Die Soldaten - Felsenreitschule, 26 August 2012 (Salzburg Festival)
Amidst the greying audiences of the Salzburg Festival, a 50 year old punter counts as young. And a 50 year old opera can pass as contemporary. It is perhaps with the conservative spectators of Salzburg (and co-producers La Scala) in mind that director Alvis Hermanis has declawed Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s bleak anti-war masterpiece.
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Prom 34: Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Ingo Metzmacher / Leonidas Kavakos - Royal Albert Hall, 10 August 2010
Though the BBC chose not to mention it anywhere, Tuesday night's Prom marked Ingo Metzmacher's final concert as chief conductor of the DSO. Regular readers may have gathered from previous posts the flavour of German orchestral politics, and the extraordinary influence wielded by public funding bodies there. Metzmacher's departure is another twist on the familiar story. Denied the cash required to fill what he considers essential orchestral positions, Metzmacher shocked everyone including his orchestra by choosing to resign.
Continue reading "Prom 34: a little Nacht music from Ingo Metzmacher and the DSO" »
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Der ferne Klang - Opernhaus Zürich, 9 May 2010
Franz Schreker remains oddly overlooked in London, but interest in his work continues to grow slowly but surely elsewhere. The new Zurich production of his 1912 opera Der ferne Klang isn’t the only one this year – it follows performances in Augsburg and Berlin, and there’s a US premiere in Bard this summer.
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Robert Lepage's Hollywood-themed Rake's Progress returns to Covent Garden no more impressive than it was first time round, so I won't bother describing it in any detail again. The concept - fame corrupts - is superficially interesting. But it sits awkwardly atop the Londonian specificities of the libretto, and the production remains constricted by its static tableaux, a substitute for real dramatic action.
All its wow-factor technical gimmicks can't disguise a lack of depth. Of course that's a criticism you could level at almost any Lepage venture. Intellectual profundity is neither his aim nor his result. He's the 21st century Zeffirelli - overwhelm the audience with spectacle, and hope they don't peer any deeper.
In his theatrical work, an emotional resonance compensates. It can make his best efforts utterly compelling. But in the theatre his actors pretty much devise their own performances from scratch. Not here of course. In opera you have to work with what you're given - a fixed text and performers whose training is more musical than theatrical. This production's characters and situations lack sympathy, empathy - any kind of fellow-feeling at all. And I don't blame the singers, because it was exactly the same last time round, with a different cast. The revival 'direction' seems to have done no more than reproduce the original blocking.
Ingo Metzmacher's pacing, perhaps dictated by the technical demands of the projections and sets, seemed as sluggish as Tom Ades's had in the first run. And in deference to the placement of the singers frequently miles upstage, the volume was far too low. It's telling that the haunting solo harpsichord accompaniment to the graveyard scene had more impact than any of the more complex and clever writing. The clarity of the orchestral sound was perhaps its greatest strength.
The singers seemed bathed in an air of defeat from the first note, though Rosemary Joshua's Welsh-inflected Anne Trulove battled hard to win hearts. Toby Spence undoubtedly has the voice for Tom Rakewell, but he too often lacked focus and, more surprisingly, projection, only really coming to life towards the end in the graveyard scene. Kyle Ketelsen's Nick Shadow and Patricia Bardon's Baba the Turk were decently sung, but strangely muted and anonymous presences. Even Frances McCafferty's Mother Goose - surely a gift of a role for a singer of McCafferty's vocal power and physical dimensions - lacked the expected impact.
The general impression was a lack of confidence, despite a surprisingly enthusiastic audience who laughed and gasped at the visual trickery and couldn't wait to applaud at every possible opportunity. Perhaps this production will come together more as the run progresses, but at the moment it's considerably less than the sum of its well-cast parts.
***** more photos on next page *****
Continue reading "Royal Opera's Rake's Progress proves a Trial" »
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Here first! - a full list of all the Royal Opera House's main stage productions for the 2009/10 season.
The 2009/10 Covent Garden season opens with neither bang nor whimper but with a credit-crunching concert performance on 7 September (repeated on 14 September). Makes a change from last year's Sun readers' special I suppose.
The opera in question is Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix, and the conductor is bel canto genius Mark Elder. The cast includes potential Next Big Things Stephen Costello, Eglise Gutierrez and Luciano Botelho, plus the incomparable Alessandro Corbelli, the first of several welcome appearances this season.
The first staged opera of the season is Nicholas Hytner's lego-loving Don Carlo, with - OMG!- Jonas Kaufmann !!! in the title role. John Tomlinson joins him as the Grand Inquisitor, and the rest of the cast is lifted straight from the first run - Marina Poplavskaya, Simon Keenlyside, fans' favourite Ferruccio Furlanetto, Sonia Ganassi and Pumeza Matshikiza.The conductor is Semyon Bychkov.
This season's contribution to the 2013 Wagnerversary is a new Christof Loy production of Tristan und Isolde. Antonio Pappano conducts Ben Heppner, Nina Stemme, Matti Salminen, Michael Volle and Sophie Koch.
Neigh! Francesco Zambello's ghastly Carmen returns in October, with the latest Covent Garden favourite Elina Garanca back for the title role, fighting off Roberto Alagna, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, and a farmyard full of furry friends. Bertrand de Billy conducts. It's resuscitated again in June 2010 with a distinctly 'B' cast.
October also sees one of Richard Jones's more subtle and effective efforts back on stage - and attractively cast. The shouldn't-work-but-it-does double bill of Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole (Christine Rice, Yann Beuron, Christopher Maltman, Andrew Shore and Bonaventura Bottone) and Puccini's Gianni Schicchi (Thomas Allen, Maria Bengtsson and Stephen Costello) is conducted by Pappano.
Francesco Zambello steps into Tchaikovsky's The Slippers in November. The new production will be conducted by Alexander Polianichko and features some serious talent fresh from the Mariinsky - Olga Guryakova, Vsevolod Grivnov, Larissa Diadkova, Vladimir Matorin and Maxim Mikhailov.
John Schlesinger's elderly Der Rosenkavalier is dusted off in December. Kirill Petrenko conducts and the cast includes Soile Isokoski, Sophie Koch, Thomas Allen and Lucy Crowe.
Littering the December and January schedules is the inevitable La Bohème. This time Andris Nelsons conducts most of the double-cast performances, which begin with Piotr Beczala and Hibla Gerzmava and end with not a few tbc's.
Robert Lepage's intermittently effective Rake's Progress returns in January 2010. Ingo Metzmacher, Toby Spence (a Tom Rakewell tdf), Kate Royal, Kyle Ketelsen and Stephanie Blythe promise much on the musical side.
Female conductor alert! Top Lisboan Julia Jones wields the baton over Jonathan Miller's Cosi fan Tutte in January. The cast includes Charles Castronovo and Sally Matthews.
A new Richard Jones production of Prokofiev's The Gambler in February is conducted by Pappano, with a cast including Roberto Sacca, Angela Denoke, John Tomlinson and Jurgita Adamonyte.
Plácido Domingo's first appearance of the season is as a tenor. Graham Vick's acclaimed production of Handel's Tamerlano (recorded in Madrid and available on DVD con Plácido)
Bill Bryden's family-friendly The Cunning Little Vixen returns in March with Emma Matthews, Christopher Maltman and Emma Bell, though the presence of Charles Mackerras on the podium has to be the main draw.
Caurier and Leiser's lovely Il Turco in Italia is back in April, with Maurizio Benini conducting, and Aleksandra Kursak, Colin Lee, Alessandro Corbelli, Thomas Allen and Ildebrando d'Arcangelo in the cast.
Aida is subjected to the David McVicar magic in April. His new production is conducted by Nicola Luisotti and features Micaela Carosi, Marcelo Alvarez and Luciana D'Intino. Bare naked elephants?
The last of the Big Three, Richard Eyre's subtly intelligent La Traviata, makes its annual appearance in May and July. This time her name's in the programme - Our first Lady of the Camellias is the fabulous former Netrebko sub Ermonela Jaho. Joining her in her long-awaited return to Covent Garden in May are Saimir Pirgu and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. July's 'B' Violetta is Angela Gheorghiu, who makes do with James Valenti and Zeljko Lucic. Yves Abel conducts.
Laurent Pelly's now-legendary La Fille du Régiment returns in May with the unbeatable original cast of Juan Diego Flórez, Natalie Dessay, Alessandro Corbelli and Felicity Palmer back in place. Bruno Campanella conducts.
What would tempt Sir Colin Davis back into the pit? How about David McVicar's Le Nozze di Figaro? Erwin Schrott, Camilla Tilling, Maruisz Kwiecen. Annette Dasch, Soile Isokoski and Christine Schäfer head the strong cast.
Antonio Pappano conducts Laurent Pelly's new Manon, coming to Covent Garden in June with the announced cast including Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón. Anyone fancy a bet?
In one of those rare operatic fairy stories, June sees a baritone with less than a year's experience thrust into a leading role at Covent Garden. Yes, it's Plácido Domingo again, and this time he's Simon Boccanegra. Antonio Pappano conducts a strong cast including Marina Poplavskaya, Ferruccio Furlanetto and Joseph Calleja. It's the 1991 Elijah Moshinsky production by the way, not the Ian Judge one seen last year.
The season ends in July 2010 with the first revival of David McVicar's controversial Salome. Angela Denoke takes the central role, with Johan Reuter as Jokanaan. Hartmut Haenchen conducts.
No link yet, but more details expected on the Royal Opera House website sometime next week.
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*******UPDATE 22/4*******
The Royal Opera House's press releases are now available on their website. Go here for the summary, here for the opera details and here for the ballet.
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Die tote Stadt - Royal Opera House, 27 January 2009
I'd been looking forward to this premiere. 90 years after it was written, 5 years after this particular production premiered in Salzburg (hay, even scenery-applauding San Francisco got there first), the Royal Opera House finally took the plunge and brought us Die tote Stadt for the very first time.
And though it wasn't a horrendous disaster - far from it - there were some major disappointments all round.
Firstly the production itself. Willy Decker's manic off-kilter dreamworld (rehearsal pics here) is immaculately realised. But I saw this production in Vienna last year, and his bold surrealistic tableaux had far less impact the second time round. Once you know what to expect, the illusion of a waking dream where anything is possible starts to crumble. The images are still striking, but the whole is less convincing.
There were many good things about Ingo Metzmacher's conducting. The Royal Opera House orchestra were immaculately prepared, the sound light and translucent. The singers could be heard above the dense orchestration (not something that could be said about Philippe Auguin's Viennese efforts), details came across clearly, even quieter instruments like the celesta had room to breathe. Caesuras were brilliantly placed and literally breathtaking. The rare shards of modernism spiking the lush romanticism were shaped to shock.
But this music needs passion and abandon. It should teeter on the brink of over-the-topness. Without that, it sinks into slush with every tonal chord. And it seemed Ingo Metzmacher didn't believe in the music quite strongly enough to push that extra inch.
Not a charge you could level at Stephen Gould. Paul is on stage the whole time, mostly singing at the top of his range over a big orchestra. Not an easy part then, but he gave a committed and energetic performance, choppy at first, but vastly improved by the end.
And a big plus - he has an indefinable likeability that eludes most heldentenors. He's a big beefy guy with a voice to match - but - it's big but time (heheh) - it's a voice that needs a sword in the hand to convince. For all its technical demands, Paul is a romantic role not a heroic one, and Stephen Gould never quite tugged on the heartstrings.
Nadja Michael, flinging her long limbs this way and that, certainly looked the glamorous part of Marie/Marietta, and in the comfortable centre of her range, her voice has the sort of steely power that removes limescale without scrubbing. But it's about as alluring as Harriet Harman however much her looks say otherwise - a less beguiling Glück, das mir verblieb is hard to imagine. Up top, where much of the role sits, she thins out and slips below the the note in a truly excruciating fashion, and for bonus ouch points, she has a couple of scarily blokey Amanda Lear notes at the bottom.
Step forward saviour of the evening, Gerald Finley, whose Frank/Fritz was quite perfect in every way. Noble as Frank, admirably deranged as Fritz, he provided a much-needed dose of humanity. And although Brigitta is not a large part, Kathleen Wilkinson made it her own with her endearingly fussy solicitude.
It was a surprise to see a near-full house - Covent Garden audiences are usually wary of anything new - but the muted applause said it all. An opportunity missed.
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Prom 70: Messiaen's Saint-François d'Assise - Royal Albert Hall, 7 September 2008
Unquestionably the best Prom of the season - by a mile - in fact the best Prom I've ever been to. Messiaen's operatic meditation on the life of St Francis of Assisi is four and half hours of the most astonishing musical invention, here realised vividly and passionately by the Netherlands Opera.
Why the 'experts' in the pre-performance talk (supposedly playing for team Messiaen) felt the need to join the consensus and apologise for its length and supposed lack of pace I don't know. They seemed embarrassed about the limited enthusiasm they did show. This sort of dispassionate cynicism may constitute a legitimate perspective on the work from an academic viewpoint, but with barely a quarter (if that) of the seats sold, what it really needed instead was some good old-fashioned cheerleading from a point of authority.
There may not be a lot going on in the text, but there's a musical narrative more gripping and eventful than anything I've ever heard, teeming with detail. Messiaen worked on it for many years and the result is a work that despite its length and colossal orchestration is shorn of any excess. Every detail fits as neatly as a leaf on a tree.
Conductor Ingo Metzmacher marshalled his huge orchestral forces heroically. There were ondes Martenot tucked away in the side balconies, and a massive choir too. And despite some the odd late entry or rough patch - nothing less than you'd get from any orchestra over half a day of solid playing - there was never the sense that they were playing with anything less than total commitment.
The strange and beautiful 'Angel's viol' music, exquisitely realised on the ondes Martenot and a cluster of strings and winds was a magical highlight in the middle of the work. St Francis's sermon to the birds, with its streaming concatenation of orchestrally-simulated birdsong, was, despite the 'experts' pre-show warnings, fascinating in its dense complexity. And the mighty, blinding, deafening finale exploded with all the joy and profound faith Messiaen had brought to it.
The marvellous, minimalist staging, just a few benches and crude crosses set in front of the orchestra, was enough to suggest the events occuring. More importantly, it provided a context for the wonderful soloists to create their roles.
The voice of Rod Gilfry, as St Francis, started to give out towards the end of the second act, but this was covered by some sympathetic volume from Metzmacher, and barely detracted from a moving and authoritative performance that derived its intensity from its stillness.
The simple black and white costumes mostly worked, and though Heidi Grant Murphy resembled the Dental Hygienist of the Lord in her all-white ensemble, the sweetness and purity of her voice raised her Angel to the heavens.
It's a shame so few people made the trip to see it, but the few hundred who were there gave it a louder and definitely more heartfelt reception than many full-house concerts. It desperately needs to be staged in this country again - and soon.
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