Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov (New York, 2021)

Modest Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov

The Metropolitan Opera, New York - 2021

Sebastian Weigle, Stephen Wadsworth, René Pape, Ain Anger, Maxim Paster, David Butt Philip, Aleksey Bogdanov, Ryan Speedo Green, Miles Mykkanen, Richard Bernstein, Bradley Garvin, Tichina Vaughn, Brenton Ryan, Kevin Burdette, Erika Baikoff, Megan Marino, Eve Gigliotti, Mark Schowalter

The Met: Live in HD - 9th October 2021

The opportunity to see a staged performance of the original 1869 version of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov - even in a streamed live performance from the Met in New York - is something that should not be missed. Up until recently, you would have been more likely to see the 1872 revised version or a hybrid of both versions, but rarely nowadays (I haven't seen or heard one in my time watching opera) the Rimsky-Korsakov version. Watching Mussorgsky's original version of the work in a staging at the Paris opera in 2018, was something of a revelation and a sign that it could very easily become the canonical version of the work. The Met's production consolidates that reputation somewhat, but there are still a few reservations about how to best present this problematic opera.

There are certainly valid reasons why the later revisions of the opera were more favoured. Obviously no one wants to lose the additional music and scenes that Mussorgsky composed for the 1872 version, but principally there's the fact that the original wasn't considered to hold together dramatically. There's validity in that and it is something that is confirmed by Stephen Wadsworth's production, but what is also confirmed from the Met's performance of the work - as it was in Ivo van Hove's rather more successful staging of this version in Paris - is that even in its 'embryonic' form Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov is still indisputably a masterpiece.

The Met production consequently struggles to find a way to reconcile this contradiction between the quality of the music and the challenges of representing the dramatic material. Where Ivo van Hove was perhaps more successful than Wadsworth is in the efforts he makes to make the stakes of the drama feel more real - and indeed dramatic - by presenting it in a more recognisable context than the Russian history of the years 1598 to 1605. There are obvious connections to the modern world that can be made in a ruler's handling and manipulation of the people, and how that reliance on populism can turn just as quickly against him, but Wadsworth's production - like most 'safe' Met productions - makes no effort to even hint that there is still relevance in this situation today.

The closest we get to a representation of the context of the rule of Boris Godunov within the tides of history is one that fortunately, Mussorgsky (or perhaps more accurately, Pushkin, the author of the original work the opera is based on) included with the character of Pimen, the monk who is compiling a book of Russian history. This is presented as a huge oversize volume and maps spread out on the stage, testifying to the importance of this period of Russian history, its significance and the lessons we can learn from it. Some indication of where that could go might have made more of this, but it's effective on its own terms.

As generally is the stage production as a whole, setting the mood well and generally matching the dark tone of the work, filling the huge Met stage with the chorus, putting the all-important Russian folk onto the stage. Inevitably, despite the high production values, it does feels a little am-dram period, static and 'stagy' in its depictions of the drama. It doesn't really bare any teeth to really get across just how turbulent and violent this post Ivan the Terrible period of history is. Where is it perhaps most lacking however is in its failure to make the opera work on a dramatic level. That might be as much to do with the nature of the original 1869 version as it is with any deficiencies in the direction, but it still feels dramatically disjointed and incomplete.

Part of the problem for that could be down to the fact that Wadsworth's production was originally created at the Met for performances of the longer 1872 version, so in parallel with the removal of Mussorgsky's added scenes, the production also suffers the same cuts. I don't know whether Wadsworth was involved in the reworking of the cut-back production, there would certainly be some necessary changes made. There is perhaps an extended role for the Holy Fool, present spinning and whirling, mocking Boris even in his coronation scene, a representation of his own folly and madness, an attempt to give the drama additional weight by tying it into the dark Shakespearean horrors of Macbeth and King Lear.

Whether the stage production satisfies or not, the success of the production is nonetheless assured under the musical direction of conductor Sebastian Weigle. Musically its an absolute treat, if somewhat heavy going in its unwavering dark lugubrious tone that plays out for nearly two and a half hours without intermission. If the dramatic representation doesn't beat Boris Godunov down into submission to his fate, the music certainly does, and so too - all importantly - does the chorus. The work of the chorus is simply outstanding, ensuring that the solemn heft of the work carried the necessary weight and depth that was clearly audible in its impact, even in its livestream broadcast.

(On a side note, the quality of these broadcast livestreams - from the Met, Covent Garden and the Paris Opera as well - has improved considerably over the years with stunning HD quality images and powerful sound recording, with no more stream interruptions and breakdowns of communication. Alongside some good camera work - the Met's production directed well for the screen as usual by Gary Halvorson - that captures angles and closeups, it's becoming a great way to experience live opera in a time of restricted travel).

The quality of the musical performance and chorus certainly played an important part, but good principal casting and singing can make all the difference to any failings in the dramatic presentation. That was certainly the case here with René Pape singing the role of Boris. It's the performance of an experienced bass with great technique who also has the maturity to bring real human emotion to characters like Boris just as he has done with Philippe II in Verdi's Don Carlos. He puts real dramatic weight and character behind Boris, savouring the beauty and conflict of the role and Mussorgsky's extraordinary writing for it.

Pape's tormented magisterial performance is supported by similarly fine performances from Ain Anger as Pimen and Maxim Paster as Shuisky, both bringing long previous experience of heavyweight Russian opera and indeed prior experience of these Mussorgsky roles to similar effect. Supporting roles were also well handled, from Miles Mykkanen's Holy Fool to an enjoyable performance from Ryan Speedo Green as Varlaam, his reading of the ukaz, the wanted edict for the Pretender Grigoriy, enlivening a scene that can otherwise seem random and at odds with the tone of the rest of the work. All of this went a considerable way towards bringing across the sheer brilliance of this great opera despite some minor reservations about the stage production and direction.

Links: Metropolitan Opera, The Met: Live in HD 2021-22 season

Wagner - Die Walküre (London, 2018)

Wagner - Die Walküre

Royal Opera House, London - 2018

Antonio Pappano, Keith Warner, Stuart Skelton, Emily Magee, Ain Anger, John Lundgren, Nina Stemme, Sarah Connolly, Lise Davidson

Opus Arte - Blu-ray

In contrast to Das Rheingold, which has a more obvious dramatic narrative and a number of wonderful theatrical set pieces, Die Walküre is much more contemplative as a standalone work, a conflict between the opposing forces that have been set in motion during the first day Prelude. Musically however and in terms of overall importance to the development of any Der Ring des Niebelungen (as well as the sheer exhilaration of any performance of Ride of the Valkyrie) it's Die Walküre that counts. Likewise if you are going to give a representative part of a the tetraology a DVD release, and Keith Warner's not greatly loved Royal Opera House Ring cycle first seen back in 2006 doesn't look likely to be getting a full release on DVD, this is the one you want to see. So how does Warner's Die Walküre stand up on its own terms?

Well in most respects it's a perfectly serviceable production but as is often the case with Die Walküre, its chances of a successful revival are reliant to a large extent on the strength of the casting. It's not that a strong concept and direction aren't important but the nature of this work demands singers who can bring the kind of intense dramatic conviction that this opera needs. This particular recording has a superlative cast of experienced Wagnerians and it gets off to an impressive set with its cast for Act I where Stuart Skelton is the standout, a Siegmund  of heroic magnificence. Ain Anger as Hunding and Emily Magee aren't quite at the same level but both are resolute and steady. Directing them however, Warner ensures that there's no standing around or histrionics, they incarnate the nature of the characters and put everything into expression of their dilemma, making them far more three-dimensional that is usually the case, and that sets up the whole tone of what follows in the subsequent Acts.

With its long Acts and tiring monologues it might be short on conventional drama, but it's hard to imagine a more dramatic musical opening that the thundering Vorspiel to Die Walküre. In the first few impressions of this production, Warner attempts to get across a sense of all that darkness of a world left in turmoil due to the weakening influence of the gods, but the production design also has the benefit of this being a place outside of time. The depiction of Hunding's lodge is semi-abstract then, expressionistic and dark, a box within a spiral. Sieglinde is seen hovering nervously in the fearful captivity of her husband, bewildered by the arrival of a stranger in exhaustion and distress. Roots and branches twist through the furnishings in the room, Nothung embedded in a smouldering beam.

Act II uses much of the same set with only the box room removed to establish a connection and reveal a shattered rundown Valhalla. It's difficult to make Act II dramatically engaging but the singing and musical performance alone are more than enough to make this compelling. Warner matches the highs and lows in the actions and movements, leaving it to the simmering rumble of the music to hold you in the grip of the predicament of Fricka, Wotan and Brünnhilde. Siegmund and Sieglinde's reappearance using a red rope that I presume is related to the Norn's Cord of Destiny, stumble into the room where Brünnhilde has just learned the history of Das Rheingold, the fate of the brother and sister tied up with the gods and their inevitable downfall.

Keith Warner manages to play Act II with the same attention to characterisation and motivation, showing more than just a bitter domestic dispute between an arrogant god who is henpecked and reduced down to size by a jealous and vengeful wife. There is a fire to their relationship that still burns even in such moments as this current crisis, and you can see the balance of power play out on a sexual level between them. It makes them more than just ciphers and suggests that their dispute is more than just a domestic quarrel, but that deeper forces drive their words and actions. John Lundgren and Sarah Connolly give a charged account of what can otherwise be a very dry scene in dramatic terms, Pappano musically holding the tension throughout. Only Nina Stemme disappoints somewhat, not living up to the expectations you might have for her Brünnhilde.

Act III's opening Ride of the Valkyrie however is disappointingly underwhelming as far as Warner's staging goes, the Valkyrie looking like Shakespearean Weird Sisters holding horse skulls, but musically at least it certainly packs a punch under Antonio Pappano and ROH orchestra, and it helps too when you have Lise Davidsen among the number as Ortlinde. Elsewhere in the third Act there's impact aplenty where there needs to be, Lundgren's Wotan a fearsome presence, the Valkyrie and Brünnhilde credibly cowering before his rage. But again the third Act's sheer force is all there in the performances, Nina Stemme and Emily Magee raising their game impressively, the playing and of course the music itself just phenomenal.

In terms of production design you would hope for more in Act III, but the abstract approach is consistent in its follow through, a huge wall thrown up here between Wotan and Brünnhilde and her sisters. If the major part of the Act is very dull and unimaginative as far as Valkyrie scenes go in Die Walküre, it at least gives the closing conflagration scene a little more of a spark, so to speak, in a way that closes the opera on a huge emotional high. Warner's Die Walküre is not a classic production by any means but my goodness this gets across everything that is great about this work and it sounds like it near brings the house down during the curtain call of this 2018 performance.

Whether you consider Antonio Pappano as effective conducting Wagner as he is with Puccini and Verdi in the Italian repertoire, I liked his blood and thunder interpretation here. The Vorspiel to Act I seems to collapse in on itself at the end but elsewhere he really does draw out all the beauty, lyricism and simmering emotion that is built into the highly charged scenes. The state-of-the-art High Resolution audio recording and superb mixing certainly helps hear the quality, detail and sheer glorious weight of the musical performance. I don't think I've ever heard a recording of this work with such depth and dynamic range. You can just revel luxuriously in the sound world of Wagner here, particularly in the simmering eroticism buried in the Act II confrontation between Wotan and Fricka, which is just as gripping as any of the more familiar key scenes. But all the high points are emphatically hit here.

The HD presentation on the Opus Arte BD is impeccable. The image is clear and detailed, but as mentioned above it's in the High Resolution uncompressed soundtracks where the real benefit of the HD format really comes into its own, the spacious uncompressed DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix in particular capturing all the dynamic and detail of the performance. The English translation is also good, the subtitles making this easier to follow than the archaic language more often used without distorting the meaning in any way. The usual short features on ROH productions give a brief overview of what goes into a production like this. The booklet contains a synopsis and a good essay on the influence of Feuerbach on Wagner's Ring of the Niebelung by Barry Millington.

Links: Royal Opera House

Mozart - Don Giovanni (Paris, 2019)

 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Don Giovanni

L'Opéra National de Paris, 2019

Philippe Jordan, Ivo Van Hove, Étienne Dupuis, Ain Anger, Jacquelyn Wagner, Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Nicole Car, Philippe Sly, Mikhail Timoshenko, Elsa Dreisig

Paris Cinema Live - 21 June 2019 

It's not as if Mozart's operas works aren't already clearly progressive works, in their musical qualities as well as in their expression of the injustices and inequalities within society, and as such they always seem to be capable of revealing other aspects and changing facets that reflect the times we are living in. The 'droit de seigneur' of Le Nozze di Figaro can certainly be applied to contemporary situations, showing that Mozart was already there with #MeToo long before its time and there's also something about Don Giovanni that takes in all the complexities of male and female relationships on a deeper and more universal level.

If we can recognise what is universal and true in Mozart's Don Giovanni, it doesn't need a director like Ivo van Hove to bring it out or add anything new to it. Not that you have to, since attempting to fit those works to contemporary morals and attitudes can still be problematic. Sometimes the best thing you can do is let a work speak for itself and the sign of a good director is knowing when to step back and where to intervene and what to highlight to bring to the attention of the audience. Van Hove's setting of his Paris Opera production consequently aims for the universal, blending modern and period characteristics, but feels almost respectful of Mozart in terms of the plotting, not daring to mess with it too much.

Of course in Don Giovanni, certain choices have to be made by any director that have considerable influence on the tone of the work. One of the first choices any director has to make is whether Don Giovanni is a seducer and a lover of women or an aggressor and an abuser. Even within that you have to determine whether he is a victim of his own desires, incapable of being anything but his nature (and whether the women who are drawn to him are not more than creatures of nature too) and thus deserving of some sympathy.

Some productions in the past have suggested that Donna Anna was leading him on, that the killing of the Commendatore is just an accident or self-defence, that his only real crime is arrogance in believing that he is above the laws of nature, that he is in control of them, that there is no harm or consequence to his behaviours, that he is exempt (whether through nobility, vanity or just arrogant superiority) from paying any price for his actions. While it's valid to explore the many possibilities that this fascinating character and the other fascinating characters play in the opera (and they all have an important part to play), there's no real doubt about how Mozart saw Don Giovanni. It's in the original title; a dissolute punished.

Ivo van Hove clearly wants to stick with that line of thinking, and I'm minded to consider the previous Paris Opera production directed by the filmmaker Michael Haneke in relation to this, Haneke making the original title explicit, taking a political spin on the work and making the punishment very much a case of earthly justice of the people deposing a cruel, thoughtless and arrogant leader. Van Hove's choices are less imposing on the work and not so politically minded, but his outlook on it means that the production unquestionably has a darker colour that doesn't permit the usual comic interplay with Leporello. Van Hove's contribution, if it adds up to anything, is in holding to this consistent tone, in getting the performers all working together to bring that character to the fore and making it feel as deep and real and meaningful as Mozart scores it.

What is also noticeable about this production - although really you should already be aware of this - is that the women in Don Giovanni are amazing. Mozart's enlightened thinking was genuinely far ahead of his time. Without having to expressly evoke any contemporary application, it's evident enough to anyone currently witnessing the rise of the #MeToo movement that these are women in Don Giovanni who are here prepared to stand up against their aggressor, not let society say that they are complicit, nor let it make them doubt their own nature. The may have been naive perhaps in their expectations of someone like Don Giovanni, but nothing more than that, and he has gravely abused their nature, their trust and their person.

That comes out well, and it's a director's job to ensure that that it does, so whether you recognise Ivo Van Hove's hand in this (as with his theatrical work his directing of actors is a lot more subtle than his bold and experimental scenic touches suggest), his choices and directions unquestionably strike an accurate and consistent tone. And it's not just in the casting and performance of Don Giovanni, although Étienne Dupuis is outstanding as a serious, calculating and manipulative noble here, his singing and performance striking a superb balance between charming and utterly deadly, but how the other characters respond to him is vitally important.

I've pondered before when considering Le Nozze di Figaro how important the secondary roles are in Mozart's operas, and concluding that if you give due attention to the casting and character of all the roles, there are greater dividends to be found. There's no such thing as a secondary or minor role in Mozart's operas - in the Da Ponte trilogy of works at least - and that the operas achieve their true greatness when all of them are given serious consideration. I don't think Don Giovanni can be anything but great, but when you give those superbly detailed characters (in terms of personality, as well as in the incredible pieces of music that Mozart writes for them), the true genius of the complexity of people's behaviour and their relationships is apparent.

In that respect, this is a great Don Giovanni. Director intervention might appear minimal, but the coaching of the performers to find the real people within those roles, to bring out what Mozart and Da Ponte put there is evident here. Of course, it's consideration of the fate of the women that is just as important, if not more important than Don Giovanni (although Don Giovanni and Leporello must also be taken seriously in how they display another side of human nature), and when you do that, not only do you get heartfelt, fiery performances from Jacquelyn Wagner as Donna Anna and Nicole Car as Donna Elvira, but you get the whole richness of women's sentiments and personality when you take that attention down to Elsa Dreisig's sincere Zerlina. Superb singing from Philippe Sly as Leporello, Stanislas de Barbeyrac as Don Ottavio, Ain Anger as the Commendatore, and Mikhail Timoshenko as Masetto kept a strong consistent tone across all the relationships in the production of this work.

How much the production design contributed to the overall impact of the work is difficult to determine, but it clearly worked well. The whole opera takes place here outside Don Giovanni's imposing grey castle with little of the usual film references that you associate with an Ivo Van Hove production and instead more of an Escher quality, or Duke Bluebeard's Castle in the sense of the maze like entrapment of the castle's staircases, alleys and doorways. Modern suits are mixed with medieval attitudes. It's uniformly grey, but there are flashes of colour there when the director wants to draw attention to aspects of the drama and the music.

There is little also of the director's customary use of projections, Van Hove keeping those tricks in the bag until later for maximum impact. The use and wielding of guns give an extra edge of danger, of threatening masculinity and abuse of power. The effects are saved for the finale, as you might expect in the descent to hell scene. What you might not expect is the superb handling of the necessary final sextet, often cut in darker interpretations of the opera. Here it is necessary to give a sense that this dark masculine world can be healed and it's women, Mozart's women - the clue already revealed in the seemingly throwaway scene between Zerlina and Masetto - who are the healing force in the opera. I expected something a little more radical from this director doing Don Giovanni, but no it didn't need it. Van Hove sees what is important in the opera, in Mozart's outlook, and he nails it.

L'Opera de Paris, Culturebox

Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov (Paris, 2018)

Modest Mussorgsky - Boris Godunov

L’Opéra national de Paris, 2018

Vladimir Jurowski, Ivo van Hove, Ildar Abdrazakov, Evdokia Malevskaya, Ruzan Mantashyan, Alexandra Durseneva, Maxim Paster, Boris Pinkhasovich, Ain Anger, Dmitry Golovnin, Evgeny Nikitin, Peter Bronder, Elena Manistina, Vasily Efimov, Mikhail Timoshenko, Maxim Mikhailov, Luca Sannai

Culturebox - 7 June 2018

There's a sense of the epic in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov that is entirely in keeping with the importance of the period in Russian history and with the nature of the Russian characteristics displayed in it. What is also essential about Mussorgsky's epic vision for the work is its ability not just to capture a sense of intimacy and personal conflict within that historical drama - a common enough characteristic in opera - but how he is able to make those personal sentiments just as grand and epic without losing their human character. Mussorgsky takes human sentiments of sadness, regret, guilt and internal conflict and gives them a Macbeth-like Shakespearean depth and complexity on a scale that befits their importance.

You get a sense of that right from the start in the opera, with the people of Russia calling out in chorus for him to be their new ruler. You also get a sense of how Boris feels about this from his very first line: "My soul grieves". He has a heavy duty to perform to live up to the expectations of the Russian people and do them justice, but there is also a sense of guilt and remorse for the manner in which he has come to power, with rumours already accusing him of murdering the young Tsarevitch Dmitriy from the line of Ivan the Terrible to ascend to the throne himself. An accumulation of misfortune and other forces, including the rise of a Pretender to the throne in Lithuania, turns the people against Godunov, and the combined results strike the Tsar in deeply troubling ways.

Finding a balance of scale between epic and intimate is one matter, but there is also the consideration of which version of Boris Godunov is the most authentic and effective in achieving the necessary impact. Historically it's been the revised 1872 version that has been most commonly used, and understandably so as it contains many extensions to Mussorgsky's brilliant score, but Rimsky-Korsakov's reworking of the original materials has also been popular. Gradually however, we are seeing more productions of the original 1869 version, commonly with a few additions from the revised 1872 version that are deemed too good to be left out.

The 2018 Paris production however, directed by Ivo van Hove and conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, takes very much a purist approach by sticking to the complete 1869 original version of Boris Godunov, with no Polish Act nor any of the 1872 additions. It's purist at least in musical terms, but clearly with the controversial Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove involved in the project it's going to be anything but purist as far as the staging goes. That presents an intriguing team that should find a good balance between the grandly epic and the deeper underlying personal sentiments and in many respects both sides of the work are well represented, but the production seems to be more effective for the choice of the stripped down force of the 1869 version than for anything that Jurowski or van Hove bring to the work.

As is usually the case with this director, van Hove relies on a minimal staging, abstract-modern with no period or historical trappings. The use of the space, opened up with back projections of the Russian people and landscapes that are mirrored to the sides, permits a sense of epic scale that can also close the work down to a more intimate level of intensity. A staircase is often present, leading up and also leading down beneath the stage, the symbolism of which is clearly apparent, representing rise and fall, and the separation of the ruling classes from the people. Other scenes are effectively austere, such as between Pimen and Grigoriy in the cell of the monastery in Chudov, needing no further elaboration than two people in near-darkness recounting events in words and divulging the thoughts that run through their minds.

How much of the success in getting this across is down to effective direction, how much is down to the musical performance and how much of this is simply down to the power of the story and Mussorgsky's scoring of it is debatable, but it seems to me that it's Mussorgsky's score that does the bulk of the work. Even then Jurowski's conducting seems rather restrained and unfocussed, although it's hard to judge fairly from an internet stream (I'll be listening again more closely to the live radio broadcast on France Musique this weekend), and yet there's no question that the drama and the dynamic is all there. Likewise Ivo van Hove doesn't seem to bring much to an interpretation of the drama, but it doesn't get in the way of it either.

There are a few stylistic touches applied, but perhaps the only significant twist is at the conclusion. Not only does Boris Godunov finally and dramatically succumb to the pressures of family problems, famine blighting the country and growing instability in his mind over his murder of Dmitriy, but his son dies too at the hand of the Pretender Grigoriy. It's a dark dramatic moment that doubles down on the music that Mussorgsky provides for this finale and, as Boris's son's reign was indeed cut short in deference to the False Dmitriy, it even effectively conveys the suggestion in Mussorgsky's music that the conflict and turmoil of this historical period is far from over.

Ideally you want a Russian cast in Boris Godunov for maximum effectiveness, at least in the principal roles, and there's little to find fault with in team assembled for the Paris production. Ildar Abdrazakov is perhaps a little too smooth and lacking the necessary depth and edge to get across the full conflict of Boris Godunov. He sings the role well, but there's not enough emotion in the voice and too much overplaying in the acting to try to compensate for it. Ain Anger is an appropriately grave austere and occasionally ominous Pimen, there's a similar good balance of restraint and gravity in Maxim Paster's Shuysky, and Vasily Efimov brings vocal colour and some hard truths as the Holy Fool. Lots to enjoy in the singing performances then with strong a strong chorus combining to make a convincing case for the original 1869 version of Boris Godunov becoming the canonical version of this great work.

Links: L’Opéra de Paris, Culturebox

Wagner - Die Walküre (Munich, 2017)

Richard Wagner - Die Walküre

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2018

Kirill Petrenko, Andreas Kriegenburg, Simon O'Neill, Ain Anger, John Lundgren, Anja Kampe, Nina Stemme, Ekaterina Gubanova, Daniela Köhler, Karen Foster, Anna Gabler, Michaela Selinger, Helena Zubanovich, Jennifer Johnston, Okka von der Damerau, Rachael Wilson

Staatsoper.TV - 22 January 2018

Based on the live streaming broadcast of Die Walküre, there doesn't appear to be any grand concept applied to Andreas Kriegenburg's Munich Ring cycle, but after a few recent Ring cycles that have been heavily weighed down by all manner of symbolism and interpretation (Bayreuth, Mannheim), it's refreshing at least to step back once in a while and just let the music speak for itself in Wagner's epic work, as it's surely strong enough in that respect. It's perhaps easier to get away with that though when you have Kirill Petrenko conducting and an exceptional cast of the level assembled here, but Kriegenburg's direction isn't without some ideas and character, even if it's difficult to determine just what it is from this part of the cycle alone.

There certainly doesn't seem to be any grand vision here as Kriegenburg's Die Walküre plays the familiar story out in a fairly straightforward fashion on relatively minimalist sets. It's an approach that is rather more in keeping with the recent move away from the more extreme kinds of interpretation we have been accustomed to seeing at the Bayerische Staatsoper. The production is unobtrusive, it doesn't call attention to itself, but by the same token it's not particularly attention-grabbing. The intentions of the director however would appear to be working not so much with drama as with the 'space' around it, using supernumeraries and dancers who "represent the reality that surrounds the singers" rather than interfering with the work itself.

Act I, for example, is dominated by a huge tree in Hunding's lodge, which is decorated it seems by desiccated corpses. Siegmund is initially kept at a fairly large distance away from Sieglinde on the large open set that has only a few indications of a home environment, the space filled rather by 'invisible' servants who pass the drinks and set up a long dinner table between them, as well as (curiously) tend to dead bodies in the background. Wearing torch lights strapped to their palms, they also reflect light and appear to be directing or highlighting the invisible tensions between the twins and Hunding. Other than establishing that undercurrent of menace and confusion, there isn't a lot else you can do with characterisation here to bring any real drama out of the scene, but the musical and singing performances take care of it well enough. The richness of the score and how Petrenko manages it is clearly evident even at this stage, the Act flowing from cold menace to warm wonder, with Ain Anger's menacing Hunding fully conveying one end of that scale and Simon O'Neill and Anja Kampe bringing us gloriously through to the other.

Act II is of course an even greater challenge with its long scene between Wotan and Fricka. Kriegenburg plays around with the various tones of this Act, opening with an epic Valhalla intro in swirling mists, but then settling for a tone set by the extra figures around the singers that establishes itself as business-like. In a bare wood-paneled wide office space, with a large prestigious painting hanging on the wall. Wotan is more of a businessman or lord of a vast estate, playfully engaging with his daughter Brünnhilde, but he has documents to sign, matters to arrange. Up to now, like the servants who even form a throne for him to sit on, everything bends to his will and it's been a relatively simple matter of sending Brünnhilde and the Valkyrie warriors to carry out his orders. That way of working, as we all know, is about to change.

Dancers are used to set up the war-like environment that prefigures Act III's Ride of the Valkyrie, with warriors (in business suits), impaled on top of spears. It's a strong image, but the actual appearance of the Valkyrie is disappointing. With no mounts of any kind, their reins are attached to the poles and it's a bit undramatic. The singing again makes up for any shortcomings here, as does Petrenko's conducting which works hand-in-hand with the action and the demands of the singers. Act III is critical and regardless of the strengths and qualities of a production, the musical performance, no Die Walküre is going to have the necessary impact unless it has a convincing Wotan and Brünnhilde, and no-one could surely be disappointed with John Lundgren and Nina Stemme in those roles.

If Andreas Kriegenburg's production is successful (provisionally as far as Die Walküre is concerned, without having seen the other parts of this Ring cycle), it in how he (and the performers) manage to bring out the father/daughter relationship as the true heart of the work. It's much more than just a regular parent/child relationship that you would find, for example, in a Verdi opera. With his daughter as an outward expression of Wotan's will, it's also about the wielding of power and how the exercise of it can corrupt and have other unforeseen consequences. As Stemme alludes to in her interval interview, it's also about becoming human, emancipating oneself from older ways, and Brünnhilde makes mistakes but makes them honestly with the best of intentions. Critically, through Siegmund and Sieglinde she learns about true love and doesn't so much lose her divinity as become more human.

Stemme, seeing this character though all three Ring operas in which she has a role in this Munich Ring cycle, sings terrifically as you would expect, but also displays a wonderful warm, sympathetic relationship with Lundgren's superbly sung Wotan. Lundgren has already demonstrated his capability in this role at Bayreuth, and here he just seems to have assumed the personality of Wotan completely. The Wotan/Brünnhilde relationship is a vital element in Die Walküre, and whether you put it down to the quality of the singing or the direction, or both, it's really nailed here. Although important as the lynch-pin that the drama of Die Walkure turn on and a formidable character in her own right, Fricka's role has less room for interpretation and motivation. She acts out of wounded pride at the evidence of Wotan's betrayals making a mockery out of her office of marriage, compounded by the brother and sister relationship of Siegmund and Sieglinde, and can consequently come across as strident and harsh in her judgements, but Ekaterina Gubanova sings the role well and succeeds in showing Fricka as someone with a sense of what is right and how false actions can have consequences.

Occasional cutaways to the orchestra pit during the broadcast showed just how much Kirill Petrenko was not only managing the detail and dynamic of the score, but clearly enjoying himself immensely with the wonders on offer. The musical director of the Munich house seems to have a strong affinity with Wagner, and indeed with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester if the broadcast performances this season and last are anything to go by. Everything you want from Die Walküre is there in terms of drama and romantic sweep, but Petrenko never lets the work get carried away into bombast, finding the deeper sensitivities in the anguish and tragedy of the final act, giving them voice and allowing room for the singers to fill these epic characters of legend with real human feelings. And the singers assembled are more than capable of doing that.

Links: Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper.TV

Mussorgsky - Khovanshchina (Vienna, 2017)

Modest Mussorgsky - Khovanshchina

Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna - 2017

Michael Güttler, Lev Dodin, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Christopher Ventris, Herbert Lippert, Andrzej Dobber, Ain Anger, Elena Maximova

Staatsoper Live - 11 September 2017

New productions of an opera often reveal different facets and new perspectives on any given work, but you often find that you can also continue to find something new when you revisit a revival of a good production. Lev Dodin's fairly static production of Khovanshchina however, first seen at the Vienna State Opera in 2014, doesn't strike you as one that would have a great deal more to offer. Even if it doesn't bring anything new to the table - when even the cast line-up is identical to that seen in 2014 - Khovanshchina is nonetheless a work that constantly provokes new observations and a deepening appreciation for Mussorgsky's unfinished epic.

It may be quite static, the performers all contained within rising platforms that give no room to move around the stage, but the set designs for Lev Dodin's production of Khovanshchina are visually impressive and do prove to be a good way of layering and revealing the Russian historical and national complexities of the work. The various factions that are competing for power and influence in late 17th century Russia are clearly marked out in a structure of beams and platforms that not only indicates their position in relation to their ambitions, but it also charts their rise and decline, often down into the depths of the pit through a trapdoor in the stage.

Designed this way, it's easy to differentiate between the three main factions competing with each other to determine the direction that Russia will follow at this turbulent point in history. The set for Act II arranges them in a clear hierarchical position. On the upper level is the governing class represented by Galitsin who is hoping that he can open up the country to progressive western influence. Below him are the military under the control of Prince Ivan Khovansky who are suspicious of foreign interests and hold firm to the old traditions, but the soldiers are becoming undisciplined and difficult to control. Below them is Dosifei who leads the religious faction of Old Believers opposed to reforms.

It's not necessarily that these forces, beliefs and traditions are distinct as much as they represent a layering of true Russian ideals that sit uneasily alongside one another. As such all the people of Russia also have a voice in Khovanshchina and Lev Dodin's vertical production at least provides the space for all these vital components of Russian society to fill the stage, showing the complexity and incompatibility of these ideals without the stage becoming cluttered and the plot incomprehensible. It does mean that there is a lot of static exposition, but that's inherent in the work itself and it's vital to understand this in order to get to the heart of Khovanshchina.

The heart of Khovanshchina is of course the heart of Russia, and the challenge to put that up on the stage is one that Mussorgsky struggled with in this unfinished work, as did several other notable Russian composers (the Vienna production uses the Shostakovitch version) who have attempted to polish and complete this great epic. More than just conveying the history of the competing forces vying for power in Russia during the 1680s, Khovanshchina also attempts to capture something of the mystical and spiritual side of Russia in Marfa, and combined it should paint a picture of Russia on a grand scale as something that also has relevance to today. What seems to be true then is true now, the opera showing the true scale of the horror that Russia must endure and suffer when power over it falls into the wrong hands.

Its ambitions mean that Khovanshchina consequently doesn't conform to standard operatic plot development, nor indeed to a conventional musical structure. Characters don't so much grow as reveal the personal human weaknesses behind their grand ambitions and ideals. Each are taken down in their prime before they can achieve their goal, or rather their weaknesses expose them and lead them inevitably to their fate. Andrei Khovansky is largely ineffective after Act I after his encounter with the foreign girl Emma. His father Prince Ivan Khovansky seems to be weary of the struggle and is killed in Act IV while indulging in the distraction of Syrian dancing girls. Act IV also brings about the death of Galitsin.

For Dosifei, it's the conflict between his spiritual religious beliefs and his feelings for Marfa that renders him out of the running as far as uniting the people behind his vision of Russia, and the act of self-immolation that takes Marfa, Andrei and Dosifei is a kind of cleansing that clears the way for Russia to arise again out of the ashes. Russia proves to be bigger than any individual in Khovanshchina, even greater than the young Tsars Peter and Ivan who are not seen in the opera. Russia prevails, but it's at a considerable cost.

There's not a great deal more to be said about the singing performances in the 2017 revival of Khovanshchina, which retains the same cast as the 2014 premiere performances. Ferruccio Furlanetto is still a force to be reckoned with as Khovansky, Elena Maximova fulfils the vital role of Marfa impressively in terms of her singing and as far as suggesting the other spiritual dimension of this character. Herbert Lippert seemed to make a greater impression this time too as Galitsin, and Christopher Ventris and Ain Anger reliably reprise their roles of Andrei and Dosifei. Michael Güttler took over the conducting of the Vienna orchestra for this revival and brought out the dynamic with an extra punch on the big dramatic and choral pieces, but elsewhere it didn't seem to have the same coherence as a piece that Semyon Bychkov's conducting achieved in the 2014 production.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live

Halévy - La Juive (Bayerische Staatsoper, 2016)

Fromental Halévy - La Juive

Bayerische Staatsoper, 2016

Bertrand de Billy, Calixto Bieito, Aleksandra Kurzak, Roberto Alagna, John Osborn, Vera-Lotte Böcker, Ain Anger, Johannes Kammler, Tareq Nazmi, Christian Rieger, Peter Lobert

Staatsoper.tv - 27 June 2016

Calixto Bieito's production of Halévy's La Juive for the Bavarian State Opera was roundly and rudely booed at the end of the performance broadcast live from the Munich Summer Opera Festival. I'm sure the Catalan director is well used to that kind of reception, but it's worth examining why of all places it would be so badly received at the Bayerische Staatsoper. The Munich audience are used to all kinds of operatic modernisations and reinterpretations in a theatre where Hans Neuenfels, Krzysztof Warlikowsi and Martin Kušej are very much the 'norm'. Bieito's understated production surely wasn't that inflammatory or disrespectful? Is it possible that just wasn't challenging enough?

Or if not challenging enough, Bieito's production certainly failed in one crucial aspect that will permit most indulgences on the opera stage - it lacked adequate fidelity to the source. Not in terms of adhering to the specifics of the plot; Bieito's production does its best to make the basic elements of the story work in a relatable context, and even gives a fairly outdated work some kind of rationale that might work on the stage. To do so however he has to offload a lot of the grand opéra baggage of the work, which unfortunately proves to be rather more important and integral to the piece as a whole.

Of all the traditions, periods and styles that opera has embraced over the last few hundred years, grand opéra still seems to be the most problematic when it comes to modernisation, contemporary relevance and musical tastes. Bel canto, opera seria and Baroque have all been adapted or made to work on the modern stage on their own terms, but while there have been some notable efforts to revive the works of Meyerbeer, none have really succeeded in developing any further taste for grand opéra. There is no obvious reason why a musical form so rich in melody, diversity, drama and pure entertainment should not appeal to an audience who are still predominately in thrall to the epic visions of Verdi and Wagner, but either we are no longer capable of successfully presenting and singing such works, or else they just don't resonate with a modern audience.

That the romantic part of the plot of La Juive is overblown melodrama with scarcely an ounce of credibility you can take pretty much for granted. Rachel, a young Jewish girl (la juive), loves Samuel, also a son of Israel (Eugene Scribe's compendium of clichés and banalities that passes for a libretto includes every conceivable synonym for Jew). Cruel deception; in reality Samuel is actually called Léopold and is a Christian, and as such he can never be married to a Jewess. Recanting her religion would be an option that might help overcome these divisions and even help calm the religious tensions, but wait... this is grand opera and there are more dire revelations to come since 'Samuel' has neglected to mention that not only is he a Christian, but he is the Prince Léopold and already married to Princess Eudoxie. And without her knowing it, Rachel is a Christian all along, a fact that only comes to light much too late in an unfortunate Il Trovatore-like twist. 

And that's just the romantic drama. Religious intolerance stirs up quite a bit more drama that leads to an inevitably tragic conclusion of huge proportions, and all these elements, revelations and reactions are drawn together into one grand musical set piece after another. The opera even opens with a huge religious festival called by the Council of Constance to celebrate a victory over the Hussites that has prevented a schism in Rome. I have no idea what the religious or historical significance of this is, but to judge by Fromental Halévy's music - a huge choral section over a church organ accompaniment - it's a very big deal indeed and one that a Jewish businessman/blacksmith like Éléazar would have been well advised to avoid.

Halévy's score is not overly emphatic (Verdi is much more bombastic), but every violent thought and action, every shocking revelation is played in a conventional way, so Calixto Bieito's strenuous efforts to underplay the excesses and conventions of grand opéra are understandable. In some respects Bieito's production is not unlike Christof Loy's DNO production of Les Vêpres Siciliennes - a minimalist and modernised staging that lost none of the work's power, and by the same token neither should La Juive. La Juive however is not Les Vêpres Siciliennes and Halévy is not Verdi, but neither is there any of the revisionist spin that Loy needed to apply to the ballet sequence of Les Vêpres Siciliennes in order to make its plot developments a little more palatable to a modern audience.

Up to the interval at least however, the audience seem to go with it, and there is indeed much to enjoy in the revival of this rarely performed work. Not least are the opportunities to hear some great singing which is well catered for here in a strong cast lead by an intense Aleksandra Kurzak as Rachel, with Robert Alagna giving it his all as Éléazar and a gloriously lyrical turn from John Osborn as Léopold. The roles push Kurzak and Alagna to their limits but these are strong performances of great dramatic conviction and they are capably supported by Vera-Lotte Böcker as Eudoxie, Ain Anger as Cardinal Brogni and Johannes Kammler as Ruggiero, the fanatical arm of his forces.

Essentially then, Bieito does manage to convey the drama of La Juive with utmost fidelity. He sidesteps any unnecessary playing on specific religious symbols in favour of a view of the opera as "a requiem for a young woman" set against a backdrop of more generalised fanaticism and intolerance. The reaction of the Munich audience then to the creative team at the curtain call is difficult to ascertain. Perhaps they felt that Bieito failed to successfully provide stage directions commensurate with the overheated drama and music (which having most recently seen what the director does with Turandot would be a first), or perhaps some of the German audience felt that the message of fanaticism and intolerance was too close to home. If so, then the irony of the audience reaction will not be lost on anyone following recent political developments in Europe.

The next Bayerische Staatsoper broadcasts from the 2016 summer festival will be Rameau's Les Indes Galantes on 24th July, conducted by Ivor Bolton with direction and choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg on 31st July, conducted by Kirill Petrenko in a new production directed by David Bösch

Links: Staatsoper TV

Mussorgsky - Khovanshchina (Wiener Staatsoper, 2014 - Webcast)

Modest Mussorgsky - Khovanshchina

Wiener Staatsoper, 2014

Semyon Bychkov, Lev Dodin, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Christopher Ventris, Herbert Lippert, Andrzej Dobber, Ain Anger, Elena Maximova, Norbert Ernst

Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming - 21 November 2014

It's not exactly an original observation, but there is some validity in the view that Russia is the main character in Mussorgsky's great unfinished opera Khovanshchina. Mussorgsky himself described the work as a "national music drama" and the scope is indeed wide in the nature of the individuals that take part in the drama and in the institutions they represent. The work moreover has as much to say about the character of Mussorgsky's time as it does about historical events in the late 17th century. Whether it has something to say about the character of Russia today is for others to propose, but as far as director Lev Dodin is concerned, the primary purpose of the Vienna State Opera's production seems to be focus on putting Mussorgsky's Russia up on the stage by highlighting the intricacies of the dramatic action, and that in itself is challenge enough.

Set around in the 1680s, the divisions within the ruling forces in Russian society detailed in Khovanshchina are characterised according to three major factions - the Military, the Church and the State - but even within these factions there are divisions and subtle differences. The military are represented by Prince Ivan Khovansky and the Strelsty militia that he commands. They uphold the Old Russia tradition, but their actions have become disreputable and their behaviour is more recognisably characterised by their drinking and brawling. Another side of the conservative Russian tradition is maintained by the Old Believers who are opposed to Orthodox Church reforms and have broken from the state. The young Tsars Peter and Ivan don't actually appear in Khovanshchina, but the authority of the State can be seen in the Petrovtsy guard, while the conflict within it - the Tsarina Sophia similarly unable to be represented on stage - is there in the figure of the progressive liberal views and the inclusive foreign influence supported by Golitsyn.

That alone represents a complex cross-section of the factions struggling to uphold their own image of Russia, but even within this there are two sides to each of the characters. Mussorgsky's work also gives the common people a voice, mostly in the chorus, a chorus moreover that also variously incorporates the Strelsty, the Petrovtsy and the Old Believers. In addition to broad sweeps and the various nuances within this all-encompassing view of Russia, there is one other significant character in the work that gives the work an even wider perspective and that's Marfa. An Old Believer closely connected with its charismatic leader Dosifei, Marfa's personal situation, her difficulties with the unfaithful lover Andrei Khovansky, her run-in with Golitsyn who orders her put to death, her ultimate fate to die by self-immolation with the Believers after the decree of the Tsar, place her at the heart of the drama and give it a mystical and spiritual dimension.

There's a lot to cover then in Khovanshchina then, and Mussorgsky himself never completely got to grips with it, affected no doubt by the conflicts within his own personality and his struggle with alcoholism, leaving the work unfinished and unorchestrated at the time of his death. The huge ambition of the work and the sketches made for it by Mussorgsky have drawn a number of significant Russian composers to attempt to finish it, including Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovitch and Stravinsky. The intentions for the exact colour of the work may be impossible to determine - particularly as the finale was left incomplete - but it's clear where the focus of the work lies, that the emphasis should be in the strength of its characterisation, and the success of the work lies in how well it manages to bring those varied elements together into a coherent piece. That's no small challenge for either the conductor or the director, but the Vienna State Opera's production achieves an impressive balance that does indeed have that necessary strong Russian character.

As there's a lot of Russia to get up there within the relatively small confines of the Wiener Staatsoper stage, Lev Dodin's production adopts a vertical approach. Backgrounds indicate some of the interiors and exteriors of Red Square, Quarters of Moscow and the living quarters of several of the characters, but the main body of the foreground of the set consists of a large high framework of steel beams and crosses. Within this structure lifts and platforms raise and drop characters according to their hierarchy (the chorus and people most frequently at the bottom of it all) and variably according to their prominence and importance at different stages of the work. It has a solid and impressive appearance without imposing too much of an abstract or conceptual tone on the work, but most importantly, it serves to help make sense of all the manoeuvring and positioning without drawing too much attention to the device.

There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach. It allows all the room necessary for the huge choruses and for the interaction between them and the leading characters, but it also tends to enforce a rather static delivery. Everyone ends up standing on platforms, or within small ditches (depending on their position in relation to one another), declaiming in those flowing Mussorgsky spoken rhythms out towards the audience. It's true however that there isn't a great deal of dramatic action in Khovanshchina, and this is part of the difficult nature of the work and the staging of it, but there are some big set-piece scenes that ought to nearly overwhelm in their impact, and this staging does provide the opportunity to showcase such moments.

The success of any production of Khovanshchina lies in the detail and the interpretation, and Dodin's direction doesn't neglect these important factors. It's vital that we are aware of the visible and the invisible forces at work and that we are aware of the good and the bad side of each of the characters. There's nobility and genuine belief in each of them that their actions are not purely self-motivated, but are driven by a firm belief that their way is for the good of the people and for Russia. It's impossible to separate these intentions however from the personal actions and weaknesses of individual motivations and impulses. One of the key scenes, given due importance here, is Shaklovity's Scene 3 aria, 'Ah how unhappy thy lot, O my native land, Russia! Who then may deliver and lift thee out of thy distress? ... O, let not Russia fall into the hands of ruthless foes!"

This is the same motivation that lies behind each of the characters, but each of them - including Shaklovity in his denunciation of the Khovanshchina, the Khovansky affair - are not beyond conspiring in the downfall of others whose views on how to achieve this aim differ from their own. Others have a sense of pride that gets in the way of them seeing the truth, or personal desires - such as Andrei for Emma, and Marfa for Andrei - that conflict with the sincerity of their endeavours. Dodin's direction brings this out and even hints at other such relationships that are not explicitly stated (the Old Believers Marfa and Dosefei are seen in a state of undress together at one point), and it all ties in extremely well with the bigger picture.

Just as important is the unseen presence of the Tsars, who ultimately wield the strong hand necessary at this point of an historical crossroads, but while there is clemency and reconciliation to find a middle way - the Streltsy spared at the last moment - it results inevitably in some brutal treatment of the extreme fringes. The punishment seems also to merit the "offence" with Golitsyn's progressive liberalism towards foreign influence seeing him banished and the Old Believers' firm religious convictions leading the on the path towards martyrdom.

The visible and the invisible, the spoken and the unspoken find perfect balance and expression in the combination of Lev Dodin's direction and Semyon Bychkov's musical direction of a score (using the Shostakovitch edition) that has numerous possibilities for interpretation. On stage, the smaller sense of detail in the characterisation was taken up by a strong cast, particularly in those vital roles, even though most of them are not Russian. Ferruccio Furlanetto sounded a little hoarse in one or two places, but was the embodiment of the declining Ivan Khovansky. The two other vital roles are Dosefei and Marfa and they were given some amount of personality by Ain Anger and a particularly impressive Elena Maximova. Christopher Ventris showed how important a contribution Andrei Khovansky can make to the work as a whole, as indeed do the other true instigators and activists in the drama, Golitsyn, Shaklovity and the Scribe, all very well played.

December live streaming broadcasts at the Wiener Staatsoper include Rossini's LA CENERENTOLA, Johann Strauss' DIE FLEDERMAUS and Verdi's LA TRAVIATA, but the highlight of the month is likely to be Richard Strauss' sumptuous ARABELLA, which has Ulf Schirmer conducting Sven-Eric Bechtolf's production with Anne Schwanewilms in the title role.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming programme; Staatsoper Live at Home video