Real Rheingold?

At the start of the Met Das Rheingold, someone proudly announces that "James Levine is the best Wagner conductor that ever was!". Which explains a lot about the Met and its audiences.

Here's a clip from some nobodies known as Karajan, Schreier and the Berlin Philharmonic. What do Europeans know about opera, someone said to me recently. Well listen to this! I've chosen this clip because it illustrates one of the trickier sequences to stage, when Wotan and Loge enter the underworld of the Nibelungs. It's not as flashy as say, the Rainbow bridge, but in terms of the meaning of the Ring, it's critical, This scene embodies the conflict between the Gods and Alberich, between the haves and have-nots. This scene at the Met is well done, the best part of the whole production. It's good at filling the interlude  of the journey, But apart from that the expensive staging doesn't add to drama or meaning. It looks fantastic, so that'a plus.

The comment about Levine probably indicates a lot more than it seems. Basically, this is the same old Levine Ring from 30 years ago, with a high tech trendy backdrop. Why is it scary to think of Wagner's ideas? It's the drama that meant most to Wagner, and the complex, cosmic rationale behind them  Sets are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. I'll be writing more about the Lepage production, which is quite weak apart from the fancy technology. But what's even more interesting is what the wider implications are. What makes an opera dramatic? And what makes Wagner opera in particular what it is? Do people really care about meaning? Here's my analysis of the Met's Rheingold.

Met Rheingold and MORE coming up

High-tech Wagner? That's exactly what would have appealed to the old boy, who was fascinated by new possibilities. He was the man who dreamed up the mechanical dragon and wanted to crack the illusion of Rhinemaidens swimming. So in principle the new Das Rheingold at the Met with all that machinery and special effects fits that concept. But is it enough?

The Met Das Rheingold is screening in cinemas all over this week. Here's a review from NY:
"It will be no surprise to me, a year or five from now, when someone falls to her or his death from the guy-wires that configure so much of Robert Lepage’s new state-of-the-art (ah! But which art?) production of Der Ring des Nibelung. "
For more, please read the full piece in Opera Today.

HERE is my analysis based on the HD broadcast. 

Lots of opera on screen and on radio this week. Catch the last day of WNO's Rigoletto with Keenlyside and David Soar on BBC Radio 3, which gets replaced at 1800 GMT Saturday by Jonas Kaufmann in Lohengrin from Bayreuth. In the regular Thursday opera slot, also BBC Radio 3, there's a very good Smetana Bartered Bride from Prague - very bright and sparky. Don't miss. On Thursday 14th the slot switches to Berlioz Damnation of Faust from Nederlandse Opera.  What riches we have! All of these are available online, internationally and most on demand, so everyone can join.

Handel Radamisto ENO Coliseum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Handel Radamisto reviewed

My review of Handel's Radamisto at ENO Colisuem is up, , please click on the blue text.  Below is background giving scholarly insight, and written in a direct way. It's about the Alan Curtis recording with Joyce DiDonato, but goes much further.Understanding the repertoire is often the key to appreciating a performance.

This is value-added reading, so please follow this link to Opera Today to read more.

My take on the show -very positive with one huge exception - will be up shortly, and a longer version in Opera Today too.

Hartmann Die Witwe von Ephesus

A short sample of K A Hartmann's Die Witwe von Ephesus. The whole opera is only 11 minutes but go get the CD for more. Highly recommended. Beware anyone who thinks this is "opera" in the usual sense. Two main protagonists, "He" and "She" with four lesser parts, one of which is spoken and another a Cat that miaows. Some of the parts are interchangeable, so it's probably not stageable. How do you get a hanged man to sing? Extremely spare, but tightly written orchestration, which fits the essence of Hartmann's ethos. No waste, no fuss. Sharpness of delivery, quick timing. A man is condemned because "He who doesn't work, doesn't eat. Who doesn't eat, can't live. Ergo, we hang him". Ephesus 2000 years ago uncannily like the present. And his "widow" soon changes her mind. Please see my other pieces on Hartmann including Simplicius Simplicissimuss and Gesangsszene.

Disservices to Mahler

Mahler is money. This anniversary year has created a feeding frenzy,  drawing the unscrupulous to the feeding trough. Just like any commercial product, Mahler can be rebranded and repackaged so he can make more money. Lots of contenders for a medal for Disservices to Mahler. I was appalled by the latest offering. Scum. But by publicizing it, I'd be doing just what the perpetrator wants and bring the sycophants out in force. So I've pulled the post on the principle of  DON'T FEED TROLLS

Bizet Pearl Fishers in concert ROH

Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles is notoriously hard to stage. Because the plot's so grandiose, the imagination works overtime, dwarfing the music, making it seem puny in comparison. There's a lot to be said in favour of concert performances because they shift the balance back to Bizet.

What was striking in this performance of Les Pêcheurs de Perles (Pearl Fishers) at the Royal Opera House was how delicate much of Bizet's writing really is. It doesn't jump up and grab you like the tunes from Carmen. Bizet knows zilch about Indian music but in his imagination it's delicate and refined - Le petit Trianon India, as authentic as 18th century "oriental" wallpaper. Since nowadays we think of India with more realism, we're not conditioned to Bizet's watercolours.

Dispense with the "orientalism" and think of Les Pêcheurs de Perles as French countryside, and the opera falls into perspective. Kings and Priests dominate because peasants are superstitious, and think holy Virgins will protect them.  When the chorus sings of Brahma they could as easily be singing of Jesus. Get away from extreme exotic images and the music makes sense on its own terms.

Antonio Pappano is wise to let this delicacy breathe: over-expansive gestures are best left to the histrionic narrative. Bizet imagines India in delicate, refined string textures, flute trills and gently beaten cymbals.  Crescendi build up like swells in the ocean, diminuendos evoking gracious submission. Lovely bell-like miniatures throughout evoking an idea of the East as perfumed and flower strewn as a church in France on a holy day. There's more drama in this music than the opera is given credit for, and Pappano elucidates what's there, without pushing it past its limits.The delicacy of the playing let themes, such as those from the "big number",  resurface elusively throughout the opera, sometimes so subtle they can be overpowered by being made too obvious.

The Royal Opera House orchestra deserve more appreciation than they get, so it was good to see them on stage rather than hidden in the pit. Seeing the bare structure of the stage was instructive, too, a reminder of just how much art goes into making the fantasy of opera.

Leila is a part almost tailor-made for Nicole Cabell. She's exquisite, and swathed in sapphire satin creates a character even before she sings. Pretty singing too., but the role, despite its charm doesn't lend itself to great displays of passion. John Osborne's Nadir was assertive and lucidly clear in the true French manner. His aria Je crois entendre encore, was beautifully shaped and balanced, the orchestra poised around it well, so it did feel caché sous les palmiers.
 
The duet Au fond du temple saint was very well realized by Osborne and Gerald Finley. Finley was by far the biggest name in the ensemble, however good Osborne, Cabell and Raymond Aceto's Nourabad could be. More darkness would work well with Zurga, who is a very troubled man, but Finley's singing is so well modulated that he creates authenticity without apparent effort.

I loved the ENO Pearl Fishers because the staging (Penny Woolcock) really made sense of the plot and its undertones, infinitely more so than Bizet.  That's why it was an artistic triumph, despite the poverty of the singing (with the exception of excellent Quinn Kelsey). This ROH Les Pêcheurs de Perles is a triumph for the music. Surprisingly sensitive orchestral playing, good singing and enough drama in the music to compensate for the lack of visuals.A longer and better version of this will appear soon in Opera Today.

Turn of the Screw Opera North

New production of Britten's Turn of the Screw started at Opera North this week - Leeds first, then touring. Here's Rupert Christiansen in the Telegraph. He says "I don´t think that I have ever seen this masterpiece emerge more powerfully or disturbingly than it does in this electrifying new Opera North production. In terms of musical execution, it is of the highest distinction, but it is Alessandro Talevi´s staging that grabs one´s attention." ....."Talevi´s interpretation poses many questions but offers no answers. Subtle, suggestive and rigorously rehearsed, it keeps us guessing and imagining. I found it absolutely enthralling."

No surprise to anyone who's been following Talevi and his team over the years. Extremely original, imaginative, inspired by the music and the performers: always fresh insights and stimulating ideas. Exactly the kind of creativity that's needed to rejuvenate productions in big houses. ENO should pay attention! There's plenty on this site about Talevi and Independent Opera, right back to their fantastic Orlando at Sadler's Wells a few years ago. Read about their wonderful Pelléas et Mélisande HERE. There is real talent in this tiny company, it deserves support. Use the labels at right to read more.

Niobe Regina di Tebe - why it works

The Royal Opera House was packed out yesterday for the last performance of Niobe, Regina di Tebe Many musicians in the audience, many others back for repeat performances, including one Famous Writer returning at his own expense (shock!). Niobe was certainly a wild card. Baroque tends to be box office poison, and completely unknown baroque is almost certainly doomed. But what an opera and what a staging! This will be one of my "bests" for the year.

Read HERE for a well-informed analysiis of the music and performance. What I'll do is figure why it worked so well.

Intensely committed playing by the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble, founded by conductor Thomas Hengelbrock  who unearthed the score. They unveiled Niobe at Schwetzingen in 2008 where they wowed a specialist audience innured to baroque rarities. The London audience certainly aren't specialists but enjoyed the music on its own terms. What verve, what vivacity! Fanfares played from up in the balcony, drums heard off-stage creating the tensions of war. Strange, unearthly sounds that accompany the Spirits in black - "underwater" sounds made by ancient instruments but which sound totally up to the minute. Baroque reiterations can be mind-numbingly boring, but this performance zipped along. Possibly Hengelbrock edited it, but that's good, since it liberates the inherent drama in the music.

Even the plot's dramatic, by opera standards (often pretty daft). Niobe takes on the Gods, challenging them with her beauty, ancestry and fertility. Bad deal. Husband, kingdom and all 14 of her kids are destroyed and Niobe's turned to stone. In Greek myth her Earth Mother aspects are played up. Agostino Steffani plays up her Sex Goddess image, which makes for racier theatre. After all, she's mesmerizingly beautiful and her lovers think she'll replace Venus. Erotically explicit love duets, elements of farce as her husband Anfione (Jacek Laszczkowski) interrupts a tryst. The kids aren't much in evidence in this production because Steffani probably knew the sex sells better. Niobe's a riot, tauntingly placing the crown of Thebes on current boyfriend, shocking Anfione more than the fact that she sleeps around.

Véronique Gens plays Niobe. She's statuesque (bad pun on what happens later), an imposing imperatice. After all, Jupiter was her ancestor. Gens has been singing baroque since her youth, one of the best in the business.. Absolute purity of tone, clarity, depth of expression. Although she sings almost without a break, her stamina doesn't flag. Indeed, her energy electrified all around her, making her fate all the more ironic. In the final scene she holds her arms at an odd angle, frozen mid-stance by the Gods' curse. Then everyone else seems to freeze frame, too, around her.

This being baroque, expect ultra-high male voices. Jacek Laszczkowski is a male soprano. Of course he sings higher than any other man in town: in comparison counter tenors like Iestyn Davies (Creonte) and Tim Mead (Clearte) sound almost butch. To modern ears hearing men sing like women may be disconcerting but in the baroque age that's exactly what made them heroes - only rough guys sing bass, like Alastair Miles's Poliferno, garbed as a sinister angel.

Baroque means spectacle. Silver balls rotate, and a huge glitterball moves, lit so that lights reflect all round the ROH auditorium, transforming it into fantasy light show. Real flames, and balloons that explode. Theatre with panache, but also true to the plot, for the balloons are  like Niobe's delusions, punctured by fate.

Lots of humour, too, to liven the pace. Delphine Galou is Nerea, whose job is to mind the kids while Niobe cavorts. Nicely burlesque acting, an earthy foil to Niobe's high falutin' graces. Anfione's dying aria is jazzed up with mock-sobbing, Laszczkowski 's voice bobbing up and down, as if Steffani's suggesting that the King, too, is another of Niobe's babes.

Violence, too. Niobe kicks Tiresia the priest (Bruno Taddia), followed by Nerea and the kids (only 4 on show). Wonderful  dance sequences, black clad figures manipulating flaccid bodies, later all emerging from a billowing black silk sac: all images linked to themes in the drama (Choreographer -Thomas Stache)

Spectacular production, baroque beats West End! Yet for all the gorgeousness, the set is remarkably minimal. A wall with shuttered windows, the only furnishings two chairs.  The main "effects" like the glitter dome appear only when  needed. The rest is up to Raimund Bauer's lighting designs, as imaginative and lively as Lukas Hemlab's direction. Costumes (Andrea Schmidt-Futterer) are gorgeous, but the lighting enhances even these, bathing them in glowing gold. Proof that minimal can be astonishingly luscious.

Boulez Mahler 10 Cleveland

Pierre Boulez, the Cleveland Orchestra and Mahler - perfect partners. Their recording of Mahler's Seventh Symphony is outstanding, one of the landmark performances in the whole discography. Immediate alert then for Boulez's return to Severance Hall in this live recording from February 2010.

What spark! This zips along, crackingly vivid and spontaneous. Mahler delighted in the quaint charms of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, but anyone listening to the Wunderhorn symphonies can hear what sophisticated use he made of them. Mahler transformed cute to cosmic. Bucolic humour yes, but no delusions If kitschy-folksy is what you want from Mahler you'll probably get a shock from the sharp, sardonic wit of these performances. But what light they shed on the symphonies!

Understand the songs, and you learn the fundamentals of Mahler's output. It's not just the way song themes weave through the early symphonies, but the whole idea of symphonic construction based on cells of song, elaborated and expanded. "One long trajectory from Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen to Das Lied von der Erde and beyond", someone once said - I think Boulez but can't check. In any case, Boulez learned his Mahler 60 years ago from the songs upwards. Boulez's Mahler is important because he understand the essential structural foundations.

Magdalena Kožená and Christian Gerhaher sing twelve songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn.  Much as I love Schwarzkopf and Fischer-Dieskau (my first Mahler), their emphasis was on words first, music as support. Hence the self-conscious quaintness. Ludwig and Berry even "act" the songs on the video released a while back. Kožená and Gerhaher adhere, instead, to a more "musical" perspective.  Kožená's particularly interesting, because she has an extremely bright, crisp tone which works well with the Clevelanders's lucidity. Gushily sentimental Wunderhorns you can hear anytime, but this one's different because Kožená sounds like a soloist in the orchestra. You're listening to how she interacts with the orchestra..

But the songs on this recording are no match for the performance of the Adagio from Mahler's Tenth Symphony.  This is brilliant in every sense - how the strings in  particular gleam and shine!

Sinuous introduction that reaches outwards - the shepherd's mournful tune from Tristan und Isolde, perhaps? The connections are apposite, given the "to live for you, to die for you, Almschi" connotations. Notice how the winds repeat the theme again, just as in the opera, Mahler's personal favourite, which he never delegated to other conductors. Thus the powerful, surging undercurrents that Boulez brings from the Clevelanders, swelling like the tides in an ocean drawn by the moon. This is the heartbeat of the movement, surging and ebbing - you almost feel the physical presence of Mahler, who wasn't to know then what his heart would do to him. In this Adagio, he seems reinvigorated, full of life and new hope. Boulez and Prof Henry-Louis de la Grange have been close since the 1940's, so Boulez is up to date with the latest research.

The rich sonorities become lighter, more exoteric, textures clearing, soaring upwards, quirky, elusive strings and woodwinds til recapitulation of the main theme, brass at the crest, then the "shepherd" theme heard from a distance, almost unadorned, rising forth. Then POW!!  the orchestra ignite in huge crescendi culminating in blasts of sound so intense you could be fooled into thinking there was a huge organ somewhere in that surge. It's astonishing, a scream of intensity and passion so great that it explodes the myth that Boulez is clinical. Cool headed, yes, but with intense emotional depth.  This continues with the quieter resolution. More restraint, but such feeling and commitment.  My goodness - to have been at Severance Hall the night this was recorded.  Congratulations to Cleveland, playing in absolute top form. What a night to remember! The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the finest in the world, Let's hope the locals appreciate their good fortune.

Early Chinese cinema - Two Stars in the Milky Way

More Chinese Weimar - Two Stars in the Milky Way (1931).  Art Deco Shanghai in all its glory, and documentary about Chinese film making. Essential background viewing for anyone interested in cinema, China and social mores.

Violet Wong plays Lee Yuenying, daughter of a scholarly gentleman who composes entirely in western style - piano, bust of Beethoven etc. Perfect life of gentility, "western style" adapted to 1920's China.

Outside their villa on the China coast (near Shanghai by the shape of the sails on the junks) a film company is making a movie. The crew hear Yuenying singing (western song though it's silent). Great shots of how they set up on location filming in those days, complete with hordes of onlookers, peasant farmers and coolies in the background. No need for extras, bystanders just turned up and were incorporated into the film. Watch the hand wound cameras, look at the director with white scarf and solar topee. No costumes needed, they just filmed each other.

Being a nice girl, Yuenying doesn't do public shows, so the film crew go to watch her give an "exhibition dance" for charity. Fantastic 1920's theatre. You can see why Shanghai was the greatest art deco city in the world - the angular lines and patterns fit seamlessly with Chinese geometric concepts of design. Yuenying dances a vaguely "Egyptian" dance, arms bent at angles, elegant poses, very "moderne". Definitely influenced by Ballets Russe. the Tutankhamen craze of the 1920's etc. Shanghai absolutely up to date with what was hot in Europe.

Cut to the film studio and its big 1920's mahogany boardroom. Boss says about the future of Chinese cinema, "We of the film industry have a mission to fulfill, to propagate the values of our people  and contributing knowledge to the public through the screen".

Eventually  westernized, educated Yuenying agrees to act in a movie about traditional China, and sings, too. Not Chinese opera though  as the scenario is highly realistic. As the film is silent, we don't know what she sings. Could be anything, as in China, the lines between genres aren't so strict, like in the west. Yuenying and the actor hero, Yang Yeeyan, fall in love. They have a date playing mini-golf where they meet a rival actress who fancies Yang too. Mini-golf with mini pagodas and mini Chinese bridges - kitsch even then. Watch out too for the fancy car they ride in,  with Dad in the pull down jump seat!

Film is success, and studio hires the art deco theatre for dinner party. Orchestra on stage, first violin takes bow - wonderful authentic looking shot. Yuenying's father and studio boss decide to arrange a marriage, but Yang's cousin reminds him he has a "country-bred" wife at home in the provinces. Too scared to tell Yuenying he's already married traditional style, Yang pretends to be cheating on her with other actress. Heartbroken, Yuenying and father leave the "evil" city and return to their villa by the sea. Film ends with shot of Yang as an old man with stick, and Yuenying, now orphaned, singing by her father's empty chair. Two sequences, transposed. Honour wins over love, but love doesn't end. The title refers to a legend about lovers who were torn apart, turned into stars in the Milky Way.


This is a keynote film, because it shows how Chinese cinema was every bit as up to date as in the west. It's also important because it's "about" Chinese cinematography and moral values.The bosses' speeches in the studio come straight from the heart. Cinema in China was part of the process of becoming modern, and was an expression of progressive sociual principles. What wonderful sets! Also authentic - cheaper to film live than build sets. Read more by searching on this site and also The Chinese Mirror, the best English-language resource on Chinese film on the net. Both films on the DVD have English subtitles. The other film, Spray of Plum Blossoms stars the iconic Ruan Lingyu and is based on Shakespeare. It's worth watching too. Ruan deserves whole posts on  her own - search her name on this site. Violet Wong was a relative of Marion Wong, who made the first Chinese American movie, the Curse of Quon Gwon, in 1917. Although second-generation ABC she easily integrated back to China, quite different to Anna May Wong.  Please take some time to explore my site as there is a lot about Chinese film and culture, Chinese stereotypes, western, Chinese and Japanese film. Spercial emphasis on vintage film and the way film fits into society.

Rise and Fall of Mahagonny - La Fura dels Baus Madrid

La Fura dels Baus's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at Teatro Real, Madrid is so raw and savage that it hurts. Which is exactly as it should be.

Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill were writing to shock. What could be more pertinent today than a parable of greed and depravity, where the worst crime  a man can commit is to have no money?

Mountainous piles of garbage on the stage, the "desert" the desert of the soul. From the trash emerge strange, half-human creatures. But this is realism. All over the world municipal dumps are where the destitute end up, scavenging an existence from the detritus the rich throw away. Brecht could not have found a better metaphor for the End of Capitalism.

From this arises the City of Mahagonny, with a Rich Man's Hotel. The rubbish piles are covered with green baize but  something's clearly unnatural here. In Spain the image has extra kick, given that huge parts of the country are devastated by irresponsible tourism. Despite cheap alcohol and sex, people keep trying to leave. Even simple Alaskan woodsman Jimmy Macintyre (Michael König) knows that something's wrong if things are too easy.

Excellent new libretto. Translation is free but so sharp it expresses the attack of the original. Brecht would have loved the directness. The Teatro Real Orchestra, conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado, is crisp and unsentimental  As the orchestra pumps up and down rhythms, the chorus and actors pump up and down in sexual orgy. It's depraved, but not indecent because they're emphasizing the mechanical anonymity embedded in the music.

Superb choruses, too. The "chorales" were extremely well done. Everyone knows the "jazz" references in this score but the Madrid chorus understand how much deeper the cultural references go. This is a story where good and bad compete and bad wins. Even God gets trumped. No illusions here that Mahagonny is a "musical". It's cosmic, an atheist struggle of life and death with the brutal message: You Can't Help a Dead Man.  The implication is, do something before it's too late. It's actually an advantage that the chorus are Spanish, they try harder to articulate. 

Michael König is an unusually deep Jimmy, by no means a buffoon. After all, he's the central protagonist. His friends swallow the delusion, but Jimmy does his own thing. Hurricanes don't scare him, the real danger is Man. It's because he's been kind to Alaska-Wolf Joe that he loses everything and is condemned to die. König's Jimmy is much stronger than he lets on, which gives logic to the Final Act.

In a world where "you make your own bed, and choose to stand up or be kicked", he's killed. But he has stood up for his principles, and has "kicked" because he hasn't compromised his innate decency. If he's trapped in the upside down morality of Mahagonny, he can take his leave with dignity because he, unlike everyone else, hasn't sold out.  Wonderful performance - a model for others to learn from.

Measha Brueggergosman is magnificent as Jenny Smith. Few singers have stage presence like she does - once seen, never forgotten. Indeed, she's such a strong personality that it might have inhibited her being cast in mainstrean roles, but her voice has a good range and she has the ability to slip into charcter well. More, please!  Her Jenny operates on several levels at once. "Eine Frau ist keine Tiere!" the words go, but this Jenny moves like an animal, ever vigilant. After all, she's in a jungle where you kill to survive. That ultra-tight bra must have been uncomfortable to wear but that costume fits the persona if not the person. This Jenny's restrained, held in too tightly because she doesn't really know how to "kick" like Jimmy does. The dynamic between König and Brueggergosman is superb. Here Jimmy and Jenny really are a pair, though Jimmy's way ahead emotionally.

Willard White as Trinity Moses is superb - when he takes his clothes off he reveals the physique of a man of 35! He, too, has commanding stage presence: vocally no fancy bits in the part to distract from his menace.  Donald Kaasch's Fatty the Bookkeeper's a thuggish creep, but he, too, has hidden depths. When he takes his shirt off, on his back, there's a magnificent tattoo of an Eygptian God of Judgement. Jane Henschel's Leocadia Begbick looks like a sweet old lady, but watch her eyes slant and glint! Good cameos, too - watch out for John Easterlin (Bank Account Bill) and Otto Katzameier (Jack O'Brien).

Interestingly, the production seems to have been designed around the performance space in Madrid, with relative small floor area but seven tiers rising above. The live audience would have had a lot to look at, but the filming was rather less effective. I couldn't believe it when a camera jerkily panned toward a detail of architecture at the beginning, and shot it out of focus. Surely that was the crest of the Royal House of Spain? I don't think the cameraman meant anything by that. Fortunately there were cameras placed in the rafters to capture the piles of rubbish looming high above the singers. The Metropolis of Mahagonny as Tower of Babel wrought in trash.

The Final Scene shows the cursed people of Mahagonny. Having chosen not to follow God "but their own way", they march with banners on which slogans are written. I don't know Spanish, but in Brecht's original the slogans are both militant and ironic. There's no easy answer to the dilemma of modern capitalism but the main thing is to respond.

Since this was filmed, there'll probably be a DVD, in which case, grab it. La Fura dels Baus led by Alex Ollé and Carlus Padrissa, staged Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre at ENO. Who can forget the gigantic woman, used and abused by all, yet looking outwards with dignified vulnerability? The production reached levels  the opera didn't access: in New York without staging, the full impact might have been lost. Almost certainly, there'll be many eager to reject this production because of the rubbish dump, simulated sex and pig trough orgy, but maybe they should stick to West End feelgoods instead. This Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny packs a punch, and can't be ignored. Just what Brecht and Weill would have loved.

Opera at the Movies Bachtrack

Keeping up with opera screened in movie theatres is tricky - different cinema chains., different distributors, minimal publicity. Now here's help!

Check out the Bachtrack site (listed on the right of this page for easy reference. It's the best site for planning your schedule - everything in the same place, including things off the beaten track (Like Westminster Cathedral Dream of Gerontius).  I use it all the time.

They've got details of Royal Opera House and NY Met screenings plus also Opus Arte European opera, most of which is top notch. More soon, too. Like Berlin Deutsche Oper's new season which features some of the top stars, including Joyce DiDonato,Jospeh Calleja, Jonas Kaufmann and this year's hot property Vittorio Grigolo - although you'll have to look through the listings carefully as they often have different casts for different nights of the same production. As well as the established repertoire, they are making a point of producing some lesser known operas such as Strauss's Die Liebe der Danae and Cassandra and Respighi's Marie Victoire.

When you're using the main "find an opera" or "find a ballet" pages, look out for one or more yellow bubbles at the top of the listing results: these will tell you if there are any cinema or on-demand listings which match your search.

Opera on film is different to opera live or on audio recording.  Much depends on the musical intelligence of the film-maker. Some, like Brian Large, can turn trash to (almost) gold. Gone are the days when stand and shoot was enough - the camera has to follow the detail in a meaningful way. Long term there are implications for stageceraft because film opens possibilities not practicable in live performance. Certainly there are implications for the experience of opera, since audiences anywhere will get to see top quality shows. The end of one-city, one-house insularity.  When people are actually exposed to things they've only read about before, perhaps they'll have more progressive attitudes. Some of the hysteria about "Regie" might dissipate when people realize the word simply means "directed". In French and German it's just a word but to some English-only speakers it's red flags to bulls.

Met Rheingold and ENO Faust

The world did not collapse because the Met staged a new production of Das Rheingold with Robert Lepage's ultramodern staging. See HERE for reviews with photos. Unprecedented expense - the floor had to be reinforced before the sets could safely be installed. The ultimate "special effects" production. Maybe that's what stunned the audience into submission.  Why not . We all know the story and spectacle is definitely what Wagner would have enjoyed.

So why the fuss in the UK press about Gounod Faust at the ENO? Des McAnuff's Faust is going to the Met soon, so maybe for a change NY audiences will be primed to appreciate it better after the shock and awe of Rheingold.

Ironically, McAnuff's Faust is a lot closer to Goethe than Gounod was.  Being a theatre man he goes straight to the heart of the drama. What a story! A  holy old man selling his soul to the devil for a day of youth. He causes mayhem yet is redeemed by love. Goethe didn't need, as Gounod did, to pretty the tale up with divertissements to please the Paris audience. Gloire immortelle de nos aïeux is so wonderful that Gounod had to adjust the plot around it. It had to be "Frenchified" to work. While the essential bones of the story are there, Gounod uses extras like Siébel and Wagner, and some of the Gothic edge is smoothed away.

Plenty of accurately dressed French peasants in the ENO production, so why the fuss? So what if McAnuff's first scene takes place in what looks like a lab? Faust studied the Black Arts, and was completely aware that knowledge can be dangerous if it's used for evil purposes. He called up the Devil, after all. What could be more apposite than atomic bombs? They don't stay in view for long, anyway, and the complex structure of spiral staircases lend itself well when Méphistophélès scoots about from on high.


Similarly, why not psychedelic effects and lurid lights? Witches are afoot in Walpurgisnacht, which is traditionally associated with glowing lights in the mist and bonfires to ward off evil spirits. See the industrial-looking observation building (1890's)  at Brocken in the Harz where Goethe's Walpurgisnacht supposedly took place. (click to expand for detail)

The ENO Faust deserves a lot more respect than it's given. I don't know how Toby Spence was singing on the first night, but the night I went he was very good indeed. Vocally clear and sweet-toned, as befits the "youthful" Faust. Which is how Gounod wrote the part - not for a hefty baritone. Remember too that he knows the part in French. Even if he's a native English speaker, he's a musician accustomed to hearing the musical logic of the original.  Generally good performances all round.

Wouldn't it be ironic if notoriously conservative New York audiences got more out of ENO's Faust than supposedly sharp Londoners ? Now that would be Faustian. Please come back, I'll be writing abiout the Met Lepage Rheingold soon. Search around on this site. There's LOTS on Wagner, The Ring, Stagecraft and Robert LePage.

Watch the FULL DOWNLOAD HERE of F W Murnau's Faust (1927)

NIobe Royal Opera House - well informed review

Agostino Steffani's Niobe regina di Tebe is a smash hit at the Royal Opera House. Wild card, for sure. Bijoux like Niobe would normally appear in tiny specialist houses catering to the cognoscenti. Picking this for ROH took guts because such obscurities are almost guaranteed not to reach the mass market. For a change good artistic judgment has paid off. Niobe is the hit of the season, bringing in audiences who might not otherwise do obscure baroque. Lots of last minute extra bookings being made.  This was the opera I'd really been keen to get to, and managed to reschedule so I can.

HERE is the review by Sue Loder in Opera Today. Read it - this is extremely well written, a model of well-informed, judicious thought. If only more writing was as good as this! So read and enjoy. Lots of photos too, well chosen editorially. My own summary on why the opera works so well is HERE

"The quality of the vocal writing matches the inventiveness of the music which seems to hover, musicologically, somewhere between Cavalli and early Handel. The recitatives are lyrical, the arias and duets constantly change form and texture with no one vocal style predominating. There is no aria longer than five minutes and the da capo form in its full Handelian sense is missing: this helps to drive the action forward and several set-piece arias are interrupted by another character. The orchestration is equally complex and thoroughly fascinating in its detail and richness; often a character will be assigned his or her “own” obbligato instrument - such as the nurse Nerea who sings several slightly cynical or world-weary arias with some virtuosic recorder playing echoing her complaints. Anfione is often accompanied by the smaller strings and viola da gamba. Under the confident and stylish direction of Hengelbrock, his expanded orchestra gives an object lesson in how to transfer what was an intimate festival performance in 2008 into a major house display in 2010."