Eötvös Angels in America, Barbican

Tony Kushner's Angels in America is an icon, bigger than "just" a play (or plays) because it commemorates the AIDS pandemic, or rather its first phase. In the early 80's, AIDS didn't have a name. It was terrifying because no-one knew why so many healthy young men were dying horrific deaths of what we called then "Karposi's Sarcoma",  a cancer of the very old. Then, ostensibly straight men started dying too, and their partners, and even militant homophobes.  Everyone panicked. Dreadful as the epidemic was, AIDs was a turning point. It exposed hypocrisy and prejudice, and ironically did a lot to bring homosexuality out of the closet.

For personal reasons, I've avoided the play as I lived through those times. "The haunted Castro and City Beach".  Thirty years on, it's amazing how things have changed, and how rapidly the medical establishment responded. Remember the shock waves when Princess Diana kissed an AIDS patient? It was one time when society did pull together to fight what seemed then a plague of medieval proportions.Western people don't die of AIDS anymore, as long as they can afford health care and medication.  AIDS isn't a gay thing - the plague has moved to the Third World. Angels in America could be transcribed for southern Africa.

Peter Eötvös turned it into an opera, premiered in 2004, and at last it's come to the Barbican, London. David Roberston conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the performance was recorded for later international, online broadcast on www.bbc.co.uk/radio3. Huge audience turnout: the upper floors of the Barbican were filled to capacity.  Not for the music, perhaps, (many walked out), but because the subject is so important.

Eötvös compresses Kushner's work into 2 1/2 hours. In the first part, vignettes of people experiencing death in their own way. Prior Walter (David Adam Moore) is a gay man dumped by his frightened lover. (such things happened and can't be judged in hindsight). Roy Cohn (Kelly Anderson), the bully who thinks he can't be touched,  and Joe Pitt (Omar Ebrahim), the hapless married Mormon. This concentrates dramatic focus on human relationships, and is very moving. Indeed, the fact that parts are doubled extends the scope into other lives. Brian Asawa is subtly excellent, in a variety of roles, his rich countertenor hovering beyond easy classification. Everyone dumps on non-white menials, even the dying. Some things don't change.

In the second part, Kushner extends his panorama to the afterlife and to Heaven with its angels of different continents.  Prior is restored to life for reasons not particularly intelligible. But then fate is unintelligible. There are people who lived right through the heart of the storm who never became ill.  It's much less coherent, but works in an impressionistic way. The first part needs reinforcement, and the abstraction of the second works in an impressionistic sort of way.

Eötvös's music illustrates the text nicely. Marimbas and electronics to create weird, surreal sounds, percussion to mark tension, lovely cello and violin melodies  to enhance moments of individual reverie.  As an extension of the play, the music is usefully mood-enhancing, so in that sense it works.  On the other hand, I'm not sure it would work as music without the power of the subject matter and Kushner's dramatic momentum. It's episodic and reactive rather than development.

David Robertson led the BBC Symphony Orchestra. If anyone can give this music bite, he can.  Very good singing and acting by the principals (named above) and other parts, who, just as in life, may seem minor but are actually valid in their own ways. Julia Migenes was superb as the neurotic housewife Harper Pitt (male name, female part). Janice Hall was hampered by cliche roles - a rabbi whose music veers towards almost racist stereotype, and an out-of-towner lost in the Bronx. I enjoyed this concert staging (directed by David Gately) because it showed how the simple resources of a concert staging can have a huge impact, done as thoughtfully as this. The lighting effects were superb, evoking huge vistas in the imagination. I "saw" the stars in the heavens and the lights of a night time city. When the Angel pops out of the organ loft, she's gleaming white. I enjoyed this, but ultimately, Angels in America isn't an opera in the sense that the music is fundamental to the concept.  This music extends the play, in the way that well written film music extends the dominant narrative.  But what a narrative, what a subject!  It's too important to miss. Better and longer version of this NOW in Opera Today.

If you want to hear really original, intense music about death and the afterlife, seek out Brian Ferneyhough's Shadowtime, or better still, the Pierre Audi staging of Claude Vivier's Kopernikus.  Neither of them are as immediately accessible as Eötvös, but musically, they're infinitely deeper and more rewarding.  Kopernickus I didn't get at all, at first, but have grown to love intensely because there are so many levels in it.  An angel jumps out of the sky, too! It was made in 1980 but so advanced it's still fresh and powerful. Get it here
Reves D'Un Marco Polo - Claude Vivier, Asko Ensemble
  .

Claude Vivier Orion Kopernikus Prom 60 Rêves d’un Marco Polo

Claude Vivier's Orion is at last receiving its UK premiere at the Proms, conducted by Charles Dutoit. From the commentary, it's being presented as a kind of upmarket Star Wars to fit the theme of astronomy. Which is a real pity, as Orion stems from a much larger, much more radical work, Vivier's opera Kopernickus.

It's poignant that Vivier is still so unknown in the UK. He was an extremely influential figure, but most famous in the popular imagination for writing a piece which was found on his desk, possibly incomplete, after he was murdered in exactly the way described in the song. But Glaubst du an der Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Do you believe in the immortality of the soul?) is a masterpiece whatever the circumstances around it. Obviously there's no connection between the song and Vivier's death, but since when was fate logical?

That's an idea to bear in mind when listening to Vivier's music. Rêves d’un Marco Polo is an Opus Arte DVD, so it's more widely available than a lot of recordings of Vivier's music. It's an "Opéra fleuve in deux parties" . Part one is the opera Kopernickus, while part two is a programme of various Viver works, including Glaubst du, performed as a group in a staging directed by Pierre Audi, filmed at the Holland Festival in 2004. This was a hugely important concert for it put Vivier on the map. The notes say the two parts fit together "like shadow and light, forming a dreamlike ritualistic experience". Whatever, but it's certainly interesting, and the performances are extremely good - the Asko and Schönberg Ensembles, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw and including excellent singers. Also included is a documentary about Vivier's life, and how it pertains to his music. Vivier was a loner, something of a Marco Polo, who ventured into territories still unexplored.

In Kopernickus a woman named Agni (Susan Narucki) enters a mysterious landscape. A strange man speaks about a melody, more tender than a mother's caress, which will reveal a new dawn , where the sadness - and evil - of this world will be forgotten in "the dreams of the night that is over". Like Alice in Wonderland, Agni is on a journey where she meets strange and wondrous ideas, expressed in musical references. "Visionaries of all times, gather together !" These encounters are not at all literal, as they're introduced by figures dressed in similar costumes. But that's the point, I think, you don't know who's really significant til they're gone.

Orchestral players walk around the stage, painted, masked and costumed like the singers and actors, further integrating the music into the whole. They weave their way through the action – each soloist a "player" in every sense. It's odd, but once you get used to the strangeness it starts to feel real. It's surreal, and faintly ludicrous, but it's meant to confound, to make you lose your bearings. The strange man whom Agni thought was Lewis Carroll starts to expound crackpot theories of the universe. Logic has no more meaning here than the physics of time and space. Sometimes invented words replace language altogether.

"We shall see God!" the voices sing and Agni looks transfixed by something we can't see, the strange man waving his hands behind her head like wings, or an aura. It's an image that keeps recurring, sometimes as subtle as blinking. Once you divest yourself of the usual signposts of literal meaning, Kopernikus comes together in a magical way. Musically this is a marvel, long swaying arcs of sound, trumpets, flutes, profound clarinet, mad violins. Audi's staging and choreography - the best way to describe the complex interactions between people and objects in stage - is wonderfully inventive and expands detail in the music. In the film we see important close-ups, like a man listening to a long tube into which a clarinet is played. It's a powerful image conveying the idea of sound travelling distances through different dimensions, which in many ways is what the whole opera is about.

Gradually it dawns on Agni that she's not dreaming at all, but in another plane of reality, vaguely sinister. A trumpet calls out and Claron McFadden appears on high, a rope around her neck. An indication perhaps of what has brought Agni to this strange place. Not for nothing Vivier subtitled this work Opéra rituel de mort. It's not a fantasy game, but a solemn and purposeful progression, despite the hallucinatory quality of the images. Suddenly the bird-like masks of the players falls into place. In Egyptian ritual, bird spirits accompany the soul on its transition to death. As Pierre Audi says in his notes, this is "the closest music theatre has come to the medieval mystère, a form that is able to stretch from deep meditation to the extreme grotesque". Brian Ferneyhough goes on to do something similar in his astounding opera Shadowtime.

Hence the figures who chant about "monks who abandon themselves to mystic rituals in secret". Agni proceeds roward the "purifying waters" of a river that marks some kind of major divide, a clear reference to the River Styx. As she approaches, she "sees" "Herr Mozart" and asks him if it's true that on the other side there is music so beautiful that even gods and angels swoon. Do people communicate by music, the "songs of all of the people of all dimensions are in harmony with cosmic rhythms". It's enticing: Agni imagines she'll be able to dance from "galaxy to galaxy".

Now individual concerns don't matter. The strange man sings "Truth is not to be found in short term things but in ideas. Uppermost is the idea of good". He gathers up the Christmas lights that amused Agni for a while: brightly coloured bulbs, not the idea Christmas commemorates.

"You shall hear Orion's music", the voices sing as Agni, transfixed, listens to trumpets heard from a distance, and sees the heavens revealed as the gates of Paradise are thrown open. The strange man tells of philosophers and astronomers of the past, and their contribution to knowledge and the mysteries of the universe. It's a procession from the ancient past towards greater wisdom, and a procession Agni is about to join. She heads offstage. leading the singers and musicians behind her in solemn single file. They head into the auditorium, into the darkness and beyond. You hear echoes of the music from afar. Then Agni runs back, to check on the strange man, but he slams the book he was reading from at the beginning. No more answers. The last image is Agni's face, deep in shock.

Of course as a stand alone, Orion works as beautifully vivid music, conducted with authority by Charles Dutoit who premiered it years ago and knows why Vivier is such an important composer. It's published as a completely independent orchestral work, but both Orion and Kopernickus were written at the same time (1979) and there's a great deal of quite explicit overlap, the same material being used in both, even the faint chorus "Die-u, Die-u". the Middle Ages, astronomy was a dark art, only slightly more respectable than alchemy, so Copernicus was lucky he wasn't born earlier, wen his ideas might have been thought heresy. So it's useful to think of Orion in the context of Kopernickus, as it gives it greater resonance and opens up windows on Vivier's work. "Opening the curtain", as the strange man said at the beginning. Vivier is very profound, deeply interesting: and he died aged only 34.

I wonder whether Stockhausen heard Orion ? He knew who Vivier was, for sure. Vivier went to Europe, hoping to study with him, but Stockhausen could not stand the guy and took him on in sufferance. Yet Vivier had his head in the stars just as Stockhausen did, except Vivier didn't believe for a moment he came from them, and had much more literary and cultural underpinnings. Listen to Stockhausen's Michaels-Abschied from his LICHT cycle. Trumpeters sound out from way on high, the sounds they make arching into the heavens. Orion got there first.

When i get time I'll write about the second disc on the Opus Arte DVD which has other Vivier treasures like Wo bist du, Licht, the Lonely Child, Zipangu and the masterpiece Glaubst du an der Unsterblckheit der Seele. There is a lot that could be said and needs saying but another time. Please come back to this site, subscribe and bookmark for more ! (Lots here too on Gerard Grisey and others influenced by Claude Vivier)

Holland Festval 2009

The Holland Festival is lively - a great excuse to visit Amsterdam in early summer. This year the Festival celebrates Louis Andriessen's 70th birthday. The Andriessen family have long been significant figures in the Dutch music scene. In the 60's and 70's Louis symbolised the progressive spirit of the times, creating the Orkest de Vollharding and seminally important works like De Staat.

On June 6, there'll be an all day series featuring Andriessen's Haags Hakkuh (2008) and Vermeer Pictures (2005) plus works by Henrik Andriessen (father), Stravinsky (hero) and Diderik Wagenaar, another important Dutch composer. There'll also be another programme with vocal/theatre work, La Passione (2002) and the Folksongs of Luciano Berio, Andriessen's mentor.

Th big opera this year is Adam in Ballingschap by Rob Zuidam. Claron McFadden sings, which should be interesting. If I were going this year (alas not), I'd be heading for Pascal Dusapin's Passion, based on Monteverdi's Orfeo. This is also on in Paris in April. Dusapin writes exquisite chamber music and his operas are restrained but to the point. His Faustus, the Last Night is excellent. It's out on DVD. For a detailed description of Passion in Aix last year follow the link on the labels list at right. Dusapin was Iannis Xenakis's only student. More on Xenakis coming up soon, bookmark this blog.

Since writing this I've looked at the printed book programme and there's lots more - quite a bit of Dusapin chamber music and also the opera The Anatomy of Melancholie on 19th June. There is also a concert of Goeyvarts and his opera Aquarius on 21st June. There are several Varese events, a symposium, some concerts and installations. Holland Festival always delivers interesting things !

The Holland Festival is also good on world music, and this year's special is a performance of Buranku theatre. Bunraku puppets are stylised, as divorced from modern western concepts of theatre as can be, more austere than kabuki. Yet that's precisely why they're interesting. I'd go to this if I could.

Audi Partenope Wien Schäfer

As Sue Loder says in her review linked below, Handel's Partenope is like London buses. You wait ages and then three come along at once. She's writing about the Vienna production directed by Pierre Audi in Vienna with Christine Schäfer, David Daniels, Florian Boesch and Les Talens lyriques, providing period instrument ambience.

".........It is this finale which cleverly encapsulates Audi’s vision of Partenope’s latently violent world: the confrontation becomes an actual boxing match set inside the villa, complete with ropes, hanging microphone, glitzy scorecard girls and the protagonists in lurid red and white towelling robes. The watching characters seem to hold their breath as Arsace makes the winning blow: his opponent must fight, like him, bare-chested (and thus betray her sex). This cruel twist breaks her spirit, and reveals all the treachery and immorality lying beneath the sham glamour of their lives. Handel’s final chorus is oddly abrupt and Audi leaves us wondering whether any of them will ever love each other again. No heroes here in Vienna, just a baroque opera for the 21^st century, and none the worse for it. "

Read the whole piece here with production pix:
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2009/02/no_home_for_her.php

Gerard Grisey et Claude Vivier Spooky Tale

What could have inspired Grisey's extraordinary song cycle Quatre Chants pour franchir le seuil ? The title comes from a line in Claude Vivier's Glaubst du, an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele ? The piece refers to being stabbed and crossing over into the unknown. Soon after it was completed, Vivier (ironic name) was murdered by a casual stranger. After Grisey completed Quatre Chants, he too died suddenly in the prime of his life. No wonder the spooky connotations that attach to these works. They had nothing to do with the compositional process, though they do colour the way we listen.

Yet they are such powerful pieces it hardly makes a difference. Just listen ! Vivier's work is distinctive, even though he was killed aged only 34, when most composers haven't yet found their musical personality. There is a DVD out which is a must-have, which includes Glaubst du and other key Vivier works. Many recordings buut you have to track them down. I'm writing in much more detail aboout the Opus Arte DVD whiuch is perhaps the most comp[rehensive collection of Viviers music, including the operas, directed by Pierre Audi for the Hollan Festival retrospective - see blog list at right

Vivier was a character ! Born in Montreal, he came to Europe to study with Stockhausen, who could not figure him out (apparently, he had BO !) The quotation Grisey used for the title of Quatre Chants comes towards the end of Glaubst du. Listen out, but don't worry if you miss it. It hardly matters as this is distinctive work on its own terms.

http://www.psappha.com/webcast.asp

Janacek - From The House of the Dead DVD

Last June I went to Amsterdam to the great, lively Holland Festival and heard Janacek's From the House of the Dead conducted by Pierre Boulez, directed by Patrice Chéreau. It was fantastic, brilliant, vibrant orchestrally, making Janacek vivid and intense. You can scroll down to see what I wrote then (under tabs for Janacek). Now, you can watch the DVD which has extras, which are just as good. Here's a review of the new DVD ! Recordings are few - Mackerras and Jilek (good) but none come even close to this.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2008/Apr08/Janacek_DG%20004400734426.htm

Pierre Audi's Amsterdam St Francis

Metzmacher's Messiaen St Francis came straight from Amsterdam, in an acclaimed production by Pierre Audi. Last year at the Holland Festival, Audi and Patrice Chéreau were talking about how to stage opera intelligently, so it grows from of understanding the music and the way drama evolves from it. Artistic works seem to take on lives of their own : the better they are the more levels to be found. There is no such thing as simply following the notes. Even when you read a score, you're "interpreting" how the notes affect each other, where the music is heading. So good opera staging is not so different from good musicianship. Both are means of bringing out insights into what things mean and how they work.

Messiaen, being a highly visual person, gave detailed descriptions of h0w he "saw" St. Francis. Part of his inspiration came from the frescoes of Giotto. Notice how Giotto's painting are simple and direct, yet totally unnaturalistic. No perspective, flat planes, images flowing impossibly in space. But then the "story" with its Angel, stigmata and ascension isn't literal.

In Amsterdam, what Pierre Audi did was immerse himself in the music and how it works. So no fancy strobe lights and projections (as Messiaen wanted) but an almost empty stage with only some black wooden crosses, jumbled in a thicket : representing the thicket of confused emotions. One monk sings J'ai peur, J'ai peur, a theme that recurs throughout. As God tells Francis, committment is hard work. (Another reason why the opera is so long - it's a journey, like a pilgrimage, not to be rushed. This is not music for quick-fix ! The black thicket of crosses also represents the life of the monks, simple, harsh and spartan. This also reflects the way the vocal parts are written in relation to the orchestral. The monk's lines are regular up and down cadences, like chanting, and never far from conversational tone. Monks don't do flamboyant : arias would be all wrong. Like the black crosses, their simplicity stands out against the mind bending panorama of colour that's in the music.

That's why Audi has the orchestra seated in on the stage occupying nearly all the space. Because
this is orchestral music of breathtaking beauty, in which voices play a part, not the other way round. At the back, the choir stands on stage, also fully visible. Messiaen wanted them hidden, but how do you hide 200 people ? In any case having them on stage adds to the overwhelming impact because they and the orchestra dwarf the singers. It also means that the Angel can materialise out of the choir, from high above the platform.

Messiaen also wanted the climatic section in which God appears to Francis, and the choir sings C'est moi ! C'est moi ! (same them as J'ai peur, they connect).to be staged with a huge cross rotating in different directions to blitz the audience. But listen to the music and it's all there anyway, multi-layered and multi-tempi'd, sounds flying off in different directions, seeking out the darkest corners opf the performance space. It's mind bendingly wonderful musical writing, so Audi didn't cover it. With 120 musicians on stage there's also plenty of shiny brass for lights to pick out.

Messiaen specifies that the Leper is covered in black and yellow pustules. So Audi shrouds him in a casing of Police Do Not Cross tape - he's dangerous, and everyone's scared to go near, including Francis. Perfectly symbolic, and it breaks open instantly, the moment he's cured, so he's instantly pure and clean - not easy to do with normal costumes.

Then the sermon to the birds. How do you get hundreds of birds into an opera house ? As Audi says, what do the birds represent ? Birds, said Messiaen, are fragile but they outlived the dinosaurs. Observe their ways and their songs, says St Francis, they don't communicate through words. So Audi uses colourfully dressed children who dart about/listen - visually lively and refreshing. A more minimalist setting might have worked too, but audiences do need a spritzer of colour that isn't only in the music. In fact the musical writing in this scene is so overwhelmingly gorgeous it is almost too much to take in neat.

Audi proves that opera staging doesn't have to be hidebound : it doesn't matter "what" a director does, as long as it's astute musically and dramatically. His Ring cycle for Amsterdam was astounding. Get the DVDs, especially if yoiu think you "know" The Ring. Siegfried is particularly good. The Holland Festival is brilliant - lots of different things, generally very high quality. What a buzz it must be to be part of it !