Ariadne auf Naxos at Glyndebourne: take 2

25/05/13

I don't often go to a show twice, but in the past few months I have revisited a few - the RAM Onegin, the ROH Don Carlos, the ENO Wozzeck and this Glyndebourne Ariadne, each excellent in its own way. I am very glad to have seen this Ariadne again - the second viewing brought a better performance from all the leads, and it confirmed to me everything that I had written in my first review - namely that this is one of the best pieces of Regie theatre that I have seen, and probably the best production of Ariadne auf Naxos that I have experienced. Read my first review to find out why.

This time, the Prologue flowed better musically I thought, Jurowski building more momentum and leaving the players more room to breathe. The orchestra sounded simply magnificent in the main opera, with Jurowski's fleet pacing more controlled, as well as greater confidence in the orchestral playing resulting in an even more convinving and beautiful reading than the already extremely impressive first night.

Soile Isokoski's Ariadne was more steady and beautiful this time, as was Sergey Skorokhodov's Bacchus who was still coughing but sang quite magnificently in the finale with a beautiful ringing tone - he can surely only improve as he returns to full health. Laura Claycomb's Zerbinetta is really a very good interpretation - this is Strauss singing to get very, very excited about - again it's the great legato, musicality, and controlled pliancy that sets her apart from her colleagues who currently interpret this role - it's a rare thing when the big show-piece aria doesn't just dazzle, but is musically satisfying and moving too. The nymphs and dance troupe were again very impressive, and far more exciting than usual.

Ariadne auf Naxos auf Glyndebourne

18/05/13

This was the first opera of the Glyndebourne 2013 season, and what a magnificent start. Amazingly, the last time Glyndebourne staged Ariadne auf Naxos was in 1981, surprising because it seems such an ideal work for the house. Director Katharina Thoma seems to realise this connection and sets it in a English country house during the Second World War, where a rich gentleman has decided to put on an opera in his house (therefore mirroring the early Glyndebourne story). The Prologue sees the participants struggling to get the entertainment together as usual (except we see the guests taking a turn on the lawn) but somehow it falls a bit flat - Jurowski is tentative with his orchestra, the jokes are laboured, and the dramatic arc doesn't ignite fully (though the love duet is beautifully intimate). But in the chaos of the end ("Was ist das? Wohin?") a bomb is dropped on the house, and everyone rushes to safety - the entertainment is cancelled, and the Composer is distraught that real life has so painfully and mercilessly intervened with his ideals.*

all photos (c) Alastair Muir

The opera proper is superb though. Ariadne's scenes are difficult to stage because her drama is an internal drama - as Strauss realised immediately (we know from the letters), Hofmannsthal did not manage to invent a dramatically vivid reflection of the symbolism (nevertheless a beautiful poetic and intellectual idea), and so the meaning of the piece remains not fully realised in the final work. That said however, I have never seen Hofmannsthal's central idea so brilliantly or movingly put forward, nor have I ever been moved to care about the characters so much (my passion for the piece has thus far been largely for the wonders of the score). With the entertainment cancelled, the "opera" second act is instead turned into a real discussion between Zerbinetta and Ariadne (Ariadne, it transpires, is simply the name of "The Soprano" from the Prologue.) The country house has been converted into a hospital ward (which is historically accurate), with Ariadne a resident and Dryad, Echo and Naiad the nurses. So the piece becomes not so much a disputation of high/low art (though that is implicit in the music), and not even just about love, but about attitudes to life in the face of adversity - be it abandonment, death, war. Maybe the single common thread of Hofmannsthal's work is the conflict in life between staying principled and true to your ideals (Ariadne) in the face of life's flux, change and the constant ineluctable and mysterious transformation that we find in ourselves (Zerbinetta). Ariadne is a real woman shattered by her abandonment (we might infer that Theseus may actually have been killed in the war), but Zerbinetta explains that life must go on, and besides there's so much fun and fulfilment to be had. This attitude to love/the erotic is mirrored in the entire Commedia dell'arte troupe's attitude to the war - they dance with the residents and generally muck around in the face of the horrors of war - making do, laughing because the only other option is tears.

I've never been so convinced by Zerbinetta as a real flesh and blood character - Laura Claycomb lives and breathes her ethos of enjoyment, flux, change without resorting to shallowness - the emotions and pleasures are real, they just also happen to be fleeting. Her imploring of Ariadne to change is for once heartfelt, and her subsequent saucy antics convincing and non pornographic (that is, emphatically not for show) - her Joie de vivre, joyous sexual freedom, generosity of spirit, and warm heartedness are all palpable in every gesture. The sense of jealousy that the others feel when she finally chooses her man from the Comedy troupe is also keen and sad - we see the cost of freedom, and the deceptions we tell ourselves about why we are not more romantically successful are laid very bare. Hofmannsthal's beautiful language resonates fully at every turn - the positive effect of a German director who really understands the words? What a shame then that the surtitles are so poorly translated - often not just clumsily, but incorrectly - a rare lapse on Glyndebourne's part, particularly painful in the circumstances when for once text, music and drama are working so well in accord.


When Ariadne returns she is ready for death. Bacchus is just a man (as he keeps telling her) but notices that she is a very distraught and tortured woman. His simple act of total empathy for a fellow human being is enough to save her from her despair and begin the process of transformation and recovery for her. His potentially cheesy words "Dann sterben eher die ewigen Sterne, Als dass du stürbest aus meinen Armen!" (roughly "The eternal stars will die before I'd let you die in my arms") have never been more touching, meant or hopeful. And through her transformation and blossoming into love, he, against his own expectations, is also is transformed in love - he has found solace from war in providing comfort and showing love for another human being.

This all sounds very high minded, but in Thoma's production, at every point the symbolic meaning hits home and becomes moving on a human level. Though laughs were effortful in the Prologue, the thoughtful character regie and attention to detail in the main opera means that it is consistently amusing, poignant, gripping. I mean, the three nymphs as nurses sounds twee and sort of filled me with dread when I first saw it, but it just works so well. Thoma also takes very careful notice of the score - the mood, tempo and texture - and closely matches it with actions and visuals. Such a rare thing to see done well.



Musically things are very good indeed. Conductor Vladimir Jurowski, in his final season as Glyndebourne's musical director, shows once again why he will be so sorely missed. As I said, the Prologue felt undernourished and lacked momentum, but once we got to the Opera proper, Jurowski presented us with a treasure trove of delights. I haven't heard it felt so convincingly to be a "chamber opera" as in his hands, and the "numbers" so well integrated into the dramatic whole - the thing rolls forward with a pellucid lightness and a refreshing, vernal beauty, sections melting into each other, the contrast between the seria and buffa sections wonderfully hazy. It's a great achievement and just as the production made me see the drama anew, the conducting and playing made me hear the music anew. The binding of aural and dramatic aesthetics is total.

The cast is very strong. Soile Isokoski is a far more moving and engaged actress than I thought she would be, having read many of her previous reviews in other roles. She is fully in the line of silvery, shimmery Ariadnes - the Lisa Della Casa school if you will. The voice is not quite in its prime any more, but is still very beautiful indeed, and after some slightly spread top notes in her opening scena, she got better and better, and in the final duet produced some glorious singing. Ariadne is role that has frequent excursions beneath the stave, and I was pleasantly surprised at how matched Isokoski's chest voice was to the rest of her instrument- it's not particularly rich, but it is very present and well integrated.

As already mentioned Laura Claycomb embodies Zerbinetta very movingly too, but vocally she is also excellent. It's not always the most effortlessly beautiful voice, but the legato is simply superb, and her musicianship gives her singing a great beauty and expressivity. The very highest notes (all those E6s!) are a little harsh, but it's a small price to pay when the rest is so good: generally the voice is warm, pliant, the coloratura accurate and smooth. Kate Lindsey is a pleasing Composer (both her first time in the role and like the other principal women, her first time at Glyndebourne), possessing a very rounded, well integrated sound with a beautiful soprano like top. She acts the part well. Often the timbre is so shiny and rounded that the diction suffers, and the voice is perhaps a shade small in the climaxes but this is a lovely début.

There are no really weak links in the rest of the cast. The nymphs' music appears as a particular musical highlight (usually such a bore!), very richly and beautifully dispatched by Ana Maria Labin, Adriana Di Paola, and Gabriela Istoc, and their acting is great. Thomas Allen is his usual best as the Music Master, the four comedians (Dmitri Vargin, James Kryshak, Torben Jurgens, Andrew Stenson) better integrated and also more beautiful sounding than the usual character singers we get in these roles. The big one I haven't mentioned is Sergey Skorokhodov in the thanklessly difficult and demanding role of Bacchus. He really wasn't bad for most of it, but by the final phrases he was clearly ailing, coughing once between phrases (was he ill?), and not quite managing to get to the end with all engines blazing. Still, there's plenty to admire in his singing, and one hopes he will improve throughout the run as he acclimatises to the role.

 You'll notice that I use the phrase "never before" a lot in this review, because so many things are revelatory in this production. Overall then a brilliant start to the season, and I cannot wait to see Falstaff next Friday.



EDIT: Mark Berry @Boulezian, who takes a diametrically opposed view in his assessment of this staging in his review, raises concerns that Thoma raises some laughs by using Zerbinetta's supposed mental illness as fodder (and further also suggested on twitter:  "Misogyny of Thoma's Ariadne: woman sings high notes, therefore 'mad', thus molest and straitjacket her, therefore she is fodder for hilarity"). Tim Ashley at the Guardian makes related allusions. This would obviously be very serious and offensive if it were the case whether intentional or accidental, but I must register my disagreement with this analysis. To me, the fussy nurses are not "the voice of Thoma", but the "voice of conformity and prudishness". They don't know how to deal with a woman who is so unbeholden and enjoys/understands her sexuality so thoroughly, and seeing the world through 1940s medical eyes, attempt to straight-jacket and sedate her (all brilliantly choreographed and sensitive to the changes in the music in my opinion) - but she's not held down for long and soon escapes to have fun with her men again - there's was no sense at all I thought that Zerbinetta was either a) genuinely mentally ill, or b) being disapproved of by the production as a whole (indeed, quite the opposite). Opinions will vary of course, and everyone will interpret what they see from a different perspective, but I was so surprised at this analysis, that I just had to write my "version of events".





*disturbingly, lots of audience members guffawed when the bomb was dropped, and chuckles were also heard when a patient had to be sedated because he was spasming in his sleep in the aftermath of some unspeakable horror. I couldn't quite believe it.

CD Review: Isokoski sings Strauss

Ondine
Soile Isokoski

3 Hymns - Opera Arias Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Okko Kamu

Soile Isokoski's decade old recording of the Four Last Songs was rightly heralded by the critics at the time as a major new release - a voice of shimmering beauty in pristine condition giving a radiantly pure reading of the autumnal (yet evergreen) song cycle, along with a wide selection of other orchestral songs, most still relatively rare in the concert hall, presented with the most advantageous advocacy from singer and orchestra.

So how does this follow up fare? The focus this time is far more on operatic repertoire and we have excerpts from Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne and Capriccio, along with the rarely heard Three Holderlin Hymns. The ultra silvery brightness and delicacy to the sound is still there, and the formidable technique still fully in evidence, though the vibrato has subtly widened, and there isn't that last degree of ease and fluency that was so appealing in the last record. Still, there are few sopranos around who are singing like this at the moment, so one cant complain too much in this regard.

What I do have issues with is the lack of commitment to characterisation. The blankness of her portrayals, a kind of anti-expressionismo, where an "instrumental" sound is almost always preferred to meaningful response to the text, simply will not do in Strauss of all composers, whose marriage of word and music is probably the tightest of any composer. (Wagner marries text and sound very closely too of course and is Strauss' principal influence along with Schubert and Schumann, but Strauss outdoes them all for specificity of colour on each word in a phrase.) Occasionally Isokoski will shade the line such as the moment of self mockery when the Marschallin imagines herself as "Die alte frau ... Die alte furstin Resi". But then in "Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar' Ding", she might be singing about anything and it is a million miles from the whispered moment of realisation and quiet despair that Strauss has so movingly composed for the Marschallin. The extent to which she ignores not just the text, but the emotional tenor of this music is almost wilful and borders on the bizarre. Is she not moved by the beautiful music at least, if not by words? In the last Strauss recording she made, this bland, uncommitted quality came across as a sort of floating radiant purity, unusual in Strauss singing where the beauty of the music, and arching, aching phrases are often or even usually suggestive of rather more carnal activity. But it's not enough here.

That the language is not a priority for her is again reflected in her German which rarely sounds truly idiomatic, and occasionally is just plain bad - "Mashmal steh ich auf, mitten in die Nacht". "Der aufgeblasni schlichte Kerl". Very surprising especially considering how often she sings this role, but also the fact that this is a studio recording, where these things are so easily rectified.

Isokoski is singing Ariadne at Glyndebourne next summer. Glyndebourne being a small house makes it the perfect venue for her to sing this role, which is at least one vocal category too big for her really. As I noted before when I saw Fleming's debut in this role earlier this year, my preference is for a silvery, lyric sound in this part (see: Schwarzkopf, Della Casa), though that doesn't mean that the low tessitura can be ignored. Isokoski lacks the chest resonance that this role ideally calls upon (which conversely is surely part of the reason for her vocal longevity), but she does sing very beautifully in the high lying phrases, and she can get away with less characterisation as Ariadne is not the four dimensional character that the Marschallin is. Still there are textual problems ("Stilla Gott"), and vocal shading seems incidental rather than chosen to match the music and text.

The final scene of Capriccio, one of Strauss' finest inspirations, is again beautifully sung, Isokoski giving full thrift to the huge arcs of melody, never once sounding strained, and from a purely singing perspective she is most successful here of the operatic excerpts. But once again, the lack of attention to the text means it isn't as moving as it should be. I won't go on about it.

The orchestral songs fare better. It almost goes without saying that operatic characterisation is very different from interpreting a song. The former is about creating and developing a believable, fully rounded character, the latter about presenting a poem in heightened form and communicating its ideas. Naturally, the same technical and interpretive skills are used in each but with a subtly different order of priorities. Some singers can do both superlatively, some can do one and not the other, and some can do neither, despite having a wonderful voice!

The Three Holderlin Hymns of 1921 are not top drawer Strauss, though they do point the way towards the "late" Strauss (which wasn't to emerge fully for another 2 decades) in their ecstatic soprano soaring against a softly shifting, fundamentally rather plain, though magically glowing orchestral background. There are many wonderful moments to cherish (not least the beginning of the second hymn, Ruckkehr in die Heimat, and the closing minutes of Die Liebe), though by this stage in his life, Strauss' finest song writing was mainly behind him and they lack the freshness, spontaneity and originality of his earlier orchestral songs. After his relentless exploration of presenting the text in his contemporaneous opera Intermezzo, Strauss takes a break here word painting wise, and he just lets the soprano sing on and on. This suits Isokoski just fine, and she finally recalls the lovelyness of her previous Strauss recording, seeming much more in her element, not just interpretively, but technically too, the voice ideally matched to the surging orchestral canvass.

The playing of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra is mostly fine, accurate and detailed, though occasionally there is a little slackness, and Okko Kamu's direction lacks forward momentum and drive. This is not a matter of speed - things are on the brisk side even, especially in the Ariadne excerpts, but somehow the internal tensions of the music have to drive the music forward, and there's rarely a feeling of that here outside of the songs.

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I don't want to seem like a one track reviewer, but this is my blog and so I will indulge myself. This CD made me return once more to Fleming's Strauss Heroines CD, and once again I simply marvel at the artistry. In it's prime in the late 1990s, Fleming had an even more beautiful instrument than Isokoski's, just gleaming and glowing with overtones, and a better technique that is even freer to sing every phrase exactly as the singer wants. But most importantly we get the sense that in German repertoire at least, she is an interpretive artist of the highest calibre and stature: her pointing of text and line is endlessly nuanced, her selection of vocal colours and timbres, emotions and mood always apt and can change on a knife edge, every word matters, yet almost miraculously she never gets in the way of the line, the legato absolutely exquisite and apparently endless. She knows when Strauss wants the voice to bloom and when to hold back, and these are portrayals of the utmost feeling and depth in every parameter. Bonney and Graham are ideal partners, and the Vienna Philharmonic with Eschenbach at the reigns make one of the most glorious sounds ever committed to disc.