Intermezzo

Ticciati walks out of opera

Robin Ticciati has had enough of Zurich Opera's controversial new Don Giovanni, pictured above. He has handed his baton in after just two performances, leaving music director Fabio Luisi to conduct the remainder of the long run.

Ticciati himself has not explained his reasons. The opera house say that he didn't like Sebastian Baumgarten's production. The director was heavily booed on opening night - as was Ticciati's conducting of Zurich's La Scintilla period orchestra.

Now, any conductor is entitled to his opinions about a staging, and Ticciati certainly has the weight of public opinion behind him if he doesn't care for this one. But then many conductors are jurassic creatures who take exception to any number of modern productions. The usual practice is to accept it as a job hazard and soldier on with gritted teeth like a good team player to support singers and other staff who in all probability share the sentiments.

But perhaps this particular production is so intolerable that Ticciati is genuinely unable to conduct it. If that's the case, his timing is odd. Baumgarten has been directing opera for nearly twenty years, and always provocatively. So an aesthetically-sensitive conductor should have identified the potential for a problem right at the start - let alone before six weeks of rehearsal and two public performances were up. Intendant Andreas Homoki claims surprise at the decision, saying Ticciati was "sometimes sceptical, but always constructive" during rehearsals.

Could there be more to Ticciati's withdrawal than meets the eye?

In an interesting parallel, Thomas Hengelbrock failed to return to Bayreuth's widely-reviled current Tannhäuser - another Baumgarten production - after his 2011 debut, though he did at least make it through one full run. 

Salzburg's nozze di Figaro gets the bird

Le nozze di Figaro - Haus Für Mozart, Salzburg, 30 July 2011

Claus Guth's cinematically-inspired 2006 production sets Figaro in funereal Bergmanesque monochrome. Hitchcock's The Birds is referenced in the dead crows and autumnal leaves littering the bare rooms. It looks more like a particularly scary The Turn of the Screw than a Mozart comedy. 

Glyndebourne grabs Ticciati

 
Robin Ticciati is to become Glyndebourne's next music director. He replaces Vladimir Jurowski, who recently announced his retirement from the role.

Ticciati starts his new job in January 2014, at which point he will be a grand old man of 30. That may sound indecently youthful for such a high-profile role, but Jurowski was even younger when he took up the reins aged 28.

The baby-faced maestro has grown up with Glyndebourne, beginning way back in 2004 with his first ever professional engagement - assistant conductor for Glyndebourne on Tour.

Glyndebourne's Hansel and Gretel at the Proms

Prom 61: Hänsel and Gretel - LPO / Robin Ticciati - Royal Albert Hall, 31 August 2010

Glyndebourne's annual excursion to South Ken gets more elaborate each year. Only the attenuated but ingeniously rethought sets (the highlight - an Albert Hall-shaped gingerbread house) separated this semi-staging from a full performance. We even got a bonus on-trend immersive experience as the Father (William Dazely) made his entrance through the promming throng in the arena, dumping his carrier bags with a percussionist before clambering on to the raised stage behind the orchestra.

Robin Ticciati's House of Gingerbread

Hänsel und Gretel - Royal Opera House, 11 December 2008 (first night of second cast)

Despite the fact that Hänsel und Gretel is nominally a children's opera, there were precious few kids in the auditorium for this second performance in the run. There weren't many at the first either. But with tickets at up to £110 it's perhaps not surprising.

Less privileged children will just have to wait for the TV screening - now confirmed as BBC2 at 3pm on 25 December.

So 25 year old conductor Robin Ticciati was, as usual, younger than 99% of his audience.  This was not just the first night for the second cast, but also Ticciati's Covent Garden debut. Alternating conducting duties with Sir Colin Davis was not quite a mighty leap into the unknown, as he's just finished conducting Glyndebourne's touring production.

His Hänsel und Gretel is quite different from the dark post-Wagnerian elegance of Sir Colin's. For a start, he set up a cracking pace, knocking at least five minutes off each half. The touch was lighter, he pulled tempos and dynamics around less. It was a playful interpretation that emphasised the shiny surfaces more and the dark undercurrents less.

The orchestra, horns especially, played beautifully for him. Overtures apart, his eyes were locked on the stage almost constantly, with barely a glance at the score, still less at the musicians.  Obviously he's telepathic as well as talented, because everything held together perfectly.

In Alice Coote's Hänsel and Camilla Tilling's Gretel we had a less intuitively-matched pairing than the first cast of Angelika Kirchschlager (enjoying herself in row B of tonight's audience) and Diana Damrau. The first cast were best of friends; the second were more like real siblings, with all the differences and discords that implies.

Alice Coote's Hänsel was the boisterous dimwit familiar from her Met performance earlier in the year and powerfully sung. Camilla Tilling's voice was underweight in the first act, but improved, and she had a childlike vulnerability that eluded Diana Damrau, for all her impressive technique. We all now know girls are smarter than boys, but it's also woven into the Hansel and Gretel storyline, as Coote and Tilling beautifully illustrated.

Irmgard Vilsmaier as Mother and Eike Wilm Schulte as Father got a head start on laughs - she's about twice his size in all directions. They sang more accurately and enunciated more clearly than the first cast, even if they lacked some of their dramatic confidence and presence.

Ann Murray's more governessy character terrified less than Anja Silja's definitive witch, though the voice is in better shape. As reader ljg pointed out, she may be the first singer to tackle a role previously performed by her husband (Philip Langridge at the Met).

Eri Nakamura's Sandman and Simona Mihai's Dew Fairy were both nicely done, though the rubber-masked Sandman costume still gives me the creeps  - far more so than the dead children strung up in the witch's freezer which have so perturbed 'children's campaigners'.  The Tiffin schoolchildren on the stage didn't seem to have the least problem with any of it.

Incidentally, Green & Blacks have been giving out their very yummy chocolate before selected shows for a while now, and I was pleased to find the Royal Opera House have recruited another  sponsor, this time Acqua di Parma, handing out cologne samples. One commercial intrusion I really don't mind.