Jurowski thrills - Prokofiev rarities

In this Prokofiev - man of the people? season at the Royal Festival Hall, Vladimir Jurowski has been examining Prokofiev's career after his return to the Soviet Union, placing his later music in context. On 28/1/12,  he presented two rarities, one a premiere,  focussing on Prokofiev as dramatist.  It was a winner. Thrilling music, but also an indication of what the composer might have meant about reaching the people.

Popular art ne4ed not be populist. Film was a revolutionary art form because it reached the masses, even those who didn't realize that what they were watching was "art". Eisenstein was an artist, but used mass media to get his messages across. What better way for a man like Prokofiev to use his art to reach millions who might never enter a formal concert hall? In the west, people are perplexed that anyone should leave "freedom" for Communism, but at the time, many intellectuals were idealistic. Stalin was the price they had to pay. Similarly, many Chinese intellectuals returned to China when the country was in need. It was moral imperative, and then the Cultural Revolution.. Maybe it's just not a concept everyone for themselves societies can grasp, but it's not without honour.

"I serve Russia, not myself" to paraphrase Ivan the Terrible in Eisenstein's masterpiece, with score by Prokofiev.  The Tsar's primary duty is to serve the people, even if he's bloodthisrty and immoral. Although Soviet censors may have balked at Ivan the Terrible Part II it doesn't show the tsar as villian so much as an individual motivated by ideals, although he's become twisted with power and intrigue. Curiously, Ivan is an artist, a "man of the people" in his own way.

The world premiere tonight was Levon Atomyan's 1961 version of Prokofiev's score for Ivan The Terrible , condensed into less than an hour.  It was approved by the Union of Soviet Composers (one judge being Shostakovich), but Atomyan hhad a stroike and the work remained in his archive.  Although there is another arrangement, by the conductor Abram Stasevich, who recorded the original sound track, Atomyan was a close friend of Prokofiev and influenced his return to Rissia.

Atomyan's arragement doesn't follow the narrative in the film, but reshapes the soundtrack in symphonic form in seven movements. While we hear the magnificence which represenst Russian glory, attack what comes over more prominently is a gentler. more human Ivan.. After the belligerance of the first section, there's a folk song about a beaver who is hunted down for his pelt. Folk melody, perhaps, but brutal. Prokofiev wanted the singer,to sound  "as senile as possible, as though holding a ciagrette between the lips, as though  through a comb", I wouldn't say that was what Eva Podleś sounded like, for at 60, her voice is still naturally warm and rich,  It's the song Yefrovsinya, the Tsar's aunt later sings to her own son,  as she plots the Tsar's downfall.

The song of bthe Oprichniks, the Oprichnina appears inn full in the seond part of the film, but  its sabvage pulsating staccato occurs throughout the soundtrack, In this arrangement it's the third segment, enmphasing the primitive power of Ivan's terrifying hitmen.  Andrey Breus sang the baritone part, supported by the male voices of the Londoin Philharmonic Choir. One should feel fear and revulsion. but the music is so infectious, you're almost drawn into it, which is rather worrying. But then, that's what mobs are like.

The 4th and 5th movements describe Ivan's marraige to Anastasia, the "swan", whose beauty and purity stand in contrast to the intrigue around them. Would he have turned out differently if she hadn't been murdered? The film links the poisoning of Anastasia to the murder of Ivan's mother, which made the young boy determeined to be strong.  atomyan adds Ocean Song for contralto and ochestra, which doesn't appear in the film, but fits the story well, and connects to the song Yefrosinya sings to her son. A vivid depiection ofthe attack on Kazan, complete with cannons, and the chorus singing a hymn to Russian glory. The gory elements in the film are played down, the orchestration emphasizing quirky good humour.  Eisenstein, Prokofiev and Stalin were all dead by 1958, when Ivan the Terrible Part II was unbanned, but the ideas were still dangerous. Atomyan's finale, the Magnifcation for chorus and orchestra, is straightfoward glory on Russian themes. Its a watering down of the original for practicalpolitical reasons, but is rousing and entertaining. Fabulously lively playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Jurowski made his point, with glory!

Simon Callow and Miranda Richardson narrated Prokofiev's Incidental Music to Egyptian Nights. This was an experiemntal theatre project, directed by Alexander Tairov in 1934, before Prokofiev made his final committment to return to the Soviet Union. Tairov mixed passages from Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw and Pushkin to create a story that covered Cleopatra's life form youth to death. Prokofiev's score runs to 44 numbers, played with verve by the LPO. But all attention was on Callow, who created one figure after another - Julius Ceasar as old rake, Ceasar as ruler and betrayer, Marc Antony and the Irish fig seller who brings Cleopatra the asp.  Caloow was wonderful - no stilted RADAisms that some actors might use, but warm, natural, imposing and funny by turns. The script's clunky,  but Callow saved it. Richardson's Cleopatra was fun too, though her parts more safe. Although the piece runs exactly the same as Ivan The Terrible, the strange hybrid form tends to drag without costumes and context. But the pont is that Prokofiev realized it was "experiemntal" even as Stalin's purges were beginning to kick in.

Excellent booklet notes. I wish I'd beem to more in this Prokofiev - man of the people? series. Can't wait til Simon Morrison's book on Lina Prokofiev is published later this year. Please see my other posts on early art  film, music for film, political fim, suppressed composers etc.

Пир Ивана Грозного

Пир Ивана Грозного - the Dance of the Oprochniks from Sergei Eisensteins' Ivan The Terrible Part 2, music by Sergei Prokofiev. This is a crucial scene. The Tsar, long driven mad by conspiracies around him, is locked in a struggle with his aunt and the boyars. The Oprochniks are his personal henchmen "Tied to him by blood". But as Ivan says, so is his formidable aunt, whom he admires for whacking his men with her staff when they confronted her. The film is stark black and white, to heighten the extreme contrast, and evoke the Tsar's possibly schizoid paranoia. It also means sinister, creeping shadows, stark contrasts between the luxury of the court and ascetic monks. . Ivan slides snake like through maze like corridors, his beard pointing forward, his cloak leaving a wake of menace. Ludicrously stylized shots, but which have purpose : no one acts independently in this world til the director cries "Action" and the actors suddenly stiffen into pose, eyes dilated, hypnotized by fear. There's a masque about fiery angels whom Nebuchadnezzar of the Chaldees could not burn in his furnace. (a pun on Prokofiev's Fiery Angel?) God will prevail over evil rulers. Ivan knows there's a plot to assassinate him so he invites his cousin Vladimir to a party and gets him drunk. Suddenly the film turns into colour. Early technology means the film bleeds red, which is rather appropriate. The Oprochniks dance and sing. Note the "female" mask and outfit. Something terrible is about to happen.

Luigi Dallapiccola Il Prigioniero Salonen South Bank

At last, Luigi Dallapiccola's Il prigioniero came to the South Bank. How happy Esa-Pekka Salonen must be that he returned to London, where he has a top orchestra in the Philharmonia, who relish exploring new repertoire, and audiences who appreciate what they can do. Il prigioniero is the latest adventure in a series of ground-breaking performances like Gurrelieder, Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony and the Bartók year.

Programming Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with Dallapiccola was perceptive. Il prigioniero could be Fidelio with bite. As the inmates at Guantanamo Bay can tell us, happy endings don't happen. However, the Philharmonia put so much effort into Dallapiccola that Beethoven managed to fall flat. Nonetheless we can hear Beethoven any time and can always grab a good CD. Il prigioniero needs to be experienced live.

The Royal Festival Hall was shrouded in atmospheric darkness. (Semi staging by David Edwards, Lighting by David Holmes)The savage, angular opening chords of the Prologue lacerated. When Dallapiccola was writing, most of Europe was one big political prison. No cross-dressing wife, inexplicably fooling prison guards. Instead, a mother wailing at the all powerful Grand Inquisitor, whose head transforms into a skull. No false hopes. Above the stage, a choir sings, and the RFH organ booms menacingly. The Inquisitor holds the reins of Church and State (the setting is the revolt of the Spanish Netherlands). The prisoner sings graphically about suffering - iron and fire, fear of sleep and fear of being awake. He's no Florestan, but an ordinary, terrified man. A warden offers hope. He carries a lighted candle, he calls the prisoner "Fratello" (brother) and tells him about uprisings in Ghent and other cities. The warden sings of a giant bell ringing for freedom, which gives Dallapiccola a chance to write a  fugue-like section, full orchestra and organ in full throttle. For a moment the prisoner feels like a hero. Somehow he crawls out of the dungeon and feels fresh air, and thinks of distant mountains. But it's a cynical trap. The prisoner and his fellows are burned at the stake. The cruellest torture is the illusion of hope.

Il prigioniero isn't easy to stage, for it's effectively a one-man opera, with the mother and warden fulfilling limited parts. It's not a chamber opera, either, for the orchestral forces are vast. Indeed, I doubt that full staging would add anything the imagination can't suggest. Lauri Vasar sang the prisoner very effectively, nice ringing tone with just enough desperation at the edges. Paoletta Marrocu sang his mother, veiled in black, gesturing like a figure in a Greek chorus. The Warders/priests were sung by Peter Hoare, Brian Galliford and Francisco Javier Borda. Yet Il prigioniero isn't really a "singing" opera so much as a symphonic work with voices and storyline.  Not so different from Fidelio, after all. The performance was vividly dramatic, Salonen firmly keeping the pace with lethal  intensity. Moments of wildness leap out from the dark textures, like the fragile candle that brought the prisoner hope. In this opera, the orchestral players are protagonists, and here the members of the Philharmonia were "singing" with individuality and verve.

Generic programme notes are worthless now anyone can search on Wikipedia. Fortunately, Misha Donat's programme notes are superb, informative and filled with the kind of insight that comes from genuine knowledge and experience. Notes like this serve a purpose other than to fill space. Donat describes Dallapiccola's use of dodecaphony, showing that twelve tone series and emotional truth are by no means incompatible. He also recounts the episode when Schoenberg visited Florence in 1924. Most people couldn't get his music at all. As Alban Berg said in 1933, "In Italy they are just discovering Richard Strauss". Two men in the audience, however, were fascinated. One was 20 year old Dallapiccola. The other, a terminally ill Giacomo Puccini, who'd driven 50 miles to get there.  Perhaps Il Prigioniero links to Tosca, of all things. It's exactly what happened to Cavaradossi, but Tosca hogs attention. NOW we know whty Salonen was so good in Dallapiccola (apart from the fact he studied the composer in his youth)  There's a new recording of Il prigioniero where Salonen conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony, LINK HERE

Paavo Berglund has died

Kapellimestari Paavo Berglund on kuollut - headlines in Finland.  Paavo Berglund has died, 25/1/12, aged 82. Berglund was an extremely important figure in modern Sibelius performance practice. Indeed, I'd suggest, one of the seminal Sibelius conductors of our time. Not comfortable, not romantic, Berglund's Sibelius was elemental and uncompormising. If Adorno had heard Berglund, he might have been converted. Nor was Berglund a man to take things for granted. His second recording of Kullervo, made several years after the score was rediscovered, shows even deeper penetration into the wildness of the piece. Perhaps one of the reasons it was quietly put aside in the first place was because it was so savage, but it held a place in Sibelius's heart. Below, a clip from Berglund's legendary Bournemouth years:

Wolfgang Rihm at 60 - London Sinfonietta

Eager anticipation for the London Sinfonietta's Wolfgang Rihm at 60 concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Part of the disappointment was that it wasn't really "Rihm at 60" but a revisting of earlier works. That's not necessarily a minus since Rihm himself loves revisiting familiar work from a wildly new perspective.

Rihm's Nach-Schrift (Eine Chiffre für Ensemble (2004) is an outgrowth from the extensive Chiffre-Zyklus (recording here) written during the course of the 1980's. Chiffre means "cipher", so part of the fun is trying to discern how ideas disguise themselves. Score-studier's paradise. But Rihm himself is a natural anarchist, not a pedant. What's striking about his music is its joyous energy and vigour. In Nach-Schrift, (postscript),  do we hear the sound of rushing footsteps in that merry ostinato? It's as if the music were playing hide and seek, teasing us with patterns that seem to repeat but suddenly whisk themselves away when we grasp them. The xylophone keeps things light hearted, despite dense textures. Bright, strident trumpets and giant contrabass trombone. Low murmuring contrabassoon and clarinet, like mysterious voices of darkness.

Will Sound More Again (2011) (an outgrowth of Will Sound, 2005), comes seven years on from Nach-Schrift, and is much more densely orchestrated. Very firm structure, weighted down with tuba, contrabassoon, the winds extended by two cheeky saxophones. This time there's a sense of churning and turning, ideas reverberating  in concentric waves. This time there's a new figure in the landscape, struggling against the orchestra. Andrew Zolinsky let the piano taunt and trick, bright, lyrical lines bursting forth with joyous freedom. The orchestra's trying to encircle him but he won't be bound. The title? "Something will sound because it wants to", says Rihm in the notes. "The composer obeys the will  and the development and notates the spaces in between". Sometimes it flows undergound, but its trajectory and life-force are not submerged.

Rihm's Ricercare in memoriam Luigi Nono (1990) references Nono's ideas on spatial relationships. The small orchestra is arranged in a semi circle,  the usual instrument groups separated, with gaps between, and two percussion desks at each end. Elegant directional flow, high pitched sounds stretching upwards and outwards. Not vintage Rihm, but useful as a reminder of what he - and we - owe Luigi Nono for his concept  of music as invisible architecture.

This puts Rebecca Saunders Quartet (1997-8) into context, for Saunders is a master of music as sculptural  form.  She was one of Rihm's early students but early on developed a totally distinctive, unique style. Her music is almost tactile, as if the notes are tracing curves like fingers exploring their way around an invisble shape by instinct. Quartet is scored for an unusual combination of accordion, bass clarinet, piano and double bass so there's much more than the usual communal listening that makes chamber music so rewarding. The accordion is an ideal instrument for Saunders, as it's like the human body, breathing in and out through "lungs". Saunders's music has a deeply organic pulse, as if she's describing a body at sleep, anchored with a steady  heartbeat, but drifting in subconscious dreams. At times the accordion made sounds so ethereal they seemed to come from inside the psyche. Quartet rotates and turns, not like Rihm's churnings, but more intimate and meditative. Indeed, Saunders's music is more spiritually gratifying. once you understand where she's at. She's highly respected in her own right apart from the Rihm connection and has been a regular at the Proms and at Huddersfield.

Jörg Widmann, a much later Rihm pupil, has a high profile because he and his sister, the immensely talented violinist Caroline Widmann, have spent a lot of time in London and are well connected. The South Bank and Wigmore Hall have done a lot for Widmann, whose music fills a niche for audiences not yet ready for Rihm and Saunders. Dubairische Tänze (2009) is a series of 8 unconnected pieces over 18 minutes. A parody of Viennese waltz, of polka, of Bavarian oompah band, then novelty items like two basins of water being splashed about. A new kind of percussion but one that outstays its welcome within seconds. Perhaps there's a Rihm influence in the madcap mayhem of the later segments but they came over more as soundtracks for cartoons.  Unusual audience.There were well known composers and musicians  present, but also some who probably don't go out much. One woman read a newspaper throughout the concert, while another spent the whole evening playing games on an iPad.  Perhaps that accounted for the response - wildly enthusiastic applause and muttered murmurings.

Although I love the London Sinfonietta and once had an unbroken run of every single concert for five years, they didn't sound much like themselves this evening. Even though I wasn't listening from score (often the sign of a Beckmesser) some entries felt wrong and the overall dynamics somewhat muffled. Thierry Fischer, longtime conductor of the BBCNOW in Wales, has a strong interest in modern music but his approach seemed more suited to large ensemble than tight, small scale detail.

Lots about Rihm and Saunders on this site, please search. Rihm was the subject of a Barbican Total Immersion two years ago, which I wrote about here. .

Delius Royal Festival Hall Sunday

Sunday 29th January for Delius at the South Bank, with an important AFTERNOON concert at the Royal Festival Hall, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis. Julian Lloyd Webber will play Delius's Cello Concerto, which I always associate with Jacqueline du Pré, though Lloyd Webber loves it dearly and is its current high profile champion. Heavy competition: Ralph Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending, one of the most sublime pieces of music ever, indescribably alluring. Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay, soloist.

Delius is also up against Edward Elgar, the Enigma Variations with its expansive sweep of invention. Interesting contrast with Delius Brigg Fair - an English Rhapsody. That's based on a fragment of an old folk tune sung by Josph Taylor to Percy Grainger at Brigg in Lincolnshire around 1906. The recording lasts only 30 seconds and is grainy, given that it was recorded live in the field, using the technology of the time. Grainger made an arrangement of it which was a great success. Taylor was taken to London to hear Grainger's version in 1910 and is said to have said, "that's my song?" (For more, read Georgina Boyes The Imagined Village, revised and reissued in 2010).  Delius's Brigg Fair makes no pretensions. It's a lyrical fantasy on the spirit of Englishness, very much in keeping with what he learned from Edvard Grieg and the idea of Norway. 

Whatever Englishness may be, for Delius was thoroughly international. His contact with rural English yokels was limited: quite possibly he was more intimate with black Americans (there's a rumour that he had a mixed race daughter). The painting above was by his German wife Jelka, done in their home in France. But Beecham's passionate promotion created Delius as "English" and that's how we've come to hear him. Delius and Debussy were born the same year, 1862, both  will be having anniversaries. It would be fascinating to hear Delius compared to Debussy. There's a new recording of Delius piano music (Paul Guinery) which will be reviewed here. It's part of a major traverse around Delius rarities by Stone Records. The complete Delius Songbook (piano and voice) is reviewed HERE and HERE.  Me? I'm going to the very important  Lieder recital at the Wigmore Hall at exactly the same time, Sunday, but might find a way to get both concerts covered. Keep reading!

Sergei Polunin, wise counsel

Shock news of Sergei Polunin's resignation from the Royal Ballet emerged yesterday afternoon, though his final tweets indicate something was on his mind. I have an expensive ticket for the Dream on 1/2, Only two dancers, so without him, can the show go on in quite the same way? On the other hand, the ballet world is completely unnatural. Dancers are hothoused from childhood, because it's the only way to hone them like racehorses. Or turkeys for Xmas. Their shelf life is maximum aged 35, so they are almost programmed to burn out. If animals were treated like dancers, the industry would have been banned long ago. I cannot blame Polunin but respect him for protesting.

Trouble is, a dancer's best years coincide with the time when normal prople are finding themselves as human beings. They're athletes, so they are drilled into constant training. They can't do kid things like go on benders  or laze about, or make mistakes like everyone. Maybe sports stars get away with it because sports has street cred, and everyone "knows"sportsmen are buffoons. But a dancer inherits the burden of posterity. He or she has to live up to a tradition of artistic excellence.

In theory, dancers might think in terms of sacrificing their youth so they can look forward to a decent life afterwards. But only the very, very few make enough money for a comfortable retirement (aged 35?).In reality most have wrecked their bodies, which limits job prospects and lifestyle. Other people just don't understand when a young-looking person is crippled by muscle and joint pain. Besides, any decent artist lives for his/her art, so when that's gone, it's horribly frustrating. And every dancer, even at the top, knows it doesn't last.

So Polunin's right, even though his timing isn't. The Royal Ballet is being pretty gracious about the disruption, which is judicious because Polunin is still so young. Artists have temperament, they often don't think strategically, all the more reason they need wise counsel around them.  At 21, most people don't know what they want to do, so Polunin's normal. Who hasn't made dramatic decisions regretted in maturity? At least he knows there's something odd about the lifestyle. Those thousands of little girls in pink tutus, pushed by their mothers into Barbie-doll mode, continue to act out the fantasy especially if they don't go on to face the reality of a dancer's life. More power Sergei Polunin, all is not lost yet.

The photo is Nijinsky, L'apres-midi d'un faune. Remember what happened to the faun. And to Nijinsky.

Zum Geburtstag, Friedrich der Große, special concert

Happy Birthday, Friedrich der Große! It's Frederick the Great's 300th birthday and even a baroque potentate wouldn't do 300 candles on his cake, especially not someone as ascetic as he was. "Feed it to the horses!" So zum Geburtstag, a special concert of the music Frederick the Great knew, loved and played. That's der alte Fritz himself playing the flute at Sans-Souci in Potsdam.

Click HERE to listen to a the recital online by members of the Berliner Barock Soloisten and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Speakers will read from Friedrich's correspondence with Voltaire, "a unique document of nonchalantly commented contemporary history, full of top-class irony, anecdotes and philosophy.". The programme includes pieces by CPE Bach, Friedrich's court composer Johann Quantz and of course the King's own compositions. He was a virtuoso flautist and wrote many works, many of which are in print and have been recorded (see HERE and Emmauel Pahud HERE) with video clip. "There's a certain weight about the King's music", says Pahud, "that the courtiers don't have". Would that heads of state today had Friedrich's education and breadth of experience. Or even the basic mental discipline of art. Tomorrow, I'll celebrate by watching some of the old UFA films about the king, which are actually very good, though the lessons weren't learned by some of those watching them at the time. Please see my other posts on Frederick the Great, like this. and about West Prussia, various posts like THIS.

How to out Nokia a Nokia

What to do with idiots who don't switch off their phones? Rage doesn't work. Wit might.  Courtesy of good friend and reader, HERE is a link to a recital in the Orthodox Synagogue in Presov in Slovakia. It's not a huge venue and everyone probably knows everyone. Rather than poison the atmosphere, the soloist Lukas Kmit graciously improvises on the Nokia theme tune. Point made. Nokia owner chastened. This is class.

Most people who forget their phones don't do it on purpose. But those who chat, text etc are boors. Worst of all those who liveblog during performances. Liveblogging breaking news is understandable as no-one knows til later how the bits will fit. Performances, however, are interpretation and can't be evaluated til the end when the whole falls into place. Can't people listen without fidgetting? And what sort of friends can they have who rely on tweets instead of real performance. Even if you corrall livebloggers into special areas, the fact remains - attention defict disorder.

The Enchanted Island at the Met - deeper than expected

Extravagance is the essence of baroque, but few houses can do spectacles as well as the Met. So when the  Met throws its might behind The Enchanted Island, it can create a spectacle worthy of the genre. At last Met technology put to good use - this is baroque as it should be done! William Christie is one of the great baroque specialists, and a guiding force behind Purcell The Fairy Queen at Glyndebourne in 2009. That may have been part of the inspiration for The Enchanted Island, for both take material from various sources and present them as glorious extravaganza. Christie and the Met also use some of the finest singers in the genre.
 
Perhaps the idea that The Enchanted Island is a "new" opera panics people. But why not? "Pastiche" carries negative connotations now, but didn't in baroque times when recycling was part of what went into theatre. Recordings didn't exist then, so composers were expected to re-use popular melodies so people could enjoy them again. That's also partly why baroque operas adapt similar ideas over and over. Audiences delighted in new ways of hearing old. How many of Vivaldi's operas were all "new" or even all Vivaldi? And how many adaptations of Ariosto and Tasso? The baroque aesthetic blended characters  from ancient antiquity and medieval myth in joyous riot. Even Mozart had no qualms about recycling a good tune. So snobbery about this kind of pastiche is misguided. Indeed, I suspect the choices made in The Enchanted Island are wittier than might be expected.

The secret to The Enchanted Island is to take the story as it comes,  just as baroque audiences would have done centuries ago. The basic premise is that Prospero has usurped Sycorax on her island, and pushes his weight around. That's why Shakespeare's The Tempest gets banned in Arizona. It's a simile for what happens when indigenous people are colonized by masters from over the seas. Caliban has long been seen as a metaphor for the Third World.  Perhaps Shakespeare wasn't political, but there's no reason why a reworking of the premise shouldn't tease out new meaning from an old story. Handel did it all the time, as did many others. William Christie and Jeremy Sams emphasize the anarchy inherent in the plot. Please read what Sams wrote for the British press here.

Prospero (David Daniels) rules the island but Sycorax (Joyce DiDonato) this time fights back, by simply changing dragon's blood for lizard's blood  in the spell Prospero sets for getting off the island.  Immediately, we know that this retelling of the basic story will be mischief!  So Ariel (Danielle de Niese) conjures up a boat. It's the first of many visual special effects which baroque audiences would have gasped at in admiration. Only it's the wrong boat! It's carrying the lovers from A Midsummers Nights Dream, who've already been cast in several guises before. Ariel connects to Puck, Caliban (Luca Pisaroni) to Bottom. Fun is of the essence. More fool those who can't see the humour in The Enchanted Island. In the cinema where I saw it, the audience was chuckling with delight.

Exceptionally good performances from Joyce DiDonato (Sycorax) and Luca Pisaroni (Caliban). DiDonato pretty much creates the part on her own, since it's hardly developed elsewhere, but fundamental to the background of the story. DiDonato is magnificent. Her singing ranges from ethereally high textures to animal-like growls. She's a nature spirit, connected to the mysteries in the jungles of her island. She's also an earth mother who loves her son just as much as Prospero loves Admir'd Miranda (Lisette Oropesa, singing in American). Caliban (Luca Pisaroni) is costumed as half gorilla, but with a sensitive side, (he likes flowers). Pisaroni is a natural actor, moving half crouched and intuitively, like an animal, yet his voice expresses deep emotional feelings.  In The Tempest, Prospero holds all the cards. In The Enchanted Island, the underdogs Sycorax and Caliban get a fair chance. This time, they're evenly balanced, and the meaning of the plot enhanced. Incidentally, the plot is driven by pe-existing baroque materials - nothing 21st century added. Sorceresses on enchanted islands abound throughout the genre.

Then, one of the most magnificent coups de théâtre in recent memory. Ariel calls on the God Neptune nd suddenly he arises from the ocean, surrounded by four mermaids, suspended from the roof. It's an image straight out of baroque fantasy, the sort of scene baroque artists used to paint, except this time it's done with modern stage techniques baroque stage designers could only dream of. It's fantastic in the true, baroque meaning of the word, totally artificial and gloriously splendid at the same time. Some of the chorus fill the foreground, others as singing heads in a backdrop that could come right out of an 18th century painted flat.    Since when did Gods rise up out of the sea, except in the imagination? And part of the baroque aesthetic is to push the boundaries of imagination. Only a house like the Met can pull scenes like this off so well.

This magnificent scene must have been stunning live, given the gasps from the audience, on screen and in the cinema. But it's absolutely fundamental to the whole concept of the plot. Neptune is the Deus ex machina around whom the resolution pivots. What a wonderful way to make the most of Placido Domingo!  He doesn't have to sing much (thankfully) but his acting skills are superb. Again, the anarchic humour in the text. "I'm old, irritable and tired", he sings with a merry grin, "I don't do the high seas". Pun, pun, pun for those who forget he used to be a tenor. It's a measure of Domingo's greatness that he can do acidly witty self parody like this, upstaging the elaborate ostentation around him.

The scene where Pisaroni as Caliban is surrounded by dancers isn't there merely to squeeze in a bit of Rameau but to show how he's "enchanted" by nature spirits half-animal, half-human like himself.  It's crucial to the plot because Caliban is trying his hand at magic spells and conjuring a new world, unintended,  where things will be more in tune with nature. It won't happen, though, as Prospero won't let it. The proscenuim, which magically transforms throught the evening from dense jungle to baroque fanatsy now turns dark, two glowing orbs like the eyes of a wild animal, the stage like a gigantic mouth swallowing Caliban's dreams. It's time now for Neptune to restore the natural order.  In another spectacular scene, Domingo as Neptune conjures up another magnificent boat, complete with the sort of rolling "waves" baroque designers made out of painted horizontal sheets, shaken up and down. At once "traditional" baroque design, with modern technology. At last Ferdinand (Anthony Roth Costanzo) appears. Miranda is saved, and Prospero returned to where he belongs. "Forgive me" he begs Sycorax, and maybe he means it, but our sympathies are with DiDonato's wonderful characterization. But baroque means happy ending, so all join in in standard ensemble, praising new beginnings. Excellent ideas, excellent cast and the Met Orchestra playing idiomatically even though they're using modern instruments (plus harpsichord). The Enchanted Island shows that the Met has huge potential.  Had this piece been heard at Glyndebourne, where audiences are receptive to baroque and to innovation, it would have been greeted with the acclaim that The Fairy Queen received. (read more here)