Outstanding Parsifal-aware Lohengrin Royal Opera House

Klaus Florian Vogt and Thomas J Mayer, copyright Tristram Kenton, Royal Opera House

Wagner Lohengrin at the Royal Opera House.With some of the finest Lohengrin, most experienced specialists in the business - Klaus Florian Vogt,  Andris Nelsons and Georg Zeppenfeld - this was guaranteed to be an overwhelming musical experience.   Outstanding richness and depth in the orchestra,  with the scene on the Scheldt materializing in the music with such dramatic power  that anyone, even the most anti-war, could believe, for a moment in what was later to be called the "First Reich".   Horns and trumpets blazed from all round the Royal Opera House building, most appropriately from the Royal Box itself, bringing a vast, invisible army into the semi-civilized confines of an opera house. "Für deutsches Land das deutsche Schwert! So sei des Reiches Kraft bewährt!". 

Brabant is in turmoil, but only part of a wider struggle of cosmic proportions.  Heinrich der Vogler might have been a real person but Lohengrin is opera, not history.  For Wagner, Lohengrin isn't "just" a war story but the continuation (in advance, given that Lohengrin came before Parsifal) of a struggle between pseudo-Christianity and demonic forces.  If Lohengrin descends (somehow) from Parsifal, then Ortrud and Telramund connect to Klingsor and Kundry, their sexes reversed.  Hence the paranoia that underlies this opera and its strange, mystical resolution. And in times of extremist hysteria, the individual is suppressed. Elsa needs a super-hero, but when she gets one, he turns out not to be quite the man of her dreams.  The people of Brabant are conformists, easily swayed. Not so different from the modern world.  So it's nonsense to call David Alden's production "updating" or even semi-Third Reich. Grandiose manias, grandiose buildings and monotone masses have gone together since the dawn of history.

Thus the Prelude, conducted by Andris Nelsons with sublime purity, so the sounds seemed to shimmer with ethereal light. If Nelsons can do richness, he's even better at creating subtle atmosphere. Gradually, the mists give way to light, and the drama can begin. The King listens to Telramund's accusations and Elsa's strangely inert defence. But  lo ! Alden's staging (sets Paul Steinberg, video Tal Rosner, lighting Adam Silverman) creates the entry of the Saviour (for that is what Lohengrin is).  Huge, dark ripples projected over the stage suggested the movement of waves, concentric circles stretching outward, with flashes showing the wings of a large flying bird.   In this opera, it is not the swan boat per se that counts, but the imagery of water, and the theological connotations thereof. Again, think Parsifal.  The pettiness and intrigure of Court wiped clean away by the appearnce of the champion.

Significantly, Lohengrin is first seen with his back to the audience, his voice projecting to the back of the stage, intensifying the sense of mystery.  This is an interpretive insight, for Lohengrin isn't here "for" Elsa but for an unknown higher purpose.  Veiling Klaus Florian Vogt's magnificent voice in this way also serves to stress the character's innate humility. Unlike kings and intriguers, Lohengrin is above petty power games.  When Vogt turned round, his voice grew with the strength that comes from absolute confidence. "Ein Wunder ! Ein Wunder!" indeed.  Vogt has done Lohengrin so many times over the last 20 years (including with Nelsons)  that his voice should be familiar to all, but yet again, I was astonished by its flexibility and beauty.  Almost superhuman purity, so natural and unforced that it seems to come from within., not merely from technique. This is true artistry. Vogt is a Lohengrin for the ages: How blessed we are to hear him. 

Lohengrin spares Telramund, who confronts Ortrud, who set him up in the first place. The relationship between Ortrud and Telramund suggests the relationship between Klingsor and Kundry, this time the dominant partner female rather than male (though Klingsor isn't male any more). Ortrud is the last of the ancient house of Radbod, Telramund drawn to her by his greed for power, though he blames her when he fails. They  are important characters, not quite as secondary as they might seem, so deserve the attention they are given in this production.  Thomas J Mayer is a good Telramund, and  Christine Goerke is a magnificent Elektra amongst many others: particularly good in roles where the character is strong and proactive, if misunderstood.  Ortrud is forced by fate into dangerous measures.  We're not supposed to like Ortrud but Goerke develops the part so we can sense the woman behind the monster, sensuality behind piercing steel, her voice her sword.  Elsa always takes centre stage, but Ortrud is a far more complex personality, and needs singers like Goerke who can express the depths in the otherwise thankless part.  To some extent, sexuality is involved, as so often in Wagner.  Telramund had wanted to marry Elsa, but married Ortrud instead, and sex is very much part of their alliance.  But more pointedly, why does Lohengrin, a pure knight, want to marry ? The big bed, the wedding songs etc hint at the procreative purpose of marriage. Maybe it's convenient that Elsa asks the forbidden question  and needs to know who he really is. Like his father, Lohengrin doesn't follow through but returns to his higher mission.  Gottfried, the true heir of Brabant, will arise again at the end of the opera, resurrected from the non-dead without much explanation.

The entry into the bridal chamber was introduced with such vitality by Nelsons and the ROH Orchestra that the staging, for once, did intrude. With music as gloriously performed as this, there was no need to distract by having actors run in between the seats. In the orchestra stalls, where we were seated, it was annoying and would probably have been missed by anyone further above.  Jennifer Davis sang Elsa at short notice in place of Christina Opolais (who's getting divorced from Nelsons). In the Second Act, she showed her mettle, singing with more volume and colour than she had in the First Act. While she doesn't have the depth of, say, Annette Dasch or Anna Netrebko, two fairly recent Elsas with robust personalities, she's still young and will develop over time.  In this Third Act, in the bridal gown, Davis's good looks expressed the part impressively.  Vogt looked genuinely protective, the luminosity of his singing taking on warmth andmasculine  tenderness.   As Elsa became more petulant, Lohengrin became more alarmed, and in Vogt, we could hear heartfelt regret.  Telramund breaks in - symbolically breaking the hymen in this staging - Lohengrin impaling him on his sword, handed to him by his bride. (Lest anyone query the imagery, it's in the plot).

Significantly, Wagner immediately moves the action back to  the armies assembled on the banks of the Scheldt, the conflict between East and West taking precedence over personal tragedy.  Earlier above I described the phenomenal impact of the musical introduction to this scene.   Nelsons led the orchestra with such intensity that the musical logic carried all before it. Whatever questions may be embedded in the plot,  "Wir geben Fried und Folge dem Gebot!", just as Wagner intended.   Intensity of a different, otherworldly kind, when Lohengrin explains what is about to happen. Vogt has sung "Im fernen Land" many times, and, if anything, his delivery glows with maturity. We forget that it's a "hard sing" testing range and heft, but Vogt illuminated it as if transfigured., yet still tinged with human suffering. The conjuction of Lohengrin, Parsifal and Christ may be theologically way off beam, but in Wagnerian terms, it's perfectly apt.  The King in this opera isn't a fighter, but a judge, almost a Pilate figure, hence the excellent characterization by Georg Zeppenfeld, delivering with real authority. No glitz and gold, but a man of depth.  Notice, neither Wagner's Heinrich nor Lohengrin are men of impulsive violence. Toward the end, Vogt walked quietly to the back of the stage.  Gottfried appeared, and Nelsons ended the performance with a magnificent final coda.

Cast and conductor made this a memorable experience, but the production itself will be worth reviving because it’ss well thought through and true to meaning. Infinitely more  conducive to inspired performance that the old production where the singers were trapped in dalek suits. 

ENO Britten Billy Budd review

The ENO has a hit on its hands with its new production of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd, now on at the Coliseum, London. Visually it's striking. Like the seamen, we're trapped in the claustrophic hold of the warship, "lost in the infinite sea". David Alden is sharp enough to know that Billy Budd isn't colourful costume drama.

Yet the moral dilemma Captain Vere faces in 1797 isn't black and white. It's so complex that he spends the rest of his life agonizing about what he might have done. Only when he understands what Billy means can he find deliverance. The Indomitable goes into battle stations but is defeated, not by the French but by nature itself and its envoloping mists. Indeed, against the wild forces of nature, the 'Indomitable' isn’t indomitable; it’s vulnerable, and can be destroyed by fate as capriciously as Billy himself is destroyed.What is the mystery at the heart of this deliberately opaque, emotionally reticent drama?

Why does Britten write music that churns and changes like the ocean itself?  Through the orchestra, the ocean takes centre stage, turbulent and intense. Huge crescendos build up like mighty waves, but even more impressive is the undertow of dark, murmuring sound that surges ever forwards. Above this, currents flowed diagonally across the orchestra, first violins flowing to brass and basses and back, just as ships lurch back and forth. You could get seasick if you focussed too hard, but that is the point, for Britten is showing that the “floating world” aboard ship is unsteady, far removed from the certainties of dry land. Just like the enveloping mists, all points of moral reference are hidden. The stark  monochrome of this set (designer Paul Steinberg)  is excellent, but it isn't enough on its own. 


Billy Budd is metaphysical. There are numerous levels of meaning. Captain Vere is stymied because he can't interpret meaning. So it's up to a director to have vision, and to inspire the singers to express the complex nuances so fundamental to this drama. All this cast is experienced, and capable of responding to a much more intense approach. Kim Begley is a superlative character singer.  But he isn't called upon here to bring out the full character of Captain Vere. He's dressed in a white suit, like God, but Britten's written huge contradictions into the part. Vere is as vulnerable as his ship itself. He's a brave man but crippled by uncertainity and guilt. If he was godlike and confident he wouldn't be tortured by self doubt. Begley is luxury casting, but isn't asked to develop the more anguished side of Vere's personality. 

Unlike Captain Vere, Billy Budd seems a straightforward character who doesn't question anything. Yet why is he so compelling that the crew adore him? Why is Vere fixated? Why is Claggart so discomforted by his presence?  This is a frighteningly difficult role because whoever sings it must convey things which Billy cannot say. It needs exceptional acting skill. Benedict Nelson sang Demetrius in the ENO Midsummer Nights Dream (see review here) but a role like that is no preparation for Billy Budd.  Nelson tackles Through the port comes moonshine astray carefully, but doesn't convey the extremely subtle way Britten writes contradiction into the aria. This is Billy's battle, but like Vere, he knows he can't win it when fate is against him. Billy loves life too much to lose it , but he sees goodness in small things, like the piece of hard biscuit Dansker brings him. Perhaps the secret lies in the personality of the singer, which is why Jacques Imbrailo seemed to radiate a truly transcendant goodness when he sang Billy Budd at Glyndebourne. Nothing can prepare a singer for a performance like that, and no-one should be expected to compare.

Matthew Rose sang a solid Claggart. He certainly looks the part, especially with pallid makeup, and has the ability to imbue the part with unhealthy menace. But here he's not called on to express the unclean sexual aspect of the role. Yet if he did, it might distort the production. The whole naval system is corrupt, based on brutality and abuse. Even Vere and Billy are complicit because they're part of it.  I cringe whenever I hear the Novice sing about having been "clever" until he was press ganged, because it shows how the system brutalizes decent people. Nicky Spence managed to make his Novice a strong portrayal, and deserved the applause that greeted him at curtain call. 

Great cameos by Duncan Rock (Donald), Gwynne Howell (Dansker)  and the chorus, here well directed and blocked.  Unfortunately, the long horizontals on stage mean that much of the singing projects into the wings, its impact lost. Britten writes great variety into this music, but the quirkiness is underplayed. When Mr Redburn and Lieutenant Ratcliffe talk about the French, the exchange can be both comic and disturbing, for it shows how stupid those in authority can be. Here, however, the sharpness is muted,  Jonathan Summers and Henry Waddington singing correctly, but without the savage satire Britten's trying to point out.  

The navy is institutionalized, and David Alden emphasizes the conformist monotony of life aboard ship. It's valid, and might have made Vere's questioning all the more distressing had the idea been followed through. Given the genteel politeness of David Alden's concept, it would not have been appropriate for Edward Gardner to have conducted with more lethal passion. This is a good production for anyone new to Britten and to Biilly Budd because Paul Steinberg's set focuses on the essentials. But ultimately, it holds fire and doesn't engage with the darkest aspects of the opera any more than the Indomitable engages with the French.  Billy Budd is a very dark and complex opera. It might be possible to direct a production where the true horror is exposed but it would make audiences as anguished as Captain Vere. That's simply not viable. 

Please see my other pieces on Benjamin Britten, especially The Prince of the Pagodas, currently at the Royal Opera House. 

photos copyright Henrietta Butler, courtesy ENO

Handel Radamisto ENO Coliseum

Vividly colourful ENO Handel Radamisto at the Coliseum. Polygamous profusion of images of Asia - Mugha India, Tokugawa Japan and Chinese restaurant chic and the odd Tibetan. The text, of course, mentions Armenia. Visual indigestion, if you're culturally aware. But then to Handel and his audiences, specifics didn't matter. Radamisto is a morality tale that transcends time and place.

Tiridate (Ryan McKinny) lusts for Zenobia (Christine Rice) who's happily married to Radamisto (Lawrence Zazza). To win her he'll dump his wife Polissena (Sophie Bevan), usurp Farasmane's kingdom (Henry Waddington). But Zenobia's having nothing of it. She'd rather die than be unfaithful. All subplots and complications (they're all family, for example) are decorative embellishments. The basic message is surprisingly simple : love overcomes all.

This fundamental chastity pervades the whole opera. Structurally, it's very tight. In neat succession, set piece arias follow one another, allowing each singer to display his or her vocal virtuosity. Simplicity of form, allowing beautiful elaboration without blurring the purity of vision.

Lawrence Zazzo's Radamisto is superb. His tessitura isn't forced but flows well, carefully modulated and well-judged, important in a role which stresses integrity.Radamisto's extended rhapsody on honour is particularly striking, embellishments extending each word, yet flowing naturally, without affectation. You marvel at the inventiveness, but also meditate on meaning. Honour does matter, Radamisto keeps saying as he and Zenobia amply demonstrate. These aren't just "words", dwelling on them serves a moral as well as artistic purpose.

The contrast between Radamisto and Tiridate is enhanced by the counterbalance of Zazzo's countertenor with Ryan McKinny's bass-baritone. In baroque, low voices often signify villains, but McKinny doesn't overdo the inherent power in his voice. Instead he relies on subtle expression, using agile legato.  In any case, refinement enhances the role. Tiridate holds a sword poised to kill Radamisto, but the long, lyrical elaboration deflects the menace, Reality, in Handel, is deeper than it seems on the surface.

Christine Rice is exquisitely dignified and gracious. In Carmen, she seemed inhibited, and even as Ariadne in Birtwistle's The Minotaur she didn't access the kinkier aspects of the role. As Zenobia, however, she's ideal. Her patrician reserve perfectly fits the role, so she can create Zenobia's compelling beauty with her voice. Sophie Bevan's Polissena and Henry Waddington's Farasmane impressed too. And Ailish Tynan's Tigrane reached notes higher than might be expected.

So what was my big misgiving about this production ? David Alden depicts Tigrane as a grotesque, a camp cross between Alfred Hitchcock,  King Farouk and Billy Bunter, but for no conceivable purpose. Is he trying to inject comic humour? Perhaps it works in a grubby sort of way but it jars with the noble import of this opera. The whole point, for Handel, was to edify with an example of morality beating tyranny. In itself, that's a racy concept given that Handel lived in a time of semi-absolute monarchy. Besides, Tigrane is arguably a hero since it's he who selflessly resolves matters. This portrayal is misogynistic and homophobic, completely pointless. Admittedly it was part of the 2008 Santa Fe premiere but it's still deeply offensive and should be dropped.

What Alden lacks in sensitivity, Laurence Cummings made up for with the orchestra.

A better version of this will appear soon in Opera Today.
Photo Credits : Copyright Clive Barda, courtesy of ENO.

A recording will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 20 November. Sophie Bevan will be giving a recital with her sister Mary Bevan at the Oxford Lieder Festival. which starts THIS WEEK

Alden's new Katya Kabanova, ENO

I love Janáček. I love Katya Kabanova. I love David Alden. I even love going to the Coliseum. So this completely new production of Katya at the ENO should have been a major thrill. So why did it leave me less moved than Tamerlano recently at the Royal Opera House ?

No problem with the set (Charles Edwards). The opera is about a woman trapped in sterility, so bare boards and sharply angled, oppressive backdrops are absolutely in order. This is an arena where Katya and Kabanicha struggle to the death, though the odds are mainly on one side.

Katya is trapped in this mental Siberia. That's why the walls are bare until Katya hangs an icon. Katya's an intensely passionate person, but the circumstances of her life mean that the church is her main outlet.

No special problem with the singing, either. Patricia Racette's perfectly good enough as Katya. Don't expect Söderström or Mattila, that's unfair. Racette's most convincing when she sings of Katya's youth, pretending to fly, playing in streams.
The complexity in the part, though, isn't so much in the technical aspects of voice but in characterization. Why does Katya so readily confess? Why doesn't she run off to Moscow? Why does she voluntarily throw herself in the Volga? Alden has her teetering at the edge of the stage, but it doesn't feel nearly as dangerous as it should. There is a barbarism in this opera far more demonic than the comfy 19th century setting might indicate.

Susan Bickley's a very good Kabanicha. Mother-in-law becomes woman-Hitler if you jumble the letters. Kabanicha is an emotional vampire, sucking the life out of all around her. She doesn't need to be theatrically malevolent, or she'd steal the show from Katya. Significantly, Janáček reminds us that Kabanicha and Dikoj have a past. It's unhealthy. Dikoj is a bully but gets his kicks from being dominated by this strict old dowager. Explosive stuff, with a deliberate bearing on the opera's meaning, but not emphasized in this production.

It's ironic that the stronger the subsidiary parts, the weaker the impact of the main struggle, between Katya and Kabanicha. Vavara (Anna Grevelius) is cute, but Alfie Boe as Vanja Kudriash was very good indeed. His singing was pure and animated. When he danced, he embodied the wild, free spirit Katya was when she was young. Vavara and Kudriash are what Katya and Boris might have been, but Boe's Kudriash is one of the strongest characters here - no trace of schoolmaster in him.

Clive Bayley's Dikoj is entombed in a bear costume, which is perhaps apt, and Stuart Skelton's Boris is a looming presence. Even John Graham-Hall's Tikhon looks and sounds more impressive than the role would have him. Maybe they were cast as extensions of Kabanicha, further isolating Katya? It's not necessarily in the opera, but a valid concept. Perhaps Alden might have sharpened the direction, making more of the resources to hand?

It also didn't help that it was sung in English. Of course that's what the English National Opera is about, bringing opera to the public who don't know foreign languages. And of course, the ENO is famous for bringing Janáček to the English speaking public. But Janáček's music is so closely connected to language that too much is lost in translation. Mark Wigglesworth conducts well in the genteel ENO Janáček tradition, but the crackling tension between words and music is lost when the words don't spark and bite. Katya, for example, should be Káťa - musically much more punchy.

Judging by the first night applause, Alden's Katya Kabanova will be a big success. The opera is so remarkable that it's almost impossible for it not to be good drama, even if there are many more levels in it than this production brings out. But Janáček is familiar enough these days that audiences can cope with more challenging, imaginative productions.

photo credit : Clive Barda/ENO Please note this photo is copyright and used with permission.

Please see new post on Janáček's women and what they really signify. More on interpreting Kabanicha. On Saturday I'll review The Cunning Little Vixen.
Please see my other reviews (glowing) of Alden's Lucia di Lammermoor and Peter Grimes.

Groundbreaking Lucia di Lammermoor ENO

FOR SATYAGRAHA, 2007 and 2010, please click HERE and HERE. Please see formal review of Lucia HERE. These are first thoughts. Lucia di Lammermoor is pure theatre. Walter Scott's novel reinvents Scotland as pre-Victorian potboiler. Donizetti adapts it to High Romantic Italianate melodrama. Far from being set in any specific time or place, this opera inhabits a strange world of the imagination. All the more reason for intelligent interpretation. David Alden's production of Lucia di Lammermoor, at the English National Opera, breaks new ground because it draws power from the tension between the lyrical music and the horror of the narrative.

Because setting in this opera is so ambiguous, the set design itself plays a significant role, commenting on and expanding the ideas implicit in the opera, adding a deeper layer of meaning. The background's too complex to explain. What we need to know is that two families have been involved in a fight to the death. With hues of grey, green and white, this set design speaks of faded glory, marble halls neglected and left to ruin. This set reminds us that Lucia's family is on the brink of annihilation. Enrico isn't simply a brute forcing his sister into marriage. He's desperate for survival, and Lucia is the last weapon left to him.

Donizetti's music is so beautiful that it lulls us, but that's part of the horror. The object left stage, glowing a luminous green, represents the glass harmonica. The instrument is actually played in the pit by Alexander Marguerre but Alden and Charles Edwards, who designed this evocative set, make sure we don't lose sight of what we hear. The strange, hypnotic drone of the glass harmonica was believed to induce insanity in those who heard it, so Donizetti wasn't using it purely for surreal musical effect. Its very presence signals danger. Donizetti's audience would in theory have picked up on the implication, that they, too, might go mad like Lucia, through no fault of their own. The conductor, Antony Walker, made sure Marguerre (one of the few glass harmonica players in the world) got a bow, but unfortunately the Coliseum audience didn't seem aware why. Surely they're not saturated with theremins ?

Updating the costumes (Brigitte Reiffenstuel) to buttoned-up late Victorian also added to the interpretation. Real 16th century Scottish Calvinists probably didn't waltz. but for Donizetti, the wedding party had to be joyful, to contrast with the brutal transaction the wedding celebrates. The "Victorian" context also draws out the subtext of sexual repression in this opera more clearly than Scott or Donizetti would have dared. It's perfectly valid. Lucia might be traded for power and money but her personality isn't stable. She sees ghosts, and grieves for her mother, but falls instantly in love with Edgardo when he kills a wild animal right in front of her. Blood, death and love inextricably connected in her psyche. No wonder losing her virginity drives her to stab Arturo, even though his advances were kindly.

Anna Christy's Lucia is portrayed as a child still in the nursery, playing with dolls in a narrow single bed. Shocking as that might be, it's perfectly in keeping with the meaning of the opera. Christy's tones range towards shrillness, but that is much more in character, and valid for the part. Callas brought out the more erotic, sensual side of the role, especially in the frustration of the mad scene, but Christy emphasizes the vulnerability.

Some might look askance on Enrico's fondling her. But Enrico is tragic too. In this production, Alden has Brian Mulligan play with a toy cart, as if this Enrico doesn't want to face the grown-up world any more than Lucia does. It's a masterly insight, enhanced by Mulligan's unchildlike physique and timbre surprisingly delicate for a baritone.

The mad scene takes place in a stage with curtained backdrop above the main stage. This, too, is insight, for it depicts marriage as a public ritual. By rejecting sex, Lucia is also rejecting society. Perhaps Christy's Lucia is drawn to this Edgardo because he, too, is a misfit. The role was sung by Barry Banks (after 18/2 by Jaewoo Kim). Edgardo's family history weighs heavily on him (hence the portraits on the walls) but essentially, Edgardo is an outsider, the last primitive Highlander in a civilized "Victorian" milieu. What is unusual in this production is that he kills himself with Enrico's gun instead of his sword, but even that could be explained, given the idea that Edgardo represents a way of life that's become outmoded, doomed as he and Lucia are in the "proper" world of bonnets, watch fobs and bombazine.

With Lucia, Edgardo and Enrico destroyed, the future, as such, rests with figures like Raimondo Bidebent (what a name!). Clive Bayley's portrayal of the parson is sympathetic - no Calvinist hellfire and brimstone here. Even when he attacks Normanno (Philip Daggett), he's not specially impassioned or vindictive. In short, this Raimondo represents a counter to the extreme, inflamed passions that drive Lucia and Edgardo to their deaths. Alden's approach to Raimondo via Bayley adds yet another element to the opera, but it reflects Sir Walter Scott's concept of a lost past, and Donizetti's non-literalism. The English translation, by Amanda Holden, complete with rhyming couplets, was unsettling if you're used to the Italian, and had its funny moments but that, too, enhanced the sense that there's something not quite natural in the realms of Ravenswood.

A more formal and technical review will appear shortly in Opera Today.

Alternative Winterreise

If a piece of music is powerful, artists will want to express how it affects them. In principle there's no reason why good music shouldn't be staged as artists, dancers and theatre people have just as much right to engage with a piece as singers and pianists.Meta-performances aren't a substitute by any means, but can help us appreciate how someone else responds. Think of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and her hospital bed staging of Bach. She sang with extra poignancy as there was so much death in her personal life she needed to deal with. So what she did was creative.

Winterreise has inspired dozens of responses, good and bad. You don't want to see Brigitte Fassbender dressed up as a nun, surrounded by Beidermeier peasants, however well she sings (yes, it exists). But Simon Keenlyside's Winterreise with choreographer Trisha Brown sparked off new ideas for me. Keenlyside is an athlete (now married to a ballerina) so he has physical presence. In this production, he didn't dance but it was very physical, the semi-invisible dancers around him formed a kind of net which caught him when he fell. It was like he was trusting in fate - he didn't "see" the dancers but they stopped him from crashing to the ground and pushed him ever onwards. Just like the landscape in the cycle.

There's also a film of Winterreise with Christine Schäfer and Eric Schneider, which many admire passionately. I haven't seen it myself but can understand why it's such a cult, it's edgy and uncompromising. I love the audio version, which I think is a different and better performance. because her high, bright soprano brings out the eerie quality of light in the music extremely well. She sounds shockingly vulnerable and yet sharp - chilling and totally in accord with the music. Indeed I can't recommend this CD too highly. It reveals aspects of the cycle no-one else comes close to expressing. Sure, it's not the usual butch male thing, but it "needs" to be heard to bring out levels of Winterreise not usually accessed.

Years ago when Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake were fairly malleable they got talked into filming the cycle with David Alden. Alden had very definite ideas, and even judicious editing can't hide the fact that he and Bostridge/Drake didn't feel comfortable with them. This was filmed in a Victorian lunatic asylum. At one stage Bostridge writhes in a straitjacket. "Let me out of here!" his eyes seem to plead. He's got good ideas of his own, far less limiting than the "psycho" scenario around which tis film predicates. It's Alden's vision, Bostridge and Drake are just extras.

Another unusual one, which I haven't seen either but heard about from others. Winterreise mixed with The Sorrows of Young Werther, two great classics of Romantic despair. The singer is Erik Nelson Werner. Very demanding role esp. as it means switching modes, adding to the sense of disorientation.

There's also been a Black Theatre of Prague version, where a disembodied voice and piano do their thing while fleeting images in black and light flicker on the stage. I know there's at least one ballet but can't remember at this moment - prompt please? And there's Hans Zender's orchestration, with Ensemble Modern, which was a good experience live because some of the musicians move about in the hall, like a ragged village band. Better than it sounds, but not quite so interesting on audio. Everyone who listens has a different perspective (which changes all the time). So exploring alternative Winterreises is like listening to someone telling you how they feel about it. It may not be the same as what you feel, but to say "never!" is like saying, never listen to someone else's opinion. Though sometimes you get Fassbender dressed as a nun.

Peter Grimes ENO stagecraft (part 2)

"Too much sex and politics" is the usual rallying cry of those who don't like opera staging. But sometimes sex and politics are part of what the composer wanted.

There is sex in Peter Grimes, and politics too. The nieces sell their prettiness for money. And why are the townsfolk so down on Peter Grimes in an age when kids from the workhouse were treated as disposable commodities? The beauty of this new Alden production at the ENO is that he doesn't go for prurience. The nieces are little girls. However coy and culpable they may be they are too young to be predators. "Why should we be ashamed ? We comfort men from ugliness".

There's no escaping the fact that Benjamin Britten had a thing for pre-pubescent boys. David Hemmings and Scherchen junior were adamant that there was no sexual contact, and that Britten seemed more like a boy himself. Perhaps something happened to him when he was that age, fixing him forever in a fantasy world "before the fall"? It's a theme that recurs throughout his work. The apprentices become Tadzio. Is Britten grappling with his own sexuality? By modern standards, he'd probably be arrested even though, like the folks in the pub "we keep our hands to ourselves".

These days it's almost impossible to conceive of a time when homosexuality was illegal . In Britten's time even a whiff of scandal could scupper a man's career. Yet Britten never denied his orientation, which was in itself an act of courage. So Peter Grimes can be read fairly clearly as support for privacy and respect in a climate of malicious gossip. Maybe that's why Auntie looks butch ? After all, the neices are careful not to fool around til she's out of sight, another tiny detail that throws the usual assumption that the Boar is a brothel. In early 19th century Suffolk ? Perhaps implausible.

Britten was taken from his mother aged 13 and sent to boarding school where he was miserable. School was a posh kind of workhouse where boys were sent for their own good, possibly to be brutalized. Ellen and even Auntie are substitute mothers. What attracts Peter to Ellen is that she represents the nurturing he never had, even though he keeps his hut neat and orderly. Ellen's fallen middle class, so she can look pretty. Auntie's got up mannish, which doesn't necessarily mean she's a butch movie lesbian. She's a single woman running a business in a tough world.

Alden divides the men and the women of the parish when they march out of church. A barrier runs diagonally across the stage, men down one side, women down the other. Yet in real life it's not so clearcut. Auntie and Ellen do men's work, Peter would perhaps be less brutish if he knew how to. When the women talk about their lives, they form a knot, dragging Mrs Sedley in despite her resistance. She, too, was a woman once though she's shrivelled up now with meanness.

A very interesting detail is the way the nieces change after they're propositioned by Swallow. One of them wears a sailor suit, the other a kind of army drab. For the first time, they're different, playing at being adult. But the military is male dominated. What does it mean? The beauty of images liken this is that they are meant to stimulate thought, around and beyond what's immediately grasped. That's what good direction does.

Alden's crowd scenes are brilliantly choreographed. The townsfolk move in formation, like a single unit. Alden has them making hand gestures, upwards and down, so the effect is multi-dimensional, constantly in motion - like a shoal of fish. Because their costumes are drab, the whiteness of their hands and faces catches the light, like the glint of fish, writhing in a net. It's beautifully subtle, for throughout the text, there are references to "glitter", the "glitter of waves" and so on. This also underlines the musical phrases, short cascading flurries that sparkle against longer sonorities.

The excellent Opera North production centred round a net on stage, for good reason. Alden turns the crowd itself into a net, for in a way, they're all as trapped as Peter Grimes, though he's the one trying to break free.

Alden has the drummer centre stage, on his own, not part of the mob, which is often the case. This intensifies the impact of the drumming. There is no way of getting round the significance of Britten's position as a conscientious objector when the rest of the country was caught up in war frenzy. There's no war in this opera, unlike its companion piece Billy Budd. Rather Britten is dealing with the impulse that drives people towards warlike behaviour, whatever the actual cause.

When the Rector and the lawyer find Peter's hut empty, they're relieved. Yet even if there's no case, Mrs Sedley is out for blood. Peter must be punished, right or wrong. So the crowd sing "Who holds himself apart.... Him who despises us We’ll destroy" Peter must be destroyed not for what happens to his boys but because he's different, doesn't go to pubs, and thinks about rising above his station. The boys are just an excuse. "Dullards build their self esteem by inventing cruelties" sings one of the lawyers.

Hence the crowd as mindless shoal, or penned in at angles on the stage. They raise their prayer books , or lift their arms in diagonal salute. The references are subtle at first, but towards the culmination out come little Union Jack flags. This will incense a lot of people, but it's definitely in line with what Britten knew at first hand. Alden's not insulting the flag : it's the mob who insult it, by using it as a cover for their selfish cruelties. Ironically, it is fear that makes Peter drop the rope when he hears the mob approach. It's in the score.

One image I still don't understand is the fleeting glimpse of Peter, back from sea, observing the crowd unseen. He's wearing an animal head. Is this a reference to primitive sacrificial rites? Or to the idea that men are animals? Or even to Birtwistle's Minotaur, who looked like a monster but was the only untainted soul? Again, that's why intelligent stagecraft is so stimulating, it makes you think. Throughout Peter Grimes runs the idea of not making quick assumptions, so this is an opportunity to put the principle to practice.

The final scene is overwhelmingly beautiful and bleak at the same time. Sea merges with sky, the horizon very distant and obscure. That's exactly what the coast around the North Sea looks like. There are few cosy harbours. If Britten wanted Middle England he'd have lived in a suburb in the Home Counties. It's also apt as a metaphor, because it shows that rigid boundaries are not the only way, in nature as in morality. We don't need detail, for where Peter Grimes has gone is beyond our ken, where we can't possibly see. The set allows the music to take precedence. It wells up like a swell on the ocean :

In ceaseless motion comes and goes the tide
Flowing it fills the channel broad and wide
Then back to sea with strong majestic sweep
It rolls in ebb yet terrible and deep.

Peter Grimes ENO stagecraft (part 1)

A friend, who knows more about theatre than I ever will, praised the new production of Peter Grimes at the ENO. “It’s what opera direction has been leading up to for 30 years”. These days opera directors are condemned on autopilot, as if hate were a badge of honour. Of course there are some seriously moronic productions (not all avant garde or German). But operas are staged so their meaning can be enhanced. As stagecraft, this new production, by David Alden, vividly elucidates the essence of Peter Grimes.

The set is spartan. Immediately this is metaphor. Large flat planes cross the stage, like huge panels of weathered timber. Life in fishing villages is tough, the locals exposed to the elements like their surroundings. The bleakness on stage suggests at once the landscape and the desolation of those who live in it. Yet bleached timber can be beautiful. Its texture is irregular and it takes on myriad hues as the light changes.

Wide open spaces are important to the meaning of this opera. Britten contrasts the wild, unpredictability of storms with the ordered ritual in church, the endless horizons with cramped, closed spaces. Thus the courthouse, where Peter is not convicted, is fairly open plan, the crowd penned into a corner, writhing. The pub, The Boar, (a savage animal) is evoked simply by a row of solid over stuffed sofas : immobility and solidity, the illusion of comfort. Yet the storm rages, roads are flooded. The flat planes that enclose the pub careen dangerously as if at any moment they might be blown in by the gale. Auntie doesn’t believe in shutters. Lightning flashes suddenly. No wonder the nieces are scared.

Auntie’s nieces are often depicted as hardened prostitutes, for they are part of the pub's attractions. Although they're obviously complicit, there is ambiguity about their role. Hence their strange twin like behaviour. Little about them is straightforward. Depicting them as very young schoolgirls makes a lot of sense, though, for the suggestion is that they are, like the apprentices, Britten’s quintessential innocents, doomed to be corrupted.

“Is this a Christian country? Are pauper children so enslaved that their bodies go for cash?” cries Boles, when he hears a new apprentice has casually been “purchased”. He has a point. In some productions, the preacher is ridiculed like a comic book nazi or buffoon. Here, though, he’s not unsympathetic. When Swallow tries to “buy” one of the girls, there’s a connection between the nieces and the boys, often lost in less subtle productions.

Alden further reinforces the similarity between the girls and boys by having the nieces smack their toy dolls when they’re upset, as children do when they can’t deal with their own feelings. John the new apprentice also acts like an abused child, rolling up in a foetal position, too terrified to speak.

Then when Peter faces his dilemma in Act 3, Alden doesn’t have him do a wild “mad scene”. Instead, Peter seems to crumble inwards, curled up and rocking himself mindless, just like John did, just like a trapped, tortured animal. It’s incredibly painful to watch, as violent anguish at least is “adult”. The implication is that Peter, too, was an abused child, who treats his boys harshly because he knows no other way to interact. Their vulnerability reminds him of something he’d prefer not to deal with, so he lashes out. Significantly, the only time we see solid looking “brick walls” in this set is in Peter’s hut, where the walls tower like a prison, bathed in eerie green light.

This isn’t a bad rationale for Grimes's behaviour. He is brutal, but it’s directed inward, too. He asks Ellen,“Wrong to try, wrong to live, right to die”. It’s a warning, a sudden but revealing flash of insight. This production implies that Peter’s whole life has been one long, slow suicide, his attempts to better himself a cry for help. When he does face fate, it’s with curiously dignified resignation, as if he’s rehearsed the moment since he, too, perhaps was a boy from the workhouse.

Please see part 2 of this which deals with the more controversial aspects - sex, politics etc. In fact I think it says even more about the staging, the opera and Britten, but then I'm prejudiced, I wrote it. You can find it by scrolling up or looking under the subject labels on right under Britten. Look under "stagecraft" too if you want to read analyses of the stagecraft in other operas. There's more on Britten including some off the wall stuff ! This is a seriously good production, because it brings out so many deeper levels in the opera, often missed. As my friend said, it needs to be seen again and again. And read the score before deriding this production. If it's "not what Britten intended", then someone should get Britten to rewrite the opera, and make Mrs Selby the heroine.