Boito Mefistofele Pape Calleja Opolais Bayerische Staatsoper

Arrigo Boito Mefistofele was broadcast livestream from the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich last night. What a spectacular production! What an amazing cast - you could hardly wish for better! I loved the audio-only broadcast last month (read more here ) so no way was I going to miss the video version. I was not disappointed.

Boito's Mefistofele adapts Goethe's Faust to develop the idea of Mefistofele and his relationship with God.  They are equals, sort of, the Devil a punk with a huge chip on his shoulder, bristling with resentment even as he struts and shows off. Hence the sprawling set, which resembles the inside of some large structure, with pipes and scaffolding. In this sealed cocoon, Mefistofele is king though he's cut off from the real world outside where presumably God reigns.  René Pape, singing Mefistofele, is dressed part rock star, part oligarch, surrounded by groupies in an artificial fantasy world.  Are we in a film set? Or an infernal machine?   Mefistofele watches dull TV clips of John Lennon in  New York and of a plane flying over the NY skyline. We don't  see the Twin Towers, but we can draw our own conclusions without the point being made too obvious.

 Like so many big shots too big for their boots, Mefistofele thinks he can have a conference call with God, and place a bet.  All the while the Heavenly Chorus sing. We don't see them, for they are unsullied by evil.  René Pape is an ideal Mefistofele - suave, slimy and tacky, with that 70's shirt open to his waist. He suggests the Devil's twisted charm, but also makes us feel sorry for Mefistofele and his ardent desperation.  This double-edged portrayal adds depth to Pape's characterization. He whips through his lines with poisonous bite, but one senses that, deep down, Mefistofele is a misguided fool. 

Faust, or a facsimile thereof,  is brought on stage and dressed in white, readied for sacrifice. When the orchestra, conducted by Omar Meir Wellber, begins again, the stage has been transformed, This time it's dominated by a giant fairground carousel. The peasants, as in Faust, are celebrating.  More pointed wit. This production takes place in  Bavaria. The peasants sit at long tables drinking giant steins. Pape picks up a gingerbread heart with the motto "I mog di", "I love you" in Bavarian slang.

Joseph Calleja doesn't automatically spring to mind as an ascetic old monk, but Boito's Faust is different to stereotype.  By changing the part from baritone (in the 1868 version) to tenor in the 1875 Bologna version, the composer capitalized on a voice which could scale heights even French tenors might envy, while retaining the sensual loveliness of the Italian language. Calleja hits the notes and how!  He sings with enthusiastic flourish - this is a Faust who genuinely enjoys sensual pleasures. A wizened old hermit might not understand. Calleja is also a good visual foil to Pape's sophistication: devil and innocent. Or so it seems. Calleja nails,  and holds, stratospheric heights. We can sense that a part as lovely as this will triumph in the end.

Kristine Opolais shines with understated  Grace Kelly elegance, which makes her seduction feel more like rape, for it is, since Faust is not what he really should be. The trio at the end of the scene sparks with tension  Faust and Margherita are swept away by the force of the sharp, dotted rhythms that mark Mefistofele's music.

The Walpurgisnacht scene is demonic: sharp woodwind flurries suggesting hellfire, perhaps, or moonlight? Calleja and Pape sing in tight lockstep "Folletto ! Folleto!". The manic staccato theme is taken up by the chorus, which then switches to quiet whisper, while the orchestra  creates the sprightly "hellfire" motif, first in the woodwinds, then through the celli and basses. The brightness of Calleja's voice contrasts well with Pape's, whose voice grows darker and more malevolent now that Faust is in his realm. The final chorus whips along with crazed energy: the witches are dancing wildly before the "flames" in the orchestra. "Sabba, Sabba, Saboè!"

Back on earth, Opolais sings  L'altra notte in fondo al mare and what follows with great emotional depth. Her Margherita is a woman steeled by suffering.  When she and Calleja sing Lontano, lontano, lontano, they bring out tenderness and tragedy, beauty and pain. Opolais sings the Spunta, l'aurora pallida with such calm heroism that Calleja's O strazio crudel! tears at the heart.  Faust sees the suffering, and women writhing in labour, but soon comes under the spell of Elena, Helen of Troy ((Karine Babajanyan)

In the orchestra  we hear the exquisite harp sequence, setting the tone for the love  duet between Elena and Faust that will follow. The harmony, though, is but a dream. Faust is back in his study, dimly lit, as we might  imagine from the quiet murmurs in the orchestra.  Faust is a very old man again, and in this production is seen in a home for geriatrics.  This is a sharper observation than one might expect because it shows Faust as part of a community, rather than alone, and makes connections to Goethe's Faust, who believed so strongly in society and humankind. It was Wagner (Andrea Borghini)  who thought peasants were a waste of time. This ending also emphasizes the idealism with which Faust defeats Mefistofele.  The good of mankind versus the Devil's enticements.,

"Cammina, cammina" Mefistofele calls. This time, Faust fights back. Calleja sings with undecorated, but  heroic firmness. "Faust! Faust!"  Pape cries, but his prey has slipped from his grasp. The chorus returns, in full, glorious voice with the orchestra in full glory. Even René Pape is no match.  But Mefistofele is defeated. Faust has overcome his sensual needs, choosing instead the greater good of mankind. Heaven breaks through Mefistofele's realm with blinding  light.  The director is Roland Schwab, who started his career with Ruth Berghaus. the sets are by Piero Vinciguerra.  On small   screen broadcast, we might have lost some of the overwhelming impact of the live experience, but we see the details. And what glorious singing! Later, it's occured to me that the other people in the nursing home, who were singing in the finale, might have been angels all along. (see photo below)

Tales from the Crypt - Un ballo in maschera, Royal Opera House

Verdi Un ballo in maschera at the Royal Opera House  - a masked ball in every sense, where nothing is quite what it seems. On the surface, this new production appears quaint and undemanding.  It uses painted flats, for example, pulled back and forth across, as in toy theatre. The scenes painted on them are vaguely generic, depicting neither Boston nor Stockholm, where the tale supposedly takes place. Instead, we focus on Verdi, and on theatre practices of the past. In other words, opera as the art of illusion, not an attempt to replicate reality. Take this production too literally and you'll miss the wit and intelligence behind it. Although the designs may seem retro, it is as conceptually radical as  any minimalist "modern" production. What it demonstrates is that good opera lies not in external decoration  but in creative imagination.

This Un ballo in m,aschera also works extremely well because it places full focus on the singing. The drama unfolds through a series of showpieces, providing the singers with opportunities to display their skills. It's perfect for artists like Joseph Calleja  and Dmitri Hvorostovsky,  both of them highly charismatic personalities. They created Riccardo and Renato as convincing characters, but, perhaps even more unusually, ctreated a powerful dynmaic between themselves as artists.The bond between them felt personal and energizing, and went far further than  good singing. They seemed to be challenging each other with evident glee.  One star turn after another, carried off with exuberance.  Calleja's natural warmth suffused his portrayal of Riccardo, adding elements of good nature and good humour, which go a long way in overcoming the weaknesses in the plot. Calleja doesn't need to act in a naturalistic fashion: he makes you feel that under the costume beats the heart of a sturdy, ardent Maltese tenor.

This is very much a "singer's opera" so the other parts are strongly cast.  Liudmyla Monastyrska. sang Amelia, over whom Riccardo and Renato fall out. There isn't much character development for the part in the libretto, so Monastyrska fills it out with the feminine timbre of her singing.  Serena Gamberoni, as Oscar, Riccardo's page, was impressive. She replaced Rosemary Joshua, who is unwell, but has put her own individual stamp on the role, When Gamberoni sings the "laughter" passages, her voice sparkles with agility and energy.  Anatoli Sivko sang Samuel and Jihoon Kim sang Tom.  It's interesting how little background detail the score gives about the parts, but  Siv ko and Kim sang with such clear conviction that the roles had genuine conviction. They felt like parrallel versions of Renato and Riccardo. Marianne Cornetti sings Ulrica, a delicious part that must be fun to sing. .

Katharina Thoma directed Richard Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos for Glyndebourne in 2013. Read my analysis here.  On a superficial level, this Un ballo in maschera and Ariadne auf  Naxos might seem very different, but Thoma is far too adept to be doing a sudden change of style. Ariadne auf Naxos is a satire on the making of an opera, juxtaposing the "reality" of the players and the opera they are contracted to take part in. In Un ballo in maschera, Thoma balances  the "reality" of cast and staging with  the way they are used to create performance. The acting is somewhat stlylised by modern standards, but that fits the meticulously archaic use of stage equipment. At one point, stagehands fold up the flats we've just been admiring: art and artifice at once.  This studied theatricality pays off brilliantly in the scene where Amelia goes to the graveyard to consult Ulrica, the soothsayer. This is a glorious bit of Gothic High Camp, with graves, urns, weeping willows and statues that come alive and dance.  Verdi's libretto was an adaptation of a play by Eugene Scribe. Hence the similarity to Scribe's libretto for Meyerbeer Robert le Diable. Horror movies entertain when they're so bad, they're good. Part of the fun is the frisson of implausibility.  After the performance, I bumped into someone whose taste in opera is impeccable. He was delighted: "Funny, yet not offensive". Thoma's Un ballo in maschera is a lot more subversive  - and thoughtful - than meets the eye. But is satire over the heads of the audience ?

Photos : Catherine Ashmore, courtesy Royal Opera House

Gounod Faust 2014 Royal Opera House

Gounod's Faust makes a much welcomed return to the Royal Opera House. With each new cast, the dynamic changes as the balance between singers shifts and brings out new insights. In that sense, every revival is an opportunity to revisit from new perspectives. This time Bryn Terfel sang Méphistophélès, with Joseph Calleja as Faust – stars whose allure certainly helped fill the hall to capacity. And the audience enjoyed a very good show.

The opera starts in darkness: Faust knows all about the world from books, but hasn't lived.  Maurizio Benini's tempi were slow, suggesting that Faust is perhaps on the point of death when the pastoral theme bursts into the overture like a breath of Spring. When Calleja cried "Rein!", his anguish was heartfelt. As the youthful Faust, Calleja is much more in his element. His natural exuberance makes his Faust cocky rather than intellectual, but that's a perfectly valid interpretation. When Calleja sang  "Salut! demeure chaste et pur" he held the spectacular long note so fluidly, the audience went into rapture.  Calleja's Faust is a good-old-fashioned Italian (Maltese) wide boy, oozing charm. His rapport with the Margeurite of the evening, Alexia Voulgaridou, was good: they were singing together rather than at each other. There's a difference. 

Bryn Terfel created Méphistophélès for this production ten years ago, so it was big news when he substituted for another singer at short notice. Terfel is always a force to be reckoned with, even when forcefulness dominates his singing. Méphistophélès gets away with things because he's sly. The delicate background of pizzicato around the part suggest half-glimpsed flashes of hellfire. Rather more cunning on Terfel's part might have been more in character. Terfel's Méphistophélès and Calleja's Faust don't mesh together well, though both singers are masters at working an audience. Terfel's performance this time round was interesting because it showed just how "Gallic" Gounod's Méphistophélès is, in contrast to Goethe's original, and to Russian manifestations,  Think Chaliapin. When René Pape sang the part in 2011, the urbane sophistication he brought to the part made it truly sinister.

Alexia Voulgaridou has sung Marguerite many times. As soon as she began singing, her experience showed. She may not be as high profile as Sonya Yoncheva, who has appeared at the Met, with whom she shares the role, but she inhabits the role with great conviction. In her Jewel Song, her rich timbre evoked the sensuality underlying the purity in Marguerite's personality. Voulgaridou is physically very small, but energetic, suggesting the innate strength in the role. The revival director, Bruno Ravella, has dispensed with the silly blonde wig that made Angela Gheorghiu look wrong in 2011. It's the singing that counts, and most of the good ones these days have Latin complexions, perfectly right for a French heroine.

Simon Keenlyside is a perennial House favourite, but here his Valentin seemed underdeveloped. He has the notes but pushes them a little too hard, though his "death aria" was evenly paced an d well presented. Keenlyside's Valentin could have been the brother of Terfel's Méphistophélès. In 2011, Dmitri Hvorostovsky intimated that there's more to Valentin than the libretto alone might indicate. Renata Pokupić's Siebel was spirited. This is an unusual part wihich could be shaped well by someone with Pokupić's individuality: perhaps she'll make it a signature role. Jihoon Kim sang Wagner. Next season he will become a company principal, deservedly so, as he's very good.  Diana Montague sang Marthe.

The designs in this production, by Charles Edwards and his team, also reference the "Frenchness" of Gounod's idiom. In the cathedral scene, Marguerite prays before an ornate Baroque sculpture, from which Méphistophélès emerges. In modern, secular times the idea of sacrilege might not be as shocking as it was in 19th century France, so this staging is an excellent way into the deeper levels of meaning in the opera. The military choruses, for example, would have resonated with audiences for whom Napoleon III and the Crimean War were topical. Marguerite's predicament, too, highlights the hypocrisy of a world in which one unmarried mother s condemned while the image of another is revered. The Walpurgis Night ballet is staged in the context of the Paris Opéra,, where patrons lust for young dancers, just as Faust fancied Marguerite.  The choregraphy, originally by Michael Keegan-Dolan and revived by Daphne Strothmann, was brilliantly executed - the male principa,l Eric Underwood, was particularly expressive, his physical agility underlining the erotic undercurrent that runs through the whole opera.

This article appears in Opera Today. 

Photos c Bill Cooper, courtesy Royal Opera House

Calleja Xian Zhang Verdi Tchaikovsky Prom 72

Joseph Calleja, perennial favourite, made BBC Prom 72 one of the hottest tickets in the whole 2013 season. And how he delivered, gorgeously ! But this week's furore about Vasily Petrenko's views on women will shift emphasis in the press to the conductor, Xian Zhang. More about her below, but first, Calleja and his singing. . 

Calleja's voice glowed with richness, enhanced by his intuitive, natural gift for drama.  Interesting repertoire, too. "O dolore ! Ed io vivea" from Attila, where he shaped the legato so smoothly he made it sound easy. Wonderfully judged crescendi at the end. Then, "À toi que j'ai chérie" from Les vêpres siciliennes. Calleja's so thoroughly Italianate that  it was hard to tell he was singing in French, but he conveyed meaning clearly enough. Although the Italian version of the opera is well known, this was a reminder of why any true Verdian will want to hear it in the original French and performed in idiomatic French style. This October, the Royal Opera House is presenting Les vêpres siciliennes. with a superlative cast, headed by Bryan Hymel. Calleja and Hymel have very different voices, but Hymel has no equal for the clarion purity of his idiomatic French.

Calleja was back at his best with 'O inferno! ... Sento avvampar nell'anima'  from Simon Boccanegra and 'O fede negar potessi' from Luisa Miller.After these stunning arias, he could relax a bit and let Verdi do the work. Everyone, but everyone, loves La donna è mobile, and Calleja sang it with a flourish. This was a BBC Prom. This time, we didn't need the callous menace with which the Duke of Mantua tosses the song off in the context of the opera. It was enough that we were in the presence of Calleja, in glorious form.

Xian Zhang conducted the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi (Laverdi). Despite its name and home town, it's not, strictly speaking, an opera orchestra. Founded in 1993, its repertoire is broad and wide ranging. Xian Zhang conducted La Bohème at the ENO in London in 2007 with mixed results (review here) but  five years on, she seems more assured. The Overture to La forza del destino has great dramatic impact, for that's the nature of the piece. The 'Triumphal March' from Aida was less triumphant, rather too polite and restrained. But at the Proms, we don't need to be reminded of the barbarism with which the Egyptians conquered their enemies.

The real challenge came with Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony. It's a huge beast, nearly an hour long, full of extremes. It was inspired by Byron's poem Manfred which tells of a hero confronting supernatural demonic forces in a cosmic struggle that takes place in the Alps. In Byron's time, the Alps symbolized danger, the vastness of nature dwarfing humankind. Schumann's Manfred is Romantic in the true, wild Germanic sense. Tchaikovsky, however. was Russian and a man of the ballet, so it's important to stress the more lyrical side of the symphony as Zhang does. Refined string playing, suggesting mists perhaps, or the babbling of mountain springs? Her attention to detail allowed us to appreciate the vernal elements in the score - woodwinds like birdsong - that make the second movement so magical.

In the third movement, she defined the dances with vigour: mountain folk are made of tough stuff, and so, too, I suspect is Xian Zhang. So the Allegro con fuoco was appropriately bizarre, sounds crashing against each other as if the earth itself was imploding,"fire" pouring forth from the rapid rivulets of sound.  The finale was grand indeed, the organ heralding a new, uplifting mood.

It's very ironic that Zhang should have conducted Tchaikovsky's Manfred at her Proms debut. Guess who conducted it in 2010? Vasily Petrenko! That performance was exceptionally vivid. Good as she is, Zhang isn't quite that good, but it's NOT because she's a woman. Conductors are different because they're individuals. They're not defined by their anatomy. All this fuss about female conductors is irrelevant. We shouldn't be making a fuss of Zhang because she's a woman. That would be demeaning. We should be making a fuss of her because she's good. Maybe not mega world class, let's not get carried away, but good. Watch the TV broadcast on BBCTV4 so you can see the interaction between the orchestra and conductor. None of the players seem distracted by "erotic" thoughts. They are musicians, their minds are on the music.
 
photo of Xian Zhang credit : Nora Roitberg

Drake lands Calleja - Temple Song

Joseph Calleja comes to Julius Drake's Temple Song series on May 20th.  Middle Temple Hall is an historic site. The word "Temple" refers to the Knights Templar in the 12th century. Real medieval wood panelling inside, and relics of Sir Francis Drake, whose connection to Julius Drake I don't know. Recitals here are interesting becuase the hall is so small, and the audience sometimes seems drawn entirely from the legal profession.  Nice atmosphere, good for intimate recitals. Good singers, too and Julius Drake as pianist. This season features Véronique Gens, Robert Holl, Brigid Steinberger, James Gilchrist, Sarah Connolly and Roderick Williams,.

Calleja, however, is a different proposition.  He'll fill the house with his voice and with his legions of devotees. The occasion is Giuseppe Verdi's birthday, but I imagine that no one will be too bothered what he sings as long as he sings. There aren't too many opportunities to get this close to him in performance. Middle Temple Hall regulars could well be beseiged by lots of new faces.