Bel canto isn't realism - Maria Stuarda Royal Opera House

We are in a golden age of voice.  Joyce DiDonato creates an astonishing Donizetti's Maria Stuarda at the Royal Opera House, which will define the role for decades to come. Her range is breathtaking and  her technique is flawless. We will never know how Maria Malibran sounded when she premiered the role, but there's almost no way that Malibran, however good she might have been, would have had at the age of 25 the polish and depth DiDonato brings to the role. So much for the idea that the past is always better. In Joyce DiDonato we have a wonder we should treasure.

"Bel canto isn't realism", someone once said to me. No-one speaks with florid melismas and repeated trills. Bel canto is extreme singing, the triumph of art over naturalism.  When we hear DiDonato's voice soaring, surfing over wave after wave of swelling sound, we - or at least I am - transported to a rarifed realm of hyper-idealism, unsullied by literal pettiness. Maria Stuarda isn't about the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1567. The story isn't  history but creatively re-imagined by Friedrich Schiller into a masterpiece in which an individual triumphs over repression.  Donizetti adds more new angles to the story, such as the love affair between Mary and Dudley, Earl of Leicester, to spice up the drama. 

Elizabeth and her apparatchiks cut Mary's head off but her spirit triumphs. When Joyce DiDonato sings in her final scene, her voice trembles, expressing fear, as if we can hear her heart palpitate. Shorn of her hair, and in her under-robe, she looks painfully vulnerable. Yet that voice releases such firmness and such assurance that we know that Mary has entered into a far finer world than that of the grubby trolls who brought her down. DiDonato seems lit from within, transforming the glare of the execution room into transcendent light.  Although Schiller and Donizetti weren't admirers of the misuse of religion, their Mary, through Joyce DiDonato, reaches apotheosis. The crowd outside, lit in Marian blue, sing quietly, like pilgrims.They've witnessed the triumph of an individual whose inner nobility has set her free. Maria Stuarda is kin to Leonore, but even more powerful and symbolic..The curtain drops, suddenly, like a sword. Snap! the drama ends, so abruptly that it is, and should be, unsettling. Blood and a severed head would be banal, a complete misreading of the ideas in the play and in the opera.

It defies basic common sense that this production should have warranted booing, a churlish and bigoted form of abuse. So we don't behead people these days? Of course we do, in different ways. The directors, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, are extremely experienced,  and know their music better than most who malign them. Any really good opera inspires new perspectives. If we genuinely care about an opera, or a composer, we seek fresh perspectives. It is irrelevant whether a production is modern or non-modern, as long as it presents the work well. In the case of Maria Stuarda, the very term "traditional" is meaningless, since the opera was unstaged for decades, only entering the repertoire some 40 years ago  It by-passed the whole era of verismo and late 19th century excess. This staging, with its clean lines, focuses full attention on the singers, which is as things should be, especially in bel canto..It's designed with intelligence, illustrating ideas in the opera without overwhelming it with unnecessary detail. If the singers shine, it's partly because they and the directors have worked things through thoroughly, in unison. In any case, the Personregie  in this production is exceptionally fine, given that there are so few parts that there's no room for error. As Joyce DiDonato tweeted:  "People need to understand that great performances are aided by great direction". Pay attention. The lady knows what she's talking about.

The First Act opens in the Palace of Westminster, not "The Houses of Parliament" as such,  Monarchs lived in Westminster Palace before Buckingham Palace and Windsor were completed. In any case Westminster was, and is, the seat of power. It's a symbol of authority. Anyone who has ever been inside, seeing how it operates will recognize the trappings of grandeur - panelling as ornate inside as the facades outside. Wood absorbs sound: the corridors of power are hushed, as oblique as the machinations of the factotums who operate within, the "men in suits" (later seen in long cloaks, like their 16th century counterparts) who pull the strings.  Elisabetta (Carmen Giannattasio) is Queen, but she is a prisoner, too, of sorts, in a system of intrigue and ambition. When she lets her feelings slip, she becomes vulnerable. Just as the crowd outside the palace has to be held back by guard rails, Elisabetta has to keep her feelings under strict control. That's why she cannot show mercy or let Maria's emotional outburst go unpunished. Donizetti's music, with its bright, sharp contrasts, suggests the tension that underlines most of the opera.  The golden burnished tones of Westminster and in the music belie the harsh fact that in this opera, everyone is on a razor edge.

Fotheringay Castle was a border fortress, infinitely less luxurious than Westminster.  For Maria, it was a prison from which she had almost no hope of escape. Towering walls, repressed "cells", corridors, colours of marble and hard granite. When DiDonato sings of the meadows outside, her voice takes on a gloriously lyrical sheen. It's as if by sheer vocal power she can magic in flowers, freedom and femininity. Of course, dour cynics would say, you can't bring a meadow into a prison, but Donizetti knew better. In Maria's imagination anything's possible, and DiDonato's singing makes dreams come true.

When DiDdonato and Giannattasio have their confrontation, Donizetti's music crackles with violent intensity. Maria is letting her emotions out, something which the repressed Elisabetta can never do. Frantic dotted rhythms,  voices trilling and counter-trilling, rapid-fire tempi. DiDonato wins. It's in the score, but Giannattasio gives a good fight, her voice glinting like metal.  Ideally I would have preferred a conductor more versed in period style, but Bertrand de Billy is always reliable.

Exceptional singing as one would expect in this genre where precision and fluidity are so important. Giorgio Talbot is a killer role for a bass, stretching the range cruelly upwards, demanding an agility many basses can't negotiate without compromising the long resonant lines they do more naturally.  Matthew Rose achieved all Talbot's challenges and more, infusing his singing with  emotional conviction.  He creates a Talbot with singular and convincing personality. This is perhaps the finest moment in his career so far (and basses go on singing forever).

Ismael Jordi made his Royal Opera House debut as Roberto, Conte di Leicester, substituting at late notice. As soon as he began to sing,  it was immediately apparent that Jordi has great potential. His voice has a distinct timbre, which combines brightness with mature, expressive  depth. Jordi is also strong enough in terms of personality that he's convincing as the lover of a character as overwhelming as DiDonato's Maria. Let's hope we hear him again in London, soon. Jeremy Carpenter sang a good, solid Guglielmo Cecil, Kathleen Williamson sang Anna Kennedy, Maria's maid and Peter Dineen played the executioner. Altogether an extremely important production, not just for the singing but for the way the staging integrates with the plot and enhances the inherent non-naturalistic beauty of the voices. It also highlights the stupidity of the "anti-modern" Taliban. This staging is a lot closer to bel canto ideals than the booers realize.

photos : Bill Cooper, Royal Opera House

Barbican Baroque Blockbusters 2014-15 (3)

Despite its brutalist architecture, the Barbican is Britain's foremost centre for baroque and early music. It sponsors top-flight international musicians and larger -scale works. The 2014/15 season offers many delights.

The Academy of Ancient Music, based at the Barbican,  presents Monteverdi L'incoronazione di Poppea on 4 Oct - excellent cast including Antonacci. Richard Egarr conducts the AAM.  Six days later on 10/10, Joyce DiDonato heads a possibly even better cast in Handel Alcina, Harry Bicket conducts the English Concert. Only 4 years ago Marc Minkowski conducted an excellent Alcina (read more here). DiDonato should be outstanding though because she can really camp up the curlicues in this crazy part!

Even more spectacular will be the big Rameau extravaganza on 18/11. William Christie conducts Les Arts Florissantes and an excellent French cast in Rameau's Daphnis et Églé (Pastorale héroïque) and La Naissance d’Osiris (Acte de ballet).  Rameau in his time was considered shockingly avant garde. Christie understands that and conducts Rameau with the ideal mix of wit and audacity. (Please read my review of Christie's Rameau Hippolyte et Aricie at Glyndebourne). Les Arts Flo are doing Monteverdi too, Madrigals book 8 (24/5).

More still! Europa Galante and Fabio Bondi on 20/2, Vivaldi L'Oraculo in Messina,. Again a superlative European cast - Vivica Genaux no less. And if that's not enough, Handel Hercules (not so common) on 4 March, Harry Bicket, the English Concert and some of the best British baroque singers. The AAM is also doing Scarlatti and Mozart (4/2/15 Christopher Hogwood) and of course, Handel's Messiah for Christmas and Bach St Matthews for Easter. .

There is so much going on at the Barbican that it pays to read the full schedule carefully and spot the treasures. Please also see my piece on  the Barbican 2014-15 LSO and international orchestras season and my analysis of the Barbican's 2014-2015 BBC SO and related goodies. Far too many interesting things to deal with in one post.

ROH La donna del lago - fuss and facts

What was all the fuss about the Royal Opera House Rossini La donna del lago? Before the premiere, John Fulljames made the statement "Turning Highlanders into savages is the clear choice of an author; that's what Rossini and Scott are saying. They are saying that these people cannot be taken into modernity." That is not at all the same as saying Highlanders "were" savages. And what's so bad about artists creating works of art?  But the comments unleashed a firestorm. But the whole point of the opera is that it's based on a work of fiction, Scott wrote for the purpose of legitimizing English rule. Walter Scott created a work of the imagination, as did Rossini. Since when did Scotsmen get called Rodrigo?

Authenticity was not an issue for 19th century intellectuals. Of course they admired "primitives". It wasn't just Scotland, but the whole of Europe. The whole concept of Romanticism was predicated on this fascination with wild, untamed places like islands and mountains, and the supposedly "pure" tribes that inhabited them. Think Rousseau, Marie-Antoinette and her shepherdesses, the Brothers Grimm collecting folk tales, Byron in Greece. Romanticism was a radical revolution away from the values of classical Antiquity and what that stood for. Without Romanticism, we might not revere individualism, the birth of psychology and even democratic government. But 19th century intellectuals weren't going to let it all hang out. They needed to sanitize things because they believed in the Idea of Progress and the superiority of western civilization. Scott and his friends loved the idea of Scotland's past but expected it to be colonized culturally.

Ironically, Fulljames's production is better informed and much more faithful to history than detractors realize.History is "made" by those who interpret it. Anyone seriously interested in the past would do well to pay attention to the Royal Opera House production for this very reason.

Towering above all else on stage is a landscape : mountain peaks, a mysterious lake, golden, burnished tones. Exactly like a 19th century painting, Caspar David Friedrich or Edwin Landseer. The idea is that nature is a panorama offering endless possibilities. Throughout this opera, Rossini writes music that evokes wide open spaces, extreme heights and depths, lyricism and a sense of foreboding sadness.

 The sides of the stage are framed with images of an opera house from Rossini's time, reminding us clearly that this is an opera, a work of art created by the imagination. We are looking at Scotland as theatre, interpreted by Scott and Rossini. Gentlemen in frock coats admire glass cases in which Elena, Malcom and Duglas float, suspended in time. That's exactly how 19th century people studied  exotic specimens.  At the end, Elena (the divine Joyce DiDonato) blissfully climbs back into her glass case, complete with heather and ferns. Now, perhaps, she's timeless, the Scotland she represents preserved flawlessly for the edification of 19th century civilization. In the first act, she wears a simple white dress. When she's immortalized, she swathes herself in gaudy tartan. Myth becames fact and the past becomes the future.

It's not a difficult idea to absorb.  As the head of the Sir Walter Scott Club said "(Scott's) great aim in life was the promotion of Scotland as a unity within the United Kingdom." If he and his friends had actually seen the production  they would realize that this is exactly what Fulljames is doing. They spoke before actually seeing the show. "Scott" appears like a Master of Ceremonies. He "is" the father of what we assume Scottish heritage is, and he gets full credit for that.

The Highlanders are, indeed, no more hairy or smelly than anyone else. They're just not like the refined gentlemen of the Celtic Society Scott was active in, with their top hats and watch fobs. Whether the 16th century Highlanders liked it or not, "the future is tartan". Not homespun, vegetable dyed that a hunter might wear so he blends into the landscape, but bright and gaudy that looks good when the hunter is on parade serving the new King. Or the tourist industry.  The gentlemen of the Celtic Society feast on haggis served on silver. Duglas and his men get their meat free range and unprocessed. Life was hard for the common folk. Duglas has to marry his daughter off to someone she doesn't love in order to survive. She's no different from the ordinary women who get pushed around because things are the way they are.  This production is more sympathetic to the real Highlanders than the Romantics were. At a time when some are thinking of Scottish independence, it's not a bad idea to reflect on a Scotland not dominated by Victorian values.

This production is also surprisngly attuned to the music. Rossini writes grandeur but not bluster. His instrumentation is spare : piccolos, small trumpets, a harp, small snare drums. This orchestration is fundamental to the meaning of the opera because it evokes the sense of Nature and freedom  that the Highlanders loved so well. The instruments are shown on stage several times, reminding us how art and meaning connect.  When we see the musicians in the boxes at the side of the stage, we can look closely at what they are playing and appreciate how "rustic" the music is. Later, they are playing for the conquerors and for the state. They're positioned on a raised platform on the main stage, but there's plenty of room between them and the ground: a vestige of the wide open spaces Duglas and the Highlanders once roamed?

The very form of Rossini's music evokes panoramic landscapes and free-ranging prospects. Extreme  ranges of pitch, dizzying flights up and down the register. The vocal lines are gloriously decorative and complex. True bravura stuff: trills and flourishes that burst with life and energy. I don't need to write in depth about the singing because everyone else can, it was that good. But I will write about the orchestra because it was so idiomatic. Rossini needs precision and clarity, and a conductor like Michele Mariotti who understands that bigger is not necessarily better in Rossini. This is very early Romantic music, with more in common with the baroque than with Verdi or Wagner. Besides, Rossini seems fascinated by the purity of Elena and what she represents. She's the lady of the lake, not a lady of the palace.

Then an aspect of the production almost completely overlooked in the controversy. Fulljames uses visual images that reflect images in the music, which themselves reflect the meaning of the opera. The wood panelled walls of the Celtic Society open out on a set depicting a castle on a mountain, lit by mysterious moonlight. Uprights that suggest dangerous crags and peaks, or the extreme ranges of pitch and timbre in the singing. Diagonals which reinforce the swooping, eliding vocal lines, though they serve a practical purpose, allowing singers to move quickly upwards and down without impeding the drama. Dark recesses from which Highlanders emerge like the creatures of the night they hunt: basses and baritones sound just right. Few directors, and even fewer members of the audience understand that abstract music can connect to physical form.  In this production you "hear" the music with your eyes as well as your ears.

Moreover, the singers move easily, so that they can concentrate on singing impressively instead of just looking good. A friend of mine saw the scrapped Paris production, hampered by stiff movement for the principals and "dorkiest dances I ever saw for three men and one woman as warriors, flailing arms and extending legs like Xena Meets The Matrix." (read more here).  At least we in London had the Highlanders beat their staves and shields. This production was done in barely two years and in technical terms it's something to respect.

Thee film direction was less adept. Instead of showing the all-important framing device at the sides of the stage, too much attention was placed on closeups of the Gentlemen. Live on stage, you can see the interaction between the 17th and 19th century personnel. In the film, it's confusing to see a Highlander sing while a gentleman is quaffing whisky. We need to see Scott among the singers but Rossini is present in the music. On the other hand these are minor considerations, such as we get in any production.

The main thing is that we should go to an opera to hear how it's interpreted, not carrying preconceptions and hearsay impressions.  Opera is not history. It's not even reality. Why else would Rossini have created Malcom as a trouser role?  Or "not in this case" as Daniella Barcellona (wonderful !) quipped. Walter Scott created something new with The Lady of the Lake and Rossini created something new with La donna del lago, So it's no big deal that we go to a performance for a new perspective.