Intermezzo

Lulu goes to Copenhagen - a first night report

Lulu - Royal Danish Theatre, 15 October 2010

Heaving crowds descended on Copenhagen from all corners of the operatic empire on Friday night to witness the unveiling of the Royal Opera's new Lulu. It seemed every opera house in Germany had dispatched an ambassador - and was that our own Elaine Padmore I spotted too? The attractions - a production by newly-anointed Opernwelt Regisseur des Jahres Stefan Herheim, and the premiere of Eberhard Kloke’s reconstruction of the unfinished third act. 

Wozzeck makes a splash in Munich

Wozzeck - Bayerische Staatsoper, Nationaltheater, Munich, 17 July 2009

Michael Volle's magisterial performance as Wozzeck is the main strength and the main weakness of Andreas Kriegenburg's production, here in its first revival after opening to ecstatic reviews last November. Wozzeck is a man who has somehow sunk to the bottom of life's bucket. Hapless and hopeless, crushed, humiliated and abused by all around him, he is sustained only by his love for Marie and their young son.

Yet despite all the intelligence and musicality of Volle's singing and all the daring and commitment of his no-holds-barred acting, his rich, commanding baritone suggests one of life's winners.

His rage is terrifying rather than impotent, his creeping lunacy is scary not sad. The production design doesn't help - Wozzeck and his family are sturdy, upright and 'normal', while all around them are seen through Wozzeck's eyes as hideous Grosz-style caricatures. No dramatic issues can detract from the sheer beauty and fluency of Volle's singing, but Angela Denoke was the truly tragic heart of the production. She sang Marie with a compelling humanity, her gleaming soprano locating that elusive combination of vulnerability and sheer dramatic power.

Whether as opera, play or otherwise, Wozzeck/Woyzeck seems remarkably resistant to any treatment thrown at it, and despite the alleged 'difficulty' of the music, Berg's version has the power to captivate even cynics and neophytes. Kriegenburg takes full advantage of this licence, and his production is a marvellously-sustained piece of theatre, along with the previous night's Ariadne auf Naxos one of the best nights I've had in an opera house for ages. The stage is submerged beneath water - Wozzeck's world is cold, damp and supremely uncomfortable. It's supremely evocative - the only criticism is that making an inch or so of water resemble more profound depths involved a lot of intrusively noisy splashing.

Above this, clever lighting makes Marie's grubby room look suspended as if hovering weightless. Wozzeck's son follows him round, a mute leech clutching desperately at his father, breaking away now and again to comment on the drama in stark black graffiti. A black-suited herd slump around, sporting signs demanding work or money, sometimes bearing the weight of the set quite literally on their shoulders. The doctor is strapped and splinted like the result of one of his own experiments; the captain sports a grotesque semi-naked fat suit. If it doesn't quite add up in any rational way, that's because what's set out is Wozzeck's own distorted perception.

Kent Nagano conducted with grace and ease and a forensic eye to detail. He finessed the abrupt gear changes with a light touch, never losing momentum. And he came fully prepared - a stout pair of wellies ensured he could take his deserved place at the curtain call.

As fate would have it, the week's oppressively hot weather gave way to a tumultous thunderstorm as the opera drew to a close.  Nobody dared brave it - as the black skies cracked open above, the seasonally-dressed audience crowded into the foyer and on to the stairs to watch Maximilianstrasse turning into a river even deeper than the puddle on stage.

If only I'd had Kent Nagano's foresight. Instead I was forced into a post-opera first. I put up my brolly, slipped off my Alaïas - and waded home barefoot.

Lulu - rinse and repeat

Lulu - Royal Opera House, 8 June 2009

This was a lot better second time round. With the pressure of opening night behind her, Agneta Eichenholz sang cleanly and securely throughout, Klaus Florian Vogt was more focussed, and the action progressed more confidently. I didn't even notice any amplification on the speaking voices, which I guess means it was done more adeptly this time.

And was it my imagination, or was did the singers move downstage to sing more often? Evidently some changes had been made, because Alwa was murdered (as per Berg's stage directions) this time, instead of committing suicide as Loy had rewritten for the opening night.

There were certainly fewer inaudible episodes. That was partly down to Pappano, who sat on the orchestra every time a singer opened their mouth. Lulu is hardly a classic 'singers' opera' in the bel canto sense, but that's how Pappano treated it, with the orchestra alternately blooming forth gloriously and shrinking into a backing band. Most strange, and often at odds with the drama.

There were, unusually, cameras at the front of the stalls as well as the back to capture this performance, presumably for future DVD release.The clarity of this simply-set production remains its strength, something I suspect will be even more obvious when it's seen on screen.

 

 

 

Lulu: Royal Opera House (nm)

Lulu - Royal Opera House, 4 June 2009 (first night)

What is it with opera directors and their fascination with film? Are they all frustrated Steven Spielbergs? Christof Loy isn't quite as nakedly entranced as the likes of Robert Lepage. His new Covent Garden Lulu foregoes the silent film traditionally played over the central interlude (per composer instructions). But the minimalist production embodies the dark tone and moral ambivalence of classic film noir in its laconic, stylised gestures and anonymous visuals. The set, nothing but a long sectioned wall that stretches across the stage like a length of film, underlines the point.

It's a workable concept, but it was a little lost in the vast expanse of the Covent Garden stage (fully visible from wings to flies thanks to unwaveringly stark lighting). With the cast clad in nineties office-wear and nothing but a chair on stage, it looked like a recently-burgled boardroom. Without scene changes or major lighting variations, it was hard to tell when time and location had changed. Some actions became downright incomprehensible - would anyone who didn't know the opera realise that when Alwa picked up an axe after the Painter's suicide he was breaking open an entirely non-existent door to reach the body? 

And the shortage of reverberant surfaces meant that even the most powerful voices disappeared as their owners moved upstage. Miking them for the spoken sections solved half the problem, but it created a grating disjunct with the singing. If only the budget had stretched to walls.

Clearly some of the audience were less than thrilled - unusually lukewarm applause for the production team even included a few boos, a real rarity here.

It left the cast an uphill task to create something more than a concert performance, but they largely succeeded. Clearly well-rehearsed and choreographed to the inch, movement and gesture were as spare as the set, but every one was telling. Apart from the shoes. Nobody wants to wear stilettos for three hours non stop, but what was with all the taking off and putting back on again?

At the centre, Agneta Eichenholz as Lulu was superb in her Covent Garden and role debut. This Lulu is no coquette. She's a beautiful enigma, objectified in the eyes of those who desire her, but incapable of reciprocating. Agneta Eichenholz may look like Jennifer Love Hewitt as Audrey Hepburn but her Lulu was lethally iced. She started so tentatively I seriously worried she might rush off in tears. But she pulled herself together and nailed the impossible, stratospheric coloratura with ever-increasing confidence. At the end, far from spent, she sounded ready to do it all over again.

Michael Volle's robust Dr Schön was the other big hit. An adventurous director's dream, he has a big, heroic sound, he can act, and he's happy to look a bit of a t1t in the service of Art. Quite handy when you're daubed with lipstick and greasepaint in emulation of the lady wife's stage make-up (another touch that eluded my comprehension).

The blindingly-toothed Jennifer Larmore gave a touching and intelligently-nuanced performance as Gräfin Geschwitz, the reverse-image of the iron-clad Lulu in her femininity and vulnerabilty.

Philip Langridge's sleazy, seedy final act Marquis was his third and finest creation of the evening, following an equally-detailed Prince and Manservant.

Some of the other character doublings weren't so clearly differentiated, particularly Will Hartmann's attractively-sung Painter/Negro and Michael Volle's Jack the Ripper. Perhaps this was intentional - they reappeared for the final act wearing the same bloodstained clothes they'd died in way back in Act I. But this would ignore one of the points Berg's doubling makes - not that these characters are reincarnated but that the same kind of people exist in respectable bourgeois society as the shadowy world of pimps and prostitutes. And instead of being murdered by these 'dead' clients, Loy has Alwa slit his own throat, and Geschwitz is allowed to live - more neatly symmetrical perhaps, but again missing the point that those who truly care for Lulu are in the end destroyed.

Peter Rose's bravely-exposed jelly-belly Athlete raised most of the scant laughs of the evening - for his appearance rather than his commanding singing I should add. Klaus Florian Vogt's Alwa swam disappointingly in and out of focus, though the climactic second act encounter with Lulu 'on the sofa where your father bled to death' was done to devastating effect.

The orchestra were clearly well prepared for their trials and played cleanly throughout. Thanks to a kindly benefactor I was sitting much closer to the stage than I usually do - close enough in fact to observe Pappano in action. I didn't realise quite how much noise he makes or how much energy he expends, huffing and grunting and scrabbling his paws like a Jack Russell dreaming of rabbits. Whether it's for the orchestra's benefit or his own is not clear. Balance was exemplary and there was some beautiful detailing here and there. But in making the singers' difficult job easier by holding back when he could have been powering forward, an efficient accompaniment too often substituted for real dramatic tension.

My close quarters also permitted me to note that a couple of times a singer who shall remain nameless unselfconsciously sent great volleys of saliva arcing into the pit as he blasted forth. My advice to the horn section - if you think the roof's leaking, don't stick your tongue out to check...

**************  curtain call photos on next page  **************

Lulu - your homework for tonight

Christof Loy's new production of Berg's Lulu opens at the Royal Opera House today with Agneta Eichenholz (above) in the title role.

Here are a few resources for the curious. Impressions of the show to follow tomorrow.

Cast and production team interviews:

• musicalcriticism.com: Antonio Pappano on the Royal Opera's new Lulu

• The Times: Christof Loy on on bringing Berg's Lulu to life

• operatoday.com: Michael Volle’s intriguing Dr Schön

• Daily Telegraph: Agneta Eichenholz: new Lulu taps into animal instincts

• musicomh.com: Interview: Jennifer Larmore

Recordings:

• Glyndebourne Festival Opera's Lulu on DVD. , Christine Schäfer makes a physically and vocally alluring heroine in this simple but effective 1996 Graham Vick production. Andrew Davis emphasises the score's post-romantic side. Beautifully directed for TV by Humphrey Burton - all opera DVDs should be as good as this.

• Pierre Boulez's 1979 recording was the first of the completed three act version and has yet to be bettered for intelligence and clarity. It's also available on DVD on Ebay from seller stubacker0 (though be warned it's poorly shot and lacks subtitles. Unless you speak Japanese.)

Books:

• Alban Berg: Lulu (Cambridge Opera Handbooks) by Douglas Jarman is the most user-friendly of the generalist guides and covers all aspects of the opera and the composer.

• The Operas of Alban Berg : Volume 2 by George Perle is a dry read, but explores the musical language of the opera with unparalleled thoroughness and particular reference to serialist aspects. Barely a note remains unturned.

• Alban Berg: A Guide to Research by Bryan Simms lists the slew of available literature, and makes a good launchpad for any specialist enquiry. Take a peek inside here.