Invisible Theatre made visible : Morgen und Abend Haas ROH

The world premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas Morgen und Abend at the Royal Opera House, London -  so conceptually unique and so unusual that its originality will confound many.  But consider what music is - it's a means of communicating complex, abstract ideas which can't easily be articulated in words. No-one knows what happens when we die, or what the transition might feel like. Morgen und Abend  is a tone poem on a grand scale, with singing and personalities to point the way. It is opera in the very deepest meaning of the word, for it operates on our subliminal senses, activating our response to the human emotions we hear enacted on the stage.

Morgen und Abend begins with an Overture, of sorts. Loud, thudding percussion loud enough that our heartbeats begin to synchronize. The sounds come from the boxes on both sides of the auditorium, like the ears we have on each side of our heads, or the two lungs thar pump within so we can breathe, like the ventricles in our hearts that pump blood to keep us alive. This is "Invisible Theatre", drawing the audience physically into the drama. Perhaps that's why Morgen und Abend is both compelling and disturbing.  Listening becomes an active, not passive experience, challenging emotions we might find hard to deal with.  We, too, are part of the story.

An old man Olai (Klaus Maria Brandauer) sits in an empty room. A door stands on its own without walls. perhaps the man could pass through, but he doesn't. At first he notices the unnatural silence of his surroundings. A midwife (Sarah Wegener) appears, telling the old man that his baby son is born. Yet, listen to the strange broken phrases in the vocal parts, repeating cadences which are taken up subtly by the orchestra.  This isn't normal speech, even by opera standards. Is Olai re-living happy memories in a dream? The boy , named Johannes, "will be a fisherman like me", intones Brandauer  Woodwinds and horns create strange sounds - the crying of a newborn, the agony of a mother.  When Olai was a young man, birth was dangerous, the cusp of life and death.   I nursed someone in his last days, who had nursed me long before. Dying is a lot like being born: you're helpless, you don't know what's coming, you resist.

Another old man rises from his bed.  The atmosphere here, too, is unnaturally still and silent, though the percussion ticks gently, as if marking the passage of time.  The old man is Johannes (Christoph Pohl). He rises from his bed, but notices that his aches and pains have disappeared. Instead, he feels oddly weightless, and the room glows with light, as if objects are floating. Johannes notices that his body doesn't ache as it did before. He feels a strange weightlessness, and objects seem to float in light. Things haven't been the same since Erna, his wife (Helena Rasker), died. Yet he sees her, and she sings to him. Is she real, or an ilusion ?

 Johannes sings about Signe, the name of his mother, who long ago gave him birth, and also the name of his youngest daughter, a symmetry that suggests continuty and subtle change, reflected  in the understated  but complex instrumentation.  Johannes notices that his body doesn't ache as it did before. He feels a strange weightlessness, and objects seem to float in light. Things haven't been the same since Erna, his wife (Helena Rasker), died. Yet he sees her, and she sings.  His old friend Peter (Will Hartmann) appears. Why is Peter's hair so long? Why is he so grey? "Let  me cut your hair for you" sings Johannes, "like we did 50 years ago". "You can't" sings Peter.

Johannes wants to sail again as he used to. "When the  sea as still and calm as this", he sings, "I could sail out far into the west". Like his father Olai before him, Johannes is remembering happiness past.  In the horns and low woodwinds, we hear the roar of the ocean and feel the freedom Johannes must have enjoyed when he was young.  This journey, this time, is different.

Johannes appears in his daughter's house, but she can't see or hear him. Significantly, the part is sung by Sarah Wegener, who sang the Midwife. Yet Signe feels his embrace.. "Passing through a great chill" she sings, "But nothing evil".  Love doesn't die, there's nothing to fear, though Signe doesn't yet know what has happened.   The music bubbles along, occasionally spiking up, with long drawn slow diminuendos. It's as if the complex machinery of a human body is gradually shutting down,  the blood chilling, cells shutting down  Long, keening lines which seem to stretch out to limitless horizons. 

A story this surreal needs abstract presentation.  Greys, whites, silvers blend into each other, changing with light.  Nature itself operates in this way.  Stand on any beach and see the myriad gradations of colour in the sand, in the sky, in the sea.  Nothing is colourless unless you want it to be.

Objects seem to materialize out of nowhere: the props constantly shifting. Johannes's boat seems to disappear as quietly as it came. The effect is as in a dream, or memory, though it's created by a turntable mechanism under the floor, which works so well - and so quietly - that we hardly notice. A lot like the passage of time.

This Morgen und Abend operates on many levels, literally and figuratively. Although the texts are direct and conversational, this makes the characterizations human and sympathetic, allowing the music to work its magic on our emotions.  The libretto is by Jon Fosse, based on his novel Morgon og Kveld.  Against a backcloth the English text is projected, the words moving and changing in tune with music and mood. 

Georg Friedrich Haas (born 1953) is an important composer, so the Royal Opera House gives Morgen und Abend the attention it deserves. The cast are well known and well respected. The director is Graham Vick. The designer is Richard Hudson. But in an opera like this, where the music is protagonist, the orchestra makes all the difference. We  take the Royal Opera House Orchestra for granted because we hear them so often, but as Antonio Pappano has said, they are an extremely good band. Conducted by Michael Boder they sound as idiomatic as a specialist new music ensemble, clearly inspired by the challenge  of  Haas's music.  In 2013, Haas's In Vain was done by the London Sinfonietta. Please read my piece "Invisible Theatre" HERE.   Technically, Haas's music is nowhere as demanding as most of the London Sinfonietta's repertoire, but any comparison is an achievement. 

 Haas's music is beautiful, compelling and poetic. It can stand on its own merits, but conceptually it is sophisticated. New music isn't an easy sell to audiences expecting the music of 100 years ago. This is where the ROH could improve its marketing.  Fortunately the programme notes are good and include a piece by Tim Rutherford-Johnson on Haas's music, but the real need is  to give the public enough good information about the composer that they want to come in the first place.

A more formal version of this review appears in Opera Today (with production photos) 

Ambitious Royal Opera House 2015/2016 season

The Royal Opera House 2015/2016 season is one of the best for a long time. Eight new productions in the main auditorium alone, and a florescence of new work at the Linbury, before it closes for refurbishment.  An ambitious range from the baroque to the modern.   Juan Diego Flórez sings his first Orphée, and Bryn Terfel his first Boris Gudunov. Even some of the revivals are "new", like Tannhäuser and Il trittico, revived for the first time.  And even more intriguing, ROH is going musically in depth, enhancing appreciation of opera repertoire by developing themes which connect operas and by doing opera-related orchestral music. Even the revivals of more regular repertoire are given star treatment. Jonas Kaufmann and Bryan Hymel, no less. Joyce DiDonato and Vittorio Grigolo make their role debuts in Massenet's Werther.

ROH starts 2015/2016 in grand style, with Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice, in the 1762 French revision, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner with Juan Diego Flórez's Orphée and Lucy Crowe, and his own specialist musicians, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists. Hofesh Schechter, the acclaimed choreographer, will direct. An interesting fusion of period performance and modern dancing. An even earlier telling of the Orpheus legend will be Luigi Rossi's Orphée (1674), with Christian Curnyn conducting the orchestra of the Early Opera Company at Shakespeare's Globe, where ROH staged L'Ormindo: very different from the Roundhouse Monteverdi Orfeo (1607) .earlier this year. A hat trick of early Orpheus operas, which, when heard in close succession enrich and inform, so we get more from what we experience. This is intelligent, joined-up thinking! This summer, ROH is presenting Birtwistle's The Corridor, also based on the same story. Could we dare hope for a new production of  his The Mask of Orpheus? Above, Orpheus with his lute, in a 17th century painting by Benedetto Gennari.

Bryn Terfel makes his long-awaited role debut in Mussorgsky's Boris Gudunov.. Richard Jones directs, so expect surprises, but also very musically informed insights.  This production is based on the 1869 seven-scene version of the opera, dramatically more taut and tense. Antonio Pappano conducts. Terfel will clearly be the draw but Ain Anger will be singing Pimen: an interesting contrast of voices. Anger is highly regarded, so his Covent Garden debut will be something to look forward to.  John Tomlinson, so closely connected to the opera, will appear in the vignette role of Varlaam.  

In November, the world premiere of Georg Friedrich Haas's Morgen und Abend, a co-commision between ROH and Deutsche Oper Berlin. Haas's In Vain created a sensation when it was heard at the South Bank last year. Read my article Invisible Theatre : George Haas In Vain  to get an idea of what Haas's music is like. It's intensely dramatic. Morgen und Abends is based on a Norwegian novel about the life of a man from birth to death, morning to evening. Graham Vick directs, Michael Boder conducts. 
  
A new Cav and Pag for Christmas!  Eva-Maria Westbroek should be a superb Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, to Aleksandrs Antonenko . He's also singing Canio in Pagliacci,, plus Dimitri Patanias.  Very solid casting. It will be directed by Damiano Micheletto, who's directing Rossini Guilliame Tell.this summer.

Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor, with two different casts in April (Diana Damrau) and May (Alexandra Kurzak) 2016, directed by Katie Mitchell, who is approaching Lucia as a woman forced into madness..  

Georges Enescu's Oedipe (1936) continues ROH's exploration of 20th century opera, following on from Szymanowski's Król Roger.(1926).  This production, by Alex Ollé and Valentina Carrasco of La Fura dels Baus, was first heard in Brussels three years ago, with Leo Hussain, who will again be conducting. 

Stars for  Emmanuel Chabrier  L'etoile, a macabre comedy. Incidentally, Laurent Pelly directs this opera in Amsterdam in October. In London, we'll be hearing a completely different production directed by Mariane Clément, who'll be directing Donizetti's Poliuto at Glyndebourne next month.  In London, Christophe Mortagne will be singing King Ouf I.

Verdi Il trovatore next year, a co-production with  Frankfurt Alte Oper, directed by David Bõsch with Gianandrea Noseda making his ROH conducting debut.

Plenty of other interesting things, especially in the Linbury before its closure, after which performances will shift elsewhere, such as to the Lyric Hammersmith.   The now regular co-operation between ROH and Welsh National Operas  brings Iain Bell's In parenthesis, directed by David Pountney. Among the many British composers being presented is Philip Venables, with his 4.48 Psychosis,  about the playwright Sarah Kane, and Mark Simpson's Pleasure co-commissioned by ROH, Opera North and Aldeburgh. For more, peruse here.

Invisible Theatre : Georg Friedrich Haas In Vain London Sinfonietta

The London Sinfonietta are back on form with Georg Friedrich Haas's In Vain, with conductor Emilio Pomàrico.  Not in vain ! At last, seriously good serious music performed with the verve the London Sinfonietta was famous for.  In Vain  dates from 2000, but has entered the mainstream. Simon Rattle conducted it with members of the Berliner Philharmoniker in January 2013, proving that sophisticated music can communicate with non-specialist audiences.  Tonight's concert is being rebroadcast by BBC Radio 3 on 14th January, but it's a piece that really needs to be experienced live.

Haas's In Vain is Invisible Theatre, no less. Just as we got used to complex, sparkling sounds, the auditorium was suddenly plunged into total darkness. This is no gimmick.  We're so used to 247 visual stimuli that it comes as a shock to the senses. "Darkness isn't nothingness", to paraphrase the composer. Suddenly, you feel thrown back in time before houses, traffic and electricity. This might be how our ancestors experienced nature in its awesome might. Gradually your eyes adjust and you see how dense darkness is, like a physical presence. Then you realize you can "see" tiny fragments of colour, as blind people sometimes do. Bereft of visual signposts, we listen more intently, just like blind people develop stronger aural skills.  How do the players follow each other, far less follow notes written on paper  The music becomes eerily intuitive. Trombones blare long, exploratory tentacles out into the void, as if feeling their way. Rich resonant sounds seem to emerge out of the kind of primordial soup from whence the universe was created. Distorted horns, metallic percussion, suggest hunters and cow bells. Haas grew up in the mountainous Voralberg where nights can get very dark indeed, and people navigate by sound. We are also not listening merely to sound, but processing what we hear.  Do the bright, microtonal harmonies suggest stars.  Or are we listening to the pulse of the planet itself?

As a boy, Haas lived near electricity pylons which emit unvarying signals. "Natureton is not natural tone", says Haas. Throughout In Vain, there's an inner pulse, which barely varies. The sound is vaguely electronic, yet it's partly achieved by "natural" instruments  Accordion, harp and double bass function as continuo. Quite eccentric, but it works. Strings and winds play tiny fragments of sound which oscillate higher and higher in pitch, then gradually descend downwards again,. Metallic sounds, like gongs, cymbals and bells crash against the line, and tempi spin recklessly, but the basic vibrations are so strong that your body follows it intuitively. I "read" the Buddhist chant o-mi-to-fu, but everyone else will have their own interpretation. One could, perhaps, imagine stars in the sky and great geological forms. Yet there is also darkness in the conventional sense in In Vain. There is something malevolent in those metallic sounds, which looms encroaching upon the free-flowing fragments of brightness.

"People in the street don't think, 'what lovely microtones!' when they listen" said Haas, meaning that we respond emotionally on many different levels.  There are no words and no singers in In Vain but it is invisble  theatre because it communicates by sound and operates on the psyche.
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Postscript;

Once I lived in a dangerous time where one political group was trying to jam the other's radio transmissions. One night there was a curfew and the city descended into silence. At 3 am I heard strange oscillations booming across the park, with fragments of vaguely recognizable sound, like broken voices. Later I was told that it was something to do with bending soundwaves. I don't know the science but it was am amazing experience and the memory flooded back when I heard  Haas's In Vain.