Donizetti is Dangerous : Lucia di Lammermoor ROH

The Royal Opera House was right to warn audiences about Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor.  Donizetti is dangerous. In his time, the glass harmonica, which gives this opera its unique character, was believed by many to induce insanity. Its surreal drone would have added an extra frisson of danger to early performances, enhancing the dramatic impact. The full impact may be lost on modern audiences used to horror movies and the ondes martenot, but the instrument  serves a purpose. Donizetti's audiences might well have gone to the theatre half-believing that  the glass harmonica might induce hysteria. Might Lucia's madness be contagious?  If they don't turn into zombies first.  Lucia's family is falling apart, so they use her to restore their fortunes, much in the way one might trade chattels. It hasn't occured to them that their troubles were caused by feuds and an obsession with form and status. Lucia has no escape other than to go off the rails. It's not a pretty story.

The mad scene for which the opera is famed is central to its meaning.  Of course it's gruesome.  Lucia stabs Arturo on the wedding night.  In societies where women are traded like possessions, the act of deflowering  signals ownership.  This time, the bride penetrates the bridegroom, and he dies.  Whether Lucia's actually having an abortion or not is largely irrelevant.  This marriage won't yield fruit.  Audiences just need to wake up to the fact that opera is about human emotion, and human feelings are messy.

Lucia is clearly unstable long before the wedding. It's significant that she's lost her mother, and presumably doesn't want to share whatever fate befell her mum.  Thus she identifies with the ghost and falls suddenly in love when Edgardo kills a wild animal at her feet. Blood, love and death inextricably linked.  Freudian undertones long before Freud.  Lucia's psycho-sexual problems go back a long way. She's an accident waiting to happen. After Manon Lescaut, a man was enraged because he'd taken a young girl to the show and was furious that she'd seen something sexual.  That says less about the production than about the man himself and his own psycho-sexual hangups. Plus the fact he didn't know beans about the opera.

Donizetti set the opera in the Highlands because at that time Scotland symbolized the borders of civilization, where primitive extremes prevailed.  This Scotland was largely the creation of Walter Scoitt's imagination. Scott himself was a buttoned-up urbanite who wanted Scotland tamed by Victorian values.  So there's absolutely no reason why the setting shouldn't be Victorian, since Donizetti was dealing with emotional truth.  Yet again, the onus is on the audience to understand the work  and - horror of horrors - to realize that there is more to an opera than the first line of the synopsis.

Every performance, every production, reflects someone's interpretation of a work of creative imagination. Unfortunately, in ths age of narcissism, the consumer is king. But the world does not exist as a Gigantic Selfie. In theory, we go to the opera to learn , and we learn by taking on board new perspectives, right or wrong. Now productions are judged by the baying, booing mob, some of whom seem to get their kicks not from art but from socially sanctioned abuse.  If audeinces don't want blood, sex and drama, they should stick to the circus (and ignore the sufferings of animals and underpaid staff) or to cartoons (where there's a lot more violence than some realize - think Tom and Jerry)  FULL REVIEW appears shortly in Opera Today.

New from Opera Rara - Gounod La Colombe, Donizetti Le Duc d'Albe

Latest recordings from Opera Rara - Gounod La Colombe and Donizetti Le Duc d'Albe.  Read a full and detailed review HERE IN OPERA TODAY by Claire Seymour.


photo courtesy Macbeth Media Relations

Donizetti Glyndebourne Poliuto - a great new classic

Donizetti Poliuto at Glyndebourne could well become one of of the great Glyndebourne classics.  It makes a powerful case for the opera, and also for Glyndebourne's artistic vision. Poliuto isn't standard repertoire - it's nothing like L'elisir d'amore - but this brilliant production and performances show what a powerful work it is.  Political repression,  religious intolerance and persecution are all too relevant today. Poliuto packs an emotional punch. We should heed its message

Donizetti's source material was a play by Corneille, written two centuries previously. Polyeucte (Poliuto) was a nobleman in an  outpost of the Roman Empire. The opera begins with brooding, murky music with a hushed but fervent chorus. Christians are meeting in secret. Three hundred years after the death of Christ, being a Christian was dangerous. Most early Christians were poor, an underclass inspired by the doctrine of heavenly rewards for earthly suffering. In a militaristic state like Rome, the idea that the meek might inherit the earth would have seemed dangerously subversive, tantamount to overthrowing the basic values of social order. Towering columns of what appear to be rough-hewn stone overwhelm the figures below, at once a depiction of the harsh conditions Christians faced, yet also the strength of their faith.

The opera begins with murky music suggesting shadows, and a hushed but fervent chorus. Into this darkness Poliuto (Michael Fabiano) appears. He's a nobleman, an outsider. Is he a spy? His friend, Nearco (Emanuele D’Aguanno), is a convert. and Poliuto wants to find out why this strange new faith holds such allure.  Poliuto's troubled because he knows that his wife Paolina (Ana María Martínez) is still in love with Severo ( Igor Golovatenko), who she thought had died. Since Severo is now a Proconsul, with authority direct from Rome, this love triangle has toxic political complications. Severo's costume suggests Mussolini, who defined Fascism. His guards resemble Mussolini's secret police. With a wry tough sense of humour, director Mariame Clément  has them smoking cigarettes.

Enrique Mazzola, a bel canto specialist, conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Last November, Mark Elder conducted Les Martyrs,  the French version of Poluito which Donizetti created for Paris when Poliuto was banned in Naples. The LPO aren't a period instrument orchestra like the Age of Enlightenment for Opera Rara, but Mazzola used that to advantage, creating an almost Verdian richness of colour from the relatively small forces of a Donizetti orchestra. Mazzola seems to inspire great enthusiasm from his players. Hopefully, we'll hear much more of him at Glyndebourne (and in London) in the future.

Severo and Paolina snatch a few moments together.  Martínez executed Paolina's arias with such beauty  that her voice seemed to shimmer. Good casting, since divine light seems to permeate this opera, despite the gruesome nature of the narrative. Donizetti gilds the vocal line with almost minimalist grace - delicately plucked strings, a single low flute, and the sound of the harp. For a moment, an image of a flowering tree is projected on the walls behind her  Martínez's voice blossoms with warmth that's all too soon extinguished.  When she and Golovatenko sing together, they're singing love duets tinged with frustration  and regret.  Paolina, though, is a paragon of virtue, a concept both Roman and Christian.

Regimes that feel threatened turn to extremes. In the Temple of Jupiter, the crowds are whipped up to bloodthirsty frenzy. Some of the chorus had been singing Christians earlier, or Roman guards: interesting irony. Matthew Rose 's firmly focused bass created Callistene, the High Priest with great authority. With Severo wavering, and and Poliuto turning Christian, it's up to him to hold up the foundations of the Roman Empire But Poliuto isn't afraid of death. He believes in the resurrection: worldly concerns are no match. The purity of Michael Fabiano's tenor rings so cleanly that Paolina is convinced that  any faith that can conquer death is one worth having, even if it means leaving her father Felice (Timothy Robinson) singing from a wheelchair, to underline his inability to morally stand on his own two feet. When Poliuto and Paolina die, we don't need to see blood and guts. Being True Believers, they're simply transformed in a blaze of light.  The designs (Julia Hansen and Bernd Purkrabek) with video projections,  b fettFilm (Momme Hinrichs and Torge Möller) were extraordinarily beautiful. Gorgeous washes of colour. Sets that move as seamlessly as this, and transform with such subtlety are a thing of wonder. Like Paolina, I thought I could hear the angels sing.

This review appears also in Opera Today

Donizetti Poliuto today at Glyndebourne

Donizetti Poliuto at Glyndebourne today!  In November, the opera in its French langauge version, Les Martyrs,  was done by Opera Rara (my review here). What a buzz that created!  After that  Les Martyrs, I could hardly wait for Poliuto. This kind of programming,is good because it expands the way we listen and learn. Moreover this year marks the centenary of the Armenian Holocaust. It's as well that we should remember the centuries of conflict from which that arose. My review of the Glyndebourne production is HERE. 

The opera, or operas, are both set in Armenia, when it was an outpost of the Roman Empire. But beware thinking that the opera is somehow "about" Armenia . It's not !  The story could have happened anywhere in the Roman Empire. It still happens today - think ISIS, Falun Gong, etc etc. Unfortunately those who don't actually engage with opera don't care enough about opera to  get past reading the first line of a synopsis.


Donizetti's impetus was a play by Corneille, written two hundred years previously. It deals with the persecution of Christians by the Romans. Most Christian converts were underclass, but Polyeucte (Poliuto) was a pillar of the Roman establishment, with much more to lose by espousing a subversive cause. Although the story is clothed in Christian piety, it represents something far more dangerous.  Unsurprisngly, Donizetti ran into trouble with Poliuto. It was banned by the King of Sicily, who didn't think religious subjects should be done in the theatre at all.  Quite possibly he didn't get the underlying message of social upheaval.  Donizetti then revised it for French audiences who were more liberal. It also gave him an entrée into French grand opera. Of course the Christians win in the end, for a while, but for the time being we get a spectacle of blood and gore as Poliuto gets fed to the lions (as far as that can be depicted in the theatre)

Please read my review of the Glyndebourne Poliuto in Opera Today

Opera Rara Les Martyrs Donizetti Elder OAE

Eagerly anticipated, Opera Rara's Donizetti Les Martyrs delivered magnificently, confirming yet again Opera Rara's reputation for pioneering lesser known treasures in the repertoire. Although Les Martyrs is not unknown (there are several recordings), Opera Rara presented a new critical edition by Dr Flora Willson of King’s College, Cambridge, which restores the opera’s original French text (Eugène Scribe)  and reinstates numerous musical passages that have not been heard since its premiere in 1840.  Les Martyrs, revealed in all its glory, is a brilliantly dramatic work, combining the delights of Italian bel canto with the exhilarating audacity of French grand style. This performance, conducted by Opera Rara's music director, Sir Mark Elder, was  so good that it whetted the appetite for a fully staged production, ideally in a house large enough to give the  spectacular treatment it merits.

In 2015, Glyndebourne Festival's gala opening night present Donizetti's Poliuto, written for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1838 but which was promptly banned by the King of Sicily, who objected to the depiction in popular theatres of a subject from Christian history. French audiences could cope with religious subjects being treated as opera. The libretto in both operas was based on a play by Corneille, written two hundred years previously. Donizetti, aware that Paris was the sophisticated centre of the opera world in his time, promptly revised Poliuto and created Les Martyrs. incorporating most of the original but adding elaborate divertissements for ballet, extending the overture, and creating grand choruses and  flamboyant new solos for the tenor and soprano. 

Even by their usual very high standards, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment were in wonderful form. In the Overture, Donizetti defines the main themes which run through the opera, martial "Roman" motifs contrasting with gentler passages which later connect to love and Christianity.The Romans, like the Devil, get the most striking tunes.  Elder and the OAE magnified the dramatic impact of the score by placing horns in a box, and trumpeters arrayed above the rest of the orchestra, which played with ferocious dynamism. Period performance isn't meek.

In Act One, the Christians are cowed, operating in secret, dissidents against an overwhelming regime. When the Governor Félix announces an all-out purge, Brindley Sherratt sang with such profound authority that his voice echoed throughout the Royal Festival Hall. It was as though the might of the whole Roman Empire was behind him. A terrifying star turn, guaranteed to stun listeners into submission. Later, Sherratt showed Félix's gentler, more human side, but the impact of this first passage lingered on. Towatrds the end of the opera, the Romans mass in all their pomp and glory. "Dieu de tonnere.......Maître du monde". sang the choruses, with forcefulness that belied the small number of singers. Thirty years before Verdi, Donnizetti is writing choruses that wouldn't be out of place in Aida.

But as we know, the Christians win. Michael Spyres sang Polyeucte,  the leader who becomes an outcast, choosing faith over the material values of society. Utterly relevant, nearly two millennia later. Spyres was a hero himself. Quite possibly, he was somewhat under the weather, as his voice didn't ring with the bell-like ping the part needs ideally, but he paced himself well, and made the notes that mattered. The killer aria, "J'irai" is, thankfully, near the end, and he hit the sudden leap up the scale with such fervour that it felt he'd been injected with a burst of energy from some superhuman power. Absolutely correct in context, as Polyeucte at this point has resolved to defy the world and die for his god.  One thing that can be said in favour of concert performances is that singers can risk their voices for a single, wonderful moment without having to worry about the rest of the run. 

Joyce El-Khoury sang Pauline, Polyeucte's wife. Her part is blessed with some very beautiful moments, some decorated by superb writing for the two harps, passages which had the ethereal quality of light: divine light, perhaps, because Pauline has to choose against her father, her faith and her place in Roman society. El-Koury (who impressed in Opera Rara's Donizetti Belisaro) negotiated the elaborate trills and passagework that create Pauline's feminine sensibility. Pauline's a very strong personality, though (think about her Dad) so one might, ideally, want more characterization; bel canto is, after all, good singing.

Sévère, Pauline's former beloved, was sung by David Kempster. Sévère is a Roman hard man and hero, but his love for Pauline is so great that he wants to save her. Kempster moderated the force in his singing, creating convincing compassion. Clive Bayley sang Callisthènes and Wynne Evans Néarque, who, at the end, sang beside the chorus, as if among the angels, flanked by the OAE trumpeters.  Les Martyrs is written with elegant symmetry. The solo parts, duets and ensemble are neatly patterned, as if the singers were dancing with their voices. 

Photo : Russell Duncan
See also Robert Hugill's review in Opera Today.

Donizetti Les Martyrs - Opera Rara next week

Opera Rara presents Donizetti's Les Martyrs (READ MY REVIEW HERE)  at the Royal Festival Hall, London on 4/11. Mark Elder conducts the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Any Opera Rara production is an occasion : serious bel canto fans would have booked for this as soon as tickets went on sale (especially since Bryan Hymel was originally scheduled to sing the the heroic Polyeucte. Michael Spyres stepped in a while ago : he's very good, too. Joyce El-Khoury sings his wife Pauline. Event of the year, for many

Opera Rara's Les Martyrs  would also be a wise choice for anyone planning to go to Glyndebourne's 2015 Donizetti Poliuto. Poliuto was written for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1838 but promptly banned by the King of Sicily, who objected to the depiction in popular theatres of a subject from Christian history.  Poliuto (aka Polyeucte, or Polyeuctus) was a third century Roman who converted to Christianity and was beheaded as a martyr in Armenia. Relatively little is known about the saint, so the opera treats the story as drama. The libretto in both operas was based on a play by Corneille, written two hundred years previously. French audiences could cope with religious subjects being treated as drama

The part of Poliuto was written for Adolphe Nourrit, Rossini's favourite, but his voice had deteroirated.  In despair, he jumped out of a hotel window and died, aged only 37. Donizetti, however, decided to rewrite the opera for Paris, the then pinnacle of operatic sophistication.  Poliuto then became Les Martyrs, incorporating most of the original with an elaborate new ballet score, extending the overture and choruses, and adding flamboyant new solos for the lead tenor.  A neat way to learn the difference between Italian and French grand opera.  Although Les Martyrs is not unknown (there are several recordings), Opera Rara will be using a new critical edition by Dr. Flora Willson of King’s College, Cambridge, which restores the opera’s original French text (Eugene Scribe)  and reinstates numerous musical passages that have not been heard since its first performance.in 1840. 

In true Opera Rara tradition, the company will record the opera in the studio in the week prior to the performance, marking its 23rd complete opera release by Donizetti to date.,Joyce El-Khoury (Pauline), who made her recording debut with Opera Rara with Donizetti’s Belisario in 2012, was recently nominated in the Young Singer category of the 2014 International Opera Awards. She is joined by Michael Spyres (Polyeucte), David Kempster (Sévère) and Wynne Evans (Néarque) who make their Opera Rara debuts with the recording and performance of Les Martyrs. Also featured in the cast are Brindley Sherratt (Félix) and Clive Bayley (Callisthènes), who have both previously worked with the company. (photo credit Russell Duncan).

The brain-child of Patric Schmid and Don White, Opera Rara has been in the business of bringing back forgotten operatic repertoire since its conception in the early 1970’s. The operas of Donizetti in particular continue to remain a core focus, with the company celebrating its 50th complete opera recording recently with the release of his opéra-comique Rita. Watch out for the forthcoming recording, but prepare by experiencing Les Martyrs live next week !

Bel canto isn't realism - Maria Stuarda Royal Opera House

We are in a golden age of voice.  Joyce DiDonato creates an astonishing Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at the Royal Opera House, which will define the role for decades to come. Her range is breathtaking and  her technique is flawless. We will never know how Maria Malibran sounded when she premiered the role, but there's almost no way that Malibran, however good she might have been, would have had at the age of 25 the polish and depth DiDonato brings to the role. So much for the idea that the past is always better. In Joyce DiDonato we have a wonder we should treasure.

"Bel canto isn't realism", someone once said to me. No-one speaks with florid melismas and repeated trills. Bel canto is extreme singing, the triumph of art over naturalism.  When we hear DiDonato's voice soaring, surfing over wave after wave of swelling sound, we - or at least I am - transported to a rarifed realm of hyper-idealism, unsullied by literal pettiness. Maria Stuarda isn't about the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1567. The story isn't  history but creatively re-imagined by Friedrich Schiller into a masterpiece in which an individual triumphs over repression.  Donizetti adds more new angles to the story, such as the love affair between Mary and Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to spice up the drama. 

Elizabeth and her apparatchiks cut Mary's head off but her spirit triumphs. When Joyce DiDonato sings in her final scene, her voice trembles, expressing fear, as if we can hear her heart palpitate. Shorn of her hair, and in her under-robe, she looks painfully vulnerable. Yet that voice releases such firmness and such assurance that we know that Mary has entered into a far finer world than that of the grubby trolls who brought her down. DiDonato seems lit from within, transforming the glare of the execution room into transcendent light.  Although Schiller and Donizetti weren't admirers of the misuse of religion, their Mary, through Joyce DiDonato, reaches apotheosis. The crowd outside, lit in Marian blue, sing quietly, like pilgrims.They've witnessed the triumph of an individual whose inner nobility has set her free. Maria Stuarda is kin to Leonore, but even more powerful and symbolic..The curtain drops, suddenly, like a sword. Snap! the drama ends, so abruptly that it is, and should be, unsettling. Blood and a severed head would be banal, a complete misreading of the ideas in the play and in the opera.

It defies basic common sense that this production should have warranted booing, a churlish and bigoted form of abuse. So we don't behead people these days? Of course we do, in different ways. The directors, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, are extremely experienced,  and know their music better than most who malign them. Any really good opera inspires new perspectives. If we genuinely care about an opera, or a composer, we seek fresh perspectives. It is irrelevant whether a production is modern or non-modern, as long as it presents the work well. In the case of Maria Stuarda, the very term "traditional" is meaningless, since the opera was unstaged for decades, only entering the repertoire some 40 years ago  It by-passed the whole era of verismo and late 19th century excess. This staging, with its clean lines, focuses full attention on the singers, which is as things should be, especially in bel canto..It's designed with intelligence, illustrating ideas in the opera without overwhelming it with unnecessary detail. If the singers shine, it's partly because they and the directors have worked things through thoroughly, in unison. In any case, the Personregie  in this production is exceptionally fine, given that there are so few parts that there's no room for error. As Joyce DiDonato tweeted:  "People need to understand that great performances are aided by great direction". Pay attention. The lady knows what she's talking about.

The First Act opens in the Palace of Westminster, not "The Houses of Parliament" as such,  Monarchs lived in Westminster Palace before Buckingham Palace and Windsor were completed. In any case Westminster was, and is, the seat of power. It's a symbol of authority. Anyone who has ever been inside, seeing how it operates will recognize the trappings of grandeur - panelling as ornate inside as the facades outside. Wood absorbs sound: the corridors of power are hushed, as oblique as the machinations of the factotums who operate within, the "men in suits" (later seen in long cloaks, like their 16th century counterparts) who pull the strings.  Elisabetta (Carmen Giannattasio) is Queen, but she is a prisoner, too, of sorts, in a system of intrigue and ambition. When she lets her feelings slip, she becomes vulnerable. Just as the crowd outside the palace has to be held back by guard rails, Elisabetta has to keep her feelings under strict control. That's why she cannot show mercy or let Maria's emotional outburst go unpunished. Donizetti's music, with its bright, sharp contrasts, suggests the tension that underlines most of the opera.  The golden burnished tones of Westminster and in the music belie the harsh fact that in this opera, everyone is on a razor edge.

Fotheringay Castle was a border fortress, infinitely less luxurious than Westminster.  For Maria, it was a prison from which she had almost no hope of escape. Towering walls, repressed "cells", corridors, colours of marble and hard granite. When DiDonato sings of the meadows outside, her voice takes on a gloriously lyrical sheen. It's as if by sheer vocal power she can magic in flowers, freedom and femininity. Of course, dour cynics would say, you can't bring a meadow into a prison, but Donizetti knew better. In Maria's imagination anything's possible, and DiDonato's singing makes dreams come true.

When DiDdonato and Giannattasio have their confrontation, Donizetti's music crackles with violent intensity. Maria is letting her emotions out, something which the repressed Elisabetta can never do. Frantic dotted rhythms,  voices trilling and counter-trilling, rapid-fire tempi. DiDonato wins. It's in the score, but Giannattasio gives a good fight, her voice glinting like metal.  Ideally I would have preferred a conductor more versed in period style, but Bertrand de Billy is always reliable.

Exceptional singing as one would expect in this genre where precision and fluidity are so important. Giorgio Talbot is a killer role for a bass, stretching the range cruelly upwards, demanding an agility many basses can't negotiate without compromising the long resonant lines they do more naturally.  Matthew Rose achieved all Talbot's challenges and more, infusing his singing with  emotional conviction.  He creates a Talbot with singular and convincing personality. This is perhaps the finest moment in his career so far (and basses go on singing forever).

Ismael Jordi made his Royal Opera House debut as Roberto, Conte di Leicester, substituting at late notice. As soon as he began to sing,  it was immediately apparent that Jordi has great potential. His voice has a distinct timbre, which combines brightness with mature, expressive  depth. Jordi is also strong enough in terms of personality that he's convincing as the lover of a character as overwhelming as DiDonato's Maria. Let's hope we hear him again in London, soon. Jeremy Carpenter sang a good, solid Guglielmo Cecil, Kathleen Williamson sang Anna Kennedy, Maria's maid and Peter Dineen played the executioner. Altogether an extremely important production, not just for the singing but for the way the staging integrates with the plot and enhances the inherent non-naturalistic beauty of the voices. It also highlights the stupidity of the "anti-modern" Taliban. This staging is a lot closer to bel canto ideals than the booers realize.

photos : Bill Cooper, Royal Opera House

Welsh National Opera 2013-2014 analysis + touring

The Welsh National Opera 2013-2014 booklet has arrived. All operas can be heard at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff (pictured here, photo courtesy Thomas Deusing, San Antonio).  Although Cardiff is easily reached by train or road, many WNO productions tour, and the booklet's invaluable in tracking down what's on where.

The three Donizetti Tudor operas are being presented together : Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux. Each is interesting in its own right but hearing them together as a trilogy will enhance their impact. It's a brilliant idea!  It would be pointless for Wales to upstage London in Britten year, someone at WNO deserves great praise. It's much more satisfying, I think, to immerse in depth like this. Besides, the Tudors were originally Welsh, so WNO is connecting to Welsh history even if it's through the ears of an Italian. Tosca is on, too, around the same time, for contrast. The series starts in September in Cardiff, running through October. The Donizetti triology is also touring to Swansea, Oxford, Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham, Llandudno and Southampton.  It's not coming near London, so Londoners might want to study the Cardiff dates.

In Spring 2014, a series on "Fallen Women" :  Manon Lescaut, La Traviata and much more unusual Hans Werner Henze's Boulevard Solitude. Lothar Koenigs, Music Director at WNO, says "Alongside Britten, Henze is surely the most important representative of opera in the 20th century". Boulevard Solitude (1951) was last heard in the UK at ROH some ten years ago, though it's heard frequently in Germany. There's at least one DVD. The WNO production will, of course, be new. The director is Mariusz Trelinski. Boulevard Soiltude connects to Manon Lescaut because it's a re-telling of the Abbé Prévost story. Henze had grown up during the Third Reich when "modern" music and jazz were banned. Still only in his mid 20's, Henze used the story to explore what to him were still "new" forms. Henze's music is fairly accessible, so even conservative audfiences won't find Boulevard Solitude too difficult. The "fallen women" series travels to Birmingham, Milton Keynes, Southampton, Plymouth, Llandudno,  and Bristol.

Then WNO mounts a real challenge: Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, in Cardiff from 24th  May 2014, in Birmingham on 7 June and at the Royal Opera House, London, from 25th July. This will be the staging by Jossi Weiler and Sergio Morabito, first heard in Stuttgart ten years ago.  There's an audio recording of a later production. Moses und Aron is being paired with Verdi's Nabucco. The production was first seen in Stuttgart in January 2013, and ended its run last week. The director is Rudolf Frey. It's astute of WNO to pair the two operas because Nabucco is not, as some London critics think, a hymn to false gods and graven images but a statement of faith in an austere, enduring God. Follow this link to more information and production photos. There's a gaudy golden backcloth for those who need glitz. 

Also intriguing will be the Edgar Allan Poe double bill directed by David Pountney in 2014. Claude Debussy’s unfinished one-act opera The Fall of the House of Usher has been orchestrated by Robert Orledge, using additional material from sketches left by Debussy. It will be heard with Gordon Getty’s Usher House. Both will be presented in San Francisco in 2015. The picture right is Harry Clarke's illustration from an early French edition of Poe's poem. David Pountney directs.

Mark Anthony Turnage's Greek returns in the 2011 Music Theatre Wales production, which will also be heard in London.  In Summer 2013, before the full formal season, the WNO Youth Opera will be doing Britten's Paul Bunyan. This isn't touring for obvious reasons.

ENO Lucrezia Borgia Vivid Hybrid

For the full, formnal review, please see Opera Today. Belcanto and modern film, completely different aesthetics.

At last the ENO experiment of using directors from fields other than opera has been totally vindicated. Mike Figgis isn't an opera director but he is an innovative film-maker, so he knows what makes good drama. And few stories could have more dramatic potential than Lucrezia Borgia. Incest, blasphemy, violence, sex - far more scandalous than the tacky Anna Nicole Smith. Mike Figgis hasn't just directed Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, he's transformed it. The original opera is there, intact, but it's framed by short filmed passages that add background and depth. The films don't intrude, but enhance.

Frames are a recurring theme throughout. Gennaro (Michael Fabiano) and Orsini (Elizabeth DeShong) talk framed by a proscenium arch. Later Lucrezia (Claire Rutter) and her husband Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara (Alastair Miles) appear on an ornate, golden throne. It's stunning. But look carefully, it's a giant version of the tabernacle on a Catholic altar, which opens to reveal sacred objects. Lucrezia's father was the Pope. The Duke's court looks magnificent, but it shields sinister secrets. It's horrifying, yet done so subtly it might be missed. (Which is exactly how these folk keep power.) Boxes within boxes. The filmed parts grow from the ideas of concealment inherent in the story.

Yet Donizetti seems more concerned about Gennaro. Cesare Borgia and Pope Alexander VI don't even appear in the opera. Yet why do the Borgias cause such fear and hate? Doesn't Gennaro wonder who his father is?  His friends are out for vengeance but are easily distracted. Even when Gennaro is fleeing for his life, he stops so Donizetti can write delightful comedy arias for cross-dressing Orsini. So much for dramatic logic! There's hardly any psychological depth.  Maybe it's easier just to blame women for everything without going into the whys. Perhaps that explains the opera side of this production.  Movements are stiff and artificial. The stage is flatly one-dimensional. Artifice, not reality. The scene where Gennaro's friends gather is based on The Last Supper. Which it is, for them. Gasps from the audience, but why not? Themes of betrayal and poisoned chalices run through this tale. Shocking as the scene may be, it's a lot less sacrilegious than the Borgias were.

Significantly, Figgis is presenting the opera "as is". Those who hate Regie have no business complaining here. Figgis is under no delusions that anyone can become an opera director overnight. That's refreshingly honest, since good opera direction requires some musical nous. (Figgis is in fact a musican). Instead he does what he does best, by making the films that fill in the background, and give depth to the characters. The depravity of the Borgias was too much for Donizetti to depict, and would not have got round the censors in his day. Figgis goes for the jugular. As his actresses prepare for the film, they talk about historical incidents, such as the brutality of the 16th century sex trade and the vicious punishment of Jews. You flinch, but you should. The films also act as Lucrezia's memory. She relives the birth of Gennaro, and the murder of a young servant, which is so brilliantly filmed that you wish Figgis would make a full scale movie.  Before she marries the Duke of Ferrara she's got to prove she's a virgin, which everyone (includimg the Duke) knows is a humiliating farce. These films allow the director to expand upon and comment on the opera without doing much to the original at all.

Innovative as this approach is, it probably wouldn't work with a less stylized opera. Nor, perhaps, one more expressive orchestrally. Claire Rutter is impressive. She's easily got the most rewarding part to sing and she makes her presence felt. Michael Fabiano sings more convincingly than his role allows. Elizabeth DeShong, Alastair Miles and supporting singers are good, too, but this isn't the most demanding of operas.

The translation doesn't help. At times it felt that the singers were obeying their natural sense of line and intonation, but drawing back to fit the text. That's a problem with English in general, which isn't as melodic as Italian. The overall sound of an opera communicates, not just words. Some horrible rhymes that tried to be funny but weren't. Orsini's lines, though, were so wacky that they worked in an anarchic way. "Let's respect the protocol, and not indulge in alcohol" and "Chianti! the wine of Dante!". DeShong's delivery was so lively that I realized at last what Orsini's role in this opera might be. The silliness is deliberate, like whistling in a graveyard. Donizetti didn't do all that much about Lucrezia but thanks to Mike Figgis and ENO, we can approach her story in parallel ways.

Another interesting thing about this approach is that it makes the production portable. It can be recreated in different houses and revived at different times. Joint productions are the way to go in this age of austerity and this one transports readily at minimal cost. This raises the possibility of the opera being sung in Italian (since the film is in Italian) It's good enough to experience more than once. Artistically and financially, this one pays off. A better version of this piece will appear shortly in Opera Today. Please check that site, where there';s a FULL streaming download (in Italian), libretto, discography etc. Useful resource!
Photo credits: Stephen Cummiskey 2011, ENO. Details embedded.

Donizetti Lucrezia Borgia - FULL download

Come hither, this portrait of Lucrezia Borgia seems to say. She's so young it's unhealthy and look what she has in her hand. A symbol of Dad's day job. And on her chest a symbol of what Dad really stood for. Danger !

A new production of Donizetti Lucrezia Borgia starts at ENO soon, but in the meantime, enjoy free streamimg download of a performance from Milan in 2002 on Opera Today. FULL opera, libretto, discography, even a link to production photos of the same production.  etc. Cast includes Marcelo Álvarez (young and lively), Mariella Devia and others. Conductor : Renato Palumbo. Teatro degli Arcimboldi. Please click on the link bold and blue and enjoy. This is a complete Lucrezia Borgia package, useful resource!

ENO's new Lucrezia Borgia - Quadcast

A life as extreme as Lucrezia Borgia's begs dramatic treatment. Donizetti's opera Lucrezia Borgia starts a run at the ENO from 31st January, but on 23rd February there'll be something Completely Different - the "first live opera in 3D" (as opposed to the first non-live opera in 3D which was ROH's Carmen which is being screened for the first time on 5th March)

Please read my review of the ENO production HERE (It explains the film/opera hybrid more clearly). 

What makes the ENO fun is that it's visionary. This Lucrezia Borgia isn't an ordinary film of the opera but a Gesammstkunstwerk.. Because Lucrezia's life was so complicated and shrouded in mystery, it lends itself to cinematic ideas like flashbacks and parallel time frames. treatment. The photos come from a film of Lucrezia Borgia made in 1935 by Abel Gance, whose Napoleon (1927) is one of the most influential classics in cinema history.

Film director Mike Figgis has created 6 vignettes, filmed on location in Italy, and woven these into the production. His focus, though is on the opera itself. Please read this interview in the Financial Times, "Donizetti goes digital". Figgis says that his aim was to keep the opera intact, the vignettes forming frames to make it "even more like the sparkling jewel it is".

Figgis is famous for integrating the technology of film into his films themselves. "The Medium is the Message", as Marshall McLuhan said, where meaning expands from appreciating how images are created. No need to panic if you're technophobic. It's as simple as appreciating a sculpture knowing how it grows from the grain of the wood or the structure of marble.

The broadcast on 23rd February is also described as "The World's First Quadcast". The ENO has teamed up with Sky so the broadcast will be carried by Sky Arts 2 (HD), Sky 3D and live into selected cinemas in 3D around the UK. There'll be a deferred relay in 2D into selected cinemas internationally. The Quadcast element comes from the Sky Arts 1, broadcast directed by  Figgis, and will allow audiences a closer understanding of his concept as well as including interviews with people behind the scenes.

So ENO's Lucrezia Borgia might appeal to technophiles who might have fun at first with multimedia, and then become hooked on the music and drama.  But I don't think it should worry technophobes, either. The idea of blending stage and backstage isn't new in itself. Remember the outstanding Opera North film of Benjamin Britten Gloriana which turned the contortions of the script into a virtue and brought out the depths of Britten's vision?

Filming opera is undiscovered territory, whose language we're still learning. Decades ago, music was filmed with cameras rigidly fixed into position, musicians grimacing as uncomfortably as possible. But music isn't like that. Much better filmed music that captures its spirit and fascination. So, too, could well-filmed opera add elements that enhance and enrich the experience.
Lots more on this site about opera, film, and opera on film - please explore!

Don Pasquale ROH - 1904 copied!

"One can’t help feeling that things should either be more frothy or more revelatory. As it is, it’s hard to care about these marionettes in their artificial bubble." says Claire Seymour in Opera Today on Don Pasquale at the Royal Opera House.

Compare the 2010 production shots (on the link) with this one from 1904/5 La Scala. Almost identical to small details! Paolo Gavenelli is wigged and robed so he's unrecognizable. Imbrailo painted up like a doll. One also wonders what the acting was like in 1904, if these old poses are anything to go by.  Please also see an interview with Jacques Imbrailo on his interpretation of Dr Malatesta.

Jacques Imbrailo in Don Pasquale

Jacques Imbrailo sings Dr Malatesta in Donizetti's Don Pasquale at the Royal Opera House. Don't assume that  Dr Malatesta must be as old as Don Pasquale. How would he be able to fool the old man that Norina is his sister?  Don Pasquale's gullible but not that dumb. Donizetti sparkles, but beneath the lightness there's sharp wit. Just don't expect Verdi.

In this Don Pasquale, director Jonathan Milller aims for lyrical realism. “Not too flowery, he tells us”. says Imbrailo, “Naturalness is good even though it’s bel canto. The focus is on acting as well as on vocal display".

Jacques Imbrailo was a wonderful Billy Budd at Glyndebourne this summer.  The production projected the opera as a love triangle . Britten would have been surprised, for to him the moral dilemma was far more significant. Captain Vere's struggling with  fundamental concepts of good, evil  not lust.. Fortunately, Imbrailo's Billy Budd transcended the production. Imbrailo's "Beauty" wasn't a passive "Baby" but a force of exuberant life.

Billy is pure because he doesn't play games. Dr Malatesta is a chancer who can't stop trying to pull strings. "He’s an opportunist who likes to give things a nudge, then sit back and see how things unfold." says Imbrailo. "He’ll push events towards an outcome that suits him. The only one who really gets hurt is Don Pasquale, but he’s saved from a much worse fate. Dr Malatesta’s intentions are good, though he thinks the ends justify the means”.

All actors (and singers) need to develop roles from within, thinking into character. Sometimes you wonder where some people find extreme evil ! But art is art, not reality. Donizetti's wit is clear but not malicious. Dr Malatesta could be anyone, there but for fortune. It's easier to scam, and some folk have no qualms about being dishonest if that gets results. Integrity, though, takes more courage. It's better to be a Billy. Please read the full interview in Opera Today HERE

There's a video clip of Imbrailo as boy soprano HERE and a link to Billy Budd HERE.

photo credit : Suzy Bernstein

Donizetti revealed - Lucia di Lammermoor at ENO

Please see the full review in Opera Today with big, fabulous photos HERE.

"Donizetti’s original concept of Lucia di Lammermoor is revealed in its true glory in this ground breaking production by the English National Opera, first heard in 2008. The opera is loved in its familiar form, but the new critical edition reveals the depth of Donizetti’s musical creation.

Donizetti’s music is so lyrical that we could be lulled, but he understood the true horrific nature of the narrative. In his time, the glass harmonica was believed by some to induce insanity. In theory, it’s surreal drone would have added an extra frisson of danger to early performances, enhancing the dramatic impact. Restoring the glass harmonica makes good dramatic as well as musical sense, even though the full impact may be lost on modern audiences used to horror movies and the ondes martenot. This ENO production, directed by David Alden, and designed by Charles Edwards, significantly places a luminous green object left stage, glowing menacingly. It represents the glass harmonica, played in the pit by Alexander Marguerre, one of the few glass harmonica specialists in the world. It reaffirms the importance of the musical character in this opera.

Two centuries of flamboyant performance practice have shaped our assumptions, but the evidence is that Donizetti’s approach was more restrained. There’s plenty of drama inherent in Lucia’s personality, so this production shifts the balance back to the inherent drama in Donizetti’s music. Anna Christy’s high soprano isn’t as magnificent as, say, Maria Callas, but it fits well with the cleaner bel canto aesthetic. Christy also evokes the fragility so fundamental to Lucia’s personality. Her timbre is clean and pure, almost shrill at times, but that’s psychologically astute. When Lucia finally breaks down in wild frenzy, it’s all the more disturbing.

This Lucia’s still in the nursery, playing with dolls, wearing a dress that shows her ankles. When Enrico (Brian Mulligan) fondles her legs, it's shocking. But then selling his sister into marriage is shocking too. Nonetheless, Enrico recoils in horror at what he’s done and regresses, playing with a toy cart. Mulligan’s baritone is surprisingly delicate, so even if his physique isn’t child-like, he conveys the idea that Enrico — just like Lucia — doesn’t want to grow up and face the struggles that adulthood brings.

Donizetti Italianizes Sir Walter Scott’s fantasy of Scottish myth. Because the setting is ambiguous, this set design (by Charles Edwards) plays an important role in commenting on and expanding the themes implicit in the drama. What we need to know is that once powerful , families have been destroyed. In hues of grey, green and white, we see the faded glory of a marble mansion falling into ruin, paint peeling, windows boarded. Lammermoor is on the brink of collapse. Lucia is being traded off so the family can survive. Enrico’s not a craven brute, but a victim of overwhelming circumstances.

The mad scene takes place in an alcove above the main stage, complete with curtained backdrop. The marriage chamber becomes a stage where the ritual of marriage is acted out. This is Lucia’s “sacrifice” on the altar of social pressure. Even though Arturo is kind, losing her virginity is an act of violence, to which Lucia responds with extreme force.

Lucia is clearly unstable long before the wedding. She sees the ghost of a dead maiden, and falls suddenly in love when Edgardo kills a wild animal at her feet. Blood, love and death inextricably linked. Even in Donizetti’s time, some would have intuited the connection, but the Victorian costumes (Brigitte Reiffenstuel) in this production allude to images of rigid respectability. Beneath the buttoned up bombazine, sexual repression corrodes, just like the rusting windows in the Ashton mansion. Obviously, Lucia wants to die because she’s let Edgardo down by signing the marriage contract. But she’s also choosing death to avoid losing her innocence.

Edgardo (Barry Banks) is just as weighed down by family tradition as Enrico is, but he’s already lost everything but his father’s tomb. Here he’s dressed in a kilt, the last remaining wild Highlander in a new world of Victorian propriety. Walter Scott’s novels about a lost past appealed to the Romantic imagination because they offered an alternative to convention, in an era before there was a vocabulary for psychological concepts. Perhaps that’s why Alden has Edgardo killing himself with a gun instead of a sword. Edgardo, a throwback to a wild Highland past, can’t buck “modern” society.

With Lucia, Edgardo and Enrico destroyed, the future, as such, rests with figures like Raimondo Bidebent (what a name!). Clive Bayley’s portrayal is sympathetic — no Calvinist hellfire and brimstone here. Even when he attacks Normanno (Philip Daggett), he’s not specially vindictive. But he doesn’t understand the passion that drove Lucia and Edgardo. Something’s been lost in this new world of genteel reticence.. This superb production of Lucia di Lammerrmoor does justice to the drama and to the depth of Donizetti’s music, revealed in this lucid new edition.

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.