Dvořàk before Rusalka - The King and the Charcoal Burner

"Dating from the early part of Antonin Dvořák’s career, The King and the Charcoal Burner (Král a uhlíř) was composed in 1871, the time when he was also establishing his reputation with his first symphonic works....

"A summary of the plot is useful to point out the situations which would inspire Dvořák’s musical imagination. In the first act, the scenes lend themselves to a series of numbers: a chorus of huntsmen, a duet between the lovers Liduška and Jenik, a chorus of coal burners, and other pieces. The end of the act also involves popular-sounding music that evokes the peasants’ merrymaking, and the religious idiom of the “Angelus” prayer at the end of the scene. In this act the music is as important as the libretto in setting up the dramatic situation."

".... As strong a work as Rusalka is, The King and the Charcoal Burner offers insights into its composers other efforts in opera. "

Dalibor Jenis sings the King. For him alone the new CD should be worth listening to. Recently, he sang Renato in the Royal Opera House Un ballo in maschera. From many accounts he "made" the production. He's charismatic, a very bright man who loves his work. He'll go far. See in this interview with him why his Renato was so good. Look at the pic – he's a hunk !

Read the full review by James L Zychowicz of The King and the Charcoal Burner here

Neville Cardus - not a Beckmesser

By its nature, music criticism is ephemera, designed to be read as soon as possible after a concert or CD release and then forgotten. as quickly as the newsprint on which they're printed gets thrown away? So why do people still relish what Neville Cardus wrote in the 1940's? The man himself wasn't a literary giant like George Bernard Shaw who's remembered because people assume that being a famous playwright precludes the writing of opinionated tosh. But Cardus stands out because he wasn't just writing about what he heard but how it worked on him. When you read Cardus you're reading a man who's engaging with what he hears.

There's a story about a college professor who had a huge grant to build a machine that could produce music. Each phrase took hours of calculation. Along comes a man who cackles with delight, twitches a few knobs on the machine, and out comes something original and listenable. College professor says, "that cannot be music, he doesn't know how the machine works!" But the man was Luciano Berio who may not have had a clue about the machine but knew how to make it sing. Which further proves that even electronic music doesn't come from an object other than the human mind.

So what's the connection between Neville Cardus and Luciano Berio? Cardus wasn't a trained musician but, like Berio, used his brain creatively, applying intuition, knowledge and experience to the way he listened. What he did was a form of artistic expression, because he was channeling ideas about what he heard into something others could understand, and help them to think and feel for themselves. Not for nothing he was supposed to have said that music writing was "collaborative". The act of listening involves several layers of creative involvement. The performer is interpreting the composer's notes and the listener is processing in their minds what they're hearing. Listening is not passive, but a kind of skill in itself. Reading Cardus is like having a wise friend with you, enriching your experience.

Once Cardus spotted another eminent critic following a score during a concert. So he peeked. The other critic was reading the score of an entirely different symphony. The man was reading whatever he had to hand, to distract from an excruciating performance of what was being played. So neither man cared about theoretical perfection, but listened for artistic values.

Thoughtful listening is a skill in itself. Hans Sachs is the ultimate "good listener" who can see what Walter is getting at even if Walter hasn't got there yet. Beckmesser is so consumed by non-artistic baggage that all he can do is mark the slate with "mistakes". He gets more and more carried away with trashing Walter so that he almost destroys the poor kid. Whether Beckmesser can sing himself is immaterial (he's a Meistersinger too, after all).

Nuremberg would have lost a great talent if the Meistersingers had followed Beckmesser's hysteria. Unfortunately in the real world there are very few Sachs indeed, and millions of Beckmessers, many of whom haven't the faintest idea what they are talking about. But because they're loud and impressive, they carry the crowd. Everyone in an audience has an opinion, but not all opinions are the same (even if they agree). So it would be interesting to learn how Cardus got his listening skills and how he turned music writing into an art form of its own.

There's a new book out on Cardus which I cannot possibly recommend. There are lots of chapters, each only a few pages long. Lots of quotations which serve as padding rather than add substance. It's like reading a desk diary, full of amusing quotes but little attempt to order them into coherent analysis. Maybe it's biography for the twitter generation. How odd that the subject should be Cardus who was in many ways the opposite of what the book is like. By not naming the book I'm being kind. Since collections of Cardus's own work and autobio are still available check these out instead.

BBC Proms 2009 - starting this week!

This year's Proms start on Friday 17th July. Live, broadcast on radio, TV, online and available for repeat on demand listening.

This year's Proms are solid good value. The First Night starts with fireworks, of course! – a short burst of Stravinsky's Fireworks, op 4. The music in the video comes from The Firebird, which it eventually inspired, but visually this clip is fun! This concert has an all-star line=up: Alice Coote singing Brahms's Alto Rhapsody (the reason I'm going), Stephen Hough and the sisters Labèque, heralding this year's emphasis on music for the piano; Ailish Tynan and Jiřì Bélohlávek. The atmosphere on the First Night, though, is what makes it special. Even if you can't be there in person, crack open the champagne or at least a cold beer and imagine!

Next night, Paul McCreesh conducts Haydn The Creation with a new, revised text.

This year's earlier Handel Partenopes have been covered on this blog – ENO HERE and Theatre an der Wien HERE. The BBC broadcast the Vienna performance with Christine Schäfer and Patricia Bardon earlier this year – it was excellent! This Proms version on 19th July has Lars Ulrik Mortensen conducting Concerto Copenhagen. This one should stand up to the more elaborate staged performances by sheer musical quality, since CoCo is one of the top specialist baroque orchestras in Europe. With Andreas Scholl, Christophe Dumaux, and Inger Dam-Jensen singing, you can bet this is going to be good. I heard Inger sing songs by Grieg, Stenhammer and Sibelius ten days ago at the City of London Festival. She's in good form.

That's the first weekend, three concerts of nearly 80. The Proms are fun because they're a communal event. Even if you listen alone on your PC you are part of what is happening perhaps thousands of miles away. Most years I listen to nearly every Prom, live and on the radio. Last year I wrote about 45 of the concerts, so please keep coming back to this blog for more. There's a button "Subscribe" top right which enables automatic updates. Here you won't get much cliché. Contributions and suggestions are welcome. I've already done a preview about new music at this year's Proms HERE. Being a mass audience festival supported by the taxpayer, it's pretty remarkable how much new music gets into the Proms.

New series of streamed operas online -Goethe

Opera Today magazine is big on repertoire. It streams whole operas, usually grouped round a theme so they can be appreciated in context. Usually they'ree supported with full librettos and reference material. A labour of love!

The latest theme is Goethe, who inspired so many composers in so many genres. First off in the season is a 1953 studio performance of Gounod's Faust featuring Boris Christoff, Nicolai Gedda and Victoria de los Angeles. Andre Cluytens conducts. It's excellent, I'm enjoying it so much. Listen to it HERE

Previous series, which you can still access include :
Operas to poetry by Friedrich von Schiller - seven operas incl Don Carlos etc
Das Ring des Neibelungen - Wolfgang Sawallisch in Rome 1968
Ten operas featuring Maria Callas
Thirteen operas of Richard Strauss
Sixteen operas on the theme Greeks Bearing Gifts

Keep exploring the site as there are many, many more goodies within, including rarities. Some sites are just collections of reviews, but Opera Today is dedicated to much more. Bookmark it for weeks of busy listening.

Tosca - Terfel, Gheorghiu, Giordani

There was no way this Tosca, at the Royal Opera House, London was ever going to be anything but a popular success given the three principals, Terfel, Gheorghiu, Giordani. Read Melanie Eskenazi HERE
Please also see Intermezzo's blog, it's good !

Ghana Goes Gay For Obama

Ecstatic crowds greet President Obama in Ghana. Ghanaians are ebullient and "go gay", as they used to say in the 1950's, when they have something to celebrate. And they've got lots to celebrate. Ghana was the first sub-Saharan nation to gain independence. It's one of the more prosperous countries in Africa, with good standards of education, health and security. So it's not surprising that Ghana´s musicians have been writing songs of welcome ("akwaaba" in the Twi language) for President Barack Obama, and for what he represents beyond himself. For the most prominent of these, Blakk Rasta's "Barack Obama" click here and then on "barak obama" button on the web page)

Obama is not the first head of state whose visit to Ghana has been celebrated by Ghanaian musicians. Bill Clinton and George W Bush seem to have been given a miss, but when Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited in November 1959 Ghanaians "went gay" with King Bruce & The Black Beats´ track "The Queen´s Visit".

Yet what Ghanaians are celebrating has world significance. It is symbolic because it connects the people of all Africa with those in North and South America, and the Caribbean, whose ancestors were taken as slaves. When Michelle and his daughters visit the old slave fort, it will be a spiritual akwabaa, homecoming, for millions who never returned.

But the visit is equally important as an expression of the diversity of cultures around the world which have sprung from the African diaspora. Where would North American music be without jazz? Or Brazilian culture without African influence? Or the Caribbean, and Black Britain ? There is an African sensibility that spans regional divides.

This song "The Birth of Ghana" was recorded in London in November 1956 by Lord Kitchener. The name's wryly ironic. This isn't Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, the imperialist, but a Trinidadian calypso star who lived in postwar London, as did Kwame Nkrumah. So non-West African musicians were involved in the celebration of Ghana´s independence.
This clip is a classic example of the important crossovers in styles and personnel between black musicians from the Caribbean and Africa in London in the 1950s so carefully documented in the four-part "London is the Place for Me" series of CDs issued by Honest Jon´s Records.

Nkrumah was, of course, a passionate advocate of Pan-Africanism. So it's wonderful to mark the Obamas' visit to Ghana with this song. Watch out in the video for snaps of Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno and WEB DuBois. The post-colonial era was full of idealism. Nkrumah would be proud of what modern Ghana has achieved.

Ghanaian popular music has often touched on social issues or noteworthy political events. In the 1950s the highlife pioneer ET Mensah and his band celebrated the Ghanaian independence struggle and its heroes with "Ghana Freedom" in 1957 and Kwame Nkrumah´s pioneering attempts at pan-African union with "Ghana-Guinea-Mali", another song popular at the time.

Linking popular music with political comment did not always come easy: when the government got wind of the fact that "Ghana Freedom" name-checked among the heroes of independence politicians who were in opposition and out of favour with Nkrumah´s Convention People´s Party, Decca was forced to pull a run of 10,000 discs (big sales were to be expected in West Africa) and its engineers did a hasty edit, deleting the offending sections.

(Selections of ET Mensah and King Bruce were re-issued on the RetroAfric label a few years ago and are stil available at http://www.retroafric.com/

Macau food - minchee and bread pudim

Macau cuisine is as hybrid as everything else in the culture. Hooray! Macanese food mixes Chinese, Malay, Indian and Portuguese, so removed from their origins as to be almost unrecognizable. Recipes are handed down by family tradition, so they vary from home to home. The iconic soul food is minche or minchee (minced pork stir fried with soy sauce, lots of onions, garlic and pepper, garnished with little cubes of fried potato). Some add a fried egg on top, some add minced beef or ginger. Some minches swim in soy sauce, some are crisp and dry. Europeans may think it sounds like shepherd's pie, but it's cooked in a different way and always served with rice and Chinese greens, like a Chinese dish. Now it's trendy to eat "Macau food" they have "minche fan" on menus in some restaurants. Luckily minche has an exact translation in Chinese, meaning mince.

Here is another typical Macau recipe called "bread pudding" pudim de pao. It's nothing like English bread pudding .
15 eggs - yes 15! one pound of sliced white bread! (bread in South China is always white and paper-like) one pound sugar! 1 pound sugarcoated dried fruit! Serves 8!

Soak the bread in water til soggy (about 5 minutes) Mix eggs, sugar and milk (in tropical South China, they do buffaloes not cows, so milk comes in tins by Carnation). Then mix in the diced fruit and bread and pour the dough into a mould and bake. In these more health conscious days this recipe will probably not catch on. But Macanese people have good genes (hybrid vigour) and many live past 100. LOTS MORE on this site about MACAU, macau food, hong kong, Chinese culture, Chinese food, Chinese movies, Macau history etc

Berg Lulu – Chéreau stagecraft

At last, after all these years of knowing Berg’s Lulu from the acclaimed audio recording conducted by Pierre Boulez, I’ve managed to see the 1979 production on film. It was directed by Patrice Chéreau with whom Boulez created The Ring Cycle for Wieland Wagner which so transformed Bayreuth and Wagner performance practice. After 40 years, that Ring (readily available on DVD) isn’t shocking at all, but quite apposite to the music and symbolism.

Although I saw the original Chéreau Lulu first time out, I can’t remember much because I was so shaken by the plot and music. Nothing scary about the staging though, which seemed pretty conventional even for the time. Perhaps this was necessary as this was the first time the opera had been heard in its full three-act glory and it was a lot for audiences to take on board.

Teresa Stratas looks perfect for the role – frail and birdlike, her limbs darting in odd, angular jerks. She’s nimble, swaying her hips like the snake the Animal Trainer refers to. When she catches the Painter between her knees, she snares him like a boa constrictor. She’s so flat chested you can see her ribs, so fragile looking you think she’ll break when embraced. Physically she brings out the dark side of the plot, the danger, the child abuse and cruelty. No wonder Stratas is rated by many as a good Cho Cho San even if her voice isn’t lush enough for Puccini. As an actress, she’s fine, though no one can come near to the incomparable Christine Schäfer who haunts every frame of the Glyndebourne production.

Chéreau’s production of Lulu came in for flak because he moved the time from turn of the century Vienna to the 1930’s. Why this should have caused a fuss is incomprehensible, since Berg was writing in the 1930’s and wasn’t following Wedekind slavishly in any case. Moreover, nothing in the narrative actually references a particular period. There wasn’t a revolution in Paris in Wedekind’s time any more than in Berg’s : what counts is the sense of looming disaster, which a 1930’s setting expresses even better. They had a stock market crash for real! Had Berg lived, he and many close to him would have suffered under the Nazis, and he knew it. As for Jack the Ripper, in this opera he’s symbolic, not historical.

Sets and designs (Richard Peduzzi) are completely realistic. The Painter’s studio has paintings, not just of Lulu. One looks vaguely like a portrait of Dr Schön which is a subtle clue. Similarly, Chéreau and his team picked up on another fundamentally important detail. Schilgoch doesn’t feel safe in Lulu’s mansion, because the marbles is polished so perfectly that he’s afraid he’ll slip. Dark green marble dominates the set, at one shining and elegant yet vaguely sinister. Impenetrable hard surfaces, whose coolness can be treacherous. Schigolch, who knows Lulu so well, can recognise the implications. Christof Loy’s toughened glass wall is thus a descendant of Chéreau’s polished marble.

Not all stage directions carry the same density of meaning. Shining surfaces reflect (literally) the hard brightness of Lulu’s life when she’s rich and in control. It doesn’t matter much whether Dr Schön dies on a sofa or on the floor. In his anguish he could not care less. Falling on marble is perhaps more meaningful. And Lulu and Alwa don’t need a sofa to make out on. Wouldn’t the police have removed it for forensics, anyway? In a wealthy household, no one would keep an old bloodstained divan. As if Alwa didn’t know where his father died. What counts in this scene is the malevolent way Lulu announces the fact to the poor fellow.

It doesn’t make a jot of difference whether Lulu meets her end in an attic or in a cellar : all that matters is that she’s shown in degraded surroundings. Götz Friedrich at the Royal Opera House in the 80’s showed Schilgoch and Alwa peeing against a wall in the final scene. Why not? That’s what London streets are like. The men treat the wall with the same disregard as Lulu has been treated all her life. Indeed, it’s not so far from the way people casually dismiss complex imagery. Perhaps some like Schigolch and Alwa need “instant relief”.

In complete contrast to the abstract Christof Loy production, Chéreau filled his stage with people – waiters, maids, actors, theatre staff. This is risky because too much activity can distract from essentials. But that’s never been an objection in literal, conservative stagings where busy surroundings are often admired. Notice how carefully the extras are positioned. Between gaps of singing, the singers can take a glass, move about, smoke, hardly missing a beat in the music. Like the music itself, they circulate.
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In the theatre scene, the extra personnel in their bizarre costumes serve to highlight the contrast with “real” people. Who is in the circus after all ? At the very start of the film (not the performance) there's a shot of bejewelled and befurred climbing up the marble staircase . They don't know it yet, but they're just like the rich folk whose world keeps Lulu at bay.

Dr Schön’s fiancée appears fleetingly in the background, a glowing vision of blonde female glory, everything that Lulu isn’t. She doesn’t have to say a word, nor does Lulu. No wonder Lulu is so upset. What she wants is more than just Dr Schön. Even when she marries him she knows she’ll never have what the privileged Adelaïde took for granted. Knowing Berg’s obsession with symmetry, the presence of the fiancée makes complete sense. She’s a forerunner of Countess Geschwitz, the only person who can offer Lulu a degree of selfless comfort. Again, both Geschwitz and Adelaïde have background totally closed to Lulu. Perhaps that’s why the Countess talks of going back to Germany and to university ? What does that represent, since Geschwitz dies ? There’s something pivotal about the fiancée even if it’s not at all explicit. Berg’s cryptic puzzles are deeply embedded, often ignored.

In the Paris scene, the crowd is part of the meaning: people are milling about pretending to be powerful, but they’re all on the make. Like jungle animals pacing their cages, always watching each other. Previously, Lulu was alone, a solitary among larger groups with things to do. Now she’s one of a wider group all chasing unsavoury deals. Berg isn’t commenting on business and economics, even though he knew all about the Crash of 1929. Rather, he seems to see Lulu as part of a wider system that operates like a sinister clockwork that regulates society. This fits in with the way the music operates, its symmetries and patterns as neat as an accountant’s ledger. Indeed, the music seems to evolve on parallel levels, like multiple frames on a cinema screen. Berg’s “worlds within worlds” yet again.

Some of Chéreau’s other details I don’t yet understand from two viewings. One is the magnificent chandelier. Of course, mansions have chandeliers and you need light to lift all that dark marble, and cast strange shadows. But it serves a deeper purpose too, which I can’t yet figure. Does it relate to the little fairy-figure seen only at the beginning ? He’s astride a glittering ball of light. He’s also dressed in pale shades reminiscent of Lulu’s silks. But that is the joy of complex images. You don’t “have” to get them immediately or even all the time. Like Berg’s music, clues are elusive and what you get equates to what you put in.

There was a lot of animosity at the time the production was premiered, partly from long festering resentment of the Bayreuth Ring and the end of the Cosima mentality. Furthermore, the mystery of the Third Act caught the popular imagination. Lulu was the first modern opera to get that massive publicity in the English speraking world. A lot was hanging on who got the contracts for completion and production, financially and in terms of reputation. Fortunately after 30 years the dust has settled and most people actually know the opera well enough to make more measured assessments. Quite frankly, there's nothing shocking in Chéreau's production, and even a few insights. Along comes Christof Loy who does the opposite and draws fire too. Perhaps it's time to heed what Berg himself said apropos to Wozzeck. He was a composer not a stage director and acknowledged how things change in art and life. "I write for the future".

Please read my other posts on Lulu and on the Royal Opera House production - click on label "Berg" at right. There's lots and even a movie download.

Revolution in Risor - Norway

Twenty years ago, Leif Ove Andsnes and friends founded the Risør Festival as a kind of summer camp for chamber musicians, where they could come together in a quiet Norwegian coastal town and make music for their own pleasure. Many concerts take place in an 18th century stave church in the Norwegian style. Because it's a musician's festival, it attracts performers like Heinrich Schiff, Ilya Gringolts, Severin von Eckardstein, Truls Mørk, Christianne Stotjin and others. A few years ago Ian Bostridge went, delighted by the congenial atmosphere where musicians engaged with each other's genres.

Douglas Cooksey is a regular. Read his report on Risør 2009 HERE. It's a beautiful piece of writing - enjoy ! This year's theme, of a sort, is revolution, featuring lots of Beethoven, Shostakovich and Schoenberg, each revolutionary in his own way. "Risør is nothing if not eclectic", says Cooksey. So among the Bach, Schubert and Beethoven, there are three new works by Ralf Wallin, and something called "Pictures reframed" where Andsnes plays Mussorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition in a fish factory with visual images screened behind him. This is due to tour in London, Berlin and the US. Says Douglas: "It will be controversial".

"Similarly controversial although oddly memorable was Reinbert de Leeuw's extraordinary re-imagining of Schubert and Schumann's most famous song-cycles with orchestral accompaniment. Schubert and Schumann it certainly was not, and Barbara Sukowa has no voice to speak of, frequently resorting to parlando … but it was mesmerising theatre nonetheless and somehow completely true to the extreme spirit of the Romantic Era, capturing its joys and pains.

With Sukowa visually acting out every song as she wandered through the audience, it was all gloriously over the top and at certain moments – 'Meerestille' lingers in the mind like one of those magical Dutch marine paintings by de Cuyp where the sailing ships hang motionless on a glassy sea – it was also deeply affecting. 'Heidenroslein' too, ending in a shriek, retold the true story of the original song – it is about a rape – far more effectively than those coy renderings to which it is often treated by famous singers."

Anyway, read the whole article (link above), and visit the Risør website HERE
photo credit

Another Rusalka - Nixe Binsenfuss

Rusalkas exist in Germany too. Nixe Binsenfuß is a poem by Eduard Mörike, set by Hugo Wolf. Mörike's Nixe is a feisty creature. In the middle of a frozen winter night, she's out in the moonlight tending her fish. Note, she's looking after them not hunting them down like fishermen do. They are safe in a casket of Bohemian crystal (ie under thick ice). Arpeggiatos lilt, evoking the sharp frost, the moonlight, the Nixe's light, deft steps.

This Nixe is untamed and untameable. "Komm mir mit deinen Netzen !" she cries to the fisherman, "die will ich schön zerfetzen!" (Come at me with your nets ! But I'll rip them to shreds !". He's just a humble fisherman but he does violence to Nature. His domesticity is an affront to the elemental Nixe, who exists beyond time and boundaries. Nonetheless, being an earth spirit, the Nixe is a nurturer.

Much as she dislikes the fisherman, she feels sorry for his daughter, who is fromm und gut (gentle, good natured, worthy) who wants to marry a nice young hunter (doesn't kill fish). So the Nixe hangs a Hochzeitsstrauß (a wedding wreath) on the house and einen Hecht, von Silber schwer, er stammt von König Artus her, (an icon of a pike in solid silver, that came from the time of King Arthur). "ein Zwergen Goldschmids Meisterstück,
wer's hat, dem bringt es eitel Glück:
er läßt sich schuppen Jahr für Jahr,
da sind's fünfhundert Gröschlein baar."

a masterpiece fashioned by a dwarf (fairy) goldsmith, which has miraculous powers. Year after year it will yield 500 little Groschen, like the scales of a fish. Supernatural magic, possibly not even visible to mortal eyes, but a powerful symbol of protection and good fortune. The maiden may not know but the magic still works. The Nixe is like a secret guardian, who must disappear at cockcrow with the morning dew, but she'll always be present in spirit. Ade, mein Kind! Ade für heut! (Adieu, my child - for today) Like the magic, the piano part wafts mysteriously into the ether.

See the full text HERE Emily Erzust's Lied and Art Song Text site is an essential source, quick link to it here on this blog on the list at right. Click on the photo to enlarge the detail. See the Nixe's alternative world under the waters.

Rusalka - Glyndebourne

A Rusalka is, in Slav mythology, a rather scary usually female spirit who lurks in deep waters. The Freudian interpretation is obvious. Dvoràk's Rusalka isn't really a fairy tale. So it's good to see what Jirì Belohlávek does with it at Glyndebourne. Read what Edward Seckerson says about it HERE

"In returning Rusalka to the “Little Mermaid” origins of Hans Christian Andersen [Melly Still, the director] is able to pick up on one or two feminist home truths: this Rusalka desires to be a whole woman but her mermaid’s tail effectively “binds” her, keeps her in her place, and when she does at last “find her feet” she is robbed of her freedom of speech. Such is the terrible price of womanhood."

"Then, in a neat twist, her enabler – the witch Jezibaba.... is some kind of malevolent big-skirted babushka with a head-scarf and a hunting knife. And there’s no escaping her – she’s everywhere, replicated around the stage by shadowy clones mirroring her every gesture. It’s like Still is saying that Rusalka is the victim of tradition. How ironical, too, that the bloody sacrificial ritual......should be enacted to music of Dvorak at his most innocuously folksy."

Andrew Clark in the Financial Times said ".... the supernatural scenes look horribly old-fashioned and there’s not an original idea all evening. It’s another case of a theatre director leaving their interpretative intelligence at the stage door the minute they set foot in an opera house." and see Hugh Canning HERE for a completely different take !

Not long ago I watched the DVD of the ENO Rusalka of 2006, which sets the action in an Edwardian nursery with big windows and huge toys like rocking horses. So right from the start that Rusalka was infantilized - she's not even outdoors. Indeed there's faintly unpleasant air of paedophilia in the ENO version. The women there are playthings whose silly dreams won't come true. They won't mature into anything more. And the English translation was so poor that I ended up playing a CD in Czech even though it wasn't quite in synch. Maybe Belohlávek will record this Glyndebourne Rusalka. Even if he doesn't it sounds like musically it was very strong.

Interesting to make a connection between Rusalka and the Cunning Little Vixen.

Regular readers of this blog will know how highly I rate Jirì Belohlávek in this repertoire. He understands Dvorák, Janáček and other composers of the region as serious music, not as quaint folklore. Oddly enough his Mahler has always disappointed me. He also demonstrates how much the music springs from the language, which is why it loses so much of its pungency in translation.

The DVD of this opera, made in Czechoslovakia in 1975, conducted by Chalabala, is a film with the opera as soundtrack as opposed to "filmed opera". So they can do visual effects not possible on stage, such as Rusalka's spirit flitting about in the air like an Irrlicht. It's a bit dated looking but musically it's good. So it is time perhaps for a serious new production of Rusalka, perhaps at ROH and conducted by Belohlávek, definitely the conductor of choice in this repertoire. It's hardly a rare piece, as the music is so well known, but a good production will do it justice.

Please see my review of the Glyndebourne Purcell The Fairy Queen HERE

Sumptuous Circus L'Amour de Loin, ENO

Absence of plot is by no means an impediment in opera. This new production at The English National Opera, created by innovative circus director Daniele Finzi Pasca proves that superlative staging can make up for weak narrative. Through visual images, the spirit of L’Amour de loin is invoked to express the drama beneath the music, better than the text itself.

Kaija Saariaho’s music wavers in a langorous swoon. Cadences rise and fall away, legato rippling upwards and down without regard to syntax. This is lavishly sensual, complete with faint echoes of the French medieval world of the troubadour, Jaufré Rudel (Roderick Williams), and the “Moorish” exoticism of Tripoli where the heroine Clémence (Joan Rodgers), resides. It’s the musical equivalent of intoxicating fumes, perfume or perhaps some strange potion inhaled through a hookah. Dramatic structure isn’t relevant to mood music as dream-like as this.

Love, after all, is an “altered state” where logic doesn’t apply. This particularly applies to idealized troubadour love, where artistic indulgence is as much an impetus as the love object. No wonder Jaufré panics and becomes fatally ill when he crosses the sea to meet Clémence for the first time. Unlike Tristan und Isolde where strong characters are transformed by a potion, to the horror of those around them, everyone in L’amour de loin, even the Pilgrim, is complicit in the dream state, so intensity dissolves in romantic washes of chromatic color.

Saariaho’s writing works best describing images like the ocean crossing, one of the most brilliant scenes in this production where light images are projected onto waving expanses of silk. It’s less suited to dramatic rationale. Jaufré and The Pilgrim debate endlessly whether he’s mad but the point’s already made in the music. Narrative meaning is further obscured by the distortion of natural rhythm and by dropping single spoken words into lines that are otherwise sung.Richard Stokes’s translation is lucid but retains the unworldly illogic of the original. All Saariaho's writing for voice is like this, even the song cycle for Karita Mattila, which was written with lots of input from the singer.

Roderick Williams, Joan Rodgers and Faith Sherman sing well, but this isn’t an opera where character development matters much. Its energies lie in the non-vocal writing, giving Edward Gardner and the ENO Orchestra a chance to luxuriate in lush orchestral texture.

The last scenes, where Clémence curses God, then quite quickly gives in to His will, might afford great opportunities for drama had the libretto engaged seriously with ideas.This is where the staging proved itself completely. As Clémence rages at God, Roderick Williams as the dead Jaufré descends from the roof on a wire, his white shroud trailing to the ground. At his side are the two “spirit Jaufrés” who had been doubling him as he lay “dying”. Is it a reference to Christ flanked by the two thieves at the crucifixion ? Perhaps not, but the idea is just as sacrilegious as Clémence’s curse and vaguely logical in the same sense. But as pure theatre it’s undeniably dramatic. The stage is lit up in colors as gorgeous as the music, while the chorus shine searchlights upwards towards the ceiling. Gradually the number of searchlight beams increase until the whole auditorium is bathed in unearthly white light. Whatever the image may mean, it’s a magnificent statement.

In an opera where ideas are so loosely defined, moments like this make all the difference. Finzi Pasca uses specialist circus skills to extend the range of effects possible on stage. Acrobats dressed in strange headless garb “swim” in the air against a background of silk and colored lights.Huge planes of blue silk zoom onto the platform released from the upper balconies. Cutout transparencies and panels create illusions of space. Even the costumes act. Sleeves are made with huge silken extensions manipulated by actors, so it seems the singers are surrounded by huge, winged beings. It turns the opera into something truly magical.

Incidentally, Jami Read-Quarrell, one of the acrobats, starred as an exceptionally good Puck in Britten's A Midsummers Night's Dream at the Linbury, ROH last year.
Read full review HERE with production pix

What Pina Bausch meant to me - The Fairy Queen

So many tributes to Pina Bausch, and many by people who know dance whose opinions count for a lot. So I won't do another "me too" but express what she meant to me, personally.

Bausch's influence went far beyond dance. Her company Wuppertal Tanztheater was so named because it wasn't just dance but theatre in the widest sense of the word. And "Wuppertal" because it was neutral, throwing focus on the dancers not the "star". Bausch wasn't bothered so much about what moves a dancer made as by why the move was made at all. She didn't "choreograph" as grand theory. Instead, she and her people thought about feelings and expression, ideas and motivations : her work grew organically, from inside outwards - method acting in dance ? But the implications for music and opera run deep too.

Around 1980, I saw The Rite of Spring and Café Müller. The Rite was amazingly raw and barbaric. In those days I'd seen Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey and Merce Cunningham so the idea of modern dance wasn't scary but nothing could have prepared anyone for Pina Bausch. It shaped the way I listen to Stravinsky for better or worse. Seeing the 1980's recreation of the Diaghilev original, compiled from stills and drawings restored the folkloric aspects : or did it ? Is the Rite folklore at all or is it something more visceral ?


Yet for all its impact, it wasn't a patch on Café Müller. Blank stage, filled with empty chairs. You "felt" the emptiness like it was a presence. And the music was Henry Purcell, The Fairy Queen.


Yes, the same music as in the recent Glyndebourne production, but extracts chosen for their surreal eerieness. "See, even Night herself is here" when the fairies and the world of dreams take over. Not for nothing they used the voice of a countertenor (Alfred Deller, the big name countertenor at the time). In those days, early music was still a fairly new fashion, and hearing it in this context really was shocking. In those days baroque was either tidied up for mid 20th century taste or ascetically, academically HIP. Then along comes Pina Bausch and makes you really think what it could be. Then just as your sensibilities are lulled, sound stops altogether and the dancers just move....it was impossible to understand but it felt right emotionally, utterly intriguing. Yet like the chairs, the void is not unfilled.

Pina Bausch taught me that images don't have to be literal or even explicitly understood. They can be interpreted in different ways, by different people and at different times and their meaning can change over time. We don't need to know everything but we respect the idea of things being expressed, even obliquely.

Chinese La Traviata - Lin Dai Love without End

There is no goddess of Chinese film greater than Lin Dai. Yes, others had greater range and the opera singers are icons, but Lin Dai touched something in the Chinese soul and continues to do so today, nearly 50 years after her tragic death.

This is a clip from the end of perhaps her most famous film, Love Without End. (But liu Ching in Cantonese). She's sitting on an island and flashbacks of her past fill her mind. She was a sweet, simple girl who became a nightclub star and fell in love with a playboy. He has money problems so she goes abroad with a rich man to pay his debts. When she comes back, she has bliss with lover and he finds out and walks out on her. Then she gets a fatal illness and retreats to the island to die (where she is cared for by a Catholic priest). Finally lover tracks her down and they're reunited but she dies, anyway. La Traviata ! Only the screenplay opens out wider and Lin Dai's portrayal is so memorable, so poignant, that no one has ever been able to top it.

The second clip shows the beginning of the film - wonderful historic footage of Hong Kong neon in 1961. Nightclubs were serious business then, the "modern" equivalent of teahouse or opera house. They were a cultural indicator of modern ideas and westernization. We see the young singer, in an old fashioned cheongsam, sing a folk song with a "mor dun" show band complete with electric guitar and bongo drums. Culture clash ! She goes on to be a big star but she is still a nice girl with Chinese values. In that era everyone was uprooted, thrown into different worlds, so people identified with Lin Dai, the nice, pure girl who didn't survive.

That's why Love Without End (Shaw Brothers 1961) is such a classic, in its own way a historic document. It's available on DVD with (I think) English subtitles. It deserves its place in the iconography of world film.



More nightclub scenes below for aficionados of 50's style. Note the revolving stage and Rachmaninoff pianist. This is the best clip for sound quality, and the wonderful performance of the song Wang Bu Liao, ("Can never forget") so haunting that it's imprinted in the psyche of all who know the genre.

La Traviata London and cinemas beyond

La Fleming's back in town ! Her presence alone made this La Traviata an absolute must-see for everyone, including people who never go to opera. And of course, she was a star. Read a sensible proper review by Claire Seymour HERE.

But if you want to read off the wall you'll have to do it with me. Not at Covent Garden but in the cinema behind my local supermarket. Cinema opera is "interesting" in the sense that it's nothing like the real thing and yet very different to watching a DVD. The scale, for one thing, so in your face that you can see tears – or perspiration? we're all human – running out the corner of a diva's eye. Then there's the overpowering volume of being in a venue designed for Star Wars effects.

On the other hand it's like a Glyndebourne experience on the cheap as you can bring cola in and munch popcorn through lachrymose moments. My local being where it is offered no pop or popcorn but 32 different wines by the glass, which made me suspicious. How can 100 people drink one glass each without most of it going off ? Perhaps it's better consuming your opera mega screen outdoors with a real picnic and more laidback ambience. But I dunno. I go to opera for the music not the social aspect, so cinema is a compromise. And I can get my groceries and be home in 15 minutes.

Luckily La Traviata (and most Italian opera) is ideally suited for big screen and social pleasure. Everything about this production was entertaining eye candy and fun, like glamour magazines come alive. The last scene, though, was dramatically strongest. She can hear the crowds celebrate Carnival, their shadows thrown up against shutters the full height of the stage: in contrast, Fleming looks small and frail. As she should be, Violetta is broke and dying.

Very strong singing too. La Fleming doesn't disappoint and Joseph Calleja was vocally very convincing. We often forget how physically demanding it is to sing, so watching on big screen lets you see muscles twitch and chests expanding before florid legato. These are arias everyone knows well, so it's good to follow how much technique goes into producing familiar sounds. Singers of the calibre of Fleming and Calleja make it look easy, but it isn't.

But Thomas Hampson, wow! That is what serious vocal authority is, and in Hampson's case warmed by sensitivity and depth of characterization. Papa Germont is not a sympathetic role and could be played veering towards cardboard, but Hampson's Germont was a fully rounded personality with real, complex motivations. No wonder Violetta's friends think she might be better off with father than son. Were Calleja more of an actor, there might have been deeper frisson to their relationship. When Hampson blows up at Alfredo for demeaning women you want to shout "Yes!!!!". Alfredo's a pup, Dad is the Real Thing.

Praise for other roles too, especially Haoyin Xue who has natural presence. Richard Wiegold as Dr Grevil is frequently placed centre stage but the costume really doesn't work : the silly glasses, wig and beard make him look like someone in uncomfortable disguise. He doesn't get to sing much til the end so the part really needs to be fleshed out by good acting and movement. If not, place him on the sidelines, the character's natural territory.

Orchestrally, this was magnificent. I have a lot of respect for Tony Pappano, though in some repertoire he's better than in others. Verdi is one of his fortes, so he let rip with fulsome Romantic surges. Music, after all, is all-important in La Traviata. The plot is so melodramatic it's embarrassing and action is introduced with little sense of build-up. But when you follow the musical line it all makes luscious sense.

After the movie we were all given a satin goodie bag with a bottle of "La Voce", Renee Fleming's own brand perfume. To her credit it was created as a fundraiser for the Met. You bet a classy lady like that doesn't wear celebrity perfumes.

Photo credit : Andrew Eccles/Decca from IMG Artist Management