Saint-Saëns - Henry VIII (Brussels, 2023)

Camille Saint-Saëns - Henry VIII

La Monnaie-De Munt, 2023

Alain Altinoglu, Olivier Py, Lionel Lhote, Marie-Adeline Henry, Nora Gubisch, Ed Lyon, Vincent Le Texier, Enguerrand de Hys, Werner van Mechelen, Jérôme Varnier, Claire Antoine, Alexander Marev, Carlos Martinez, Alexander Marev, Alessia Thais Beradi, Annelies Kerstens, Lieve Jacobs, Manon Poskin, Alain-Pierre Wingelinckx, Luis Aguilar, Byoungjin Lee, René Laryea

OperaVision - May 2023

There is no denying the lyrical beauty of the music of Camille Saint-Saëns and consequently it's always a joy to discover some of his lesser known operas, but I have to admit that I struggle to find relevance in his subjects or indeed find much in the way of true feeling or connection with the human condition in his treatments. To be fair, while Samson and Dalila remains an impressive and powerful work still worthy of continued revival, opportunities to actually see (rather than just hear recordings) of his other operas are still few and far between. Director Olivier Py, often a reliable and interesting director at La Monnaie in Brussels, certainly gives Henry VIII his best shot, but there is still a feeling that there is something vital lacking that would make a case for the work and other Saint-Saëns operas meriting a return to the main repertoire.

The challenges of adapting any period of the reign and activities of Henry VIII are you would imagine considerable. Even just choosing which of the wives as the focus for an opera, but the fate of Anne Boleyn would certainly have to be considered as a starting point, such is the impact that this marriage would have on subsequent English history. Donizetti wasn't too concerned with historical fact when he set to work on his series of operas about the English monarchs, but still managed to make them hugely entertaining, not least in his own version of the Anne Boleyn story. Whichever way you approach it, it's going to be a long one and so full of operatic incident and drama as to be almost irresistible.

Saint-Saens' approach in Henry VIII, while it inevitably is still operatically stylised, places more focus on Catherine's condition as a spurned wife, the significance of the dissolution of that marriage and the schism it caused with the church as the beginning of a reign of terror. Rather than one thing leading to another, there is instead a sense of a strange but compelling juxtaposition of love and terror that intentionally sit rather uncomfortably together. This is exemplified by the finale of Act I, where the king declares his love for the handmaid he has brought over from France at the same time as the execution of Buckingham is taking place outside. Anne Boleyn is not unexpectedly horrified at the strange (to say the least) by appetites of the English king, fearing for the Spanish ambassador Gomez who has already declared his love for Anne.

That certainly raises the stakes, but as a grand opéra it still has certain conventions that must be adhered to which can make it something of an acquired taste by today's standards. At the very least it does feel like the drama could have been tightened up a little more. Act II in particular feels a little bit overdone with Henry pressing his declarations of love still further on Anne while Gomez looks on helplessly. On the other hand, the menace is still there and the intriguing juxtaposition of declarations of love bearing more than a hint of danger that Anne is unwittingly flirting with since we know what lies ahead (or indeed a head) makes this something worth exploring. And indeed, this develops into a just as charged confrontation between the Queen Catherine and the pretender for her position, any confrontation between the two women always a sure situation for sparks to fly.

Olivier Py as ever is an interesting choice of director for the staging of this kind of rare opera at La Monnaie. Saint-Saëns in grand opéra mode presents a rich palette of dramatic scenes, musical set pieces, rousing choruses and ballet music, which Py dutifully addresses in his own way with his regular set designer Pierre-André Weitz. The stage is very dark and menacing, largely black and white with bold colours set against it, Anne notably in blood red. There is a blend of historical Tudor costume and 19th century period dress, since Py feels the work has more to do with the divisions of church and state in the French Third Republic of Saint-Saëns time than it does about English 16th century history. He makes good use of the dancers in the ballet sequences (and outside of them also), as well as his tableau arrangements (as in his Dialogues des Carmélites) to try to touch on other spiritual elements, bringing stylisations to the swirling undercurrents of violence and death as they are represented in the music, which wouldn't bear too much realism.

As much as I love Saint-Saëns and the French Romantic composers of this era, his music is fairly nondescript for the most part, reminding me Ambroise Thomas. Unmemorable maybe, even if conductor Alain Altinoglu praises the character and colouration of his writing, and a little bit academic, not really allowing you to feel any real emotional connection. But as far as the demands of the opera are concerned, the composer (and conductor) fulfil the remit, building the tension up to a high-pitched finale at the end of each of the four acts, each of the principals having several strong expressive arias. There is certainly an impact in the key scenes, such as Henry proclaiming himself head of the church in England to huge choral acclaim. Py serves such scenes well, not neglecting the ballet scenes either but making good use of this music to underline and contribute to the overall tone of the work in this production, as when for example he extends the final quartet with a silent dancer and Jane Seymour to further add to the sense of menace.

Grand opéra of this kind is a challenge but also a treat when you have good singers to deliver it. Soprano Marie-Adeline Henry takes the honours here with a superb, impressively sung Catherine of Aragon. In many ways she is the heart of the tragedy and main vehicle that establishes the tone of the opera, so it's vital that it is in good hands. Mezzo-soprano Nora Gubisch is also good as her 'lesser-equal', and Ed Lyon is still in fine voice as Don Gomez. Henry VIII is such a larger-than-life figure that it can be a challenge to show nuance or character, but there is indeed some human qualities invoked by Saint-Saëns's music and Lionel Lhote's performance. Definitely a cast worthy of the work and they do it justice. Py also treats Saint-Saëns' Henry VIII respectfully or at least appropriately, with fewer of his usual mannerisms, the extravagance of the stunning set designs commensurate with the scale and scope of the work. The spectacle, colour, movement and superb stage management brings out the contrasts, dynamic and lyricism in an opera than might not be great, but has certainly much to admire in it.

Links: La Monnaie-De Munt, OperaVision

Saint-Saëns - Samson et Dalila (Paris, 2016)

Camille Saint-Saëns - Samson et Dalila

L'Opéra de Paris, 2016

Philippe Jordan, Damiano Michieletto, Anita Rachvelishvili, Aleksandrs Antonenko, Egils Silins, Nicolas Testé, Nicolas Cavallier, John Bernard, Luca Sannai, Jian-Hong Zhao 

ARTE Concert - 13 October 2016

Originally conceived as an oratorio Samson et Dalila was, soon after a visit to see Das Rheingold at Bayreuth, developed by Camille Saint-Saëns into something more operatic. If there's little suggestion of Wagnerian influence, the unconventional method of opera composition led to Samson et Dalila having a unique and blend of music and drama elements that were perfect for the composer's strengths. It has Biblical drama, lyrical Romantic passions, lush Eastern musical arrangements and choral fervour that manage to express the contrasting sentiments at the heart of the work. If you like that sort of thing - and it's only slightly less extravagant in its exoticism than Aida - Samson et Dalila can be something fabulous, particularly when the Paris Opera get behind it the way they do in this 2016 production.

Like many other French composers around the end of the nineteenth century, Camille Saint-Saëns shared a fascination for all things oriental, travelling extensively in these exotic places and soaking up more than just a flavour of these new sounds. Mélodies persanes (1870), La Princess Jaune (1872) and Samson et Dalila (1877) are not just influenced by oriental rhythms and melodies, but positively seeped in them. There might be a tendency to regard such borrowings as kitsch or, in the parlance of our times, "cultural appropriation", but they really are what make these works distinctively beautiful.

While there might be a tendency to downplay such elements and attempt to find a middle-ground that is a little acceptable to modern tastes and sensibilities, that's not the strategy adopted by Philippe Jordan for Samson et Dalila. Quite rightly, Jordan conducts the orchestra of the Paris Opera in a manner that emphasises the true merits of the work. It's not only there that you find the sheer beauty of the composer's extravagant orchestration for the piece, but the heart of its drama. With two great singers in the principal roles and attention paid to the choral aspects of the work musically, I found this to be one of the finest and most persuasive performances of Samson et Dalila that I've come across.

Damiano Michieletto's direction of the work at the Bastille doesn't perhaps contribute quite as much as the musical performance to the success of the production, but it functions well enough to give a strong visual and dramatic context for the work. It is a typical Paris production in that, unlike the musical performance, it does tend to settle for a middle-ground. The period lies somewhere between modern and Biblical, with guns and togas (albeit used in an 'ironic' kind of way) and nothing much that adds up to any real conceptual or thematic coherence. Good vertical use is made of the stage, the Hebrew slaves confined to the darker lower levels, the misery of their captivity contrasted with the golden glow of the luxurious decadence of Delilah's bedroom above it.

It's in such contrasts however that Samson et Dalila thrives as a work of music drama, and those contrasts are well reflected also in the complementary casting of Aleksandrs Antonenko and Anita Rachvelishvili. Both artists are regulars at the Paris Opera, and their development there is paying dividends for French opera. While she is capable of great dramatic delivery and an impressive range, Rachvelishvili shows here just how versatile her voice is and how capable she is of expressing the kind of delicacy and tenderness that are vital to Delilah's allure. Evidently it's Delilah's beautiful 'Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix' aria that demonstrates what she is capable of, and her delivery of the line 'Réponds à ma tendresse!' is enough to send shivers down the spine.

It's a love/betrayal aria that turns into a duet of course, shared with Samson, and Antonenko blends perfectly. Antonenko is a tenor who is strong right across the range, but only really shines in certain roles. Verdi roles can be testing, and his voice can have a certain steeliness that doesn't open up and bloom as you might like, but here he complements Rachvelishvili well, providing the contrast that is necessary, giving the aria the edge of hesitancy and danger it needs before the recognition of betrayal that comes with the cry of 'Trahison!'. With Jordan and the Paris orchestra right behind this, the swooning loveliness exploding into rage, you have everything that is musically and dramatically great about this work all summed up the closing duet of Act II.

If much of Act III can feel rather kitsch with its soft choruses and oriental dance music, there similarly should be an underlying suggestion of anguish and menace for the coming fate of Samson and Delilah. The costumes don't quite manage this, the Philistines dressing up in praise of Dagon as if for a Roman orgy, all in glittering dresses and togas, with gold laurel crowns, throwing money down from Delilah's balcony onto the revellers, the downtrodden Hebrew slaves and the tormented Samson. If it studiously goes out of its way to deny the audience the expected toppling of the marble pillars conclusion - one of the few scenes of dramatic action that there is in the opera - the self-immolation scene carried out with a repentant Delilah's compliance nonetheless delivers the kind of bang the opera needs to end on.

Not providing the expected famous pay-off is a bit of a risk and it's not as if it is for the sake of any additional edge or to make some concession to a contemporary reality, but in its own way probably Damiano Michieletto's middle-ground production does more or less find an equivalent level of where Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila lies. More importantly however the work is given its due where it really counts; in the music and singing performances. And with this kind of account of one of the highlights of French opera of the Belle Époque, the Paris opera make the case that those merits are not inconsiderable.

Links: L'Opéra de Paris, ARTE Concert

Saint-Saëns - La Princesse Jaune & Gounod - La Colombe

Camille Saint-Saëns - La Princesse Jaune
Charles Gounod - La Colombe

Buxton Festival, 2013

Stephen Barlow, Francis Matthews, Anne Sophie Duprels, Ryan MacPherson, Gillian Keith, Emma Carrington, Ryan MacPherson, Jonathan Best

Buxton Opera House - 5 July 2013

The choice of works for this year's Festival Double Bill feature at Buxton were perhaps not the most challenging or adventurous works (there is however another pairing of Sciarrino's Luci mie Traditici and Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King if you're looking for something rather bolder), but as well as reviving two undeservedly obscure works that one would rarely ever have the opportunity to see elsewhere, the pairing here of two opéra-comique works by Camille Sant-Saëns and Charles Gounod proved to be perfectly complementary, highly entertaining and maybe even a little thought provoking.

Considered on their own merits it has to be said that neither of the two short works are ever likely to enter standard repertory or ever be considered alongside such grand and great works by the composers of Samson et Dalila and Faust, but the intentions and the audiences for both Saint-Saëns' La Princesse Jaune and Gounod's La Colombe are very different.  Composed for the Opéra-Comique in Paris, both works are musically and dramatically typical examples of the comic operetta, with no greater ambitions than to provide a bit of light entertainment.  If the musical approach differs between the two composers - one interesting element that is highlighted by their being performed together like this - one thing that they have in common is that they are very much of their time.

Buxton however very cleverly linked the two works together by playing to their somewhat La Bohème character, both works taking place in neighbouring apartments of a dilapidated building in a rather shabby quarter of Paris.  La Princesse Jaune (The Yellow Princess), although originally set in Holland, here takes place in the bohemian garret of two artists.  One of them, Kornélis is obsessed with the image of a Japanese woman (dressed in a yellow kimono here to make the racial implications of the title less problematic) that he is compelled to endlessly paint.  He is so obsessed with the painted lady that he doesn't notice that his cousin Léna - who rather scandalously seems to share the apartment with him - is in love with him.  Under the influence of who knows what drug or concoction, Kornélis however starts to believe that Léna is his Princess come to life and only eventually comes to the realisation of his love for "the real thing".

La Princesse Jaune a little bit repetitive in its elaboration of this simple and absurd situation through a series of duets and solo pieces for two singers, but it's beautifully composed and structured nonetheless.  It's partly a satire on the obsession with all things Oriental during the period when it was written (1872) and Sant-Saëns even introduces pastiche pentatonic scale Japanese themes into the music, but he also defines the romantic flights of fancy of Kornélis with his poetic musings on love and beauty with the rather more down-to-earth immediate concerns of Léna.  One can't live on poetry even though it burns very nicely as we've seen in La Bohème, and like Rodolfo and Mimi the man and the woman have very different ideals on the subject of love.  In a way however, as light and entertaining as it is, La Princess Jaune nonetheless explores questions of illusion and reality in the transformative power of art and love to enrich our rather more mundane lives.

Different ideals on the question of love and the necessity nonetheless of putting food on the table are also to the fore in Gounod's La Colombe (The Dove).  This is a very different side of Gounod from the familiar grand scale compositions - even if Faust was itself also originally written for the Opéra-Comique with sections of spoken dialogue.  La Colombe on the other hand is very much an operetta in its subject matter as well as in its light musical numbers.  Performed in English here at Buxton, it's similarity to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan or with an Oscar Wilde comic farce are even more evident.

The question of a romantic ideal here can be symbolised within the figure of the dove (which fortuitously rhymes with love in English).  Horace keeps it as a memory of his love for the Countess, and even names it Sylvia after her. He's still faithful to the memory of the love they once shared even though she mistreated him, spent all his money and then abandoned him, leaving him penniless.  Horace and his servant Mazet now eke out a miserable existence in an unsavoury district of Paris, housed just below a couple of disreputable artists on the floor above, one of whom has an obsession with all things Japanese (Anne Sophie Duprels' Léna making a cameo appearance during the overture here).

Musically, La Colombe doesn't appear to offer the same riches that can be found in the Sant-Saëns work that preceded it, but here in its two-act 1866 version, it's similarly well-constructed and has a rather more entertaining variety in the series of mishaps of its plot when Sylvia turns up looking to purchase the dove.  She has no romantic notions associated with the dove, but rather just wants it as another social fashion to compete with the parrot owned by her rival, the Countess Amalia.  Keen to show the depths of his devotion to his former lover but unable to provide her with a suitable meal, Horace, unaware of the nature of her visit, orders Mazet and Maître Jean (Sylvia's manservant) to serve up the only fresh and edible food in the house - the dove.

On their own merit then neither work is of any great depth, but as usual they way that they are brought together is intriguing and, in many ways, they each enhance the other and bring out common elements that might not otherwise be noticed.  In order to do that however, the performances have to be strong and consistent and that's one of Buxton's strong points.  Every element is in perfect accord with the other, the whole thing thoughtfully considered and presented in an ingenious stage design by Lez Brotherston that allows this cross-pollination to occur.  The musical interpretation under Stephen Barlow was absolutely marvellous, both works delivered with verve and character and sung magnificently by a very strong cast.

Undoubtedly however, the key to the success of bring these rather old-fashioned works to life lies with the direction of Francis Matthews.  Every movement and gesture, every line of dialogue and tone of delivery in the singing was used to bring out the full richness of the comic potential of the works and even finding unexpected depths by linking common themes between them.  Great works they are perhaps not, but this year's Festival Double Bill was a richly entertaining concoction and a showcase for the kind of talent that is a hallmark of the Buxton Festival.

Saint-Saëns - Samson et Dalila

Camille Saint-Saëns - Samson et Dalila

Badisches Staatstheater, Karlsruhe, 2010

Jochem Hochstenbach, José Cura, Julia Gertseva, Stefan Stoll, Lukas Schmid, Ulrich Schneider, Andreas Heideker, Sebastian Haake, Alexander de Paula |Arthaus Musik

The question of whether Samson et Dalila might not be better suited to the setting of an oratorio than an opera has been a problematic issue ever since Saint-Saëns started work on it back in 1867, ten years before its first performance. With its biblical subject and choral emphasis, the original intention of the composer himself was that it should be an oratorio, but he was persuaded by the librettist Ferdinand Lemaire to turn it into an opera. The reality is that the completed work lies somewhere between opera and oratorio, omitting a great deal of the dramatic episodes that occur in the story of Samson and Delilah, while even some of the most famous and well-known scenes occur off-stage. In an attempt to make the function better as a drama, Argentinian tenor and stage director José Cura injects some contemporary references into his 2010 production of the work for Badisches Staatsoper, but while the quality of the work and its performance here are pretty much beyond reproach, the question of the work’s nature and its suitability for the stage remains unresolved as far as this production is concerned.

Designed and directed by Cura himself, it’s not a terribly imaginative production. The concessions towards modern relevance and contemporary allusion are half-hearted and heavy-handed, not really going much further than relating the enslavement of the Hebrew people and conflict in the Middle East to the corporate ambitions of oil companies in the region by setting a few oil-rigs on the stage. It’s a static set design that remains unchanged throughout Act I and Act III, the lighting permanently dark chiaroscuro, the only variation being the rather clichéd imagery of silhouetting the rigs against a burning red sunset in the first act and against the midnight blue of night in the third. It’s also uncommitted with regard to the contemporary setting, since although Samson and the Hebrews and even the soldiers wear modern or casual clothes, Delilah and her priestesses wear traditional white tunics, and Act II goes to some length, despite the sparseness of the decoration, to wrap Samson in the curtain backdrop in order to ensure that it retains the look and feel of traditional biblical imagery.

There’s little consistency to the concept and it’s so lacking any insightful observations about contemporary issues in the region that you wonder what the purpose is in (half-)updating it at all. If it’s an attempt to create a workable dramatic context for the work, it doesn’t really succeed, since the actual stage direction within these limiting sets remains fairly static, and even the ‘Danse des prêtresses de Dagon‘ consists of nothing more than a traditional processional march (although the beautiful young women seem fond of kissing and fondling each other elsewhere). Musically however, and in terms of the singing - with José Cura reprising a signature role and Julia Gertseva providing the necessary persuasive glamour as Delilah - there’s more than enough dramatic expression to make up for the lack of stagecraft and it’s here that the true qualities of the work, regardless of the uncertainties in its categorisation, are revealed. Cura, I find is a little too stentorian, sacrificing clarity of French diction for sonority in an old-fashioned way, but it’s a committed performance that, certainly in the third act, draws out and enhances the deepening sense of the visceral brutality of the drama and dark betrayal that it there to some extent in the score. The fine performance of Gertseva however, particularly in her duet with Cura, singing a powerful ‘Mon coeur s’ouvre a sa voix‘, ensures that there are no weaknesses in the other vital aspects of this magnificent work.

The actual filming of the production itself however also raises some questions. The sleeve and booklet notes on the DVD (Cura even writing the liner notes) go to pains to convince us that this performance was recorded LIVE, but it’s clearly filmed without an audience present and, since some of the lip-syncing doesn’t match, it’s possibly edited together from a couple of different performances or has even been overdubbed. Certainly in the case of José Cura, his lip-movements and performance don’t reflect the delivery at the start of the first act, and he sings most of the third act from beneath a hood, so the full dramatic performance isn’t always there in the way that it might be before a live audience. Also, curiously, some of the other singing is done off-stage to the extent that you aren’t always sure whose voice you are hearing. In the case of the old Hebrew, for example, an actor (Walter Schreyeck) plays the role but the actual singing of the role is performed off-stage by another person (Ulrich Schneider). Again however, although there are close-ups and some different angles used, there doesn’t seem to be any actual trade-off in making this filmed performance any more visually interesting. Other than a brief flashback montage at the start of Act III though, there’s nothing too clever or distracting attempted either.

These curiosities in the staging and filming are however minor considerations and don’t take away from the fact that overall this is a terrific performance of Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila. The orchestra of the Badisches Staatstheater, conducted by Jochem Hochstenbach, give a strong account of the lyricism and the dark power of the work and they are assisted considerably in achieving the necessary impact by principals and by the outstanding work of the chorus. On the DVD release, there is a certain amount of reverb on the singing that takes away from the clarity a little, but the recording of the chorus and orchestration is fine, exhibiting lovely detail and tone. There’s good presence in the 5.1 surround mix, and the PCM stereo option is also excellent. The widescreen image quality is reasonably clear, considering the sharp contrasts on the darkened stage. The DVD is region-free, NTSC, dual-layer. Subtitles are English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Korean. There are no extra features, but the booklet contains notes by Cura and a full synopsis.