And so we come to the last opera of the "Da Ponte cycle", which is actually the first. Figaro is the most perfect Mozart opera in my opinion, which is to say the most perfect opera of all. Every number is not just superbly beautiful as in Cosi and Don Giovanni, but also memorable, dramatically apt, emotionally revealing - the musical and dramatic means are never at odds. The characters are beautifully drawn, likeable, three dimensional, alive with real feelings always exquisitely revealed in the vocal line even when it might be lacking in the text, the action is subtle, nuanced, multi layered, and the orchestra teems with a soft hued delicacy and felicitous brilliance more refined than anything he achieved before or after.*
Just as he did with Meistersinger, McVicar updates the action to the Regency era. The political undertones of the opera (more explicit in the original Beaumarchais play), the theme of master and servant and class frictions, were again very pertinent during this era of course, so the updating makes perfect sense in that way. McVicar doesn't force the point though, and he introduces nothing major that is not in Da Ponte's libretto, nor does he leave anything out: mainly this is a way to do something new visually with the piece and avoid the crinolines and fussy 18th century decor which can be so distracting when badly done.
And it's wonderful. The beautifully capacious sets, all high windows and creme panelling, together with the always sensitive lighting of Paule Constable gives the whole thing a soft, fresh aired luminosity and allows the cast to breath in the space. Tanya McCallin designed both the sets and costumes which gave the piece an aesthetic unity. Act changes are all deftly and smoothly handled with huge moving panels and sections which never seem cheap or clunky. Everything, in other words, is working in perfect accord.
The cast work wonderfully together too, revival direction by Leah Hausman keeping things feeling spontaneous. The casting is excellent, not just vocally but in terms of the dramatic temperament and even the physical stature of each singer as well. Rachel Willis Sorensen makes a gorgeous Countess, vocally polished, controlled and expressive, actually pretty astonishing considering she is just 28 years old. She might be someone very special indeed. She really plays the part beautifully too: poised, restrained in her gestures and with a serene countenance entirely befitting her role. She is also very tall, towering statuesquely over Figaro, Susanna and the rest of the cast so looks great on stage. Lucas Meachem is a superb Count (so much so that one didn't regret Keenlyside's recent withdrawal from the part) displaying the requisite suave assurance and composure of the character, with vocal acting that was sophisticated and commanding. I liked him very much much last summer as Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne but here he was even stronger, and the role seemed to fit better.
Ildebrando D'Arcangelo has a wonderfully rich bass-baritone voice which is just a pleasure to hear. There's a tendency only to boom and the voice isn't well supported when he sings quietly, but it's such a lovely voice, and he's a charmingly affable and sexually appealing enough Figaro that this doesn't matter much at all. The chemistry with Aleksandra Kurzak as Susanna was palpable, and though Kurzak has a tendency to overact, she was very good here I thought, with less of the mugging I've seen her do in the past. Vocally too she seemed very at ease, producing some lovely things, even if not quite as special as her colleagues. The lesser parts were brilliantly and characterfully taken by Ann Murray (as Marcellina), Carlo Lepore (a slightly camp Bartolo) and Jeremy White (Antonio) - luxury casting all. With such talent on offer it seemed a shame that their arias should be cut in Act IV. Susana Gaspar made a minute Barbarina, reminding us that she is meant to be twelve years old (as Anna Gottlieb, the first singer of this role was in 1786) making it all the seemier that the Count might have been after her. The voice is sweet and apt for the role though the part never seems big enough to really be able to judge the quality of a singer. The only real disappointment in the cast was Anna Bonitatibus as a rather wispy and breathy Cherubino, finely acted though it was.
What McVicar understands so well about this opera is not just the dramatic pacing and the relationships that need to be carefully sculpted, but also the spiritual difference between the different characters - the Count and Countess' travails really do contain something more painful and earnest, their reconciliation far more meant and heartfelt because more was at risk - things that the servants simply do not fully fathom. Thus Mozart adds a considerable amount of ambiguity to this apparent class satire and critique of the upper classes. McVicar really makes sure every detail of every character is right, and while there are only a few original touches, it's just satisfying for being so meticulous. The finale of Act II is one of the very greatest things that Mozart ever wrote and here it was wonderfully done - not just musically, but dramatically every gesture spoke and was reflected in the text and especially the music - that McVicar listens to the music so intently for clues is one of his greatest strengths.
Pappano's conducting of this score is absolutely superb, really truly beautiful. The joy he gets from it is so clearly communicated to his musicians who respond in kind. The pacing and instrumental balance was always meticulously well planned and executed: the difference between this sort of playing and the Cosi I saw two weeks before is amazing, and it is worlds apart from the Don Giovanni I witnessed. The ROH orchestra can and will play superbly for conductors they really like!
The best operatic experience I've had in a long while. It's almost sold out, so you might have to queue on the day for a ticket, but few productions this season have been as good as this one.
*(sorry, I can't put it better than I did before!)
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Monday, 13 February 2012
Nash Ensemble with Felicity Lott
The Nash Ensemble are one of the finest chamber groups in London so its always a pleasure to hear them. I reviewed this concert for Bachtrack. Here's a taster:
Read the full review here. Interesting to hear Lott at this stage in her career. At 64 it's amazing she's performing at all, but it really is quite a wide vibrato she has now. I've never been a super big fan as she often feels a little reserved and noncommital in her delivery, but the Jarvi discs she recorded of Strauss orchestral songs for instance are absolutely stonkingly beautiful.
The Nash Ensembles' "Echoes of Romanticism" series at the Wigmore Hall, of which this concert was a part, is not really an exploration of romanticism as such, but rather a charting of the rise and fall of Teutonic music between Mozart and Schoenberg. This is a fascinating story to tell, and this evening provided a particular insight into Richard Strauss – a key and particularly divisive figure in this narrative, his career spanning as it did from the highest high-romanticism to the era's last glorious gasps in the perenially celebrated works of his "Indian Summer" period. Wagner and Mozart, his two musical heroes, were each represented by a work which seemed to have a particular bearing or resonance on the Strauss work presented here in excerpts: his final opera Capriccio.
Read the full review here. Interesting to hear Lott at this stage in her career. At 64 it's amazing she's performing at all, but it really is quite a wide vibrato she has now. I've never been a super big fan as she often feels a little reserved and noncommital in her delivery, but the Jarvi discs she recorded of Strauss orchestral songs for instance are absolutely stonkingly beautiful.
Monday, 6 February 2012
Der Rosenkavalier at ENO
01/02/2012
Der Rosenkavalier is one of my favourite operas, but it is also one of the most problematic operas in the standard repertoire, and I do not love it uncritically. On the whole this is top drawer Strauss, one of the most vital and brilliant scores that he ever wrote, allied to one of the finest librettos of any opera. There is so much to love - the classic bits that are often excerpted (the Act I monologue, Act II presentation of the Rose, Act III trio and duet) are amongst the most gorgeous set pieces in opera since Mozart. It is, like its predecessors in Strauss' oeuvre, meticulously crafted, millions of notes splurged across hundreds of pages of score, the whole an unbelievably opulent and ravishingly beautiful aural tapestry which glows with a genuine warmth and a saccharine beauty that Strauss never quite equaled in his other operas. As always his orchestration is absolutely masterful, never misjudged, the breathtakingly beautiful instrumentatations as apt for the aching harmonies as Salome's frothing counterpoint was for the sexually febrile phantasmagoria of that work. Der Rosenkavalier is however about an hour too long, or rather, there is an hour of music in it which is second or even third rate - principally the middle of act II, and beginning of Act III - where Strauss slips into notespinning and dross, and I have never seen a production which has been able to save the audience from these appalling languors. It is an operetta story, given a Wagnerian musicdrama treatment both in the music and in the libretto so whilst it certainly goes further and deeper than any operetta of this period, it also can't quite support it's own massive, glutinous weight.
As already mentioned, the libretto is superb, with Hofmannsthal delighting in providing providing endless "period" details, both actual and from the stage of the time it was set (Marie Therese's Vienna of the 1740s) culled from diaries, his beloved Moliere (from which sprung the later Ariadne auf Naxos also), commedia dell'arte, traditional farce, Beaumarchais and seemingly a hundred other sources to create a complete and vivid Vienna that never existed. This sentimental nostalgia for some notion of "old Vienna" was very common at this time in Viennese culture, even amongst forward looking modern writers and thinkers like Hofmannsthal. That he should be so interested in accurate period detail is fascinating when the overarching concerns of the piece are so clearly contemporary to his time. The plight of women, the atmosphere of sexual infidelities of his time, the ending of old empires in decadence and decay and the rise of the middle classes, the breaking down of class barriers - these were all highly pertinent issues in Vienna in 1909.
One particularly piquant source of inspiration for Hofmannsthal is Hogarth's Marriage a-La-Mode series. Piquant because it is Strauss' polar opposite, Stravinsky, with his own genius librettist, Auden, who also looked to Hogarth to produce their own 18th century pastiche, with such different results.
Anyone who knows the first act of Rosenkavalier well will have fun spotting the number of details Hofmannsthal culled from the above Hogarth. Even the sexual tones of the act are here (though only implicitly): the paintings on the walls all depict scenes of biblical seduction. Elements of act II derive from another of this series.
Operatically then, what are the precedents? Most obvious is Beaumarchais via Mozart and Da Ponte in Le Nozze di Figaro - in fact it was Strauss' initial idea to produce a modern Figaro. The parallels between the Countess and the Marschallin are clear - she is trapped in wedlock to a husband who has ceased to love her and though saddened she is not embittered and remains noble and strong. Dramatically too she functions similarly in the piece: she has the most beautiful music and adds a seriousness and wistful melancholia to the work, though in the earlier work the quasi-sexual undertones to the relationship that she has with her young (travesti) Godson are only hinted at rather than explicit. The passionately impulsive, confused young man played by a woman, who then dresses up as a woman is also an idea Hofmannsthal takes from the earlier piece, though is a classic element of Viennese farce and adds curious elements of sexual ambiguity (and sexual frisson) to proceedings. But the character of the Marschallin also derives from Wagner's Hans Sachs - her reflective monologues on the subject of aging and the passing of time and also her relinquishing of a younger lover. Both are amongst the most moving and complete characters that these two composers created, and are a gift for talented performers.
This is the first revival of David McVicar's 2008 production for the ENO. It's all very traditional looking, with crinolines, lace and chandeliers, so traditionalists need not be afraid. The set is appropriately grand, but not overdetailed, and looks like a palace in the first stages of disrepair - the Marschallin is reflected in her surroundings. Act I was well paced, and if there wasn't quite enough bustle in the central portion the romantic scenes which frame it were very movingly directed. At the end of the act, as the Marschallin lies sobbing silently in her bed, the lighting in the room becomes dimmed and autumnal, and this evocation of day changing to night and of summer becoming autumn intimated in its understated way a death scene.
Act II is difficult to direct because it climaxes so early musically and the rest seems like tedious working out. Unfortunately, the set hardly changed although the location had, which meant it was visually fairly boring, and McVicar failed to make the action characterful enough for it not to drag. The presentation of the Rose was at least well handled, and with such a large cast watching from onstage, and such restrained action from both of the young lovers, one was really drawn into these characters trying to contain their rapture and ecstasy in such an embarrassingly public space.
The farce of the third act was great, largely due to John Tomlinson, and meant it hardly dragged at all. Unfortunately again the set had hardly changed meaning that the Marschallin's bedroom turned out to be little different from a room in a brothel. Maybe McVicar was trying to show the moral equivalency of the three social classes here, but I don't think so. Hmm. Though the Marschallin's entrance was commanding, I found the final trio strangely underwhelming both dramatically and musically.
This brings me on to the biggest problem with this production: The ENO. The problems are two fold. First, the Coliseum. The acoustics are just awful, and in this of all works you need a combination of detail and power for it to make its impact. Both of these things were lacking here and what emerged from the pit was a sort of hazy, pasteley, mezzo-piano mush. I had an excellent seat (row B of the Dress circle), so it wasn't the famously terrible boxyness of the large overhangs. At first I thought it might have been the fault of Edward Gardner with the ENO orchestra who seemed to be holding everything on a leash, but I think it was as much to do with the building as anything. It's impossible to be enveloped in the sound in there.
The second problem is that it is sung in English. I've complained about this before, but again, in this of all works, the marriage of text and music is one of the most beautiful in all of opera, and to divorce them is to lose something fundamental to its appeal. Though this translation is a good one as far as it can be, it has not one tenth of the beauty of Hofmannsthal's original German. And though I speak German, even for someone who doesn't understand German I think this is an issue: the way that Strauss uses the language, the rhythm of the speech, the colours of the words and contours of each phrase, these things are all compromised so heavily as to be disfiguring when sung in translation and a very significant part of the beauty of the work is lost.*
Before I attended this, I was very worried about Amanda Roocroft's Marschallin after the highly uneven singing I witnessed from her at the ROH last year in Peter Grimes. Here things were more under control, though we weren't treated to the luxury silk on velvet that we have come to expect from singers in this role. Her acting was largely good, though in her Act I monologue she was singing it to the audience too much - we are meant to feel that we are witnessing an extremely intimate moment of reflection and self doubt - the drama needs to be internal and draw us in, rather than presented to us as if she really is talking to an audience, even imagined. Sarah Connolly is a good Octavian, though I can't trumpet her like others seem to - the voice is a little mature sounding and she seems a bit too commanding as a man - the vulnerability that we might expect in a 17 year old just isn't there. Sophie Bevan I thought sounded a little dark for her role - this is the apogee of silvery soubrette roles, it needs to be effortless and girlish and shimmering. She can certainly sing the notes though, but I think she might be better cast in something else (Donna Elvira? Gluck? Handel?)
The role of Ochs is one of the lowest and highest of all Bass roles, and John Tomlinson barely made it at either end of the tessitura. But the middle is still firm and powerful, and he is a superb actor - absolutely inhabiting this role, he brings to Ochs a tremendous energy and vitality that make him almost too likable - certainly the most likable Ochs I've ever witnessed! A joy to see him as ever, despite the vocal wear. The many lesser roles were mostly well taken, though Gwyn Hughes Jones was a horribly forced and nasal sounding Italian tenor.
All in all then, not the most enjoyable outing of this lovely work, and not quite worth it for its defects. But it was nice to see it just before Figaro at the ROH and so soon after Meistersinger.
*The ENO will, for the first time do an opera in it's original language in three years time - Ariadne Auf Naxos with the prologue in English and the Opera in German - so there is hope!!! I know so many people who actively avoid the ENO mainly because of the English singing. I really think it's one of the things which holds them back. I don't know anyone who likes going because it's in English.
Der Rosenkavalier is one of my favourite operas, but it is also one of the most problematic operas in the standard repertoire, and I do not love it uncritically. On the whole this is top drawer Strauss, one of the most vital and brilliant scores that he ever wrote, allied to one of the finest librettos of any opera. There is so much to love - the classic bits that are often excerpted (the Act I monologue, Act II presentation of the Rose, Act III trio and duet) are amongst the most gorgeous set pieces in opera since Mozart. It is, like its predecessors in Strauss' oeuvre, meticulously crafted, millions of notes splurged across hundreds of pages of score, the whole an unbelievably opulent and ravishingly beautiful aural tapestry which glows with a genuine warmth and a saccharine beauty that Strauss never quite equaled in his other operas. As always his orchestration is absolutely masterful, never misjudged, the breathtakingly beautiful instrumentatations as apt for the aching harmonies as Salome's frothing counterpoint was for the sexually febrile phantasmagoria of that work. Der Rosenkavalier is however about an hour too long, or rather, there is an hour of music in it which is second or even third rate - principally the middle of act II, and beginning of Act III - where Strauss slips into notespinning and dross, and I have never seen a production which has been able to save the audience from these appalling languors. It is an operetta story, given a Wagnerian musicdrama treatment both in the music and in the libretto so whilst it certainly goes further and deeper than any operetta of this period, it also can't quite support it's own massive, glutinous weight.
As already mentioned, the libretto is superb, with Hofmannsthal delighting in providing providing endless "period" details, both actual and from the stage of the time it was set (Marie Therese's Vienna of the 1740s) culled from diaries, his beloved Moliere (from which sprung the later Ariadne auf Naxos also), commedia dell'arte, traditional farce, Beaumarchais and seemingly a hundred other sources to create a complete and vivid Vienna that never existed. This sentimental nostalgia for some notion of "old Vienna" was very common at this time in Viennese culture, even amongst forward looking modern writers and thinkers like Hofmannsthal. That he should be so interested in accurate period detail is fascinating when the overarching concerns of the piece are so clearly contemporary to his time. The plight of women, the atmosphere of sexual infidelities of his time, the ending of old empires in decadence and decay and the rise of the middle classes, the breaking down of class barriers - these were all highly pertinent issues in Vienna in 1909.
One particularly piquant source of inspiration for Hofmannsthal is Hogarth's Marriage a-La-Mode series. Piquant because it is Strauss' polar opposite, Stravinsky, with his own genius librettist, Auden, who also looked to Hogarth to produce their own 18th century pastiche, with such different results.
Anyone who knows the first act of Rosenkavalier well will have fun spotting the number of details Hofmannsthal culled from the above Hogarth. Even the sexual tones of the act are here (though only implicitly): the paintings on the walls all depict scenes of biblical seduction. Elements of act II derive from another of this series.
Operatically then, what are the precedents? Most obvious is Beaumarchais via Mozart and Da Ponte in Le Nozze di Figaro - in fact it was Strauss' initial idea to produce a modern Figaro. The parallels between the Countess and the Marschallin are clear - she is trapped in wedlock to a husband who has ceased to love her and though saddened she is not embittered and remains noble and strong. Dramatically too she functions similarly in the piece: she has the most beautiful music and adds a seriousness and wistful melancholia to the work, though in the earlier work the quasi-sexual undertones to the relationship that she has with her young (travesti) Godson are only hinted at rather than explicit. The passionately impulsive, confused young man played by a woman, who then dresses up as a woman is also an idea Hofmannsthal takes from the earlier piece, though is a classic element of Viennese farce and adds curious elements of sexual ambiguity (and sexual frisson) to proceedings. But the character of the Marschallin also derives from Wagner's Hans Sachs - her reflective monologues on the subject of aging and the passing of time and also her relinquishing of a younger lover. Both are amongst the most moving and complete characters that these two composers created, and are a gift for talented performers.
This is the first revival of David McVicar's 2008 production for the ENO. It's all very traditional looking, with crinolines, lace and chandeliers, so traditionalists need not be afraid. The set is appropriately grand, but not overdetailed, and looks like a palace in the first stages of disrepair - the Marschallin is reflected in her surroundings. Act I was well paced, and if there wasn't quite enough bustle in the central portion the romantic scenes which frame it were very movingly directed. At the end of the act, as the Marschallin lies sobbing silently in her bed, the lighting in the room becomes dimmed and autumnal, and this evocation of day changing to night and of summer becoming autumn intimated in its understated way a death scene.
Act II is difficult to direct because it climaxes so early musically and the rest seems like tedious working out. Unfortunately, the set hardly changed although the location had, which meant it was visually fairly boring, and McVicar failed to make the action characterful enough for it not to drag. The presentation of the Rose was at least well handled, and with such a large cast watching from onstage, and such restrained action from both of the young lovers, one was really drawn into these characters trying to contain their rapture and ecstasy in such an embarrassingly public space.
The farce of the third act was great, largely due to John Tomlinson, and meant it hardly dragged at all. Unfortunately again the set had hardly changed meaning that the Marschallin's bedroom turned out to be little different from a room in a brothel. Maybe McVicar was trying to show the moral equivalency of the three social classes here, but I don't think so. Hmm. Though the Marschallin's entrance was commanding, I found the final trio strangely underwhelming both dramatically and musically.
This brings me on to the biggest problem with this production: The ENO. The problems are two fold. First, the Coliseum. The acoustics are just awful, and in this of all works you need a combination of detail and power for it to make its impact. Both of these things were lacking here and what emerged from the pit was a sort of hazy, pasteley, mezzo-piano mush. I had an excellent seat (row B of the Dress circle), so it wasn't the famously terrible boxyness of the large overhangs. At first I thought it might have been the fault of Edward Gardner with the ENO orchestra who seemed to be holding everything on a leash, but I think it was as much to do with the building as anything. It's impossible to be enveloped in the sound in there.
The second problem is that it is sung in English. I've complained about this before, but again, in this of all works, the marriage of text and music is one of the most beautiful in all of opera, and to divorce them is to lose something fundamental to its appeal. Though this translation is a good one as far as it can be, it has not one tenth of the beauty of Hofmannsthal's original German. And though I speak German, even for someone who doesn't understand German I think this is an issue: the way that Strauss uses the language, the rhythm of the speech, the colours of the words and contours of each phrase, these things are all compromised so heavily as to be disfiguring when sung in translation and a very significant part of the beauty of the work is lost.*
Before I attended this, I was very worried about Amanda Roocroft's Marschallin after the highly uneven singing I witnessed from her at the ROH last year in Peter Grimes. Here things were more under control, though we weren't treated to the luxury silk on velvet that we have come to expect from singers in this role. Her acting was largely good, though in her Act I monologue she was singing it to the audience too much - we are meant to feel that we are witnessing an extremely intimate moment of reflection and self doubt - the drama needs to be internal and draw us in, rather than presented to us as if she really is talking to an audience, even imagined. Sarah Connolly is a good Octavian, though I can't trumpet her like others seem to - the voice is a little mature sounding and she seems a bit too commanding as a man - the vulnerability that we might expect in a 17 year old just isn't there. Sophie Bevan I thought sounded a little dark for her role - this is the apogee of silvery soubrette roles, it needs to be effortless and girlish and shimmering. She can certainly sing the notes though, but I think she might be better cast in something else (Donna Elvira? Gluck? Handel?)
The role of Ochs is one of the lowest and highest of all Bass roles, and John Tomlinson barely made it at either end of the tessitura. But the middle is still firm and powerful, and he is a superb actor - absolutely inhabiting this role, he brings to Ochs a tremendous energy and vitality that make him almost too likable - certainly the most likable Ochs I've ever witnessed! A joy to see him as ever, despite the vocal wear. The many lesser roles were mostly well taken, though Gwyn Hughes Jones was a horribly forced and nasal sounding Italian tenor.
All in all then, not the most enjoyable outing of this lovely work, and not quite worth it for its defects. But it was nice to see it just before Figaro at the ROH and so soon after Meistersinger.
*The ENO will, for the first time do an opera in it's original language in three years time - Ariadne Auf Naxos with the prologue in English and the Opera in German - so there is hope!!! I know so many people who actively avoid the ENO mainly because of the English singing. I really think it's one of the things which holds them back. I don't know anyone who likes going because it's in English.
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Da Ponte "Cycle", Part II: Cosi Fan Tutte
Cosi Fan Tutte is the most perplexing of the Mozart-Da Ponte collaborations, and also the one with the most cultish following. The libretto is full of ambiguity and contradictions (and by extention the characters too), Da Ponte not concerned with detailed characterisation and realistic sentiment here as with Figaro or in extremes and contrast as in Don Giovanni, but in a complete exploration of the games and rules of the human courtship ritual, and how sexuality unconsciously affects our intentions and actions. If we feel a slight etiolation after the intensity of the previous two operas, there is a strange symmetry and poise introduced which is utterly new. Notable too are the amount of nature metaphors, with Mozart rendering them onomatopoeically in the score a la Strauss, most memorably in the always gorgeous trio Soave sia il vento, (here the ravishing highlight of the evening). The implication that human beings are a part of the natural world, beholden to its biological and physical laws rather than separated from it by free will is part of what makes this opera slightly uncomfortable viewing. The score is of course masterful, and again so different from Don Giovanni or Figaro. Here individual characterisation is subordinated to the central themes of the opera, and this too is reflected in Mozart's vocal writing - in ensembles, characters often sing in simple thirds and sixths and the artless fluidity and perfect symmetries that Mozart affects along with its consistent and palpable feeling of Mediterranean warmth make it by turns beguiling and mystifying - the strangest, meanest and loveliest opera he wrote. Although Don Giovanni and especially Figaro are regarded by most people as Mozart's most vital essays in the genre, people seem to obsess most about Cosi and its veiled meanings, messages and music.
Jonathan Miller's production has been revived often at the ROH since its inception in 1995, here with Harry Fehr taking the directing reins. Some things it does rather well - it captures something of the light, open warmth of the score (though not nearly so well as the most recent Glyndebourne production), the youthfulness of the characters in all their vanity, humour and inconstancy, and the feeling of inevitability and perpetual changeability of human nature. It's a sassy, genuinely funny and modern updating, including endlessly interpolated jokes involving mobile phones, laptops and other contemporary paraphernalia, which all seems very in keeping with the spirit of the score - it's the most timeless in setting and modern in sentiment of the three Da Ponte operas. Some things I thought were less convincing such as the two women's progress from proud, pouting lovers, in love with being in love, to their temptation and initial resistance, and final acquiescence to their new lovers - They were both so steadfast in the first act that this change seemed inexplicably sudden in act two, as if there had been a missing scene during the interval which we were not party to. Usually Dorabella is played as a total Flibbertigibbet, with Fiordiligi following suit only with more pained soul searching (making her the more interesting character psychologically, and as Mozart ensures, musically too), but here they seemed too similar in Act I for us to see this contrast. The ending of the opera is famously ambigious, and here there is no resolution offered at all - the lovers simply run off stage, distraught and heartbroken, with Despina genuinely upset for her part in the day's antics.
Malin Byström took on the role of Fiordiligi, one of the most challenging of all Mozart's female roles. While she is clearly a young singer of talent and she can do some very beautiful things with her voice, she didn't seem quite settled here - intonation was regularly slightly wayward and the registers weren't ideally blended. Michèle Losier, has a very bright, light mezzo voice and made a good, if slightly bland Dorabella. In fact she sounded very much like a soprano, and if I closed my eyes it was sometimes difficult to tell the two sisters apart. Both of their acting was funny and melodramatic, if never particularly realistic, though in this production that might not have felt right.
Charles Castronovo was a charming Ferrando, sensitive in his acting, and his unforced lyric tenor sounding truly lovely and youthful in this role. Niklay Borchev as his friend Guglielmo was louder and more forthright in his demeanor, but he never demonstrated anything like a piano phrase, and though the voice has an attractive, fruity timbre, more vocal colours might have been welcome. Rosemary Joshua presented an even more cynical Despina than usual, here seeming more like a superbly dressed nanny to the two girls, than a younger maid; vocally, she was more than a match for the part. The role of Don Alfonso is an absolute walk in the park for the always superb Thomas Allen, who adds a touch of class to this otherwise perhaps slightly indifferent cast. The voice is less vibrant and quieter than it once was, but like John Tomlinson, it almost never seems to be a problem because he's such a consummate master of the stage and just inhabits characters to the point where it no longer seems like you're watching a singing actor on stage, but a true person of flesh and blood.
It was truly remarkable also how much better the playing of the ROH orchestra was under Colin Davis than it had been for Don Giovanni. The gorgeous details of the orchestration were brought out with panache, and under Davis everything was elegance and lightness. A bit more warmth would have been nice throughout and often the ensembles were not vocally very well balanced, with Fiordiligi and Guglielmo's lines coming more to the fore than was comfortable. This was an enjoyable, but not exceptional performance of the work then, and a bit more musical and dramatic intensity would have been welcome, as well as perhaps a deeper exploration of what the work is about.
Jonathan Miller's production has been revived often at the ROH since its inception in 1995, here with Harry Fehr taking the directing reins. Some things it does rather well - it captures something of the light, open warmth of the score (though not nearly so well as the most recent Glyndebourne production), the youthfulness of the characters in all their vanity, humour and inconstancy, and the feeling of inevitability and perpetual changeability of human nature. It's a sassy, genuinely funny and modern updating, including endlessly interpolated jokes involving mobile phones, laptops and other contemporary paraphernalia, which all seems very in keeping with the spirit of the score - it's the most timeless in setting and modern in sentiment of the three Da Ponte operas. Some things I thought were less convincing such as the two women's progress from proud, pouting lovers, in love with being in love, to their temptation and initial resistance, and final acquiescence to their new lovers - They were both so steadfast in the first act that this change seemed inexplicably sudden in act two, as if there had been a missing scene during the interval which we were not party to. Usually Dorabella is played as a total Flibbertigibbet, with Fiordiligi following suit only with more pained soul searching (making her the more interesting character psychologically, and as Mozart ensures, musically too), but here they seemed too similar in Act I for us to see this contrast. The ending of the opera is famously ambigious, and here there is no resolution offered at all - the lovers simply run off stage, distraught and heartbroken, with Despina genuinely upset for her part in the day's antics.
Malin Byström took on the role of Fiordiligi, one of the most challenging of all Mozart's female roles. While she is clearly a young singer of talent and she can do some very beautiful things with her voice, she didn't seem quite settled here - intonation was regularly slightly wayward and the registers weren't ideally blended. Michèle Losier, has a very bright, light mezzo voice and made a good, if slightly bland Dorabella. In fact she sounded very much like a soprano, and if I closed my eyes it was sometimes difficult to tell the two sisters apart. Both of their acting was funny and melodramatic, if never particularly realistic, though in this production that might not have felt right.
Charles Castronovo was a charming Ferrando, sensitive in his acting, and his unforced lyric tenor sounding truly lovely and youthful in this role. Niklay Borchev as his friend Guglielmo was louder and more forthright in his demeanor, but he never demonstrated anything like a piano phrase, and though the voice has an attractive, fruity timbre, more vocal colours might have been welcome. Rosemary Joshua presented an even more cynical Despina than usual, here seeming more like a superbly dressed nanny to the two girls, than a younger maid; vocally, she was more than a match for the part. The role of Don Alfonso is an absolute walk in the park for the always superb Thomas Allen, who adds a touch of class to this otherwise perhaps slightly indifferent cast. The voice is less vibrant and quieter than it once was, but like John Tomlinson, it almost never seems to be a problem because he's such a consummate master of the stage and just inhabits characters to the point where it no longer seems like you're watching a singing actor on stage, but a true person of flesh and blood.
It was truly remarkable also how much better the playing of the ROH orchestra was under Colin Davis than it had been for Don Giovanni. The gorgeous details of the orchestration were brought out with panache, and under Davis everything was elegance and lightness. A bit more warmth would have been nice throughout and often the ensembles were not vocally very well balanced, with Fiordiligi and Guglielmo's lines coming more to the fore than was comfortable. This was an enjoyable, but not exceptional performance of the work then, and a bit more musical and dramatic intensity would have been welcome, as well as perhaps a deeper exploration of what the work is about.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Don Giovanni at ROH
Final Dress (ticket from a generous friend: you know who you are, Cheers!)
And so in the Royal Opera House's dubiously dubbed "cycles" season, we come to the Mozart/Da Ponte "cycle". It's not a cycle is it, let's just make that clear. Sigh.
It's hard to express to those who haven't had the pleasure of experiencing these three operas quite how extraordinary they are. First and foremost, the quality of the music is just staggering, aria after ensemble after perfect aria pouring from Mozart's pen, covering the full gamut of human emotions, experience and expression. I'll go into why each opera is so special (or at least why I love them so much) when I review each of them in turn, and actually these very differences between the operas is one thing I think is most incredible about them - they each exist so completely within their own world, are so distinct from the others in a way that is just almost without precedent in operas of that or an earlier time. It's hard to imagine any of the arias of Figaro being transplanted into Don Giovanni for instance, or any of Don Giovanni's going into Cosi. That Mozart and Da Ponte play so much with Opera Buffa traditions is very interesting and has been written about at length elsewhere, but maybe the most important thing to remark is how completely these three operas transcend other works in this tradition. To ally the Buffa conventions to characters and situations that we can actually engage with emotionally, makes them seem both more serious and realistic and as a result funnier. No one composes real life more movingly or beautifully.
Don Giovanni was actually the second of these three to be composed and Mozart was trying to replicate the success of Le Nozze Di Figaro. But it is very different in feel. Where Figaro is all perfect elegance, subtle characters with real feelings, the orchestra teeming with a soft hued delicacy and felicitous brilliance more refined than anything he achieved before or after, in Don Giovanni we find Mozart in state of white hot inspiration, with a burning, almost possessed intensity in virtually every phrase that made later artists of the nineteenth century regard it with a sort of fearful awe. Its humour is broader than that of Figaro and the characters and situations more extreme. The orchestra is treated to some of the most opulent and sumptuous orchestrations and harmonies that we find in Mozart's music, and his characterisation in the vocal writing is so striking - particularly in the three central female roles. In Zerlina we find a girlish eroticism and charm, in Donna Elvira hysterical rage and sentimental effusion, in Donna Anna a vengeful seriousness and genuine pathos. Don Ottavio's gentle nobility, Leporello's plodding humour, The Commendatore's extraordinary supernatural authority are also beautifully delineated, and only the eponymous Don remains a sort of musical enigma - as is often remarked he has no really extended arias of his own. What he does have is delicious though and we know that he lives life with the same intensity we feel in all the music of the opera, even although by the time of the opera's beginning it already seems to be the beginning of the end for him.
Dramatically it is almost as complicated as Figaro, but not quite as perfect - some of the comical scenes don't make dramatic sense, but there is less of a sense of realism in every way in this opera, so this seems like caviling. Mozart did his realistic social comedy in Figaro, and he's doing something quite different here.
OK onto this production. What a disappointing presentation of this masterpiece. First the staging. There is absolutely nothing specific about the sets (designed by Maria Björnson with original director Francesco Zambello), they are almost completely without style or historical referent, and it is only through the costumes that we might guess that the setting is 17th century of the original play that this opera is based on. What is the main curving panel meant to represent? The shape of the stage is changed by rotating this panel, but the dark unreal atmosphere never changes, which strikes me as fatal in a piece of such obvious and extreme contrasts. I hate the surreal multicoloured lighting by Paul Pyant too (the same sort of thing that we got treated to in McVicar's Aida last season) which doesn't help things at all.
Revival direction by Duncan Macfarland is nothing special either, nothing particularly interesting or engaging being done with any of the characters beyond what one usually sees. Never did one feel truly involved in any of it. And it was curiously lacking in humour too - Leporello is the key figure here, and in a good production becomes the sort of glue to the piece, though in this case Lorenzo Regazzo seemed too earnest to be funny. He was disappointing vocally too.
Some of the singing at least was excellent. Gerald Finley is one of the finest singers on the stage of course, and he is on good form here, singing with security and beauty as always - its one of the best produced sounds you can hear in opera today. The best singer in this opera needs to be and should be Donna Anna, and so it is here - Hibla Gerzmava may not be the greatest actress but this is an absolutely gorgeous voice, almost always in tune, and she can definitely do the coloratura, even if it's not the most flexible you've ever heard - the weight, control and beauty of the voice more than make up for it. There were some exquisite pianissimos and everything gleamed with an unforced radiance. Another lovely discovery for me. I'd like to hear her sing Rusalka or Tatiana or even maybe Ariadne if she can pronounce the German.
Irini Kyriakidou was Zerlina and the cast's weakest link vocally and dramatically. She didn't have the requisite charm or coquettishness, and the voice is far too squally and mature sounding for such a youthful role. Zerlina's second act aria, Vedrai Carino, is simultaneously scorchingly erotic and a beautifully genuine expression of tenderness when well sung and played, but here was the most boring number of the night. I don't understand why Zerlina's so often so miscast - sexy young soubrettes are ten a penny out of music school, so it should be the easiest role to cast in the opera. Why do so many casting directors get it so wrong? This is just the sort of thing that Danielle de Niese should be doing actually - she made such a strong impression on me last summer - she'd be exceptional here.
Katarina Karneus doesn't have the world's most interesting voice, and it's not exactly pretty either, but at least she "gets" Donna Elvira. And in this production, Donna Elvira seems really badass initially, rather than the simpering weakling that she can sometimes seem. Although she was dressed in a grubby Miss Havisham wedding dress (jilted as she was by the Don), she also had a shotgun slung round her shoulder, and was carried in in a Sedan chair. Her first entrance was the strongest impression she made however. Matthew Polenzani was a magnificent Don Ottavio vocally and he didn't quite seem as pathetic a character as usual - you see his reticence is because he really is a gentleman and a gentle soul and truly loves Donna Anna. The voice is a real pleasure to hear, shining, never strained, and like his noble wife, the messa di voci were fantastic. His breath control was extraordinary and seemed endless at times.
The Royal Opera Hourse orchestra sounded worse than I have ever heard them, Constantinos Carydis drawing the most bland and shoddy playing imaginable, his tempos always irksome. It's amazing to me that music of this quality could sound so prosaic and boring. It's a dress granted, but the transformation that will need to take place between now and the first performance will need to be elemental and complete for it to even approach acceptable.
The last Don Giovanni I saw was at Glyndebourne last summer with a period band (OAE), and it was one of the most extroardinarily intense readings of the score I have ever heard.
And so in the Royal Opera House's dubiously dubbed "cycles" season, we come to the Mozart/Da Ponte "cycle". It's not a cycle is it, let's just make that clear. Sigh.
It's hard to express to those who haven't had the pleasure of experiencing these three operas quite how extraordinary they are. First and foremost, the quality of the music is just staggering, aria after ensemble after perfect aria pouring from Mozart's pen, covering the full gamut of human emotions, experience and expression. I'll go into why each opera is so special (or at least why I love them so much) when I review each of them in turn, and actually these very differences between the operas is one thing I think is most incredible about them - they each exist so completely within their own world, are so distinct from the others in a way that is just almost without precedent in operas of that or an earlier time. It's hard to imagine any of the arias of Figaro being transplanted into Don Giovanni for instance, or any of Don Giovanni's going into Cosi. That Mozart and Da Ponte play so much with Opera Buffa traditions is very interesting and has been written about at length elsewhere, but maybe the most important thing to remark is how completely these three operas transcend other works in this tradition. To ally the Buffa conventions to characters and situations that we can actually engage with emotionally, makes them seem both more serious and realistic and as a result funnier. No one composes real life more movingly or beautifully.
Don Giovanni was actually the second of these three to be composed and Mozart was trying to replicate the success of Le Nozze Di Figaro. But it is very different in feel. Where Figaro is all perfect elegance, subtle characters with real feelings, the orchestra teeming with a soft hued delicacy and felicitous brilliance more refined than anything he achieved before or after, in Don Giovanni we find Mozart in state of white hot inspiration, with a burning, almost possessed intensity in virtually every phrase that made later artists of the nineteenth century regard it with a sort of fearful awe. Its humour is broader than that of Figaro and the characters and situations more extreme. The orchestra is treated to some of the most opulent and sumptuous orchestrations and harmonies that we find in Mozart's music, and his characterisation in the vocal writing is so striking - particularly in the three central female roles. In Zerlina we find a girlish eroticism and charm, in Donna Elvira hysterical rage and sentimental effusion, in Donna Anna a vengeful seriousness and genuine pathos. Don Ottavio's gentle nobility, Leporello's plodding humour, The Commendatore's extraordinary supernatural authority are also beautifully delineated, and only the eponymous Don remains a sort of musical enigma - as is often remarked he has no really extended arias of his own. What he does have is delicious though and we know that he lives life with the same intensity we feel in all the music of the opera, even although by the time of the opera's beginning it already seems to be the beginning of the end for him.
Dramatically it is almost as complicated as Figaro, but not quite as perfect - some of the comical scenes don't make dramatic sense, but there is less of a sense of realism in every way in this opera, so this seems like caviling. Mozart did his realistic social comedy in Figaro, and he's doing something quite different here.
OK onto this production. What a disappointing presentation of this masterpiece. First the staging. There is absolutely nothing specific about the sets (designed by Maria Björnson with original director Francesco Zambello), they are almost completely without style or historical referent, and it is only through the costumes that we might guess that the setting is 17th century of the original play that this opera is based on. What is the main curving panel meant to represent? The shape of the stage is changed by rotating this panel, but the dark unreal atmosphere never changes, which strikes me as fatal in a piece of such obvious and extreme contrasts. I hate the surreal multicoloured lighting by Paul Pyant too (the same sort of thing that we got treated to in McVicar's Aida last season) which doesn't help things at all.
Revival direction by Duncan Macfarland is nothing special either, nothing particularly interesting or engaging being done with any of the characters beyond what one usually sees. Never did one feel truly involved in any of it. And it was curiously lacking in humour too - Leporello is the key figure here, and in a good production becomes the sort of glue to the piece, though in this case Lorenzo Regazzo seemed too earnest to be funny. He was disappointing vocally too.
Some of the singing at least was excellent. Gerald Finley is one of the finest singers on the stage of course, and he is on good form here, singing with security and beauty as always - its one of the best produced sounds you can hear in opera today. The best singer in this opera needs to be and should be Donna Anna, and so it is here - Hibla Gerzmava may not be the greatest actress but this is an absolutely gorgeous voice, almost always in tune, and she can definitely do the coloratura, even if it's not the most flexible you've ever heard - the weight, control and beauty of the voice more than make up for it. There were some exquisite pianissimos and everything gleamed with an unforced radiance. Another lovely discovery for me. I'd like to hear her sing Rusalka or Tatiana or even maybe Ariadne if she can pronounce the German.
Irini Kyriakidou was Zerlina and the cast's weakest link vocally and dramatically. She didn't have the requisite charm or coquettishness, and the voice is far too squally and mature sounding for such a youthful role. Zerlina's second act aria, Vedrai Carino, is simultaneously scorchingly erotic and a beautifully genuine expression of tenderness when well sung and played, but here was the most boring number of the night. I don't understand why Zerlina's so often so miscast - sexy young soubrettes are ten a penny out of music school, so it should be the easiest role to cast in the opera. Why do so many casting directors get it so wrong? This is just the sort of thing that Danielle de Niese should be doing actually - she made such a strong impression on me last summer - she'd be exceptional here.
Katarina Karneus doesn't have the world's most interesting voice, and it's not exactly pretty either, but at least she "gets" Donna Elvira. And in this production, Donna Elvira seems really badass initially, rather than the simpering weakling that she can sometimes seem. Although she was dressed in a grubby Miss Havisham wedding dress (jilted as she was by the Don), she also had a shotgun slung round her shoulder, and was carried in in a Sedan chair. Her first entrance was the strongest impression she made however. Matthew Polenzani was a magnificent Don Ottavio vocally and he didn't quite seem as pathetic a character as usual - you see his reticence is because he really is a gentleman and a gentle soul and truly loves Donna Anna. The voice is a real pleasure to hear, shining, never strained, and like his noble wife, the messa di voci were fantastic. His breath control was extraordinary and seemed endless at times.
The Royal Opera Hourse orchestra sounded worse than I have ever heard them, Constantinos Carydis drawing the most bland and shoddy playing imaginable, his tempos always irksome. It's amazing to me that music of this quality could sound so prosaic and boring. It's a dress granted, but the transformation that will need to take place between now and the first performance will need to be elemental and complete for it to even approach acceptable.
The last Don Giovanni I saw was at Glyndebourne last summer with a period band (OAE), and it was one of the most extroardinarily intense readings of the score I have ever heard.
Sunday, 20 November 2011
Eugene Onegin
ENO
18/10/2011
This was quite enjoyable. It didn't quite work that well and isn't as good a production as many seem to think, but there are lots of lovely details, and it's worth going to see. Deborah Warner appears to be a fairly talented director, but more in her sense of telling a cohesive, involving story, than in her visual sense (the sets I found clunky), or even, strangely, in the way the characters act moment to moment on stage. Of course her starting point is one of the finest operas ever written, but the sense of story arc for all the characters I thought was brilliantly achieved, the pacing almost always superb. The action was updated, as so often, to the time the piece was composed - the late 19th century, so it still looks "period" enough and romantic enough that people who like "traditional" stagings will still be able to escape into it. (I'm not one of these people, I have no preference for period or updated productions, I just want it to be beautiful and make sense. It's all I ask.)
The first act was set in a cavernous barn, and the opening "number" with its focus on the plight of women at the hands of men (with only female maids bustling around in the background) I already found more moving than usual - it wasn't just the sort of pastoral scene setting approach that usually is the norm. (Is this a feminist opera? Certainly the women are by far the strongest, most intelligent, most measured characters in the piece.) Unfortunately I'd seen the same sort of set much better done recently at the National Theatre in their superlative production of The Cherry Orchard. What really didn't work though was having Tatyana's bedroom also in the barn. Not onl did this make no sense but also the huge size of it took away from the extraordinary intimacy of this scene. She barricades herself in with chairs and throws her mattress across the floor, but when Filippyevna comes back she seems to think nothing of this. Mental. But then we get wonderful directorial touches such as Onegin kissing Tatyana after his chastising monologue in the next scene, before coolly making his exit. Truly amazing how much this simple action reveals so much about his character.
The second and third acts feature a shiny silver floor, and it's not immediately obvious why this is the case... it seems out of place in the shabby home where the party scene takes place. But then for the duel scene, the curtain rises on a misty marsh, by far the most beautiful set of the evening, the silver floor, greyish sky and few desolate trees providing one of the most evocative settings I've ever seen for this scene. But then the silvered side wall was terribly badly made which partially ruined the visuals. Why this lack of attention to visual detail when the rest was so great? Lensky's monologue was beautifully delivered, but unfortunately Onegin, as his emotions become more extreme, reverts to ever more hammy acting to demonstrate this. He gives Lensky a big hug before the duel which is laughable. And by the third act he's writhing on the floor or kneeling with arms outstretched facing the audience directly rather than Tatyana. Stuff like this makes one think of West End musicals, rather than the intimate drama of this Pushkin tale. The set to the third act is badly thought out - several huge columns in rows which means that it's very hard to see the action a lot of the time, until they just stand in front of them, at which point the set becomes a passive backdrop which the characters don't in any way interact with. It also just looks cheap. But then the many mirrors within the plot are again matched by a nice directorial touch - Tatyana kisses Onegin after she says "goodbye for ever", which summarises all the reversals that have taken place, whilst also being an immensely powerful emotional gesture and signifier of the two protagonists' defeat by circumstances and stupidity.
The singing was uniformly excellent - about as good a cast that you could ever expect at the ENO. Everyone sings beautifully, Audun Iversen making a vocally compelling Onegin, though his acting is fairly appalling, and he's hardly the romantic Darcy like heart throb that he should be. He's just mostly quite boring, and as I already said, in the final scene he acts like he's in a west end musical. Much the same could be said of Toby Spence as Lensky, who completely overacts (though his character is more adolescent than Onegin), but the voice sounds absolutely magnificent, gleaming and full, and he's giving it everything he's got. Truly wonderful piano singing too. I was trying to work out what his ideal repertoire would be: it's not pingy enough for the Italian rep, and not big enough for German stuff. Mozart and Janacek? Probably French rep would suit him wonderfully - can imagine him as a great Pelléas. Amanda Echalaz is a great Tatyana and a very good singer. What's odd is that there's a little bit of squall in her middle register, say B up to the passagio, but the top is absolutely radiant, and the fact that we heard the top so rarely reminds us of how low lying this soprano part is. She's a good actress too on the whole, just lacking the last measure of vocal finesse and gestural subtlety that would make her a big "name". All the minor parts were also superbly cast: Diana Montague's Madam Larina and Catherine Wyn-Rogers' Filippyevna made a fantastically moving in the opening scene, and Brindley Sherratt a very well sung Gremin. Claudia Huckle as Olga was really wonderful too - so even and strong and beautiful vocally, according to her website, she's a true contralto. A real discovery.
The orchestral playing was mixed I thought: Every one of the wonderful cello tunes had out of tune notes, there was a general lack of passion to the playing, though several woodwind solos were meltingly delivered. Pacing from conductor Edward Gardner was superb, but as I say he couldn't rouse the players enough to produce something really special. The thing is, it's so well composed that even a mediocrely played performance will still make it's effect on some level.
Anyway, I really enjoyed this evening, and despite my complaints it somehow hangs together well and is a good night at the theatre. Go see it!
18/10/2011
This was quite enjoyable. It didn't quite work that well and isn't as good a production as many seem to think, but there are lots of lovely details, and it's worth going to see. Deborah Warner appears to be a fairly talented director, but more in her sense of telling a cohesive, involving story, than in her visual sense (the sets I found clunky), or even, strangely, in the way the characters act moment to moment on stage. Of course her starting point is one of the finest operas ever written, but the sense of story arc for all the characters I thought was brilliantly achieved, the pacing almost always superb. The action was updated, as so often, to the time the piece was composed - the late 19th century, so it still looks "period" enough and romantic enough that people who like "traditional" stagings will still be able to escape into it. (I'm not one of these people, I have no preference for period or updated productions, I just want it to be beautiful and make sense. It's all I ask.)
The first act was set in a cavernous barn, and the opening "number" with its focus on the plight of women at the hands of men (with only female maids bustling around in the background) I already found more moving than usual - it wasn't just the sort of pastoral scene setting approach that usually is the norm. (Is this a feminist opera? Certainly the women are by far the strongest, most intelligent, most measured characters in the piece.) Unfortunately I'd seen the same sort of set much better done recently at the National Theatre in their superlative production of The Cherry Orchard. What really didn't work though was having Tatyana's bedroom also in the barn. Not onl did this make no sense but also the huge size of it took away from the extraordinary intimacy of this scene. She barricades herself in with chairs and throws her mattress across the floor, but when Filippyevna comes back she seems to think nothing of this. Mental. But then we get wonderful directorial touches such as Onegin kissing Tatyana after his chastising monologue in the next scene, before coolly making his exit. Truly amazing how much this simple action reveals so much about his character.
The second and third acts feature a shiny silver floor, and it's not immediately obvious why this is the case... it seems out of place in the shabby home where the party scene takes place. But then for the duel scene, the curtain rises on a misty marsh, by far the most beautiful set of the evening, the silver floor, greyish sky and few desolate trees providing one of the most evocative settings I've ever seen for this scene. But then the silvered side wall was terribly badly made which partially ruined the visuals. Why this lack of attention to visual detail when the rest was so great? Lensky's monologue was beautifully delivered, but unfortunately Onegin, as his emotions become more extreme, reverts to ever more hammy acting to demonstrate this. He gives Lensky a big hug before the duel which is laughable. And by the third act he's writhing on the floor or kneeling with arms outstretched facing the audience directly rather than Tatyana. Stuff like this makes one think of West End musicals, rather than the intimate drama of this Pushkin tale. The set to the third act is badly thought out - several huge columns in rows which means that it's very hard to see the action a lot of the time, until they just stand in front of them, at which point the set becomes a passive backdrop which the characters don't in any way interact with. It also just looks cheap. But then the many mirrors within the plot are again matched by a nice directorial touch - Tatyana kisses Onegin after she says "goodbye for ever", which summarises all the reversals that have taken place, whilst also being an immensely powerful emotional gesture and signifier of the two protagonists' defeat by circumstances and stupidity.
The singing was uniformly excellent - about as good a cast that you could ever expect at the ENO. Everyone sings beautifully, Audun Iversen making a vocally compelling Onegin, though his acting is fairly appalling, and he's hardly the romantic Darcy like heart throb that he should be. He's just mostly quite boring, and as I already said, in the final scene he acts like he's in a west end musical. Much the same could be said of Toby Spence as Lensky, who completely overacts (though his character is more adolescent than Onegin), but the voice sounds absolutely magnificent, gleaming and full, and he's giving it everything he's got. Truly wonderful piano singing too. I was trying to work out what his ideal repertoire would be: it's not pingy enough for the Italian rep, and not big enough for German stuff. Mozart and Janacek? Probably French rep would suit him wonderfully - can imagine him as a great Pelléas. Amanda Echalaz is a great Tatyana and a very good singer. What's odd is that there's a little bit of squall in her middle register, say B up to the passagio, but the top is absolutely radiant, and the fact that we heard the top so rarely reminds us of how low lying this soprano part is. She's a good actress too on the whole, just lacking the last measure of vocal finesse and gestural subtlety that would make her a big "name". All the minor parts were also superbly cast: Diana Montague's Madam Larina and Catherine Wyn-Rogers' Filippyevna made a fantastically moving in the opening scene, and Brindley Sherratt a very well sung Gremin. Claudia Huckle as Olga was really wonderful too - so even and strong and beautiful vocally, according to her website, she's a true contralto. A real discovery.
The orchestral playing was mixed I thought: Every one of the wonderful cello tunes had out of tune notes, there was a general lack of passion to the playing, though several woodwind solos were meltingly delivered. Pacing from conductor Edward Gardner was superb, but as I say he couldn't rouse the players enough to produce something really special. The thing is, it's so well composed that even a mediocrely played performance will still make it's effect on some level.
Anyway, I really enjoyed this evening, and despite my complaints it somehow hangs together well and is a good night at the theatre. Go see it!
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
La Sonnambula
Royal Opera House
La Sonnambula is hardly a staple of the ROH's repertoire so it was nice to get a chance to see this opera. Or at least it should have been. I absolutely loved Eglise Gutiérrez's voice in Cendrillon last season, so was very much looking seeing her again here. Youtube reveals a truly staggering voice: just listen to the final section of this Caro Nome. On the evidence of that video and the singing I heard in Cendrillon it appears she has one of the most beautiful operatic instruments on the stage today. And up close I'm sure it is. But heard at greater length and more exposed it doesn't translate in the theatre. The basic problem is that the sound is far too covered - lots of sopranos do this in their lower range to darken the tone when they are singing roles that are too heavy for them (*cough cough* Gheorghiu) - but sopranos can also choose to do this higher up, like tenors and baritones have to do to negotiate the passagio. It gives a feeling of control to the performer, and sounds absolutely fantastic to the soprano herself. But across a concert hall, it gives the sound an occluded, domed quality, like a film or a cap that is covering the sound. While it can be a beautiful occasionally for a floated pianissimo high note (and it worked for the fairy godmother in Cendrillon), if it's done all the time, it quickly becomes very boring and that's unfortunately what was happening here with Gutiérrez - there's nothing exciting in the sound, no edge, no sense of risk. Every. Single. Note was placed which is not what you want in this of all repertoire - what's called for is thrilling, full throttle risk taking, not merely accuracy. And unfortunately it wasn't even that accurate - this constant placing meant rhythms were often wayward, and surprisingly there was more than the occasional out of tune passage and high note.
Elena Xanthoudakis had a less beautiful voice perhaps, but at least she could thrill us with it, and as a result was much more satisfying as love rival Lisa. The way she pottered around was funny also. I don't know if Gutiérrez is a poor actress or whether it was the fault of the awful production, but it was hard to care too much about the central story. Marco Arturo Marelli designed and directed the original production (revival direction by Andreas Reisner), and apparently it's set in some sort of mountain lodge/hotel/ward, not at all clear who the patients or staff are. It appears Amina is a waitress in the beginning before she gets changed into her wedding dress in the hall! Yeah I have no idea what they were thinking either. It's a single set all the way through, sort of 20s/30s continental looking with a view of the alps out of the back window. My god is it dull. Michele Pertusi sings beautifully and has some character, doing his best, but it's a bad sign when the Count Rodolfo is the best voice on stage. Celso Albelo can basically sing the part (there was a cringeworthy moment in the unnacompanied portion of the duet), but is one of the dullest tenors I've ever heard. No physical acting to speak of (obviously) and worse in this repertoire, no vocal acting at all - a single tone colour all the way. As soon as he started singing I found myself drifting away from the action, my eyes suddenly caught by the auditorium lighting, or some seat detail. I couldn't help it. Everyone else sung well actually, and Elizabeth Sikora as Teresa, Amina's foster mother, displayed some really beautiful things in her voice, small though the part was. Young Artist Jihoon Kim was good as Alessio.
Seriously though, what a waste of time. This repertoire needs the singers to carry it off, but providing the score with staticism and tedium in the direction and set design really doesn't help matters. A story which is premised on simple idiocy is hard enough to be engaged by as it is.
La Sonnambula is hardly a staple of the ROH's repertoire so it was nice to get a chance to see this opera. Or at least it should have been. I absolutely loved Eglise Gutiérrez's voice in Cendrillon last season, so was very much looking seeing her again here. Youtube reveals a truly staggering voice: just listen to the final section of this Caro Nome. On the evidence of that video and the singing I heard in Cendrillon it appears she has one of the most beautiful operatic instruments on the stage today. And up close I'm sure it is. But heard at greater length and more exposed it doesn't translate in the theatre. The basic problem is that the sound is far too covered - lots of sopranos do this in their lower range to darken the tone when they are singing roles that are too heavy for them (*cough cough* Gheorghiu) - but sopranos can also choose to do this higher up, like tenors and baritones have to do to negotiate the passagio. It gives a feeling of control to the performer, and sounds absolutely fantastic to the soprano herself. But across a concert hall, it gives the sound an occluded, domed quality, like a film or a cap that is covering the sound. While it can be a beautiful occasionally for a floated pianissimo high note (and it worked for the fairy godmother in Cendrillon), if it's done all the time, it quickly becomes very boring and that's unfortunately what was happening here with Gutiérrez - there's nothing exciting in the sound, no edge, no sense of risk. Every. Single. Note was placed which is not what you want in this of all repertoire - what's called for is thrilling, full throttle risk taking, not merely accuracy. And unfortunately it wasn't even that accurate - this constant placing meant rhythms were often wayward, and surprisingly there was more than the occasional out of tune passage and high note.
Elena Xanthoudakis had a less beautiful voice perhaps, but at least she could thrill us with it, and as a result was much more satisfying as love rival Lisa. The way she pottered around was funny also. I don't know if Gutiérrez is a poor actress or whether it was the fault of the awful production, but it was hard to care too much about the central story. Marco Arturo Marelli designed and directed the original production (revival direction by Andreas Reisner), and apparently it's set in some sort of mountain lodge/hotel/ward, not at all clear who the patients or staff are. It appears Amina is a waitress in the beginning before she gets changed into her wedding dress in the hall! Yeah I have no idea what they were thinking either. It's a single set all the way through, sort of 20s/30s continental looking with a view of the alps out of the back window. My god is it dull. Michele Pertusi sings beautifully and has some character, doing his best, but it's a bad sign when the Count Rodolfo is the best voice on stage. Celso Albelo can basically sing the part (there was a cringeworthy moment in the unnacompanied portion of the duet), but is one of the dullest tenors I've ever heard. No physical acting to speak of (obviously) and worse in this repertoire, no vocal acting at all - a single tone colour all the way. As soon as he started singing I found myself drifting away from the action, my eyes suddenly caught by the auditorium lighting, or some seat detail. I couldn't help it. Everyone else sung well actually, and Elizabeth Sikora as Teresa, Amina's foster mother, displayed some really beautiful things in her voice, small though the part was. Young Artist Jihoon Kim was good as Alessio.
Seriously though, what a waste of time. This repertoire needs the singers to carry it off, but providing the score with staticism and tedium in the direction and set design really doesn't help matters. A story which is premised on simple idiocy is hard enough to be engaged by as it is.
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