Put-upon women: The Young Wife/Dido & Aeneas, OperaUpClose

From Roger Thomas:

Musically the two parts of this OperaUpClose double bill at King's Head Theatre, Islington, have little in common. Polish composer Katarzyna Brochocka's chamber “comic opera”, The Young Wife, a one-hander for soprano and piano, marries spiky keyboard writing, played skilfully by the composer, with largely recitative-cum-Sprechgesang from the singer. Dido and Aeneas retains most of Purcell's baroque original, reduced for a harpsichord, violin and cello trio by Alex Beetschen, with a few additional arrangements by Harry Blake helping to place it in the contemporary context of a US high school.

What the pieces do have in common is the perennial operatic theme of the put-upon oppressed woman with a tragic or near-tragic destiny. But both The Young Wife and Dido effectively master their own fates, tenaciously holding on to the autonomy to decide for themseves the resolution they will adopt.

 The Young Wife, which has a running time of one hour, is based on a novel by Gabriela Zapolska (1857-1921), neatly distilled by Brochocka, in an English translation from her own original Polish libretto, into 17 diary entries covering about a year in the life of a newly married 20-year-old. It is plain from the outset that the Young Wife has been forced into an arranged marriage – her husband, Julian, is uninterested in her, uncommunicative and, it transpires, unfaithful, and has married because his bride has a substantial dowry. This reviewer saw Sarah Minns in the role of the Young Wife – she undertook 18 performances of the gruelling run, with Maud Millar singing an equivalent number.
 
At first fearful of her new husband, Julian, and trying ineffectively to get closer to him, the Young Wife soon develops a protective shell of ironic commentary – with dashes of sharp humour. She is acerbic about the social milieu he has brought her into, particularly his mistress, Liza Troicka, whom the Young Wife learns to taunt (at least in her diary), and she goes into reveries about her true love, Adam. Discovering a cache of letters from Liza to Julian, the Young Wife contemplates the possibility of a divorce and marriage to Adam but realizes this is a vain prospect. Having given birth to a daughter, she continues to be obsessed by Liza and experiences premonitions of her own death. She writes a will, vindictively leaving her dowry to Liza – on conditions that she marries the hated Julian. She leaves the stage, leading us to believe she might indeed have given up the ghost. But after a piano interlude she returns to sing a last diary entry.

“I did not die!” she tells us decisively and cheerfully. “I have a lovely daughter. I put on some weight and became prettier. I take walks. Yesterday I saw Liza. She looked yellow and ugly! I looked sophisticated in my new cape and I nodded to her very condescendingly. I saw she was surprised. Winter is wonderful! The sun shines, and sleds ring. I don't give a damn about Julian! I think about Mr Adam very rarely, like someone whom I knew very little. I was stupid, viewing life from the tragic side. Childish and dreary! I'll go to the ice rink!”

Directed by Robin Norton-Hale, Minns portrayed the transformation from dependent, baffled insecurity to this self-confident autonomous outcome with great skill, managing to meld impressive acting and elegant physical agility with assured singing of a technically taxing score. No park and bark here.

Dido's autonomy, of course – choosing death over the pain of Aeneas's desertion – is of a different order. In this production of Dido and Aeneas, the baroque opera is transformed surprisingly successfully from ancient Carthage to Carthage High and its American football players and posse of cheerleaders. After all, Nahum Tate's libretto for Purcell had stripped away the purely divine intervention in Vergil's original that drags Aeneas off to Italy, replacing it with witches jealous of Dido who trick Aeneas into believing the gods are summoning him away. So, with a bit of invention and rewriting of the scene where the witches plot, Dido, Carthage High's Homecoming Queen, can be pitched against cheerleaders jealous of her fame and liaison with football star Aeneas. The machinery creaks a bit, but Aeneas, it seems, is destined to leave for a college football scholarship. Dido, meanwhile, is undermined by the cheerleaders' (“We're no angels; we're the witches/People say we're total bitches”) secret mobile-phone filming of Dido and Aeneas having sex.

But most of the original libretto is retained, the string/harpsichord trio effectively conveys Purcell's score and the singing is of a high standard, with Zarah Hible (Dido) and Ian Beadle (Aeneas) outstanding. Modern Purcell purists will not have approved. But an original baroque audience would probably have delighted in the madcap inventiveness and playfulness brought to the opera by director Valentina Ceschi and her team.

Photos: Christopher Tribble/Alastair Muir

Wake - opera about the Enschede disaster

On 13th May, the tenth anniversary of the Vuurwerkramp (fireworks disaster) that flattened part of the Dutch town of Enschede, the Nationale Reiseopera is presenting a new opera, Wake. The composer is Klaas de Vries (b 1944), and the libretto is by David Mitchell. Read more about it here on the Reiseopera site.  Great photos and synopsis. There is a longer clip on youtube, in Dutch, where the composer speaks.

"On a completely ordinary evening, somewhere high in a block of flats, nine disparate but interrelated stories of passion, reconciliation, humour, TV football, the pain of adolescence and infirmity of old age, are suddenly interrupted by an unspecified catastrophe that changes the lives of eighteen people forever. Are there words to bridge the gap between us, the survivors, and those we have lost? When we give a voice to memory and emotion, what comfort will they bring?"

It's fascinating because the opera deals with events so recent that lots of people are still traumatized. In his article, the librettist David Mitchell mentions a man who protested about the very idea of fact being turned into art. It's a genuine concern, which Mitchell and de Vries took seriously. "Every single line was weighed and weighted with care", says Mitchell.

Can any art reproduce trauma with dignity? Probably there's no way except though fact-based documentary, and even that can't get to grips with individual human grief.  No opera, or any work of art, can ever be "history". Even historians don't do "history". They're only accumulating data and assessing it, they're not producing facsimile. So any opera dealing with real events is its creators' response, and perfectly valid. Even an opera dealing with specifics isn't trapped in history because art is universal, and human.

Indeed, I sometimes think art is a therapeutic way of dealing with tragedy. When Primo Levi wrote about his experiences in the Holocaust, there was controversy.  More recently I watched Lu Chuan's Nanking : City of Love and Death (2009) currently in cinemas but available on DVD. It's about the Rape of Nanking in which 300,000 were killed in a smallish town in the space of a few weeks (millions more died in the rest of the war).  For many, it's catharsis, which is a good thing because it's important to face such things. But real knowledge is also traumatic.

Iris Chang, who wrote a popular book about Nanking, committed suicide. I understand. I spent years in the archives, talking to people, finding out things I wish i didn 't know.The film for me was depressing because it's so clean. No smells, no noise, no chaos, "not" reality. Most people are dispatched with a single bullet, dropping dead neatly. In any case, bullets cost money. Most people were killed cheaply, ie being crudely disembowelled. The scene where soldiers are seen being forced into the sea to drown happens in an orderly fashion. Yet  it wasn't soldiers who were killed this way but 3,000 terrified old folk and children. It wasn't quiet or orderly. Sometimes reality has to be sanitized so it can be made bearable.

The buzz is on ! Lulu at ROH

The big buzz in town's the new Lulu at the Royal Opera House, London, starting June 4th. Word of mouth is spreading fast that it's going to be interesting. Lulu herself will be a mystery new singer called Agneta Eichenholz, quite famous in Sweden but unknown outside. That's very appropriate as Lulu is a mystery. Who is she really? People know her by different names.

The new ROH production sounds fascinating because Christof Loy (who found Eichenholz), has worked carefully on the characterization. He seems intrigued by the essential mystery of who Lulu is and why she's come to be the way she is. It sounds like a much more psychologically informed approach than the usual cliché that assumes Lulu is no more than a mirror, projecting what others want.

Listen carefully to the music, blanking out the words. Lulu's music speaks, elusively, even though she seems passive. She's had a horrific past that's taught her to hide herself behind survival strategies. That's exactly how abused kids function. They wreck things like a kind of pre-emptive strike because they've learned that happiness can't last.

The photo above comes from the 1929 Louise Brooks film based on the Wedekind play that inspired Alban Berg. Brooks doesn't do actorly things like emote or declaim: instead she fills space, generating energy. That's another reason for getting into the opera through the music. It hovers over the plot like an invisible presence, it speaks character.

So why is the new ROH production causing such interest? Michael Volle is singing the critical role of Dr Schön, who's known Lulu since she was a girl. He's her extreme opposite, a powerful magnate who seems to have it all, but is destroyed. Volle has worked with Loy before – last year in Munich they did Hans Werner Henze's Die Bassariden.

"I knew he would not do anything conventional but that he would try and get into the characters and find the key to their personality”, says Volle. Loy’s does this by working closely with the singers from the start. “We talk a lot about the role. He tells you his thoughts about the background and what he imagines the character is like and then you have to find a way to express it. He is one of those directors who knows and loves the music so well that he can make it easy for a singer to find his way into a character. He doesn’t try anything artificial you can’t understand. It’s more like putting flesh and bones on the score”.

“There are productions where there are a lot of sexual things on stage”, adds Volle, as if Dr Schön’s motives are simply erotic, for men (and women) lust after Lulu. But in this production, it’s more complex. “Only one kiss”, says Vollle, "and a few bits of touching. There’s no need to show nudity and violence. It’s shocking how much violence there is in it anyway”. Suicide, murder, implied paedophilia, and Lulu seducing Alwa on the very sofa his father bled to death upon, all easy subjects to play up to scandalize an audience. Yet Loy’s approach is not sensational for sensation’s sake. “What I like about Loy’s work is that he does not do Yellow Press”.

“It’s very tragic. Terrible things have happened to Lulu in the past, and it’s affected her so she can’t trust anyone, or be content”, says Volle, explaining the psychology behind this production. “She must always destroy the happiness of others ”. Lulu wrecks Dr Schön’s engagement but she’s unhappy when she marries him herself. “She loses interest because she doesn’t have to fight for attention anymore. In this production that tragedy is made very clear. There are lines which show Lulu does have feelings for Dr Schön, but she’s damaged, and hurts others because she’s been hurt so much herself”.

Volle is also happy with the Royal Opera House production because it’s being developed so closely with the conductor, Antonio Pappano. “He is a gift”, says Volle, “He was there at the first rehearsal, and he knows the piece inside and out. He gives so much input and ideas about the music”. With Berg, details count. “The more you hear in it, the more you discover”, says Volle. This is significant, as Volle knows Berg’s idiom well, having sung the title role in Wozzeck.

One of the minor subplots in this opera is the idea that wealth and status are worthless without deeper values. In Act 3 the banker's shares turn out to worthless, and of course Dr Schön's wealth does him no good. Perhaps Michael Volle's own background gives him insight, but he's an experienced singer who specializes in roles with depth of character. His Graf Tamare in Franz Schreker's Die Gezeichneten is exceptionally well realized. That's one of the great early 20th century operas.

Read more about Micahel Volle and about the new ROH production HERE. I'll be writing more about Lulu and this production in the next few weeks.

TRY TO GO ! As Volle says, on first hearing, it's shocking, but the subject is shocking. This is not a plot whose issues you can be complacent about. And listen to the music. It's not that difficult or strident, and a very good performance brings out its clarity and oddly enough its beauty. There is a very good DVD of the Glyndebourne production of 1996 where Christine Schäfer is compelling. Far and away the best orchestrally is the CD set with Pierre Boulez conducting. This isn't an easy opera to do. Many versions have weak points and there's one I would actively dis-recommend. So bear this in mind, and go to this Lulu and make the most of it. PLEASE READ THE OTHER POSTS on this blog re LULU, which include reviews, interviews, and a whole movie downlaod ! Not only this Loy production but Cheereau too and other thoughts on the opera. Go to the labels list on right and click on "Berg".

Acis, Galatea, Dido and Aeneas

Melanie Eskenazi in inimitable, lively form on the Royal Opera Royal Ballet double bill :

" “Dido and Aeneas” remains Purcell’s most often performed and subtly influential work – would we have had Britten’s “The Rape of Lucretia” without it? .....

"To convey the spirit of his mixture of tragic nobility and almost comical malevolence the ideal cast would be made up entirely of genuine baroque specialists, in which the UK is exceptionally rich. Well, I suppose three out of nine isn’t too bad, and it beats the one out of five offered in “Acis and Galatea”.

" Wayne McGregor’s austerely beautiful production was first seen at La Scala in 2006, and it looks ravishing in Hildegard Bechtler’s designs – McGregor keeps things nobly simple, as is right for the piece, and the starkness of the surroundings, even in the hunting scene, forms an appropriate backdrop for the tragedy. I found the dancing hard to get used to: attuned to expecting something rather more ‘pastoral, the steps did not quite mesh with the sentiments.

"I felt the same about the dancing in “Acis and Galatea” until I realised how deeply the production was influenced by Lucas Cranach’s iconic painting of “The Golden Age” (1530) where naked figures dance with angular movements around a Golden Apple Tree, “…two and two, necessary coniunctuion / Holding eche other by the hand or the arm / Which betokeneth concorde” (Elyot / Eliot). It was still a little disquieting to find ‘Oh! The Pleasures of the Plains!’ accompanied by what at first looked like an aerobics class, but I became attuned to it after a while and was able to savour some very graceful dancing, especially from Eric Underwood and Edward Watson."

"We were once more in the world of singers for whom the baroque is not really their bread and butter, with the notable exception of Paul Agnew, another (absurdly late) house debutant, who completely outshone everyone else with his gravely sensitive ‘Voice of 18th-century Reason’ of a Damon – not for the first time with this singer, he showed the rest how it should be done."

" If anyone can carry off a ludicrous wig and an absurd costume it is the gorgeous Danielle de Niese, and she has the opulent voice to match her looks – the trouble is, it’s just not a very Handelian one, with its rapid vibrato and tendency towards swooping into phrases. As with her Acis, though, she knows how to make you believe in her character, and ‘Heart, thou Seat of soft Delight’ had ravishing moments."

PLEASE NOTE : in January I'm reviewing Katie Mitchell's book on directing.

Read the whole longer piece (it's very perceptive, pulls no punches but warm hearted) here :
http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_concert_review.php?id=6937

Virtual tour baroque theatre Český Krumlov

This is the "ceremonial hall scene" in the Royal Theatre of Český Krumlov in Bohemia. There are ten sets of side wings, creating an illusion of depth and space, though the stage is tiny. Scene changes were created by moving side wings as needed, so there were many different sets of wings for different purposes, eg woodland, town, port and even "besieged town" and "prison". Since there was no electricity, elaborate machinery was used. This is of interest in itself because it was state of the art technology at the time.

Český Krumlov is coming to London on April 4th, where parts of it will be on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of the blockbuster exhibition Style in the Age of Magnificence : Baroque 1620-1800 which perhaps I should highlight in goldleaf, since extravagant excess is so much in the spirit of the era. The theatre at Český Krumlov was built in 1766 and remarkably well preserved. Even now access is strictly limited, and its rare performances aren't open to the public. The only other comparable baroque theatre is Drottingholm in Sweden, which is slightly later. The V&A exhibition will be a unique opportunity to look at 18th century stagecraft and understand why it was the way it was. The baroque needs to be understood on its own terms, not by those of the late 19th century, or you miss the whole point.

Český Krumlov castle has a website where you can even do a 360 degree virtual tour of the theatre and read about its history, sets, machinery etc. Highly recommended ! The site has masses of material but takes a while to navigate, so use odd labels like the one simply marked "interesting".

Please see the other posts on baroque art and music, and the big exhibition at the V&A

http://www.castle.ckrumlov.cz/docs/en/zamek_5nadvori_bd.xml

Die Herzogin von Chicago Kálmán Korngold

To understand the music of the 1920's and 30's it helps to listen to the music of the time. This might sound obvious, but a lot of what is written these days follows assumptions that don't reflect how music was actually heard and made. These sanitized assumptions in turn change the way we hear things, not for the best.

That's why Emmerich (Imre) Kálmán's Die Herzogin von Chicago is such an important piece. Kálmán was a student of Bartók and Kodály, so his credentials are legit, even though Die Herzogin was an immense popular success. In this crazy, witty operetta, Kálmán integrates conventional "serious" music with jazz, and also draws on the long-standing Austro-German tradition of satirical cabaret (which Schoenberg knew about). The opera is a trenchant comment on the impact of America and social revolution on a Europe just emerging from the First World War. It's hilarious, but no less significant for that.

In 2004, the opera was revived in Vienna to great acclaim. The original 1928 version was five hours long with lots of dialogue, much of which was topical controversy at the time. Some of the savage social edge remains, for when the editors condensed the original script they created a scene where corrupt politicians discuss "expediency" while dividing the spoils. Some things don't ever change!

An impossibly wealthy American heiress, Miss Mary, makes a bet with her Chicago friends that she can bag a prince when she goes to Europe, because anything can be bought with money. In fact it's really not all that different in Europe, for in the tiny kingdom of Sylvania, Prince Sándor Boris and his Ministers are trying to keep the cheering natives happy while the King is off to Paris. Then, as now, there’s nothing like a Royal Wedding to please the locals. They even have "Prince" dolls! The Prince's fiancée is in on the act, for act it is. Neither has illusions.

Cut to Miss Mary's arrival. "Cut" is the right word because one of the sub-texts of this operetta is the influence of Hollywood and the movies. Miss Mary’s best friend is Bondy, a film director, who sees all life as an unfolding movie. Throughout the opera there are references to movies. Kálmán creates hyper coloured music for the music sequences, which is surprisngly perceptive as movies at that time were silents. It's worth listening to this opera for the music alone as it tells something about the way film music germinated. Film music didn't just appear from nowhere. So much nonsense is written about composers and film that this opera is an antidote. Kálmán was a near contemporary of Erich Korngold, and they would have known of each other. Interestingly, both moved to California, and back to Vienna where they both died in the early 50's.

The Prince doesn't want to marry the American so gets his aide to play him while he plays the aide. We've all seen this plot device before, and here it's hilariously well done. Miss Mary must know the device too as she pursues the "aide" and dumps the "prince". The Sylvanians want her money and she wants status. Cue for a great party scene with Viennese waltz on gypsy violin, and songs about Schubert and Johann Strauss, who "shall return one day". There's a nightclub scene where Miss Mary does the charleston, and a bizarre parody of Beethoven's Fifth as foxtrot, danced by two bald women. There’s a takeoff of Ernst Krenek’s Johnny Spielt Auf which had been the sensation of Vienna in 1926 – Kálmán steals Krenek’s central image of a black man with a golden saxophone! Krenek’s operetta, incidentally, was also revived in Vienna in 2003, so there are in-jokes within in-jokes.

Of course Miss Mary falls for the Prince in disguise and Princess fiancée falls for Bondy, the movie director. To jazz up the old story, part of the staging involves a backdrop on which scenes from movies are projected. In fact they show the same four characters, got up as fantasy. It's a scream. The Prince and Mary dissolve into a cartoon cowboy and an Indian Princess, called Morgenrot, and cruise along in a canoe in the moonlight – modern eyes might see references to Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald, especially as Bondy is schmoozing Princess Rosemarie! It’s also a great excuse for more wonderful "Indian" dancing that gets progressively more bizarre, because as we know real Native American culture was already being parodied in Hollywood. It makes a surprisingly powerful point about cultural imperialism and what might face Europe if Europeans didn’t hold their own. As one of the directors said, "it’s still relevant".

Despite the whimsy, there is serious stuff. America was showing the Old World a completely different way of living, much more shocking to Europeans then than we realize, after eighty years of familiarity through TV, mass media and cheap travel. That was still the age when European peasants emigrated, never to return. This operetta makes a strong point that, for all their exoticism, Americans are, at heart, dislocated Europeans. Bondy reveals that his grandfather was a Jewish nobody from some tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere. How shocked the old man would be to see his grandson hobnobbing with royal Sylvanian families!

Then the King comes back, with two Parisian floozies, and tries to put the make on Miss Mary who isn’t falling for that Kuss die Hande nonsense. It is hard to describe just how wild the jokes are from now on, parodying French operetta and German, wordplays and wit, with references to Viennese culture, current events (like monkey glands and Viagra). And of course, everything ends up "happily ever after", though it's like whistling in a graveyard.

Die Herzogin von Chicago is available on CD and DVD - I'd recommend the DVD for the fabulous sets, staging and acting. "Opera archaeology" may have dug the score up and revised it, but this is a fabulous, important moment in music history.

Glanert Caligula in Frankfurt

A few years ago, someone was talking to Detlev Glanert about his music, saying it was all doom and gloom. “But it’s not” said Glanert repeatedly, “My work uses humour”. Indeed, one of Glanert’s big hits was the comic opera Scherz, Satire, Ironie und tiefere Bedeutung (Jest, satire, irony and deeper meaning). Even his non-vocal works, like Mahler Skizze, and Theatrum bestiarum, are animated by wit. No matter how often Glanert said humour was his way of making serious points, his interlocutor insisted it wasn’t. It was a scene straight out of surreal drama.

Glanert’s Caligula is certainly not a laugh-a-minute comedy. It’s based on the play by Albert Camus. Caligula’s raving mad, but there’s a crazy, warped logic behind him. “I’ll never be alone”, he says, “the ghosts of those I’ve killed are around me”. Einsamkeit, Einsamkeit, he wails in self-justification. Eventually, everyone seems caught up in delusion.

Glanert was one of Hans Werner Henze’s few students, so this opera is meticulously crafted and works well musically as well as dramatically. Sounds range over no less than seven octaves, mirroring the extremes of Caligula’s personality, yet they don’t sound forced or strained. Caligula may behave like a wilful monster but to Glanert he has the naivety of a child, though a child given the lethal power of a Roman Emperor.

While the subject of this opera would lend itself to sensationalist treatment, Glanert’s approach is more subtle. Caligula may behave monstrously but he’s not a monster. Life itself is absurd, so Caligula’s way of making sense of things isn’t, of itself immoral. He’s a creature of instinct albeit a warped one. So Glanert is careful to make the role sympathetic. When the four poets appear, singing sentimental doggerel, their music is ghastly. When Caligula has them killed, we agree.

Vocally, the writing is sophisticated. Caligula’s baritone contrasts with the countertenor of his slave, Helicon. Significantly, when Caligula in his madness decides to take on the persona of Venus and marry the moon, he sings falsetto. Glanert’s music extends characterization. Caligula’s lines are often unadorned, reflecting the empty anomie that drives him to fill his life with murder. Orchestral accompaniment is deft. Glanert uses a concert organ which creates massive volume, without the complexity of a full organ : again this reflects Caligula’s mental universe. Glanert has a thing for organs – his Theatrum Bestiarum was written specifically for the organ at the Royal Albert Hall, making full use of its huge range to create complex “characters” within the sound, like an opera for instruments only.

Caligula was premiered in Frankfurt in 2006 and has been revived annually. It’s the kind of opera that you need to hear again to fully appreciate, for there are so many levels of meaning. If anything, the cast has grown with it too, so hearing it in its third year has advantages. Ashley Holland created the part and sings it with the conviction that comes from maturing into the character. His Caligula isn’t unsympathetic. Towards the end, he has a moment of clarity, which shows his vulnerability. Holland makes it painfully poignant. Holland’s worked a lot with ENO, singing Kellerbach, Gandhi’s friend, in Philip Glass’s Satyagraha in 2007. Hopefully we’ll hear him again soon in London.

Traditionally, countertenors are supposed to be angelic, like overgrown choirboys. Modern opera has liberated the voice type. Countertenors today have far more challenging repertoire to cope with. Martin Wölferl’s Helicon also shows depth of experience. His voice is gorgeous, but he brings a sharp edge of masculinity to the part, though it’s so much higher than normal range. A strong, butch Helicon underlines Caligula’s fundamental immaturity. Furthermore, Glanert contrasts Helicon with Scipio, the poet who stands up to Caligula, by writing it for alto in trouser role. In this performance, the part was sung by a young Irish alto, Paula Murrihy, with such strength of character that it was hard to tell whether she was male or female. This was good because the role isn’t one to be taken for granted and, vocally, an alto like this is a better foil for a strong countertenor like Wölferl.

Oddly enough, since Caligula has been very successful in this production, directed by Christian Pade, a completely different approach might also work. Given that Caligula is about the absurdity of existence, it’s quite possible that a “baroque” production might work even better. Baroque opera is uniquely surreal, making impossible premises plausible. Those who think of opera, or music for that matter, solely in late 19th century terms can’t get their heads round Monteverdi, Handel or Haydn. Yet it’s the very bizarre unreality of baroque that makes it fascinating. Conceptually, it lends itself to “modern” ideas, where rigid certainties no longer apply. How interesting it might be to see Caligula with stiff baroque sets, actors in powdered wigs, stylized stage action. Baroque audiences didn’t bother about vérité, since they knew very well that Romans weren’t like that. They went to the opera for fantasy, not reality. Glanert’s Caligula isn’t “history”, but symbolic. Pade’s overtly modern setting is pretty straightforward and indeed a bit busy. So why not embrace the fundamental surrealism of this opera by embracing the surreal values of the baroque ? It would turn ideas of traditional/modern staging upside down – the triumph of the absurd. Camus might have understood.

There is a DVD of this production, but I think I'll wait for audio. Please see my other posts about Glanert especially the one about Shoreless River at the Proms, which promises to be a major work.

Im weißen Rössl restored

Im weißen Rössl was a huge hit when it premiered in 1930. It merged Austrian folk dance and tunes with jazz and modern rhythms. Risqué too - near naked men prancing about, and some girls, too.

There were ballet sequences, dance acts etc. The whole thing was orchestrated for 250 players, the big string section divided 16 times. Plus a jazz combo and a Tirolean troupe battling out "old" and "new". Presumably shades of Kalman's smash hit, Die Herzogin von Chicago, which pits the Charleston against the czardas, American brashness versus Mitteleuropaische "breeding". People in the 20's and 30's were much sharper than people give them credit for now. Those who wanted to preserve a fake past won out, though, some of them coming to power in 1933.

It was reshaped for right-thinking folks and became "banal family-entertainment in the harmless Disney style - no nudity, no modern rhythms, no nothing". Luckily, the original score has been found and the piece is being staged again in all its irreverent glory, in June 2009 in Dresden.

Read the whole story http://www.operetta-research-center.org/main.php?task=newsart&cat=1&sub_cat=1&id=00086

Sallinen The King goes forth to France Guildhall

Madcap mayhem! Aulis Sallinen's The King goes forth to France is off the wall. England is in the grip of an Ice Age, so the Prince of England, four girlfriends and the populace cross the bridge over the channel (yes) and invade France. Cue for ragtag armies of archers, Genoese, blind Bohemians and the houses of Parliament wielded like a cannon. Don't ask.

Guildhall School of Music operas are a delicious secret not known to the mainstream Establishment. This production shows why. Guildhall students have fire. It's refreshing to hear performers so enthusiastic that the lack of polish actually makes the experience more exciting. Who cares about note perfect when they're clearly pouring out their hearts ?

The King goes forth to France was a good choice because its crowd scenes let many students participate. They need the thrill of "live" to grow. This is an opera with so many vignettes everyone gets a chance to contribute. It's full of gags, visual, vocal, and musical, which stretch the performers so they learn their craft while having fun. Indeed, this is "why" the Guildhall is important. Statistically only a very tiny minority end up at La Scala or the Vienna Philharmonic. But the experience of performance will remain with them forever, enhancing their lives whatever they go on to do. From an employers point of view, students like these are a good bet because they've learned to care about things, to work in teams, and that trying your best is spiritually more rewarding in the long run than coasting.

The opera itself has its ups and downs. It's funny, which is almost harder to do than depressing. In Finnish, apparently, the text is hilarious, full of puns which have Finns howling with laughter. In English, we have to make do with visuals like the procession where the peasants carry symbols of Englishness like fish and chips, football scarves, Colman's mustard etc. Then when we get to France the locals carry placards marked "Fermé". The plot's mindless, but then so is reality, these days. It could be blacker, but let's be glad of small mercies. This opera has only ever been staged in the UK once, years ago at ROH.

A friend of mine attended the Covent Garden performance, hated it then and hated it again. The Guildhall performers are definitely not to blame though. For one thing, Sallinen wants to pile so much in that the business becomes busyness. Like telling the same joke ad nauseum. After a while it gets stale. After nearly three hours, your brain goes numb. I learned this opera from the (only) recording, which meant I could hit pause and get it in smaller doses.

But it was worth going to for the performers. Many, like Derek Welton as the Prince/King have interesting voices that will adapt to many things. He's singing Jephta, on 12th March, part of the London Handel celebrations. Hanna Hipp (blessed with a name the Gods could not have devised better) as The Anne who Strips, has real dramatic flair. The part is great, but I suspect, it's partly thanks to her ability to make it so. Ensembles were tightly directed - I liked that mock marching with hops! The scene with the Calais burghers was very well done. In groups like this, individuals don't stand out but one of them drew the eye and ear. Perhaps that is the secret ingredient no-one can ever teach - charisma and personality. Even if we all don't end up mega bucks like Bryn Terfel, this is what makes a person interesting.

These productions deserve support. Coming up next, in June, is an intelligent programme - Martinu's The Marriage and Rossini's La cambiale di matrimonio. Anyone in London, pencil it in your diary.

Der fliegende Holländer London Terfel

This Der fliegende Holländer was eagerly awaited as it hasn’t been heard at the Royal Opera House, London, since 2000. With Bryn Terfel’s return to Covent Garden as the Dutchman a full house was guaranteed.

Terfel's admirers would not have been disappointed. His voice boomed majestically, even when he had to walk carrying a heavy rope, and wade through real water at the foot of the platform. In this production, however, by Tim Albery, he wasn't really called upon to develop the Dutchman's character. As he said to one interviewer, he hasn't been challenged enough yet. He is capable, so it's a pity that it wasn't needed in Albery's concept of the opera.

At the recent ENO Boris Gudonov (see label list at right), Albery gave us Gudonov as stolid, mild-mannered bourgeois. This Dutchman is his kin, by no means a ravaged, cursed "pale man", no more haunted than Daland. Later, when his men appear, they're all neatly dressed in uniform. No way have they been roaming the oceans for centuries. Perhaps there's a rationale for this. When the Norwegians call out to the doomed ship, they face the audience in the orchestra stalls, shining torches in their faces. Is this a hidden meaning? I don't know. The production was generously supported by wealthy patrons. But then, Wagner himself was not above cocking a snoot at his benefactors. But I suspect the real reason was that the concept wasn't completely followed through.

For me, this production worked musically because it focussed on Wagner's underlying techniques, at a period when he was finding his own direction. Particularly interesting is the way he mixes the banal pop songs the sailors sing with the altogether more extreme wildness of the Dutchman's music. These songs and choruses reminded me of Der Freischütz, another tale in which happy peasants meet demonic forces. This duality runs throughout the opera, so there's constant turmoil in this music. Like the sea itself, ever churning, it's not fixed on firm ground. Wagner is moving away from established German aria-based opera to something altogether new. Marc Albrecht, the son of George, not Gerd, who conducted this opera at Covent Garden 30 years ago, focussed on the more traditional elements of the work. It's still a "numbers" piece with set vignettes and "local colour". If Albrecht didn't get the grand sweep of Wagner's later vision perhaps it's because he was focussing on his earlier influences. This performance was a reminder that Wagner was still young when he wrote it, and how far he still had to go.

But music must work with staging, and it wouldn't have been any more right for Albrecht to go for panoramic wildness any more than for Terfel to do what he might have done with a more ravaged Dutchman. Thus it was interesting to watch the Overture unfold. This is an essential part of the opera, not merely an opener, for it sets out the themes that are to come at considerable length. Here it was played against a backdrop of green light, with projections of rain on glass and vague forms flitting from left to right with minimal variation. Perhaps that's what being at sea is like, but there's a lot more development in the music, which goes through very distinct changes as it progresses.

And conflict is what the opera is about. Wagner wields leitmotivs about like weapons. Particularly wonderful is the Third Act where crosscurrents of different music are thrown against each other, with the force of violent waves. Just as there's a storm at sea in Act One, there's a storm on land in the Third, an echo of a more cosmic storm of the soul. In the Third Act, the Royal Opera House Choruses show how exceptionally good they are. They carry the intricate counter-forces with precision and committment. No denying the in this opera now. At last the production came vividly to life.

Bryn Terfel was obviously the big draw, but it's Anja Kampe who I'll remember. What a huge voice, from such a tiny frame! Maybe it's good miking, but she gave Terfel a run for his money. Again, the production downplays her inherent hysteria. She's fixated on the Dutchman long before he appears, clinging to his image like a teenage Goth obsessed by symbols of doom. Of course she's virginal and sweet but even her mates think she's a bit warped. Senta is the prototype Wagner heroine, who equates love with death, and needs to find herself through sacrificial redemption. A bit like what Wagner expected of the women in his life. Kampe should go on to do interesting things in this vein. She's singing Isolde at Glyndebourne this summer.

Please see what Mark says about this on Boulezian and also Intermezzo (link at right)
And photos
http://www.operatoday.com/content/2009/02/at_covent_garde.php

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

George Benjamin Into the Little Hill

The big news about the long-awaited London premiere of George Benjamin's Into the Little Hill was that it wasn't. A power cut minutes into the performance and that was it. Read about it on boulezian and intermezzo's blogs (follow link at right). Intermezzo has pix!

Since many people don't live within taxi distance, the "solution"to the power cut was pretty unfair. Lots of people are out of pocket and not just for tickets. Next time let's hope they do the right thing and offer refunds. There must be insurance for these things.

Luckily, I had cancelled my tickets for the first night and caught the whole show on the second night. For a change I hit the jackpot. This was a wonderful performance with Benjamin himself conducting the London Sinfonietta. Claire Booth and Susan Bickley, often raved here on this blog, sang the vocal parts. This is a new production by The Opera Group. Follow the link below to read more about them and the background to the opera. Their site has photos, video and audio clips - recommended!

Into the Little Hill reminds me of many things - the cartoon/novel Maus, even Michael Jackson's truly creepy song "Ben", where the disturbed kid makes friends with a rat. The story is desolate. A man appears in a little girl's bedroom. He has no face...no nose...no eyes. Yet the father does a deal with the sinister stranger and swears on the little girl's life. Seriously sick. The whole opera pivots on ideas of dissimulation, concealment, crawling into dark recesses, nothing is safe from being gnawed away.

This production seems, from pictures, to be more atmospheric than the French one. A circle of black gauze screens orchestra from singers. That's very well thought through, for even the music here is cloaked in disguise. You hear something eerie, or harps or bells. Sure enough, look behind the screens afterwards and there's a cimbalom right in the heart of the orchestra. You hear something tense, tinny and shrill : it's a banjo, and conventional strings being played like banjos, strings plucked high up the shaft, not bowed. Much emphasis is on low toned instruments like bass flute and bass clarinet, whose sensuous, seductive themes weave through the piece like a narcotic night blooming flower. At one point it sure feels like there's a sound so high pitched that the human ear can't quite hear it : but rats can hear at higher frequencies than we can....

Benjamin's writing for voice is a revelation. Unlike Thomas Adès, he doesn't force voices into painful contortion. While the lines are extremely challenging, they flow naturally, almost as speech even when they range up and down octaves. Part of this may be the texts themselves, written thoughtfully, like haiku, allowing the listener's thoughts to form. "The hum of a refrigerator in summer" sings the mezzo, and you know what she means and why it's relevant. Bickley and Booth don't sing "roles" and often their lines are reported speech, echoes perhaps of the ancient tradition of story telling. But there's no mistaking the modernity of this truly disturbing, ambiguous piece. It has a force of its own, which I suspect, even Benjamin and his librettist, Martin Crimp, have channelled as opposed to having consciously written.

What a brilliant idea, too, to pair Into the Little Hill with Harrison Birtwistle's At the Greenwood Side, from 1969. The whole Punch and Judy ethos gives me the creeps, whatever its artistic validity, because it is sick and unhealthy. Perhaps that's the point Birtwistle is making. The mummers and their play are frauds, utterly sordid. You can almost smell their stench in this production. But there's a thin line between ironic comment and the celebration of sickness. At least At the Greenwood Side is concise and gets to the point without too much fuss. And Booth's bag lady murderess is so clearly nuts, she's sad, not vicious, unlike the male characters. Nice touch, too, that the London Sinfonietta are dressed in white tie, which for them is "costume". This distances them from the drunken tramps the actors portray. Pity though that the piece is more speech than music. But then is Birtwistle implying that the barbarians have breached the gate ? This piece feels like graffiti in the meanest sense, smeared on art. Good performance and production though. Perhaps that's why it's so effective (and upsetting).

Here's The Opera Group's link, with photos, video clips and audio samples:

http://www.theoperagroup.co.uk/productions/more/into_the_little_hill_down_by_the_greenwood_side/

How to sing Lieder - Lehmann

What makes a good Lieder singer ? It's lots more than the voice, but the way the singer conveys meaning and music. Here is a clip of Lotte Lehmann giving a masterclass in 1953. The song is Brahms's Sonntag. Love that refrain:

Das tausendschöne Jungfräulein,
  Das tausendschöne Herzelein,
  Wollte Gott, wollte Gott, ich wär' heute bei ihr!

She's in her 70's, her voice reduced to a guttural growl, but so what ? She "sings" the meaning, the spirit of the song. Suddenly we don't see a middle aged matron but the "persona" in the song. The young man is in love with a nice, pure girl whom he's seen outside her door, and then on her way to church. Obviously no hanky panky or overt flirtation - she might not even know who he is ! They may never even have spoken. It's very inward. But he's so much in love, the intensity shines through the formal simplicity. There's a set of DVDs by VAI of Lehmann's masterclasses for sale, so you can enjoy more of this.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=WHyXlpeCmyw


And then she shows how to sing the Marschallin

Korngold, modernist ? Metzmacher

Ingo Metzmacher, who is conducting Korngold’s Die tote Stadt at the Royal Opera House tomorrow, is a specialist in new music – listen to his Henze, Hartmann and Messiaen, and the German series “Who’s afraid of 20^th century music?”, one of the best antidotes to the idea that modern music is scary. So why is he conducting Korngold, whose reputation is ultra rich and retro ? “Because it is a modern opera”, he says “on the verge of modernism….It is like an old photograph. You like to keep it and look at it, but you know that reality is different”.

Read the full interview at

http://www.operatoday.com/content/2009/01/anne_ozorio_int.php

When Korngold wrote Die tote Stadt the First World War had only just ended. Naturally, Viennese minds turned to past glories. There’s a theory that in tough times, people need escapist art. Perhaps that’s why the opera was such a hit, for it reminded people how good the past could be. Korngold built into his music heavy hints that the vision was a “photograph”, just like the illustrations in Bruges la Morte, which are photographs, not drawings. In 1920, Wozzeck and Jonny spielt auf were years in the future. By the standards of the time, Die tote Stadt was ground breaking. As Metzmacher says, it is modern, and Erich made sure the hero moved on.

What was Vienna really like in the 1920’s ? From February 28^th, the South Bank is hosting a series, Vienna, 1900-35, City of Dreams. The concerts focus on big sellers like Mahler, Zemlinsky and Berg but there was a lot else going on besides. The big names are there to lure audiences to explore deeper and find out gradually about Schreker, Krenek, Eisler, Webern, Pfitzner, Braunfels, Hindemith and others. Plus about the literature, philosophy, art…. And remember Hitler was hanging out too and picking up ideas. There's that photo of him standing in the crowds in the Ringstrasse, and rumours he went to school with Wittgenstein. In any society, there are many different spheres operating simultaneously. Schoenberg may not have grabbed audiences but the ideas he created had far reaching influence. Indeed, it is interesting to compare Die tote Stadt with Gurrelieder.

So where does Korngold fit in? Die tote Stadt may be his masterpiece but where does it stand in context of other things going on? where does it stand in relationship to his other work? How does he develop, as people usually do? What is his lasting influence? There will always be segments of the audience who resolutely prefer the past, but what is the past anyway? The inescapable fact is that people often do prefer "the photograph" to reality, fossilization to ongoing life.

It would be interesting to see into young Korngold’s mind. He was intelligent, well aware of what was happening around him. But he was also surrounded by conservatives like his father. Mozart rebelled and did his own thing regardless, but Erich Korngold just seems too nice a guy to have done to Julius what Wolfgang did to Leopold ? Perhaps he bottled up his inner tensions. leading to his early death ? Or he channelled his creative needs in a different direction, ie the movies. It’s poignant listening to the Violin Concerto again. It’s famous because it’s relatively easy to schedule (unlike an opera) and is always popular with audiences. It’s instantly accessible because the themes are so familiar. They come from the films, though the films themselves recycled themes he was working on prewar.

Bruges-la-morte 2 Die tote Stadt

Hugues keeps locks of his first wife’s hair in a crystal box. It never changes, but Jane is getting older. She gets wrinkles, starts having new friends, goes shopping, doesn’t stay passive. So Hugues resolves to leave her. “You’re kidding” she mocks. She knows he can’t face “un second veuvage”. That night he goes home, filled with free floating anxiety. Death seems to have returned, “emmaillotée en linceul dans le brouillard.” The swans, so normally calm, are screaming. It’s a bad omen.

Soon it’s the Feast of the Holy Blood, when there’s a procession in the streets, Barbe, Hugues' pious old servant decorates the sombre mansion with masses of flowers, so it’s perfumed like a sacristry. Into the house pour sounds of bells from all round town. She’s exalted, as if in the presence of angels. Then Hugues rings, and says a lady is coming for dinner. Barbe is in shock, for she knows about her master’s secret “concubinage”. Then she leaves. Moments later Jane arrives. She wants to open the shutters but Hugues is afraid it will attract attention. Meanwhile, the procession draws close. People are singing, Hugues visualizes the ancient knights of Flanders, smells the incense, sees the massed crowd in the street, falling to their knees as the Reliquary approaches. Jane and Hugues sit together on the sofa. Then

La musique des serpents et des ophicléides monta plus grave,
charria la guirlande frêle,
intermittente, du chant des soprani.

Jane looks round the strange mansion with its portraits of Hugues' dead wife. Then she spots the crystal box with the dead woman’s hair, opens it and laughs. To Hugues, it’s a “profanation”. He’s never dared touch it, all these years. He goes berserk and strangles Jane with her own hair, wrapped around her neck. Jane’s cadaver turns pale, like his dead wife, long ago. Outside, the procession has passed, the streets are empty, silence descends once more.

Et Hugues continûment répétait: «Morte... morte... Bruges-la-Morte...» d'un air machinal, d'une voix détendue, essayant de s'accorder: «Morte... morte... Bruges-la-Morte...» avec la cadence des dernières cloches, lasses, lentes, petites vieilles exténuées qui avaient l'air--est-ce sur la ville, est-ce sur une tombe?--d'effeuiller languissamment des fleurs de fer!

This novel was the inspiration behind Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt, who used the pseudonym Paul Schott to write the libretto. I do wonder how Freudian it must have been to young Erich, utterly dominated by his father's personality. The tales differ, of course. But the original is worth reading because it’s so atmospheric and beautifully written. Long out of copyright, it can be read in full at

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14911/14911-8.txt

Interestingly, one of the features of the original novel is that it was illustrated by actual photographs, so the reality of the setting blends into the unreality of the narrative. Maybe there is a house on the quai du Rosaire. Maybe it’s still stuffed with 19th century furniture and dusty mirrors ? Maybe Hugues and Jane remain suspended in time and space in a different dimension ? After posting this I received a message from someone who knows Bruges well. There really is a Quai du rosaire and there really are ancient houses there. Uncanny! see
http://www.pbase.com/francist/image/2840795

Bruges-la-Morte 1 Die tote Stadt

C'était Bruges-la-Morte, elle-même mise au tombeau de ses quais de pierre, avec les artères froidies de ses canaux, quand avait cessé d'y battre la grande pulsation de la mer.

Bruges-the-dead, cut off from the sea, the waters in its canals turgid like the blood in dying arteries…a surreal city of silence. In the novel, by Georges Rodenbach, a man called Hugues Viane has lived in limbo since his wife died five years before. Nothing is changed, everything as she left it. He doesn’t even like to move the dust on the mirror. He wanders the empty streets, desolate, numb. Then one day he sees an apparition, a woman with the same hair, the same eyes…. Agitated, he follows her, losing her in the crowd, like clouds hiding the moon. Since his wife died, Hugues had feared music. Even the wheezing, asthmatic strains of a street accordion reduced him to tears. In this city of church bells and organs, Sundays were hell. At last he sees the woman again. She’s the exact image of his wife “Le miroir vit”.

Jane is a dancer, she lets him set her up in a silent apartment where he stares mutely at her, wanting her never to change. He dresses her up in his dead wife’s clothes. “I look like an old portrait” she says, innocently. In the novel the quasi-religious kinkiness is implicit. “En cette Bruges catholique surtout, où les moeurs sont sévères!..... À tous les coins de rue, dans des armoires de boiserie et de verre, s'érigent des Vierges en manteaux de velours, parmi des fleurs de papier qui se fanent,tenant en main une banderole avec un texte déroulé, qui de leur côté proclament: «Je suis l'Immaculée.» Chapter 6 is particularly evocative of the city and its mysteries. The prose flows like a journey through the streets, through the widower’s soul. He has “une âme grise, de la couleur de la ville”. Spring comes, and Easter, then winter descends once more. Read Chapters 10 and 11 too, like poetry. Hugues wants to become like the towers that stand immobile, frozen above the city, as if suspended in the time of Memling. He wanders in at the end of Mass where the priest is talking about death. Hugues is anguished, torn between his need for Jane and his fear of damnation. To be continued.....

Erich Korngold's goose feast

In 1919, Austria had just lost a war and an empire. Vienna was plunged into austerity. Then Erich Korngold was invited to a party at which was served a pre-war luxury – roast goose and goose liver paté! As a thank-you young Korngold left the room for a moment and returned with a complete song, with piano accompaniment, which he'd whizzed up in the ante-room. Not a fool, young Korngold (he wrote the poem, too).


Die Gansleber im Hause Duschnitz

"To celebrate this day with you and contribute a little song,
I appear quickly on the spot as a houseguest in the
Duschnitz' night hotel, and throw on my best clothes and shout:
"Long may they live, the happy married couple on their
fortieth anniversary!"

"And while I'm speaking of wishes, without hesitating at all
I'd like to mention a few of my own.
I don't want to offend anyone, but I wish that, speaking of
your heating system, you wouldn't be stingy with the coal.
Otherwise, there's a certain danger of catarrh...."

"But this sort of wish is very small compared to this one:
hope that sometime again in my life I'll encounter such
a goose liver, and such a roast goose along with it. Because
a goose liver like this is a wondrous thing and gives any
dinner party an entirely, entirely different sort of splendor!"

"When it's browned, when it's crisp and crackly --- anyone
whose heart doesn't laugh for joy deserves, for such
baseness, to be forced off to bed and made to stay awake
all night with chattering teeth!"

"Oh no, I don't want to be one of those people. So I promise
you ladies and gentlemen: while I'm waiting for the Golden
Wedding (fifty years' anniversary) I hope to eat many
thousands of such goose livers!"

Now you know why I'm off to Korngold's Die tote Stadt at Covent Garden next week.

Henze - Der junge Lord DVD

Just released - Hans Werner Henze's Der Junge Lord. It's the 1968 production that's been around on audio forever but now on DVD.

The visuals are good for setting context - small town, small minds, stiff cardboard scenery, characters strutting about presenting a public front.

Suddenly an English Lord materializes in this milieu where they're always slipping into French. Foreign means good unless it's "too" foreign". The Lord has black servants! The Lord does everything differently. The locals veer from hate to servility.

Then one day the Lord's nephew appears and there's an elaborate ball. The young lord is a boorish lout but the locals ape everything he does thinking it's fashion. Note verb. Local beauty is engaged to marry him, thanks to the machinations of her wealthy aunt. As they dance, the young lord gradually goes nuts, rips off his fancy clothes and reveals himself - an ape !

The visuals add a lot. The young lord, the Old Lord's secretary and the beauty's real boyfriend all have grotesque sideburns and hair dyed vile shades of apricot. A hint ? The glory of this opera though is the way Henze writes music in cross currents that cut diagonally across each other - not layers but disturbing, unsettling counterpoint. Yet it's so well woven it's not jagged until the end when pretence can no longer be sustained. The chorus are particularly well written, many voices blending, individuals lost in a mass, but not an organized mob. There's a lot of Henze himself in the English (old) Lord but he doesn't despise the townsfolk, despite their credulity.

It's a lovely mixture of ham and high drama. Edith Mathis glows as Luise, her Barbie doll helmet of a hairdo. Donald Grobe is Wilhelm, her worthy lover. They are so sweet, you could squeak ! This is Young Frankenstein long before Mel Brooks. And Frankenstein is perhaps the apt image. The ape sings divine high tenor, almost as angelic as a counter tenor. What has the English Lord been up to ? and for how long ? Libretto by Ingeborg Bachmann.

Harrison Birtwistle The Minotaur ROH

"Between most and least, between man and beast, ...next to nothing". As the Minotaur dies, the small boy within the monstrous frame is released. The mighty John Tomlinson becomes a frightened lad with stumpy, childlike legs, singing a broken lullaby.

Now that the DVD is out it's nice to revisit the experience in memory. Read the link below for a detailed description and great production pix !

"This clew is your clue” intones the Snake Priestess, translated by Hiereus. The clew is the string that will guide Theseus through the labyrinth. In an opera teeming with multiple images and meanings, it’s a surprisingly direct pun since the clue to The Minotaur is perhaps, also to follow the thread as it develops. The labyrinth is a “place with more dead ends, more flaws and fault-lines than the human heart”. No wonder Birtwistle has spent so many years exploring the mysteries of ancient myth : the possibilities are endlessly intriguing. The Minotaur is a work of depth and maturity, “It’s as if he’s writing from his soul now”, says Andrew Watts, who plays the Snake Priestess. “He has no need to prove anything, he’s writing for the sake of writing”. Indeed, the music in The Minotaur flows as if welling up from deep sources. During the toccatas, an image of an ocean swell is projected onto a screen on the platform. Like the waves, the music pulsates, surging with power that comes from deep forces within. To achieve his mission, Theseus has to go below the surface and confront what is within, as should we all.

"Superficially, the plot is gruesome. The Minotaur, half man, half beast, feasts on human blood. There’s no escaping the gory circumstances of his conception and birth, which Ariadne graphically describes. But yet again, surface appearances deceive. The Minotaur may roar, but there’s nothing crude at all about this music. It oscillates, endlessly reshaping itself, tantalising yet ever lucid. Birtwistle may use archetypes, but they resonate musically as well as psychologically. Paradox is central to this opera, operating at all levels and The Minotaur is half-man, half-beast. Duality could not be more explicit."...........

"Implicit throughout is the presence of the Oracle. The Minotaur himself refers to it, for the oracle dictated the creation of the labyrinth. The oracle is thus the real turning point in the drama. Omphalos is the centre of the world, the Snake Priestess a direct line to Zeus. Again, this is a Birtwistle paradox. The scene may be barely ten minutes long but it’s pivotal. This is where Ariadne gets the thread which Theseus needs to escape the labyrinth, but in order to get it, she needs to face her own inner demons. Where murky darkness obscures the set in other scenes, the Snake Priestess is bathed in chilling light. Here there’s no room for anything but pure, unadorned honesty."

"The Snake Priestess, as conduit to the Gods, is supremely powerful and it’s significant that Birtwistle wrote the part for the countertenor Andrew Watts. The Minotaur is half-man, half-beast, while the Snake Priestess looks like a woman but sings like a man with an extremely high register. Like the Minotaur, she sings without words, her long wavering lines intoned like an incantation. Yet again, ambiguity and paradox is at the heart of this opera : singing without words places more emphasis on listening to the sound on a deeper level. Once more, Birtwistle’s writing for the part fits the idiosyncrasies of Watt’s voice so well that, although it’s a technically a challenge, it doesn’t impose unnatural strains, but unfolds as if it were a strange, living thing on its own."..............

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/minotaur1504.htm

Sibelius Luonnotar

Shell shocked still by news of the death of Richard Hickox. In tribute the ENO is going ahead with RVW's Riders to Sea, which was meant to be the culmination of this RVW commemoration year. Never did we dream the year would end with the loss of one of the great RVW conductors. (and Tod Handley died this year too)

The opera is very short, so it's being paired with Sibelius's Luonnotar, one of the most remarkable pieces ever written. Strangely enough a lot of the pre publicity material barely mentions it, or even the opera. In fact, it's referred to as "nature spirit" as if it were some new, unknown work! A bit like referring to Siegfried as "naughty boy". Or Wotan as Daddy God. ENO has strange faith in using directors who know and care nothing about music, but really this says something..... But Luonnotar is such an unusual work it repays thinking about and listening to in depth.

"..... It transcends both song and symphonic form. Fiendishly difficult to perform, this unique piece needs an appreciation of the very unusual mind that shaped it. Sibelius was at a crossroads. With his Fourth Symphony he was reaching towards new horizons but hadn’t quite come to terms with their implications. While he kept up with Schoenberg and the modernists, he had long realised that he was not part of the German tradition. He knew he was approaching uncharted waters and the prospect was daunting. As so often before, he turned to the ur-source of Finnish mythology for inspiration.

Luonnotar was the Spirit of Nature, Mother of the Seas, who existed before creation, floating alone in the universe before the worlds were made "in a solitude of ether". Descending to earth she swam in its primordial ocean for 700 years. Then a storm blows up and in torment, she calls to the god Ukko for help. Out of the Void, a duck flies, looking for a place to nest. Luonnotar takes pity and raises her knee above the waters so the duck can nest and lay her eggs. But when the eggs hatch they emit great heat and Luonnotar flinches. The eggs are flown upwards and shatter, but the fragments become the skies, the yolk sunlight, the egg white the moon, the mottled bits the stars. This was the creation myth of the Karelians who represented the ancient soul of the Finnish cultural identity.

The Kalevala was a motherlode for Sibelius, and he adapted it in a strikingly individual way. The orchestra may play modern instruments and the soprano may wear an evening gown, but ideally they should convey the power of ancient, shamanistic incantation, as if by recreating by sound they are performing a ritual to release some kind of creative force. The Kalevala was sung in a unique metre, which shaped the runes and gave them character, so even if the words shifted from singer to singer, the impact would be similar. Sibelius does not replicate the metre though his phrases follow a peculiar, rhythmic phrasing that reflects runic chant. Instead we have Sibelius’s unique pulse. In my jogging days, I’d run to pieces like Night Ride and Sunrise, finding the swift, "driving" passages uncommonly close to heart and breathing rhythms. It felt very organic, as if the music sprang from deep within the body. This pulse underpins Luonnotar too, giving it a dynamism that propels it along. They contrast with the big swirling crescendos, walls of sonority, sometimes with glorious harp passages that evoke the swirling oceans.

But it is the voice part which is astounding. Technically this piece is a killer – there are leaps and drops of almost an octave within a single word. When Luonnotar calls out for help, her words are scored like strange, sudden swoops of unworldly sounds supposed to resound across the eternal emptiness. These hint of the wailing, keening style that Karelian singers used. This cannot be sung with any trace of conservatoire trained artifice: the sounds are supposed to spring from primeval forces. After the duck approaches in a quite delightful passage of dancing notes, the goddess who expresses agony for its predicament. Those cries of "Ei! Ei!" – and their echo – sound avant-garde even by modern standards. The breath control required for this must be formidable. Singing over the cataclysmic orchestral climax that builds up from "Tuuli kaatavi, tuuli kaatavi!" must be quite some challenge. The sonorous wall of sound Sibelius creates is like the tsunami described in the text, and the soprano is riding on its crest.

Luonnotar is a complex creature, godlike and childlike at the same time, strong enough to survive eons of floating in ravaged seas, yet gentle enough to cradle a hapless duck. The singer needs to convey that raw primal energy, yet also somehow show the kindness and humour. The sheer physical stamina of singing this tour de force probably accounts for its relative rarity on the concert platform. Luonnotar swam underwater for centuries, so a soprano attempting this must pray for "swimmers lungs".

The last passages in the piece are brooding, strangely shaped phrases which again seem to reflect runic chanting, as if the magical incantation is building up to fulfilment. And indeed, when the creation of the stars is revealed, the orchestra explodes in a burst of ecstasy. The singer recounts the wonder, with joy and amazement: "Tähiksi taivaale, ne tähiksi taivaale". ("They became the stars in the heavens!"). I can just imagine a singer eyes shining with excitement at this point - and with relief, too, that she’s survived! As Erik Tawaststjerna said, "the soprano line is built on the contrast between … the epic and narrative and the atmospheric and magical".

In his minimalist text, Sibelius doesn’t tell us that Luonnotar goes on to carve out the oceans, bays and inlets and create the earth as we know it, or tell us that she became pregnant by the storm and gave birth later to the first man. But understanding this piece helps to understand Sibelius’s work and personality. Like the goddess, he was struggling with creative challenges and beset by self-doubt and worry. Perhaps through exploring the ancient symbolism of the Kalevala, he was able in some way to work out some ideas: in Luonnotar, I can hear echoes of the great blocks of sound and movement in the equally concise and to the point Seventh Symphony. The year after Luonnotar, Sibelius was to explore ocean imagery again in The Oceanides, whose Finnish title is Aallottaret, or "Spirit of the Waves", just as Luonnotar was the Spirit of Nature, tossed by waves. The Oceanides, written for a lucrative commission from the United States, is a more popular work, and beautiful, but doesn’t have quite the unconventional intensity and uniqueness of Luonnotar. Soon after, the First World War broke out, and the Finnish War of Independence, and Sibelius’ life changed yet again.

Luonnotar was written for, and premiered by the great Finnish soprano, Aino Ackté. Given that she was a diva, I’m not sure what she would have made of the grittier aspects of the piece, but she was a Finnish nationalist after all, and knew its implications. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was another early champion. When she sang it in Helsinki in 1955, she was moved to say that it was the "best thing she had ever done in her life". It was also central to the repertoire of Elisabeth Söderström, who was so deeply attuned to the composer’s idiom. Her recording, made with Ashkenazy, was for years the best version readily available, and remains a classic. The real Luonnotar of our time is Soile Isokoski who has made it her trademark. She sings it frequently : the finest performance sadly not recorded, though the two that are, are worth seeking out.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2007/Mar07/Luonnotar.htm