Keeping live music alive - Royal Opera House live from Covent Garden

Lots to listen to this weekend : Live from the Royal Opera House, London, from the Rudolfinium Prague with Simon Rattle conducting the Czech Philharmonic and Magdalena Kožena, Britten from Aldeburgh,  Britten on Camera documentary on BBC TV 4, plus the LSO tonight (John Eliot Gardiner, Mendelssohn) plus much more.

"Doing our best to re animate the spirit of this gorgeous house" says Antonio Pappano in the introduction. And the ROH is glorious - it's heartbreaking to see it empty and its grand traditions silenced for the forseseeable future. That is WHY we need concerts like this, to remind us of what we might lose forever, if we don't take this crisis seriously.  Most musicians are freelance : they can't suddenly end up on the dole or get jobs filling boxes at Amazon. Like athletes, they need to keep training to keep their skills.  All that expertise gone to waste. The Royal Opera House is the second largests arts employer in this country, after the BBC, and contributes greatly to the economy. It is significant that far too many music fans do not recognize the role of live performance in keeping music alive.  Typical sneers on the net from "music lovers"- "we don't do live in my neck of the woods", "too many classics around already", "We only need Youtube" and most shameful of all, "We don't need professional musicians, amateurs are enough".  We're not just up against a pandemic and financial disaster but up against music fans who can't even comprehend the role of live performance in music-making.  

Above all, live performance is a communal activity, which constantly regenerates artistic growth.  The ROH is huge, not particularly suited to chamber recitals, but at least the company is making an effort, not, like the South Bank, giving up and closing down while keeping governments grants. So we might have to pay £4.99 to view later ROH concerts, but so what ? We should all be doing something to help.  In recent years, the notion that everything should be free is delimiting experience and poisoning growth.  The ROH website (as always) is full of petty complaints but it's not hard to access the concert (which starts a few minutes in) and remains online for repeat listening  There is a certain amount of echo at the beginning of the film before the mikes adjust by the time the performance starts.  Louise Alder sings Britten On this Island, and Toby Spence sings Butterworth A Shropshire Lad, and Gerald Finlay sings Mark-Anthony Turnage Three Songs  and Finzi Fear no more the Heat of the Sun.   The pianist is Pappano himself. For opera regulars, "Au fond du temple saint" from Bizet The Pearl Fishers, an opera that's notoriously difficult to stage, and Handel "Tornami a vagheggiar" from Alcina.

Since the ROH is also the home of the Royal Ballet, Francesca Hayward and Cesar Corrales dance the world premiere of a new pas de deux, choreographed by Wayne McGregor to Richard Strauss Morgen! , Louise Alder singing the Lieder.  Listen to McGregor describe why the arts must not be left to desiccate by default.  "And tomorrow the sun will shine again (Und morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen)  And that support needs to be coming from listeners like ourselves.

Britten Death in Venice, McVicar, Royal Opera House

photo: Catherine Ashmore, Royal Opera House

Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice in a new production by David McVIcar, at the Royal Opera House, reviewed HERE in Opera Today by Claire Seymour who wrote the book Benjamin Britten and his operas. The Royal Opera House isn't the ideal venue for an opera like Death in Venice, which is why it's usually done in smaller houses, as indeed most of Britten;s operas are, given their intense "inwardness".  Gloriana is the exception, not the rule, but even that work is infinitely better when it's understood as an opera-within-an opera,  its powerful message hidden from those who listen only on the surface.

Doing Death in Venice at ROH involves re-thinking scale and perspective. At Covent Garden, McVicar can contrast the grandeur of Venice with its decay and corruption.  Nothing is grand in a city of plague! Aschenbach, the quintessential outsider, comes thinking he'll find inspiration, but it is the beauty of Tadzio that he's drawn to, and that eventually contributes to his death.  Deborah Warner's production for the Met and ENO was popular because it emphasizes the surface glamour, exactly the opposite of what Britten intended.  That says more about audience taste than about the opera itself.  So it's good to read Claire Seymour's analysis in full.

"The tremendous achievement of McVicar, his creative team and a superb,
extensive cast, is to simultaneously portray the mythical aura of the city
of Venice and present a disturbing portrait of a psychology laid bare. The
naturalism of the 1910s setting and the astonishingly detailed realism of
Vicki Mortimer’s designs are intruded by the surreal, the grotesque and the
demonic. The result for Aschenbach is catastrophic."

"McVicar, Mortimer and lighting designer Paul Constable exercise masterly
control of these two intersecting energies, capturing in form and flux both
the wretched reality and the mythic grandeur of Venice. A prevailing
darkness is punctuated by sudden illuminations of light. The golden glow
that greets Aschenbach when the Hotel Manager reveals the glorious view
from the window of his room, for a brief moment bathes the drama in hope.
But, elsewhere, for all the vivid colour that Apollo’s sunrays reveal, the
Lido often seems to shimmer with a secret sickness. When the vista opens to
reveal the glistening teal waters of the limitless sea, the easefulness
that the brightness offers is tempered by a thick, unmoving green glow. The
sky above is cloudless, but it is muted by a patina of soft grey or pink
flush.When Aschenbach arrives by gondola through the swirling mists, we can
almost smell the pungency - what he later describes as a “sweetish
medicinal cleanliness, overlaying the smell of still canals”.

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. 

George Benjamin Lessons in Love and Violence - Musically brilliant, dramatically inert ?

George Benjamin at his writing desk. Photo :Matthew Lloyd, courtesy Askonas Holt

Musically brillliant, dramatically inert ? First thoughts on the world premiere of George Benjamin's Lessons in Love and Violence at the Royal Opera House.  Something wonderful happened when Bejnjamin teamed up with Martin Crimp the poet.  It's no accident that The Boy in Written on Skin was an illuminator, meticulously gilding and polishing his work to perfection.  And so he might have continued but for events unfolding around him.  A lot like George Benjamin himself !   Working with Martin Crimp unlocked something in Benjmain.  His first opera, Into the Little Hill was radically different from anything Benjamin - or indeed anyone else - had done before. It's an astonishing bizarre work, at once anarchic and disturbing.  As if arising straight from the subconcious it defies logic yet is highly intuitive and emotionally true. (Please read more here).  Written on Skin was more ambitious yet also slightly more conventional, following a vaguely realistic narrative.  Both operas deal with creativity and destruction, sexuality and repression, conflicts and pointless non-resolution.  In some ways, Lessons in Love and Violence continues the saga, through different characters    If anything, Benjamin's writing is even more assured and asssertive : daring crescendi, screaming chords, quirky combinations of instrumental colour that are more expressive than words alone could ever be.  But why does it feel like a remake of Written on Skin ?  

In Lessons in Love and Violence, we again have a dominant male figure bumbling his way ineptly through the lives of others, with horrific repercussions.  Based loosely on Christopher Marlowe's play Edward II, the opera reflects upon the relationship between Edward and Piers Gaveston,and the court around them. As The King  (Stéphane Degout) sings the first scena, ."Money... money...money", a symbol of something more in this intensely psychological  approach to the drama.   Fathers dictate what should happen to sons, kings dictate what should happen to subjects, sons become Kings themselves and so the cycle of love and violence continues.  The first scene is dominated by an enormous tank of (real) tropical fish, swimming aimlessly in an unnatural environment.  A metaphor for life in this kingdom ?  The tank must weigh several tons, and is being slowly rotated by stage machinery at the Royal Opera House, which has often been used extremely effectively.  But it is extraordinarily extravagant as stage prop. For such a relatively obvious statement, the expoense is way out of proportion.  But perhaps that is the point : ludicrously extreme solutions for problems that coul;d be resolved in other ways.  Crimp's libretto doesn't define what "entertainment" the Queen will witness at the end of the drama. But we know what is supposed to have happened to Piers Gaveston.  (and those who don't, will have nothing on which to vent their self righteous indignation).

Benjamin constructs Lessons in Love and Violence as a series of tableaux, divided by orchestral interludes which serve as "curtains" separating each section. These provide a formal structure,  and operate as commentary, expressing more through abstract music than can be said in the text.    Benjamin's writing in these interludes is even more impressive and sophisticated than in the scenes themselves, where he is constrained to some extent by the need to write for voice.   In the interludes, he creates astonishing orchestral colours, varied and tantalizingly elusive.   Low timbred brass and winds howl and growl, lines rising forth, grasping out into nothingness. Two off stage harps plus what sounds like a zither sing sad exotic songs.  At other moments strange sounds emerge, deliberately throwing you off track, like the twists in the plot.  With a story like this, you're supposed to feel ill at ease and uncertain.  Bows are beaten against wood, augmented by unpitched percussion, creating "primitive" effects, which intensify the rising sense of tension and violence as the narrative draws to its gruesome end.  Lessons in Love and Violence would work extremely well as symphony and might well be best heard semi-staged.  I would love to study it audio-only to better appreciate its depths. 

Therein, though, lies the problem.  Though the structure Benjamin uses is beautiful, like a series of miniature paintings in an illuminated album, it is also stylized and creates a sense of emotional disengagement.  It's as if we're observing specimens from a distance :the idea of fish in fish tanks, again. Nothing wrong with stylization, per se.  It was a feature of Greek tragedy, and is relevant to the wider implications of this tragedy, too. Thus the vocal lines are semi-abstract too, reflecting Crimp's background as poet. Some charcaters are fully fleshed, like The King (Stéphane Degout) and Gaveston (Gyula Orendt) and Mortimer (Peter Hoare), helped by very strong performances, by singers who are also instictive actors.  The role of Isabel, the Queen, might well have been written expressly to suit Barbara Hannigan, who sang The Woman in Written On Skin.  The part of Isabel  makes the most of Hannigan's ability to project coloratura lines. At times she sounded like a soprano clarinet with an extended range.  Something to marvel at, though the character itself isn't specially developed.  The Woman in Written on Skin at least found her identity. "I am Agnès" she cried, "I am not a child!"  Maybe Isabel is a plot device, a foil to the other characters.  Still, having Hannigan on board ensures the success of this opera,  and adds variety in an otherwise all-male cast. There are small roles for other women (one of them particulary striking)  and for younger singers, like Samuel Boden as the  King’s son.

Staging a stylized opera is a specialist genre in itself. Unlike verismo, where letting it all hang out is a good thing, in stylization, less can be more. At times, Lessons in Love and Violence seems to teeter on the edge of Pelléas et Mélisande.  It's as if the starving peasants Yniold spots outside the castle have breached its defences.  Benjamin's music broods and seethes with barely suppressed violence.   It can't be easy to reconcile stylization with  angry crowd scenes, but I'm not really sure about Katie Mitchell's direction. There are very good moments, such as when the younger actors move  in slow motion, suggesting the passage oif time. Almsot like a silent movie !(Movement director Joseph Alford). But there's a little too much stage decoartion for its own sake, large portraits, big beds, bookcases etc.  (designs by Vicki Mortimer).  Perhaps it's not Mitchell's fault. London audiences seem to need lots to look at so they don't have to think.  The enormous fish tank disappeared after the second section.  It almost stole the show, so removing it removed a distraction from Benjamin's drama in music.  Benjamin himself conducted  which made the music even more special. 

Janáček From the House of the Dead, ROH and memories of Chéreau

Scene from From the House of the Dead, Patrice Chéreau 2007

Leoš Janáček From the House of the Dead at  the Royal Opera House, London, last night, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth in a new production by Krzysztof Warlikowski.  Of course, some in the audience had to do their ritual booing. What did they expect?   Cuddly animals dressed as people? "Respect the Composer" is the mantra of the booing mob. It's probably too much to expect from them even a basic knowledge of this opera, but the least they could do is listen to the music.   Like an infernal machine, the repetitive rhythms hammer and pound until their pulse threatens to overcome your own.  A metaphor for the dehumanizing effects of a world where men (and women) are destroyed for no reason than the maintenance of order for the sake of order.  Respect the composer and his music, don't expect prettified feelgood.

Mark Wigglesworth's conducting certainly played up the violence, and rightly so, since there's nothing cute about a society that needs gulags to keep people under control.  Luckily for me, I learned this opera audio-only, from the Vaclav Neumann recording, rather than from Mackerras, so I think of it in terms of the music first. The first time I experienced the opera live was when Perre Boulez conducted the production directed by Patrice Chéreau : a historic event in many ways, impossible to forget.  Boulez conducted with an unnerving intensity: red hot holds nothing back but ice-cold suggests invisible horrors too dangerous to contemplate. The tragedy of human suffering, so fundamental to Janáček's vision, grows ever more powerful in contrast.  From the House of the Dead is actually more humane than some assume. Janáček cared about people. As Chéreau pointed out, what really pervades the opera for him is its implicit humanity. Under the harshness and violence flows surprisingly strongly a sense of “compassion”, as he puts it, which runs like a hidden stream throughout the opera, surfacing at critical junctures. It is also totally non-judgemental. Neither murderers nor guards are held to account, they simply exist. Thus the famous phrase near the end, “he too was born of a mother”.

At a discussion session after the performance I heard in Amsterdam in 2007, someone in the audience (beware that type) asked Chéreau why he didn't costume the prisoners in orange, to protest Guantanamo Bay. Quick as a flash, Boulez said: "We are in Holland. In Holland, Orange is the Royal House". In a nutshell, the art of visual literacy : images mean different things.  Chéreau's prisoners could have been Everyman in their drab garb, in a set dystopian in its abstraction. The prisoners engaged in pointless, repetitive work (building a ship in landlocked Siberia) but it doesn't overwhelm the stage. Instead there's an explosion when the bags of waste paper the men have been collecting blow up and scatter all over the stage: Substance now, waste no longer.  This explosion coincided with a dramatic climax in the music.  In a single striking image, the message is that men who have been thrown away by society are not detritus, whether they can fight back or not.

"Coherence", said Chéreau that eveing so long ago, "between ideas, music and drama, is the basis of interpretation".  Stagecraft is not decoration : it is Gesamtkunstwerk, the drawing-together of different elements into a whole.  Audiences often go for shallow productions because they are bright and jokey, but that isn't necessarily "what the composer intended".  Warlikowski's production has a bit of everything.  His thing for vivid jewel colours against black and white usually works extremely well, though less so in this case.  Maybe ROH chose him to please the punters, so they can tell the difference between prisoners, guards and visitors (which, arguably, should be minimal, just as there often isn't much difference in real life).  Huge structures dominate, which is a good thing as they suggest overwhelming forces  intimidating small figures. It's a rather well-organized prison, probably not too remote, since there are a lot of outsiders here, including blow-up dolls. Presumably these suggest how society dehumanizes women, treating them as objects, which is perfectly valid and connects to the central idea that the men in this prison are "in the house of the dead".  ROH wouldn't have dared show real women getting kicked about, and in any case no-one "should" need the details.  London punters go berserk over two seconds of tit, glimpsed for a moment in an entirely appropriate context, so they can't be expected to understand that their own sensibilities are not more important than being moved by the suffering of others. The Prostitute (Alison Cook) as symbol, in bright-green hot pants cavorting chastely with the boys.  (Or not so chastely, given that she looks 14.) Nothing wrong with that image per se since prostitutes are the "prisoners" of a messed-up world.   Chéreau had the Eagle shot, but for a moment we glimpsed its glory. Maybe I missed Warlikowski's Eagle, but perhaps The Prostitute serves a similar function: she gets out alive.

Big names for the parts where older voices work well like Willard W White as Alexandr Petrovič Gorjančikov, Graham Clark as Antonic the Elderly Prisoner.  Stefan Margita sang Luka Kuzmič, as he did in the 2007 run as did Peter Hoare, singing Šapkin.  Pascal Charbonneau sang an impressive Aljeja. Ladislav Elgr sang Skuratov and Johan Reuter sang Šiškov. Alexander Vassiliev sang The Governor. As always, House regulars like Jeffrey Lloyd Roberts, Grant Doyle and the always-superb Royal Opera House Chorus were good and reliable.  Nice dancers, too, writhing and twisting their (very attractive) bodies, expressing what is suggested in the music but which ROH probably needs to censor for fear of punter wrath.  This production is not the best, but by no means is it the worst.  But there is not a lot you can do with London audiences who can't be bothered to find out about a composer or an opera beforehand and insist on kitsch and circus. Inevitably that means compromise, which is not good for art.

Thomas Adès : The Exterminating Angel ROH London

Thomas Adès The Exterminating Angel at the Royal Opera House, London,  reviewed in depth by Claire Seymour in Opera Today : The most detailed review so far !

The opera’s score is an ingenious re-enactment of the past in the present. But, in this work Adès’s characteristically and remarkably skilful parodic eclecticism does more than remind us that our experience of music is filtered through our memory of past musical experiences - from medieval song to modernism; here, such musical echoes imply own our entrapment. So, in Act II the ‘Fugue of Panic’ layers snatches of Strauss waltzes - and Adès imagines the latter as teasing and taunting, ‘Why don’t you stay a little longer? Don’t worry about what’s going on outside’ - as the artifice of which the waltz is a symbol, and upon which the guests’ sense of propriety is founded, is exposed as illusory. - See more at: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/04/the_exterminati.php#sthash.Qv0SpwEh.dpuf

The opera’s score is an ingenious re-enactment of the past in the present. But, in this work Adès’s characteristically and remarkably skilful parodic eclecticism does more than remind us that our experience of music is filtered through our memory of past musical experiences - from medieval song to modernism; here, such musical echoes imply own our entrapment. So, in Act II the ‘Fugue of Panic’ layers snatches of Strauss waltzes - and Adès imagines the latter as teasing and taunting, ‘Why don’t you stay a little longer? Don’t worry about what’s going on outside’ - as the artifice of which the waltz is a symbol, and upon which the guests’ sense of propriety is founded, is exposed as illusory. - See more at: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/04/the_exterminati.php#sthash.Qv0SpwEh.dpuf

he opera’s score is an ingenious re-enactment of the past in the present. But, in this work Adès’s characteristically and remarkably skilful parodic eclecticism does more than remind us that our experience of music is filtered through our memory of past musical experiences - from medieval song to modernism; here, such musical echoes imply own our entrapment. So, in Act II the ‘Fugue of Panic’ layers snatches of Strauss waltzes - and Adès imagines the latter as teasing and taunting, ‘Why don’t you stay a little longer? Don’t worry about what’s going on outside’ - as the artifice of which the waltz is a symbol, and upon which the guests’ sense of propriety is founded, is exposed as illusory. - See more at: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/04/the_exterminati.php#sthash.Qv0SpwEh.dpuf

The opera’s score is an ingenious re-enactment of the past in the present. But, in this work Adès’s characteristically and remarkably skilful parodic eclecticism does more than remind us that our experience of music is filtered through our memory of past musical experiences - from medieval song to modernism; here, such musical echoes imply own our entrapment. So, in Act II the ‘Fugue of Panic’ layers snatches of Strauss waltzes - and Adès imagines the latter as teasing and taunting, ‘Why don’t you stay a little longer? Don’t worry about what’s going on outside’ - as the artifice of which the waltz is a symbol, and upon which the guests’ sense of propriety is founded, is exposed as illusory. - See more at: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/04/the_exterminati.php#sthash.Qv0SpwEh.dpuf

The opera’s score is an ingenious re-enactment of the past in the present. But, in this work Adès’s characteristically and remarkably skilful parodic eclecticism does more than remind us that our experience of music is filtered through our memory of past musical experiences - from medieval song to modernism; here, such musical echoes imply own our entrapment. So, in Act II the ‘Fugue of Panic’ layers snatches of Strauss waltzes - and Adès imagines the latter as teasing and taunting, ‘Why don’t you stay a little longer? Don’t worry about what’s going on outside’ - as the artifice of which the waltz is a symbol, and upon which the guests’ sense of propriety is founded, is exposed as illusory. - See more at: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/04/the_exterminati.php#sthash.Qv0SpwEh.dpuf

The opera’s score is an ingenious re-enactment of the past in the present. But, in this work Adès’s characteristically and remarkably skilful parodic eclecticism does more than remind us that our experience of music is filtered through our memory of past musical experiences - from medieval song to modernism; here, such musical echoes imply own our entrapment. So, in Act II the ‘Fugue of Panic’ layers snatches of Strauss waltzes - and Adès imagines the latter as teasing and taunting, ‘Why don’t you stay a little longer? Don’t worry about what’s going on outside’ - as the artifice of which the waltz is a symbol, and upon which the guests’ sense of propriety is founded, is exposed as illusory. - See more at: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/04/the_exterminati.php#sthash.Qv0SpwEh.dpuf

The opera’s score is an ingenious re-enactment of the past in the present. But, in this work Adès’s characteristically and remarkably skilful parodic eclecticism does more than remind us that our experience of music is filtered through our memory of past musical experiences - from medieval song to modernism; here, such musical echoes imply own our entrapment. So, in Act II the ‘Fugue of Panic’ layers snatches of Strauss waltzes - and Adès imagines the latter as teasing and taunting, ‘Why don’t you stay a little longer? Don’t worry about what’s going on outside’ - as the artifice of which the waltz is a symbol, and upon which the guests’ sense of propriety is founded, is exposed as illusory. - See more at: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/04/the_exterminati.php#sthash.Qv0SpwEh.dpuf

The opera’s score is an ingenious re-enactment of the past in the present. But, in this work Adès’s characteristically and remarkably skilful parodic eclecticism does more than remind us that our experience of music is filtered through our memory of past musical experiences - from medieval song to modernism; here, such musical echoes imply own our entrapment. So, in Act II the ‘Fugue of Panic’ layers snatches of Strauss waltzes - and Adès imagines the latter as teasing and taunting, ‘Why don’t you stay a little longer? Don’t worry about what’s going on outside’ - as the artifice of which the waltz is a symbol, and upon which the guests’ sense of propriety is founded, is exposed as illusory. - See more at: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/04/the_exterminati.php#sthash.Qv0SpwEh.dpuf

The opera’s score is an ingenious re-enactment of the past in the present. But, in this work Adès’s characteristically and remarkably skilful parodic eclecticism does more than remind us that our experience of music is filtered through our memory of past musical experiences - from medieval song to modernism; here, such musical echoes imply own our entrapment. So, in Act II the ‘Fugue of Panic’ layers snatches of Strauss waltzes - and Adès imagines the latter as teasing and taunting, ‘Why don’t you stay a little longer? Don’t worry about what’s going on outside’ - as the artifice of which the waltz is a symbol, and upon which the guests’ sense of propriety is founded, is exposed as illusory. - See more at: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/04/the_exterminati.php#sthash.Qv0SpwEh.dpuf

The opera’s score is an ingenious re-enactment of the past in the present. But, in this work Adès’s characteristically and remarkably skilful parodic eclecticism does more than remind us that our experience of music is filtered through our memory of past musical experiences - from medieval song to modernism; here, such musical echoes imply own our entrapment. So, in Act II the ‘Fugue of Panic’ layers snatches of Strauss waltzes - and Adès imagines the latter as teasing and taunting, ‘Why don’t you stay a little longer? Don’t worry about what’s going on outside’ - as the artifice of which the waltz is a symbol, and upon which the guests’ sense of propriety is founded, is exposed as illusory. - See more at: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2017/04/the_exterminati.php#sthash.Qv0SpwEh.dpuf

Eunuch Shostakovich The Nose, Royal Opera House

In  DmitriyShostakovich The Nose at the Royal Opera House, London, it wasn't just Kovalov's nose that got cut.  This production was a mutilation, The Nose as Eunuch, the opera stripped of its vital, creative essence.  In Gogol's original story, Kovalov is a "collegiate assessor", a petty bureaucrat who passes judgement, based on surface values. His Nose, however, has other ideas and runs away, taking on a life of its own, more adventurously led than its supposed owner's.   The nose of a person's face defines their outward appearance.  Kovalov's nose shows him up for what he is, or isn't.  And, by extension, the whole social order.  The Nose is not comedy, it's savage satire. Miss that and miss its fundamental, pungent purpose. No excuses. Shostakovich is hardly an unknown composer. Moreover, The Nose,was created at a time of exceptional artistic freedom in the early years of the Revolution, when the Soviet dream represented ideals and progressive change. Futurism, expressionism, modernity, Eisenstein, Bulgakov, Mayakovsky.  Shostakovich was only 20 when the piece was written, still full of courage and hope. But even those who don't know the background have only to pay attention to the music to get it.

Shostakovich's score explodes with inventiveness and zany experiment.  It begins with a fanfare and the roll of drums, like Grand Opera, but opens onto mundane scenes in mundane lives.  David Pountney's translation respects the image of smell. Something's off , rotting perhaps, even though we can't see it.  Despite the exuberant scoring  deliberately more circus than High Art, The Nose parodies the rich tradition of Russian opera. There's relatively little singing, and what there is is shrill and distorted, closer to Sprechstimme than to aria.  Significantly, some of the best music for voice lies in the choruses, who represent the "ordinary" masses, and in the vignettes for subsidiary characters, all of them characterized with great gusto.  The Nose may also be the Royal Opera House's tribute to John Tomlinson, who will never sing again but can still hold an audience spellbound by his incisive acting in multiple roles, a good foil for Martin Winkler's Kovalov, whose  identity remains constant throughout proceedings. Part of this story is about Kovalov's supine personality, in contrast to the vivacious spontaneity of his Nose, who doesn't give a stuff about propriety and the right way to do things.  Winkler's a good singer, which made his performance piquant.  The innate authority in Winkler's voice suggested that there might, somehow, be depth in Kovalov, if only he wasn't so repressed.  The vignettes were also well performed : honours to the ever popular Wolfgang Ablingrer-Sperrhacke, but also to the sturdy regulars of the ROH company, without whom the ROH would not be what is is.  The choruses, needless to say, were superb.

The extremes in Shostakovich's score should also alert any listener to the true nature of the piece.  The famous Percussion interlude pounded violently: it might suggest Kovalov's approaching nightmare, or perhaps the tension the Nose feels as it's about to break way.  Words would be superfluous. This isn't "comfort listening". Ingo Metzmacher's conducting was idiomatic and utterly expressive. The angular, jagged edges in this music are absolutely part of the meaning of this opera, as are the bluesy distortions, especially in the brass, where the lines of convention are eroded. Horns  and trumpets blowing raspberries, just as The Nose treats Kovalov with jaunty irreverence.  Wonderful playing from the Royal Opera House orchestra, who sounded as though they were having a wonderful time, escaping, like The Nose, from standard repertoire.  Shostakovich's instrumentation is deliberately bizarre. Famously, he employed a Flexatone, a kind of whirring saw whose wailing timbre suits the craziness in the plot. He also uses a xylophone, a balalaika, a whistle and castanets, and weaves these in well with the rest of the orchestra. The high woodwinds, for example, chuckle and chatter in frantic staccato, the strings scream. This manic instrumentation reflects the plot, too, in its depiction of the variety and diversity of life beyond Kovalov's narrow horizons.

Wild as the music is, it would be a mistake to assume that undisciplined playing would be in order. Quite the contrary.  Metzmacher pulls the wildness together so the colours stay vivid, and the players operate in relationship to each other. Again, this precision reflects the dance element in the opera, so very much a fundamental to its meaning.  The Nose was created for the Mariinsky and its excellent corps de ballet.  Dancers can't do free for all, or they'd collapse in an unco-ordinated heap. The tightness of Metzmacher's conducting gave them firm support so they could do their artistic thing, knowing they could rely on the pulse in the orchestra. Absolutely fabulous choreography (Otto Pichler) and wonderfully executed dancing from the members of the Royal Ballet.  Who can forget the chorus line of high-kicking Noses. The Nose itself was Ilan Galkoff.  For me, the high point was the ensemble of Eunuchs, a flamboyant drag act.  I loved their physicality: the animal energy in those limbs expressing the freedom the Nose represents!

Wonderful performances all round: the Royal Opera House at its best.  The disappointment, though, was the banality of the staging,directed by Barry Kosky. Presenting Shostakovich, and especially The Nose as feelgood West End Song and Dance Act is a travesty, a total denial of everything the piece stands for.  Kosky is popular because he gives punters what they want, nice things to look at without engaging their minds.  Obviously there's a market for that, but it's a betrayal of The Nose and everything it stands for.  The Nose isn't specifically Russian or Soviet, though those elements are relevant, but its primary focus is on the way society operates through group think , based on shallow surface appearances.  So what do we get ? A Nose dedicated to unquestioning superficiality.  All those wonderful individual performances but built on the dead heart of a clueless concept.  Audiences  assume Regie means costumes, and updating, but what it really means is whether the visuals contribute to the expression of meaning. Kosky's The Nose is bad Regie because it ignores the basic ideas behind the opera, its music and its composer.  We live in times when artistic integrity doesn't count for much and mob populism rules.  So a lot more is at stake than just opera.  All directors have their signatures, just like conductors and singers make an individual stamp.  Kosky's reminds me of Tracey Emin's unmade bed.  Wildly popular, but who needs the whiff of stale emissions and sordid self obsession?  We've all "been there" but most of us grow up and  do other things. But the punters like it, so it must be art.  That is why, for me, Eunuch The Nose was a deal breaker.

Enescu Oedipe, ROH : Visuals matching music

George Enescu Oedipe came at last to the Royal Opera House.  Oedipe is an astonishingly complex work, so rich and idiosyncratic that it defies category. We hear sounds that evoke the ancient past. like flutes and folk-like instruments which some identify as being Romanian, and sound that place the opera in the world of The Rite of Spring and Król Roger.  The orchestration is luscious yet elusive, embellished with unusual sounds like saxophone, wind sheet and whips.  Musically we are in  strange territory, as if suspended in time and place. Oedipus's psyche is unsettled, alienated from his surroundings, and so should we be, too, as we follow his journey. Yet Oedipe is hypnotizing, with its combination of beauty and foreboding. So many clues in this opera lie in abstract music. Will London audiences pay attention? 
   

This production, created by Alex Ollé (La Fura dels Baus) and Valentina Carrasco, was a sensation at La Monnaie in 2011.  The overture unfolds in darkness. Figures appear, lit in shades of earthy ochre against a black backdrop. The figures hold stylized poses, like ancient Greek pottery on a giant scale. Slowly, they move, as if called into life by the music.  Ollé is a director who understands the connection between music and visuals.  The First Act is stylized too, reflecting the  discipline of Greek tragedy.  Oedipus  the infant is a doll in every sense, a toy of Fate, to be passed around like an object.  When he grows up and learns about the curse he has to leave his adopted parents.  He loses his identity. In this production, he wanders through roadworks, where familiar routes are blocked off. Literally he's in no man's land. He can see Laius and his companions in the darkness because they wear high-visibility jackets. They belong  there, they know their way.  Oedipe doesn't.  He doesn't even know that the prophecy is fulfilled when they die. 

The music in this part of the opera is amazing. It's just as well that we can't see much on stage. We should be listening. We shouldn't complain but appreciate that Enescu is making us think, just as Oedipe finds his way.  Out of the shadows looms the Sphinx, here depicted as a war plane, rather aptly, since the Sphinx has wings and rains down death one those who get in the way.  Again, connect the music to the stage action. The plane is grounded, like the Sphinx, but as the music whirs, its engines springing into life.   Its voice comes from a figure disguised in goggles and uniform, suitably anonymous as Fate is. But what singing!  The part is demanding, and has to be delivered with authority. Fortunately, Marie-Nicole Lemieux who created it in Brussels, sings in London too.  As her music fades away, the orchestra emits a low drone, like the sound of giant wings, taking off into the air. Again, perceptive matching of music with action. Try staging that "realistically", especially in an opera that predicates on surreal non-reality.

As saviour of the Thebans, Oedipe gets to marry Jocasta. Strictly speaking he is the rightful heir but the irony is that the succession wasn't meant to be this way. Years later, Creon, Tiresias and the shepherd spill the beans. Perhaps Oedipe had an inkling all along. His part is vividly characterized in the musical line, wavering in indeterminate tones, immensely difficult to sing, especially as he's on for nearly two and a half hours. When Dietrich Henschel sang Oedipe in Brussels, his hard metallic timbre was absolutely ideal for the portrayal, since it reflected the idea of Fate as a machine, consuming those it traps.   Even the slight strain that ate into his voice as the evening wore on was perfect.  I'm not sure the part is really right for someone too ripe. When John Relyea sang it in Edinburgh in 2002, he was very young indeed, adding a good sense of tension.  Faced with the truth, Oedipe rips his eyes out.  The staging reflects "blindness", visual detail obliterated in strong washes of single colour. Again, follow the music when you can't see.  Oedipe has Antigone.  We have Leo Hussain, who also conducted in Brussels, and is masterful. 

When father and daughter reach Colonna, Oedipe knows he can escape no more and departs in a blaze of light. Reports of near-death experiences often mention tunnels of light. In Oedipe's case, however, the reference could also be to the birth canal whence Oedipe once came, and where he travelled back, incestuously. 


Enescu's Oedipe is a masterpiece but it's certainly not obscure.  It's hard to produce, requiring a baritone with stamina and personality, a large chorus and some very tricky stage effects.  So hopefully, London audiences will appreciate how lucky they are to get a chance to experience its full impact.  There are  several recordings from the late 1990's,  like José van Dam with Lawrence Foster in Monte Carlo, and Monte Pederson with Michael Gielen, recorded in Vienna, (originally staged in Berlin in 1996 by Götz Friedrich), followed by the concert performance at Edinburgh in 2000, with John Relyea with Cristian Mandeal, all recommended.

Please see also my review of the brilliant ROH Szymanowski Król Roger. HERE.  London will be a duller place without art, and without Kasper Holten. 

Sex and Art :Tannhäuser Revisited, 2016

Wagner Tannhäuser at the Royal Opera House, London in its second revival.  Perhaps the shock of the original 2010 production by Tim Albery has worn off, as so often happens when audiences pay attention rather than come determined to find fault.  This isn't a production I particularly like, but it is a legitimate interpretation.  Those who insist on "the composer's intentions" would do well to actually read Wagner's own description of Venusberg, depicting waterfalls, grottos and "Schlafende Amoretten, wild über und neben einander gelagert, einen verworrenen Knäuel bildend, wie Kinder, die, von einer Balgerei ermattet, eingeschlafen sind. Der ganze Vordergrund ist von einem zauberhaften, von unten her dringenden, rötlichen Lichte beleuchtet, durch welches das Smaragdgrün des Wasserfalles, mit dem Weiß seiner schäumenden Wellen, stark durchbricht; der ferne Hintergrund mit den Seeufern ist von einem verklärt baluen Dufte mondscheinartig erhellt."   In other words, lurid sex and nudity.

Above, a sketch of the Venusberg scene from a very early staging. It doesn't take much imagination to equate the caves and waters with anatomy: Venus's charms are made fairly explicit. Try that these days with prissier audiences and the fallout would be heard in Hell.  Thirty years ago, there was a German production in which dancers were seen as half-human, half-animal elementals writhing in agony and ecstasy. A brilliant way to express what Venusberg means, and why it has such a hold over our hero Tannhäuser.  Horrible as it is, it's less repressed than self-conscious Wartburg.  Visual images offer clues as to meaning: mistake them for literal reality and miss the art. Please read my analysis here of the symbolism of Wartburg and its place in German culture.  Also, my piece Who is Elisabeth. 


Tannhäuser is Wagner and Wagner does ideas.  This is an opera about art and the role of art, every bit as much as Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.  Both operas depict  societies where art is taken so seriously that the fate of a woman can be traded for talent.  Fortunately, in both cases, wise souls prevail.  Elisabeth is as selfless as Hans Sachs, and intuits that Tannhäuser must face his demons if he is to find himself.  Wolfram is the Perfect Knight, but Elisabeth wants other feelings. "Doch welch ein seltsam neues Leben, rief Euer Lied mir in die Brust! Bald wollt es mich wie Schmerz durchbeben, bald drang's in mich wie jähe Lust;Gefühle, die ich nie empfunden,Verlangen, das ich nie gekannt!"   If modern audiences want theatre sanitised, safe and bland , maybe they shouldn't be going to opera at all.

Peter Seiffert has been singing Tannhäuser for so long that he has form. I don't think think this is a "young man's role" like Walter von Stolzing, for Tannhäuser has seen the world outside Wartburg and cannot go back.  Johan Botha, who sang the part in 2010 was ideal, because he looked as though he'd tasted the joys of the flesh. What mattered was that his voice was pure, clear and agile. That's what the opera means, the integrity of art as opposed to surface beauty.   In 2010, Christian Gerhaher sang Wolfram so luminously that some who should know better thought that Elisabeth chose the wrong guy.  But Wolfram sings about evening stars, and intangibles. Detachment is his thing, not gritty human emotion. Wolfram was Gerhaher's breakthrough, his career-defining moment. I had been listening to him as a Lieder singer from very early on indeed, so his Wolfram didn't surprise me.  He's a consummate Wolfram in so many ways. 

Boris Godunov REVIEW Royal Opera House

Mussorgsky Boris Gudonov at the Royal Opera House with Bryn Terfel. Here is a link to Claire Seymour's review in Opera Today, the most detailed and perceptive of all.

"Terfel’s Boris is no histrionic monster. And if, initially, he seems to hold something in reserve emotionally, this later seems to be part of a carefully judged slow-release of growing torment, which builds unstoppably to tragic confrontation and catharsis. Terfel finds the man beneath the stateliness; this is a father whose love for his children is tactile, intense and unwavering. He trades the simple attire of a boyar for the glittering glamour of his creme and gold coronation robes, but at the close Boris is a dishevelled, pitiful figure — body and mind in disarray: grey-haired, fur-coated, bare-footed, staggering and swaying like a wild Old Testament prophet. The contrast between Terfel’s physical stature and psychological vulnerability is deeply poignant. -"

 See more at: http://www.operatoday.com/content/2016/03/boris_godunov_a.php#sthash.FzGU12C5.dpuf "
photo credit : C Ashmore, Royal opera House

Bread and circuses - Boris Godunov, ROH

Modest Mussorgsky Boris Godunov at the Royal Opera House, London with Bryn Terfel, in the original 1869 version rather than the tarted-up 1872 version revised by Rimsky-Korsakov.The second version is popular because it adds pretty girls,  kids, battlefields  which is fine. Opera "is" circus, meant for thrills and spills. But opera is also theatre, where drama is part of meaning.   Mussorgsky's original is dark and claustrophobic, like Boris's mind, closing in on itself, grappling with self doubt. The revision has show tunes, ballet interludes  and other distractions to draw attention away from Boris's predicament, and away from the very tension that makes the drama so disturbing.

Barely a year ago, Valery Gergiev brought Boris Godunov to London with the Mariinsky Opera, who might, one assumes, know what they're doing with Russian opera. They did the original version, adding the Innkeeper's song which adds fun to the proceedings without changing the fundamental impact of the original.  Vladimir Putin rules with an iron fist, like Tsars of old, but he, like Boris, has to watch his back. No-one comes to that kind of power by being cute and cuddly.  Gergiev and the Mariinsky are where they are because Putin supports them. Go figure, then, when they do Boris Godunov.  It wasn't a surprise at all that Gergiev turned up late for the Barbican performance (and even later for the next evening's concert).   Whatever held him up must have worked, for Gergiev's conducting was astonishingly uninhibited, fuelled with courage and disdain for time-serving trivia. Though there were technical blips in Gergiev's conducting, the orchestra and the singers know the opera - and their charismatic boss - so well that they, too, became inspired  by Gergiev's devil-may-care verve.  Circus audiences wouldn't understand.

Eight years ago  the ENO did Boris Godunov in the original version at the Coliseum. Edward Gardner conducted. Much as I love him, he couldn't match Gergiev's almost demented bloody-mindedness.  The production was by Tim Albery. The set was grey and barren, like the shelves of a Stalin era supermarket, perhaps, where the populace were grateful for any scrap they could scrounge.  That’s why the Tsars and the Church were able to overwhelm the peasants. Their authority was built on being able to dazzle the serfs into submission.  No wonder the peasants are terrified that somehow the world will collapse if they aren’t dominated by a Leader.  Of course their piety is enforced by  brutality, but the confluence of credulity and servitude tells us something about totalitarian regimes. If people want to believe, they’ll believe anything.  This is why False Dimitris figure so much in Russian history. The dead Tsarevich can't actually wield power but symbolically  becomes a saint and thus connecting to the power of the Church. Like the Church, this  isn’t rational, but it scares the wits out of Boris.I don't usually like Tim Albery's work, but his Boris Godunov was effective because it concentrated colour with power.  Give the public "bread and circuses" to keep them cowed.

Ideally, good opera would balance substance and showmanship, but fundamentally circuses without bread aren't nourishing. (bread can be fun if it's good)   Consider the "Nabucco syndrome" with its austere set reflecting the invisible One True God. It's just as well that some of the London audience weren't Hebrew slaves. They'd have apostated quicksmart to graven images and golden calves   Full review HERE in Opera Today.

Chabrier L'étoile ROH - a French Fledermaus ?

Emmanuel Chabrier's L'étoile at the Royal Opera House: is it a French Die Fledermaus? Johan Strauus's operetta was a sensation in 1874, so perhaps it's not a coincidence that the two works have much in common.  Both predicate on mistaken identities, on people trying to be what they are not. Just as champagne features in Die Fledermaus, Chartreuse figures in L'étoile. Alcohol  releases inhibitions, anything can happen when you're drunk.

But from thereon the operas diverge.  Die Fledermaus has a very dark subtext indeed: the sparkling fizz hides venom.  Read more about what I've written about it here and here, witha link to a brilliant Nazi era film on the theme. Perhaps  L'étoile has a dark side, but its surface shines - like a star - dazzling all before it.  Madcap zaniness is its raison d'être. Rather than read too much into it, sit back and enjoy.  

Lots of people in tonight's audience were guffawing so much they looked like their sides would split. No doubt it could be done as broad-brush slaptick, but I think I prefer director Mariame Clément's approach, which fits much better with Chabrier's music,  and its quintessental charm.  It also fits in with his piano and orchestral music. While Chabrier adored Wagner, the composers' temperaments were radically different. Wagner fulminates, Chabrier exudes good humour. Chabrier's light, brittle style reminds me of Poulenc, of Les mamelles de Tirésias and of the quirkier song cycles.  I hate using national labels, but there's something very French and down to earth in L'étoile, despite the craziness.   One doesn't lose proportion even when one's nuts. .

Ouf's kingdom exists entirely in the imagination.  Ouf, (Christophe Mortagne) decides that Siroco (Simon Bailey) will die right after him, and they are convinced that they'll both die if something happens to Lazuli (Kate Lindsey).  Superstition reigns, not reason or logic.  One moment Lazuli faces death, the next he's treated like royalty. Princess Laoula ( Hélène Guilmette) descends, literally, from above in a balloon. "Believe a man can fly" as they say in Superman comics.  Laoula and her parents Hérisson de Porc-Epic (what a name - François Piolino and Julie Boulianne) disguise themselves as tradesmen but what they're really out to buy is Ouf.  Ouf might be fantasy Persian, but becomes a Saudi Prince, and an Ottoman in a harem with hordes of Turks in white helmets as chorus.  Exotic Orientalism to wow the audience, event clad odalisques and a pool from which hot air rises (like the balloon, like the plot ). Lazuli tries to escape in a boat, seen here as a flat painted like a small cruiser complete with "waves".  He's lost at sea, brilliantly depicted by having the chorus, lit in the colours of the sea, toss a small boat in their arms. Of course it's not realistic! Realism would be contrary to everything L'étoile stands for. Two English-speaking characters add another dimension, and a monk clad in a white habit operates silently in nearly every scene. He's a Carthusian. Carthusians make Chartreuse. And thus the second act glows in eerie Chatreuse-y green, a huge bottle centre stage from which singers emerge and retreat.  Beer goggles, only posher.

Kate Lindsey's performance stole the show. She's the star of L'étoile, though singing all round was good, especially the ROH chorus, who revelled in the robust gusto of their parts,.  Although the ROH PR machine seems to be building something up for Mark Elder, the conducting was disappointingly unidiomatic. Musically, L'étoile is a series of numbers rather than anything coherent, so there really isn't any need to sound too refined.  More punchiness and pugnacious kick, please. The staging, designed by Julia Hansen, replicates stage design in Chabrier's time, with flats painted in cartoon like pastels, pushed in and out on panels.  Audiences then knew that theatre was the art of illusion.  "Realism" is a curse beaten into modern audiences who watch too much TV.  Claire Seymour will be writing a proper review in Opera Today. I had a lovely time - gosh it's fun not to have to think too hard for a change!

Open Up the Royal Opera House

The Royal Opers House Open Up project starts in May. Plans were announced ages ago and now, a new section on the ROH website gives more detail. Open Up addresses the use of space within a historic site hemmed in on one side by the Covent Garden Piazza and on the other by Bow Street.

Thankfully, the revolving doors on both sides will go. They slow down entry and exit.  The Bow Street facade will be enlarged and glazed over, to make more space inside. it's good that they're improving the Bow Street entrance.   It's a primary point of access, so it would be extremely inconvenient to force patrons into the overcrowded Piazza area, when they might avoid it altogether. The ROH doesn't necessarily cater for the tourist and busker crowd! Intelligent use of wasted space on Bow Street and a nice new terrace above. Hopefully there will be more places to sit when waiting, though I appreciate that nonticket holders can colonize them, the way the old Box Office toilets became public use.

More urgently, there'll be a revamp of the Linbury Studio Theatre, which is so cramped that it's a no-go area for many. Like the Sadler's Wells Theatre it was built for dancers. Which is fine if you're under 30 and as flexible as a dancer. Most of us aren't. The seats in the present Linbury are so cramped that they drive away patrons who might otherwise enjoy being part of the audience. The industrial metal fittings will go, too, to be replaced by more acoustic-friendly wood.  Hopefully capacity will be improved, too.

More controversial is the suggestion that part of the Ampitheatre terrace will be enclosed to extend the restaurant. But isn't Covent Garden already packed with restaurants? What will a few extra covers add? And at what cost to opera-goers   If ROH restaurant goers don't like mixing with hoi polloi who go for music, that's their problem. Unfortunately, the rich expect privileges, but not all of them are actually opera lovers and many won't turn into donors.  In any case giving in to that kind of donor is dangerous. One of the mantras in arts admin is the idea that cafés are more important than performance space, hence the idea of turning the Coliseum foyer into a sandwich shop.  It's a silly short-term notion, into which companies are forced because funding bodies don't understand that the cost benefits of art don't lie simply in balance sheets.

Shock - Kasper Holten leaves ROH

Half an hour ago, the Royal Opera House announced that Kasper Holten will be leaving the Royal Opera House from March 2017. Here's his statement:

"I love working at ROH – and with all the amazing colleagues here – and it feels very painful to let go of that in 2017. But when I moved to London, my partner and I didn’t have children. Now we do, and after much soul searching we have decided that we want to be closer to our families and inevitably that means we make Copenhagen our home where the children will grow up and go to school.

So when Alex offered me an extension of my contract for another five years beyond summer 2016, I have decided only to ask for an extension of seven months, giving the ROH time to plan for my succession and for me to continue the work as long as possible. I will therefore leave my position in March 2017 after Tony and I open our new production of Wagner’s Meistersinger here at ROH. But my work isn’t done yet, so please don’t do too many farewells quite yet!"

This is sad news for those of us who genuinely love opera as a living, ever-growing art form. Holten breathed new life into the ROH, with his imaginative flair and love for the genre. Unfortunately the world seems to be descending into a mire of self righteous, blinkered philistinism, not only in the arts but elsewhere.  What lies ahead? I hate to think. But I wish Holten and his family everything good, and thank him for a few years of interesting, stimulating work.

Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci ROH

Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci  at the Royal Opera House. This Cav & Pag is worth seeing, even if it's pricey, because, in its quiet thoughtful way, it reminds us what opera is really about.  "Io sono il Prologo" a figure (Tonio) intones. What we are about to experience is an artificial creation, designed by "L'autore". But "l'artista è un uom e che per gli uomini scrivere ei deve. Ed al vero ispiravasi" . It's not outward trappings that make an opera but the emotional truth in the human drama within.

Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's  Pagliacci work together well because both deal with extreme feelings in non-extreme circumstances. In these villages, people observe religious and social rituals. Their lives unfold as if determined by  a script, their "author" being convention. Yet the script collapses when they act on their feelings. It's not for nothing that both operas predicate on the idea of betrayal. Adultery upsets the institution of marriage, yet denying the feelings that lead up to it would be emotional self-betrayal. In Pagliacci, the "clowns" put on a show. But who are the clowns, the actors, their parts or the audience who come to be amused  and expect life to match their expectations?

Damiano Michieletto's production recreates an Italy of the recent past  but that's perfectly valid. Leoncavallo specified a period only some 20 years before the opera was written, and Mascagni merely refers to the century - his own.  Michieletto's approach thus underlines the humble, human side of the drama.  We see ordinary people in simple surroundings  going abou ttheir ordinary lives. It's also very loving, as if the "memories" the Prologo refers to are being recreated in the imagination. It's  more touching and intimate than, say, the recent Salzburg Cav &  Pag with its busy, self-conscious theatricality. Real lives are drama, too.

Hence the absence of fancy costumes.  Although Leoncavallo employs Commedia dell'arte figures, he knew that they are stereotypes, a kind of shorthand for universal personality traits.  Pierrot, the clown, is pale and wan, like his signifier the moon.  Yet what he represents is much deeper. He's a clown who weeps, an eternal outsider, never treated with respect. Anyone who really understand the symbolism will understand the reality behind the makeup and clown suit. Dimitri Platanias (who also sang the role in Salzburg)  is a stocky fellow but embodies the character so accurately that the real Fool is anyone who demands a fancy costume in order to understand. There were some in the audience who didn't get the basic premise in the opera and assumed it was the director's "fault" though it's clearly central to the composer's own conception of the opera.  Commedia dell'arte costumes would only confuse the issue further. The dignity and pathos of Platanias's singing was so effective that it communicated through the heart.

In Cavalleria Rusticana, Platanias sang Alfio, while Aleksandrs Antonenko sang Turiddu.  In Pagliacci, the roles are reversed, and Antonenko sings Canio, Alfio's mirror image. These intricate ironies further amplify the interplay between reality and illusion so central to this double bill. Antonenko  is a tenor but sang Turiddu with forceful but purposeful volume, expressing the character's macho swagger extremely well. At Salzburg, Jonas Kaufmann sang the role but I'm glad we had Antonenko instead, although he doesn't have JK's starry glamour, because Antonenko  is very good because he keeps the focus on the ensemble.

Eva-Maria Westbroek sang Santuzza in Cav while Carmen Giannattasio sang Nedda in Pag. A good pairing,  since careful balance is integral to this double bill, and very much part of its impact.  Westbroek's star arias were delivered with superb style. One wonders more than ever why Turiddu would cheat on her with Lola (Martina Belli)  a part so undefined in the score that we don't know all that much about her charms other than that she has a nice nightgown. Again, appearances don't count for much! Santuzza loses her man but gains a mum (Elena Zilio) in Mamma Lucia.  Thanks to Leoncavallo's greater sophistication as a composer, Nedda  gives Carmen Giannattasio plenty to work with, which she does well. She portrays the multiple facets of the role with skill, switching from the tortured soul that is the "real" Nedda to the coy, posturing Columbine and back, even expressing the twee asides so much part of travelling performance. Benjamin Hulett impressed greatly as Beppe. Again, he acted with his voice. He needed no harlequin suit to mask the portrayal.

Paolo Fantin's set contributed greatly to pace, balance and meaning. Swift transformations, "outer" and "inner" perspectives switching like the reversals in the plots. The staging within a staging in Pagliacci was particularly effective. The "theatre" took place in a converted school gym  as semi-amateur performances often do.  For a short time, the villagers become more than themselves, but particiapants in the fantasy that is theatre. For a moment, we see the chorus wearing masks  - another reminder that, in opera, what you put in is as important as what you expect to get.  In this case, however, the "audience" get more than they expected, as the play becomes "reality" and Canio stabs Nedda. Suddenly the play ends, but the spirit of the Prologue still hovers, like a ghost.

"E voi, piuttosto
che le nostre povere gabbane d'istrioni,
le nostr'anime considerate,
poiché siam uomini
di carne e d'ossa......",

Costumes are costumes. they are not souls.

Cav & Pag, ROH - what a thieving magpie can tell us

Why did I spend big money to see tonight's Royal Opera House Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci?  I'm glad I went.   READ MY REVIEW HERE.

 Antonio Pappano has said of this Cav and Pag that it's "full of clichés but true to Italian life" (Read more HERE)  And he should know.  Neither Mascagni nor Leoncavallo wrote on the level of Verdi or Puccini (though read about Leoncavallo's Zazà HERE in Opera Today). But Cav & Pag work when they're done with style and panache. That's why Cav & Pag is Christmas fare. At Christmas we can swallow kitsch when it's festive and fun. Tis the season of goodwill, after all. But will the booing mob be out as usual getting their pleasures from incandescent hate ?

{My first thoughts on returning from Cav & Pag.  Anyone who does noy "get" the prologo  won't "get" the opera at all. Needless to say, some will blame this on the director when in fact, as the Prologue says, it's rthe author ! That should have the W"respect the composers wishes" crowd in a rage. Most of the time they don't understand the composers wishes)


Damiano Michieletto's Rossini Guillaume Tell had the mob spluttering.even though they didn't know the opera well enough to realize that violence (including an explicit reference to rape) is in the libretto and in the music. And how can they have missed that the whole opera predicates on sadistic violence and abuse of power? A man is forced to shoot his own child!  But two seconds of tit upset more people than sadistic torture and child cruelty.  What other groups  think killing is entertainment but the sight f female flesh a crime ?  Read my review Audience back Gesler, not Tell HERE)   

Mascagni and Leoncavallo present no such demands. Indeed, Cav & Pag thrive on gleeful cliché, so why not milk the fun for what it's worth.  Besides, director Michieletto knows his Italian repertoire pretty well. His Rossini La gazza ladra, first heard in 2007, was chosen to start this year's Pesaro festival, a place where people might just know a wee bit more about Rossini than most. At Pesaro, he has also directed La  Cenerentola, La scala di seta,  and Sigismondo. He has also directed productions at La Scala, Theater an der Wien and Salzburg, mostly Italian repertoire. Since he is Italian, chances are that he knows a bit about Italy and Italian society

I've written about Michieletto's La gazza ladra HERE It's a very fine production indeed, which captures the theiving magpie's fascination with bright, shiny things. the bird has a child's sense of wonder. The magpie loves silver because it's beautiful to look at. People love silver because it affirms their status over the poor. They're quite happy to see the innocent destroyed. In comparison, the magpie's crime is nothing at all. In La gazza Ladra, we can see the basic elements of Michieletto's style - child-like wonder, strong visual lines and so on.  His Guillaume Tell falls into place.

Michieletto's Rossini La scala di seta, is more robust and comical, reflecting the very different nature of the opera.  It's a farce that predicates on a woman meeting her secret husband who climbs up a rope of silk. Hence the set, like the opera, functions on quirky levels and  angles.  Visual gags and cheerful clichés. The opera is relatively slight but it sends up a society held together by pretensions and illusion. So that's why I hope the ROH Cav & Pag should be fun.