reaction to these problematic pieces - it's a camp avoidance of the issues an opera is trying to address, and undermines our ability to take the piece seriously as drama, or to connect with its emotional content (for a discussion of a rather more extreme case of this, see this review that I wrote about a production of Rameau's Les Indes galantes). The opera is almost reduced into an excuse for vocal fireworks - a series of "isn't this fabulous" moments. One understands the desire to avoid boredom and alienation of another sort, which is the risk of taking the opera too seriously, but the bottom line is that the direction served to distance us from the work as drama on this occasion.

Samal Blak mirrors the deliberate artificiality of the direction with an appealingly stylish set and cartoonish costumes. Despite my reservations about the direction, the piece at least doesn't bore, which is actually no mean achievement if my previous experience with early Handel are anything to go by. We are mercifully freed of surtitles - instead we are given a short, often comedic, synopsis for each aria. There are a few moments of unexpectedly genuine emotion too - for instance Ottone's aria which has been chosen to close the first half of the show, and then at sporadic intervals in Act II also, but the winking, too knowing approach is underlined by having the evening close on a dance that redolent of the waving goodbye during sitcom credits. The modest orchestra did occasionally sound a little underpowered and edgy at times, but this is generally a fluent and charming showing from conductor Jonathan Peter and his players.


The cast is fantastic. Gillian Webster is in fairly dazzling voice as Agrippina, totally in control and fully up to the fearsome technical demands of the role. The top in particular glistens with a luscious fullness, and her unaspirated coloratura is a joy. The chest register that Handel demands of the character, as he also does with the later sorceress role of Alcina, is firmly in place, though one occasionally desires a little more bite down there, which one senses is in the voice. Paula Sides is impressive in the second soprano role of Poppea, Agrippina's schemer in training (of course ironically involved in the eponymous character's downfall), with a very attractive light lyric voice that is perfect for these girlish Handel parts. During a cadenza she delivered a quite stunning diminuendo from a full voiced forte to the tiniest pianissimo, as well as a huge descending scale, impressive in its evenness. The cast also features three counter tenors, all fascinatingly different. At first I thought that Nerone, with his androgenous costuming, was being sung by a woman, so unusual was the timbre of Jake Arditti's voice. Ironically it was the lack of chest register that told me that this was in fact a counter tenor! Generally the sound is that of a very steely mezzo (Susan Bickley comes to mind), with a large top that can turn slightly strident, and impressively powerful coloratura - all excellent for this role. A fascinating voice from a young singer whom I look forward to hearing more from. Russell Harcourt also possesses an arrestingly feminine sound as Narciso, though this time we get a slightly pinched and much gentler lyric mezzo timbre - again very unusual and great in his role. Clint van der Linde, who I had been so impressed with as Jason, was good here too, though didn't quite seem to effortlessly as ease with the music on this occasion. This is the most conventional sounding counter tenor voice of the three, possessing that clarinet like purity and hollowness that is usually so characteristic of this fach. Andrew Slater's drunken Claudio, with his at times almost spoken vocal delivery, was a nice foil in his funny casualness to the high strung antics of the others.

A musical treat.



Photos copyright Robert Workman/ETO

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

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