My trip to Wexford was to mark a special occasion by paying my first ever visit to the National Opera House to see a performance of Donizetti’s comic opera L’elisir d’amore by Irish National Opera. It was well worth the trip, as it was a wonderfully entertaining production with lovely singing and lots of laugh-out-loud moments. In short, it was a blast.
Billed as a melodramma giocoso, but more usually called an opera buffa, this was the first Donizetti opera to be performed in Ireland, in 1838; its world premiere was in 1832 in Milan and it has been in the operatic repertoire ever since. The show-stopping Una furtiva lagrima in Act II is one of the most recorded tenor arias, the first recording of which dates back to 1904 (by Enrico Caruso).
In case you’re not aware of the opera, it tells the story of a lowly peasant (Nemorino, tenor) who is in love with the wealthy Adina (soprano), who does not return his love – understandably not just because he’s poor but because he’s a bit of a drip. In despair Nemorino turns to the fake doctor Dulcamara (bass-baritone) “famous throughout the Universe and certain other places” who has arrived in town to peddle potions and quack remedies, no doubt made from snake oil. Nemorino asks him for a philtre that will make Adina fall for him. Dulcamara has sold all his potions, but fills an empty medicine bottle with wine and tells him it’s the love potion he needs. After drinking it, Nemorino feels more confident, but Adina still isn’t interested. Worse, Adina has agreed to marry to soldier Belcore. That’s Act I.
In Act II, desperate to stop the marriage, Nemorino wants to buy some more of the love potion but he has no money so he agrees to join the army for which he is entitled to a joining fee. He spends the money on more wine and gets completely wasted, so much so that he misses the news that a rich uncle has died and left him a large inheritance. When the women of the town find out that he is now rich, they all start showing an interest in Nemorino, which he assumes is because of the love-potion. At this point Adina decides she really does love Nemorino, buys out his contract with the army, and calls off the wedding with Belcore. The soldier shrugs off his loss. Dulcamara convinces himself that he really has magical powers…
Summarizing the plot doesn’t really do justice to the opera, however, as there are numerous musical interludes, with dancing, and slapstick comedy. Donizetti’s music is wonderful, and keeps the pace going. It’s basically a theatrical farce set to music, with the score keeping everything moving at the speed that is essential to make such a thing work. Erina Tashima conducted the Orchestra of Irish National Opera with great verve.
This production is set in a comical Wild West of America, with a relatively simple set but wonderful very witty costumes. Nemorino (Duke Kim) was dressed like Woody from Toy Story, for example. We also had appearances from Calamity Jane, Laurely & Hardy (who do their “Way Out West” dance), Abraham Lincoln and even the couple from Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic. Adina (Claudia Boyle) has no fewer than five costume changes, each one into a frock more glamorous than the previous. Dulcamara was the wonderful John Molloy and there is great comedy between him and his diminutive sidekick Truffaldino (a non-singing part played by Ian O’Reilly). Belcore’s troops are kitted out like the US Cavalry, and their dancing and messing about delivers laugh after laugh. There are also sundry “peasants”, i.e. cowboys and women of the town adding to the hilarity. I give 10/10 to the members of the chorus, their Director Richard McGrath and choreographer Paula O’Reilly.
All the principles were great too. Claudia Boyle sang beautifully, but also conveyed the comic aspects of her role. Duke Kim was perfectly cast as the boyish Nemorino; he has a light and agile tenor voice, which he used to bring the house down with the big number Una Furtiva Lagrima in Act II. Belcore was baritone Gianluca Margheri (whom I saw perform in Maynooth a couple of years ago). His physique matches the muscular quality of his voice, and he wasn’t shy in showing it off by taking off his shirt onstage! John Molloy’s singing was as impeccable as his comic timing in the role of Dulcamara. I think he got the most laughs, in a production that produced many.
This triumphant production plays L’elisir d’amore for laughs and wins by a knockout. Sadly there’s only one performance left in this run, in Cork on Saturday 7th June. Do go if you can!
The reason for my flying visit to Cardiff this weekend was to visit the Wales Millennium Centre to catch the opening night of Welsh National Opera’s new production of the Opera Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten. It was a full house and, being a premiere, there was a fair sprinkling of media types among the crowd. There will no doubt be many reviews but I don’t mind adding to the verbage. I’ve seen this Opera several times and it is one of my favourites in the entire repertoire.
Peter Grimes premiered at Sadler’s Wells in London on 7th June 1945 almost 80 years ago. I wasn’t there – I’m not that old – but I do have an original programme from that season (left), bought in a second-hand bookshop. Perhaps surprisingly, given the grim subject matter and the intense music it was an immediate hit with audiences. Its popularity has not wained. Welsh National Opera gave its first performance in 1946, but is currently facing an uncertain future.
I’ve often heard Peter Grimes described as one of the greatest operas written in English. Well, as far as I’m concerned you can drop “written in English” from that sentence and it’s still true. I think it it’s a masterpiece, fit to rank alongside any by any composer. Searching through the back catalogue on this blog, however, I didn’t find any reviews of it, so the times I’ve seen it must have been before I started blogging back in 2008. I saw an excellent production by Opera North in Nottingham many moons ago, and also remember one at Covent Garden which stuck in my memory for its impressive staging.
Based on a character from the narrative poem The Borough by George Crabbe, the story revolves around the eponymous Peter Grimes, a fisherman, and the inhabitants of a small coastal village in Suffolk. Grimes is by no means a sympathetic character: he is an outcast with no social skills and is prone to fits of violent temper. The Opera begins witha Prologue in which Grimes is in court after the death of his apprentice; he is acquitted of any wrongdoing but the folk of the Borough – apart from the schoolteacher Ellen Orford and retired naval Captain Balstrode – still regard him as guilty. Against all advice, Grimes takes on another apprentice (John) whom he is subsequently suspected of mistreating. When the second boy dies (in accidental circumstances), Grimes flees with the crowd in pursuit. At the end he is given no choice but to take to his boat, sail it out to sea and sink it, taking his own life.
For me the key to the success of this Opera is its treatment of the character of Peter Grimes. In the original poem, Crabbe depicts Grimes is a monstrous figure rather like a pantomime villain. Britten is much more sympathetic: Grimes is misunderstood, a misft who as never been socialised; he just doesn’t know the rules that he should conform to. That’s his tragedy. Britten’s Grimes is not a villain. He’s not a hero either. At one point, shockingly, he even lashes out at Ellen Orford a lady who has shown him nothing but kindness. There’s good and bad in Grimes, like there is in all people. Who of us can say that we don’t share some of the faults of Peter Grimes? And if he’s bad what made him bad? Was he himself abused as a child? Could a little kindness along the way have made him better adjusted?
The Opera not just about Grimes, though. We get a vivid insight into the life of an isolated seaside community: the gossiping hypocrisy of the “good people” of the Borough, the debauchery of the landlady and her two “nieces” who cater to the needs of their male visitors, but above all the importance of the sea in their lives – stressed by Britten’s wonderful interludes describing dawn over the town, moonlight over the sea, and a raging storm. It also sheds light on the common practice of “buying” apprentices from the workhouse, essentially a means of slave labour, a systematic abuse far worse than anything Grimes ever does!
Anyway, to last night’s performance. In short, it was magnificent. The cast was very strong indeed: Nicky Spence shone in the role of Peter Grimes (tenor). Britten wrote the part to suit the characteristics of the voice of his partner, Peter Pears, and it doesn’t suit all tenor voices: the superb arioso When the Great Bear and Pleiades, for example, has dizzying head tones that challenges some singers. Ellen Orford was the excellent Sally Matthews (soprano) and Balstrode was the admirable baritone David Kempster.
I’ll mention three particularly memorable moments, near the end of the opera. The first is after the apprentice John has died; the gorgeous sea interlude Moonlight, which serves as a prelude to the third and final act, is played while the grieving Grimes cradles the lifeless corpse of the boy. The second is when Grimes is on the run, with the chorus calling his name and baying for blood. In fear of his life, he breaks down and is reduced to repeating his own name to himself. I’ve always found that scene unbearably moving and it was that way again last night. Finally, at the very end, the bodies of the two dead apprentices appear, one sprawled on a rock, the other standing eerily in the suspended boat which is tipped up vertically above the stage. When Grimes accepts Balstrode’s advice to drown himself, the two boys come to life; they exchange smiles, hold hands and walk off into the distance. It’s the only time Grimes looks happy in the whole performance. Only in death can he find his peace.
The staging is very spare but cleverly done. The basic set consists of a wet beach sloping up towards the rear above which from time to time a small fishing boat appears, suspended by wires, in a variety of attitudes. Otherwise there is little in the way of scenery. The clever part of this is the use of the dancers of Dance Ensemble Dawns. All the boys’ roles were in fact played by female dancers, including John the second apprentice, a non-speaking role played with great pathos by Maya Marsh whose use of body language was extraordinarily effective. Not only did they portray the boys of the village, often to be found generally misbehaving and taunting Peter Grimes, they also use their movements do evoke the storm in an extraordinarily compelling way. Not content with that they came on from time to time, in stylised fashion, to move scenery and props. The inn, for example, is conjured up by two simple props: a door frame and a window frame, held up by members of the ensemble for other members of the cast to walk or lean through. In all these contributions, the dancers were brilliant.
The simplicity of the staging probably reflects the financial crisis currently engulfing Welsh National Opera. They probably just didn’t have the money to pay for a elaborate sets, but it’s a testament to the skill and creativity of the designers that they were able to pull a triumph out of a financial disaster. I was sitting in the Circle so could see very well into the orchestra pit, where all the musicians of the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera were all wearing “SAVE OUR WNO” t-shirts. They played their hearts out. The WNO Chorus has always been excellent every time I’ve seen them, and last night was no exception.
At the end of the opera, the cast, chorus and dancers were joined on stage not only by the entire orchestra (including instruments, where possible) and many members of the technical team. I’ve never seen that happen before! There were speeches by the co-directors of WNO expressing their determination to carry on through the financial turbulence that threatens to drown them. Welsh National Opera is a wonderful part of the artistic and cultural scene not only in Wales but across the rest of the UK and beyond. It just cannot be allowed to wither.
P.S. Last night’s performance was recorded for later broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
I got up at Stupid O’Clock this morning to catch an early morning plane from Dublin to Cardiff. It was very cold when I arrived but it soon warmed up and turned into a lovely day.
I had a nice breakfast at Bill’s when I arrived in the City then did tour of the National Museum of Wales where there is an exhibition about the Miners’ Strike of 1984/5, from which this display case caught my attention:
I also had time for a round of Name That Artist (scoring a miserable 3/12, for Sutherland, Ernst, and Magritte).
After that, I took a stroll around Bute Park before heading to my hotel in Cardiff Bay to check in and have a rest before the reason for my visit, an event which will take place here at 7pm:
I won’t be able to blog about that until I get back to Maynooth tomorrow afternoon.
I thought I’d use the excuse that I’m teaching particle physics again to revive an old idea linking that subject to Mozart’s Opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte, K. 620).
I can’t remember how many times I have seen this opera performed nor in how many different productions. It’s a wonderful creation because it manages to combine being utterly daft with being somehow immensely profound. The plot makes no sense at all, the settings are ridiculous (e.g. “rocks with water and a cavern of fire”), and the whole thing appears to be little more than a pantomime. Since it’s Mozart, though, there is one ingredient you can’t quibble with: a seemingly unending sequence of gorgeous music.
When I first saw The Magic Flute I thought it was just a silly but sublime piece of entertainment not worth digging into too deeply. I wondered why so many pompous people seemed to take it so terribly seriously. Real life doesn’t really make much sense, so why would anyone demand that an opera be any less ridiculous? Nevertheless, there is a vast industry devoted to unravelling the supposed “mystery” of this opera, with all its references to magic and freemasonry.
But now I can unveil the true solution of problem contained within the riddle encoded in the conundrum that surrounds the enigma that has puzzled so many Opera fans for so long. I have definitive proof that The Magic Flute is not about freemasons or magic or revolutionary politics. It is actually about particle physics.
To see how I arrived at this conclusion note the following figure which shows the principal elementary particles contained within the standard model of particle physics:
To the left of this picture are the fermions, divided into two sets of particles labelled “quarks” and “leptons”. Each of these consists of three pairs (“doublets”), each pair defining a “generation”. This structure of twos and threes is perfectly represented in the cast The Magic Flute.
Let’s consider the leptons first. These can be clearly identified with the three ladies who lust after the hero Tamino in Act 1. This emotional charge is clearly analogous to the electromagnetic charge carried by the massive leptons (the electron, muon and tauon, lying along the bottom of the diagram). The other components in the leptonic sector must be the three boys who pop up every now and again to help Papageno with useful advice about when to jangle his magic bells. These must therefore be the neutrinos, which are less massive than the ladies, and are also neutral (although I hesitate to suggest that this means they should be castrati). They don’t play a very big part in the show because they participate only in weak interactions.
Next we have the quarks, also arrayed in three generations of pairs. These interact more strongly than the leptons and are also more colourful. The first generation is easy to identify, from the phenomenology of the Opera, as consisting of the hero Tamino (d for down) and his beloved Pamina (u for up); her voice is higher than his, hence the identification. The second generation must comprise the crazy birdcatcher Papageno (s for strange) and his alluring madchen who is called Papagena (c for charmed). That just leaves the final pairing which clearly is the basso profundo and fount of all wisdom Sarastro (b for bass bottom) and my favourite character and role model the Queen of the Night (t for top).
To provide corroboration of the identification of the Queen of the Night with the “top” quark, here is a clip from Youtube of a bevy of famous operatic sopranos having a go at the immensely different coloratura passage from the Act 1 aria “O Zittre Nicht, mein leiber Sohn” culminating in a spectacular top F that lies beyond the range of most particle accelerators, never mind singers.
There’s some splendid frocks in there too.
The Queen of the Night isn’t actually in the Opera very much. After this aria in Act 1 she disappears until the middle of Act 2, probably because she needs to have a lie down. When she comes back on she sings another glass-shattering aria (Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen), which I like to listen to when I’m writing referee reports. The first line translates as “The rage of hell is boiling in my heart”.
The remaining members of the cast – The Speaker and Monostatos, as well as sundry priests, slaves, enchanted animals and the chorus – must make up the so-called Force carriers at the left of the table, which are bosons, but I haven’t had time to go through the identifications in detail. They’re just the supporting cast anyway. And there is one particle missing from the picture, the Higgs boson. This accounts for the masses of other particles by exerting a kind of drag on them so it clearly must be the Dragon from Act 1.
And so it came to pass that this afternoon I took the bus into Dublin to catch the first performance of Irish National Opera’s new production of Richard Wagner‘s The Flying Dutchman (or Der fliegende Holländer to give its proper title) at the romantically named Bord Gáis (Gas Board) Energy Theatre. It wasn’t exactly the first night, as the performance started at 5pm, but it did have a first night feel to it, with a smattering of media types in the full house.
OutsideInsideOutside again
The event took a bizarre twist at the interval, which was after Act 1. I’d only just collected my glass of wine when the fire alarm went off and we were told to leave the building. Amusingly, some of the cast joined us outside too, in costume. It was a false alarm, but the precautionary exodus extended the interval by about 15 minutes or so. When we were making our way back in, I overheard a nearby wit say “Never mind: worse things happen at sea”. Given the plot of the opera, that seemed a very apt comment.
The Flying Dutchman is an early composition by Wagner, first performed in 1843 when Wagner was only 30 years old. It’s much more of a conventional opera than his later music dramas. At least to my ears there are passages that sound a lot like Verdi, especially those featuring the chorus. It’s also quite short: it’s often performed without an interval, but even with one (and a fire alarm to boot) it’s only about three hours. On the other hand, there are some manifestations of things to come, especially the frequent use of a leitmotif whenever the eponymous Dutchman appears or is mentioned.
The story is set somewhere on the coast of Norway. This production has an intriguing preamble while the famous overture is playing. While the menfolk are away at sea, the women of a coastal village are going about their business. Among them is a little girl in a striking red coat. Shades of Schindler’s List, I thought. The little girl turns out to be “Little Senta”, a representation of the innocence of Senta, the leading female character.
The opera proper begings on a ship captained by a man called Daland which has been driven off course by a storm and is sheltering at anchor. While the crew are taking some rest, another ship appears beside and The Dutchman climbs onto Daland’s ship to have a look around. He meets Daland, explains that he is exiled from Holland, is fed up with travelling the seas all alone. He showers Daland with gifts and asks if he can marry Daland’s daughter, Senta. Daland is very keen to have a rich son-in-law and speedily gives his consent.
Meanwhile, back onshore, we’re in Act II. Senta is revealed to be obsessed with a portrait of the Flying Dutchman, a man cursed to wander the oceans until he finds a woman prepared to be completely faithful to him. She has known about this legendary figure since she was a child and wants to be the person who saves him from his fate. One person not happy about this is Erik, an impoverished hunter who himself wants to marry Senta. Eventually Daland’s and the Dutchman’s ships come home. Senta is overwhelmed to meet the Dutchman in person and consents to marry him.
Act III begins with a big party at which the sailor’s on Daland’s ship get drunk and try to get the crew of the Dutchman’s ship to reveal themselves, initially to no avail because they are ghosts. When they do appear it’s not a pretty sight. Erik comes back and tries to convince Senta to stay with him instead of mmarrying the Dutchman. The Dutchman overhears them and interprets their discussion as a betrayal in progress. He tells Senta to forget the whole thing and jumps on board his ship which descends into the sea. Heartbroken, Senta throws herself into the water after him, and drowns.
In the closing stages, Senta has changed is wearing a striking red coat just like Little Senta wore at the beginning. When Senta dies, Little Senta’s lifeless body appears suspended from a rope in the middle of the stage, symbolising her sacrifice and shattered dreams.
In a very strong cast, James Cresswell (bass) was an outstanding Daland, but others were fine too: Gavan Ring (tenor) was The Steersman, Jordan Shanahan (baritone) The Dutchman, Carolyn Dobbin (mezzo) Mary, Giselle Allen (soprano) Senta, Toby Spence (tenor) Erik and the non-singing part of Little Senta was engagingly played by Caroline Wheeler. The Orchestra and Chorus of Irish National Opera were also in fine form.
The set design by Francis O’Connor was relatively simple but highly effective: the only significant change after Act I (see picture above) was the wheelhouse to the right was removed and a lighthouse placed further towards the rear, from which Senta took her plunge at the end. There was some dramatic use of animated back-projections too.
This is the first time I’ve seen this opera. I was very impressed with the performance, both musically and dramatically. If anyone is thinking of trying their first taste of Wagner then they could do much worse than this production, but they’ll have to hurry – there are just three more performances in Dublin (Tuesday 25th, Thursday 27th and Saturday 29th March).
P.S. I usually go by train into Dublin for concerts and other performances, but there are two buses that go all the way from Maynooth to the Grand Canal Quay, which is where the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre is located so I thought I’d try them out. I took a C4 in and a C3 home, both journeys being pleasantly uneventful.
I was thinking last weekend that in, all the time I’ve spent in Barcelona this year, and all the times I’ve travelled through the Metro station called Liceu, I’ve never been inside the Gran Teatre del Liceu. I decided to remedy that by booking a ticket to see last night’s performance of Bluebeard’s Castle, a one-act Opera by Béla Bartók. The theatre is actually on La Rambla, and I had to dodge through the hordes of tourists to get there, but it’s an easy walk from my apartment.
El Liceu is indeed very beautiful inside and deserves its reputation as one of the world’s finest opera houses. The main hall is about the same size as that of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, with a seating capacity of over 2,000, and it does have a similar decor, with red and gold everywhere. When I booked my ticket (on Monday) there were plenty of seats available to choose from, so I wondered what the attendance would be like. As it turned out, it wasn’t quite full but there was a good crowd in.
I have seen Bluebeard’s Castle a couple of times before, but it surprises me that there are no old reviews in my back catalogue on this blog. From that observation I deduce that both times I saw it were before 2008, which is when I started blogging. I do think it’s a masterpiece, however, which is why I jumped at the chance to see and hear it again. Last night’s was a concert performance, i.e. without staging, which works well with this Opera as there are only two principals and it sometimes it’s good to leave a lot to the listener’s imagination. The performance was in the original Hungarian language, with surtitles provided in Catalan, Spanish and English.
The Opera is based on a French folk legend of Bluebeard, a murderous character foreshadowing Jack the Ripper, and Judith, who has for some reason fallen in love with him, despite it being widely believed that he murdered his previous wives. She travels with him to his castle and, when they arrive, she starts to ask Bluebeard some uncomfortable questions as she makes her way through the dark castle. Seven doors appear to which Bluebeard holds the keys. Each one will reveal information about the personality and past of a Bluebeard. The first door opens to reveal a blood-soaked torture chamber, for example. And that’s just the start…
The final door reveals his former wives, apparently still alive. But are they ghosts? Who knows? Judith doesn’t seem to mind. She becomes the fourth wife and disappears into the darkness enfolding the other three. That’s the end.
The Opera doesn’t really have that much to do with the folk story. It is really an allegory – the rooms contain secrets of Bluebeard’s past, including past relationships, which he has locked away deep inside himself. Only Judith’s persistent questioning can persuade him to reveal them.
The music for Bluebeard’s Castle is extraordinarily rich and varied, changing as each door is opened. A large orchestra is needed to produce these changes of texture, as you can see in the picture I took before the performance. The musicians, under the direction of Josep Pons, played superbly as well as supplying eery sighs when the libretto demanded it. Vocals were supplied by bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee as Bluebeard and mezzo soprano Victoria Karkacheva; both were excellent.
The performance lasted only about an hour. One of the things about going to an Opera in the evening is that one usually has to have something to eat before the performance, because it’s likely to be too late afterwards to find anywhere still serving food. That doesn’t apply here in Spain, where people generally eat rather late. I was thinking as I left last night that it was the first time I had been to an Opera that started at 7.30pm after which it was still too early to have dinner!
I’m just back from my second night at the Sydney Opera House, at which I saw Opera Australia’s production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. What has been a very warm day turned into a very sultry evening, and it was nice to take my drink outside during the interval to admire the view:
I’ve lost track of how many different productions I have seen of this strange and wonderful masterpiece, and this was a distinctly Australian version. Technically it’s not an opera, but a singspiel: the recitative – the bit in between the arias – is spoken rather than sung. It’s really more like a musical comedy in that sense, and was originally intended to be performed in a kind of burlesque style.
The Magic Flute also has many points of contact with the pantomime tradition, including the character of the villainous Monostatos who, in this performance, was reminiscent of Rolf Harris. Papageno was a working class Australian, sporting a mullet, and carrying an Esky in place of the usual array of nets and birdcages. On her first entrance, the Queen of the Night put me in mind of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. Sarastro, with long hair and flowing robes, looked like the leader of some sort of New Age cult; his acolytes were dressed in everyday casual clothes. The three boys – referred to as “spirits” in this production – were actually two boys and a girl, but “spirit” is a gender-neutral term so that’s fine.
I won’t even attempt to explain the plot, if you can call it that, because it’s completely daft. It’s daft, though, in a way that much of life is daft, and I think that’s the secret of its enduring popularity. Mozart’s music carries you along and constantly seems to be telling you not to take it all too seriously. It seems to me that it must be hard to get the balance right between the comedy (which frequently border on the slapstick) and the serious. The worst thing to do is to make it too pompous. This production doesn’t fall into that trap, but in playing it virtually entirely for laughs I think it misses the depths that make a truly successful version. The ending – in which the rays of the Sun are supposed to dispel the darkness – involved a big reveal to a picnic with the chorus in beach wear and sunglasses. There’s a lot to be said for sunshine, and I found the idea mildly amusing, but there should be more to the end of this Opera than that. On the other hand, Pamina’s aria in Act II, when she is heartbroken because she thinks Tamino has abandoned her, was intensely moving, so it wasn’t all shallow.
The sets are simple but use clever devices to suggest the extraordinary scene changes required by the libretto, including pyramids, forests, waterfalls and flames. The ordeals by fire and water, for example, are depicted using reflective strip curtains, red for fire and blue for water. The dragon in Act I is conjured up by shadow puppets against a translucent curtain.
Papageno, played by an understudy whose name I didn’t catch, was the pick of the performers but overall the cast was not particularly strong vocally. David Parkin’s basso wasn’t nearly profundo enough for Sarastro and he struggled with the lowest notes. I’m not sure either why he also played The Speaker, who is a distinct role. Giuseppina Grech as the Queen of the Night looked fabulous and hit her high notes, but the elaborate coloratura passages were not well articulated.
This probably seems very negative than I intended. There is much to enjoy in this production. It’s very entertaining, and at times riotously funny. It was just a bit too superficial for my taste.
Last night I fulfilled a longstanding ambition of mine, to see an opera at the Sydney Opera House. It wasn’t that easy to get tickets, but last night I managed to see Opera Australia’s production of La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi.
Foyer and BarJoan Sutherland Theatre
First a couple of comments about the Sydney Opera House. It is of course a splendid building but rather complicated inside, with surprising staircases and bizarre balconies. At dinner on Thursday, one of the locals here told me it is like a “1960s vision of The Future”, which is very apt. One of the nice things is that you can take your drink outside to get a breath of fresh air and a view of the harbour, which is very nice in the dark with all the lights from the boats and surrounding houses. The Joan Sutherland Theatre – where the operas are staged – is very nice. I have to say, though, that it’s a bit smaller than I’d anticipated. The seating capacity is just over 1500, while the Wales Millennium Centre – where Welsh National Opera perform – can seat 2500 people.
I took this picture from the Harbour Ferry
Sydney Opera House from the Harbour Ferry
The Joan Sutherland Theatre is actually in the slightly smaller edifice to the left; the other side is a Concert Hall. Anyway, the place has a nice ambience and very friendly staff. They even give out free programmes!
And so to the performance. The staging in this production is relatively simple, with the opulence of the Paris settings achieved by costumes and lighting rather than by scenery. In Act II Scene 1, when Violetta and Alfredo are in the country, the back of the set is opened out to give a view of gardens and a tree. This device returns to touching effect at the end; see below. Costumes and design are pretty much 19th Century, with some (deliberate) anachronisms in dress style for humorous effect.
The Opera is in three acts, lasting about 2 hours and 30 minutes with one interval. When I heard there was only one wine break interval I wondered how they would manage it without making the performance a bit lop-sided. In fact the break came between Scenes 1 and 2 of Act II, with the first scene performed as a continuation of Act 1 and Act III following directly from Scene 2. It worked well, with changes of costume and scenery achieved onstage by the cast in view of the audience.
This production has been running since December 2023 but the principals changed earlier this month (February). We saw Sophie Salvesani as Violetta, Tomas Dalton as Alfredo Germont, and Luke Gabbedy as Giorgio Germont (Alfredo’s Father); all of them Australian born and bred. The performance was sung in Italian.
La Traviata is one of the most enduringly popular of all operas – and is one of the most frequently performed. It’s quite curious that its first performance in Venice was a complete disaster and it took several revisions before it became established as part of the operatic repertoire. A production like the one we saw last night, however, makes it abundantly clear why it is such an evergreen classic. Act I in particular is just one memorable tune after another.
The opera is based on the novel La Dame Aux Caméliaswhich later became a play with the same name. It tells the story of Violetta, a glamorous courtesan and flamboyant darling of the Paris party scene. She meets a young chap called Alfredo at a spectacular do in her house in Act I and he tells her he’s completely in love with her. She laughs him off and he departs crestfallen. When the party’s over and he’s gone, though, she finds herself thinking about him. The trouble with Violetta is that she is already seriously ill with consumption (tuberculosis) at the start. She knows that she is doomed to die and is torn between her desire to be free and her growing love for Alfredo.
Cut to Act II, Scene I, a few months later. Violetta and Alfredo are shacked up in a love nest away from Paris. While Alfredo is away paying off some of Violetta’s bills, Alfredo’s father Giorgio turns up and tries to convince Violetta to abandon her relationship with his son because its scandalous nature threatens their family’s prospects, particular his daughter’s (Alfredo’s sisters) plans to get married. Violetta eventually agrees to do a runner. Alfredo returns and meets his father who tries to convince him to return to his family in Provence. Alfredo is distraught to hear of Violetta’s departure, refuses to go with his father, and vows to find Violetta again.
Scene 2 is back in Paris, at the house of a lady called Flora. There’s a lot of singing and dancing and general riotousness.Alfredo turns up, slightly the worse for drink and proceeds to gamble (winning a huge amout of money). Violetta turns up and Alfredo insults her by throwing his winnings at her. He’s then overcome by remorse but the Baron Douphol, a wealthy friend of Violetta, is outraged and challenges Alfredo to a duel.
Act III is set a few months later in Violetta’s bedroom where she’s clearly dying. Alfredo has run off after wounding the Baron in a duel. The doctor gives Violetta just a few hours to live. Alfredo returns. The lovers forgive each other and embrace. Violetta dies.
I thought Sophie Salvesani was a very convincing and sympathetic Violetta. She has a very nice, fluid voice and engaging stage presence. Violetta is a demanding role- there are several tricky coloratura passages to cope with – but her character is quite complicated too. Although we know she’s ill right from the start she’s not by any means a passive victim. She’s a courtesan who has clearly put it about a bit, but she’s also got a strong moral sense. She’s vulnerable, but also at times very strong.
All the cast sang very well, actually. I particularly liked the baritone of Luke Gabbedy (though even with his make up he looked too young to be Alfredo’s Daddy).
The look of the opera – staging, lighting and costumes – also worked very well. The Paris parties were riots of colour and movement with just as much debauchery as desired. The start of Act III finds the same set as Act I, bare apart from a Chaise Longue, bathed in a ghostly greenish light. A particularly moving touch was right at the end when Violetta is dying. Here last lines (and the last of the Opera) are:
È strano! Cessarono gli spasimi del dolore. In me rinasce – m’agita insolito vigor! Ah! ma io ritorno a viver! Oh gioia! (Ricade sul canapè.)
How strange! The spasms of pain have ceased: A strange vigour has brought me to life! Ah! I shall live – Oh, joy! (She falls down, senseless, upon the sofa.)
Most productions I have seen follow these directions but, in this one, before delivering these lines, Violetta stands up, while the other members of the cast present on stage – Alfredo, Giorgio, the maid Annina, and the Doctor – freeze as she sings the lines in full voice. The back of the set lifts up and shows the tree we saw in Act II and Violetta walks out into the sunshine while a double takes the place of the lifeless Violetta on the sofa. The implication is that she is already dead when she sings these last lines. It’s a powerful device, and puts quite a different perspective on the ending.
Anyway, congratulations to Opera Australia on an excellent production which I enjoyed greatly.
P.S. I’ll be going again to the Sydney Opera House next week, to see their Magic Flute.
Today, 2nd December 2023, is the centenary of the birth of the most renowned opera singer of her time, Maria Callas. I couldn’t let this occasion pass without posting a tribute, Tonight I’ll be sipping wine and listening to some historic recordings of her. I think every classical radio station in the world will tonight be paying tribute to this remarkable artist.
Maria Callas was born on December 2nd 1923 in New York city, of Greek parents who had moved there the previous year, and christened Maria Anna Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulou. Her mother, disenchanted with her deteriorating marriage, abandoned her husband (Maria’s father) and took Maria and her sister back to Athens in 1937. Maria enrolled at the National Conservatoire of Greece the same year after winning a scholarship with the quality of her voice, which
was warm, lyrical, intense; it swirled and flared like a flame and filled the air with melodious reverberations.
At this age, Maria was a rather plump young lady with a rather deep singing voice. Initially, she aspired to be a contralto but at the Conservatoire she was encouraged instead to become a dramatic soprano. Accordingly, she underwent special training to raise her natural pitch (or tessitura) and learned how to control her remarkable voice more accurately so she could sing in a sufficiently disciplined fashion that she could take on the dazzling coloratura passages that she would perform in later years with such success. She also worked on her chest tones to broaden the scope of her voice in the mezzo region. Although she became more technically refined as a singer during this period, there were some things that didn’t change. One was the sheer power of her voice, which is something that we tend to notice less in these days of microphones and studio recordings. People who heard her sing live confess to being shocked at the sheer scale of sound she could deliver without amplification. Perhaps more tellingly, she eschewed many of the devices sopranos tended to use to control the highest notes (usually involving some alteration of the throat to produce accuracy at the expense of a thinner and more constricted tone). When Callas went for a high note, she always did so in a full-throated manner. This often produced a piercing sound that could be intensely dramatic, even to the extent of almost knocking you out of your seat, but it was a very risky approach for a live performance. Audiences simply weren’t used to hearing a coloratura sing with such volume and in such a whole-hearted way. It wasn’t always pretty, but it was certainly remarkable and often very moving. It was this aspect of her voice that led her friend Tito Gobbi (who sang with her in Tosca) to call it una grande vociaccia, which I translate in my schoolboy Italian as meaning something like “a big ugly voice”. That isn’t meant to be as disparaging as it sounds (Gobbi was a great admirer of Callas’ singing).
Having listened to lots of recordings of Maria Callas I have to admit that they are certainly not all good. Sometimes the voice didn’t come off at all. Unkindly, one colleague said that she “sang with her ovaries”. When she talked about her own voice, Callas herself often referred to it as if it were some independent creature over which she had very little control. Anyway, whatever the reason, when she was bad she was definitely bad. But I adopt the philosophy that one should judge artists (and scientists, for that matter) by their best work rather than their worst, and when Callas was good she was simply phenomenal, like a sublime and irresistible force of nature. Nobody else could bring characters to life in the same way. That’s why they called her La Divina.
Although her talent was very raw in the beginning there was no question that she always had a voice of exceptional power and dramatic intensity. When she started singing professionally she immediately attracted lavish praise from the critics not just for her voice but also for her acting. As a young soprano she sang in an astonishing variety of operas, including Wagner‘s Tristan und Isoldeand Die Walküre, neither of which one would now associate with Callas.
Maria Callas as Elvira in ‘I Puritani’, Teatro la Fenice, Venice, 1949Maria Callas as Violetta in `La Traviata’, Covent Garden, London, 1958
It was in the late 1940s that Callas began to take an interest in the type of opera that would really make her name. Bel canto opera was rather unfashionable at that time, probably because audiences preferred the grittier and more realistic verismo style. Virtually single-handed, Callas resurrected the bel canto canon by injecting a true sense of drama into works which had previously just been seen as vehicles for the singers to demonstrate their art. Callas brought an entirely new dimension to the great operas by Bellini (Norma, I Puritani, La Somnambula…) and Donizetti (Lucia di Lammermoor, Anna Bolena), although she was sufficiently versatile to also perform brilliantly in the verismo syle of Verdi and Puccini as well as lesser known composers such as Giordano (Andrea Chenier). Recordings of many of these performances are available, but it is sad that this glorious period of her singing career happened just a bit before high quality equipment was available so the true glory of her voice isn’t always evident.
In 1953, Callas decided that she wanted to change her appearance, perhaps so she would look more appropriate for the parts she was playing on stage. At the time she weighed almost 200lbs. In order to lose weight as quickly as possible, she followed the barbarous but highly effective expedient of swallowing a tapeworm. She lost 80lbs in a matter of months. The dramatic loss of weight changed her body and her face, emphasizing her high angular cheekbones and giving her a striking look very well suited to the opera stage. But it also affected her voice somewhat, especially at the upper end where she seems to have found it more difficult to avoid the dreaded “wobble” which was one of the alleged imperfections that critics tended to dwell upon.
Callas also had very poor eyesight which required her to wear very thick spectacles in order to see at all, a thing she refused to do onstage with the result that she was virtually blind during performances. In fact, during a performance of Tosca at Covent Garden she leant too far over a candle and her hair caught fire. Improvising magnificently, Tito Gobbi, as the loathsome Scarpia, extinguished the fire by throwing water at her before the audience had noticed. Although they weren’t much use for seeing with, her eyes were a great asset for her acting, in turns flashing like a demon then shining like an angel.
After her weight loss, Callas was suddenly no longer just a wonderful singer but also a strikingly beautiful woman. Her career took a back seat as she started to revel in the glamorous lifestyle that opened up in front of her. Her voice deteriorated and she performed rather less frequently. Eventually she embarked on a love affair with Aristotle Onassis, a notorious serial collector of trophy women. She hoped to marry him but he abandoned her to marry Jackie Kennedy, widow of John F. Kennedy.
She never really recovered from the failure of this affair, retired from singing and lived out the last years of her life as a virtual recluse in her apartment in Paris. She died in 1977.
I had heard a lot about Maria Callas when I was younger, but the recordings that I listened to (generally from the 1960s) were really not very good, as her voice was undoubtedly much diminished by then. I just assumed that, as is the case with many artists, the legend of Callas was all mere hype. Then, about 20 years ago, I was listening to BBC Radio 3 and they played the final scenes of the great 1954 recording of Norma with Callas in the title role, conducted by Tullio Serafin. I was completely overwhelmed by the emotion of it and tears flowed freely from my eyes. I’ve always had a tendency to blub when I hear really beautiful music, but as I’ve got older I’ve learned not to be embarrassed by it.
In England, Callas is probably best remembered for her performances in Tosca in Covent Garden. I have recordings of her in that role and they are really wonderful. But there are many fine recordings of Tosca by other singers, some of which are almost as good. In the case of Norma, though, there isn’t any other performance that comes within a mile of the Callas version. Or if there is, I’ve yet to hear it.
Now I know that there are some people, even opera lovers, who just don’t get Callas at all (just look at the comment boards on Youtube, etc). I grant that she wasn’t always the most accurate singer, and I don’t think you could say her voice had a purely classical beauty. But even if you don’t like her voice you have to admit that she revitalized the opera stage and brought a new public into the theatres. I can’t imagine what the state of opera would be now, if there hadn’t been a Callas, and you can’t argue that she is now an iconic figure. What I admire most about her is that, like it or loath it, her voice is instantly recognizable. In this sense, she always puts me in mind of a kind of operatic version of Billie Holliday. She’s a far cry from the many bland mediocrities that pass themselves off as opera singers nowadays.
I’m going to end with the obligatory clips from Youtube. There’s a lot of Callas on there, not all of it good. I’ve chosen a couple of items, although neither of them has a proper video. The first was performed live in 1955 in front of the notoriously difficult audience at La Scala in Milan and recorded from a radio broadcast so that the sound quality is very poor. A studio recording of this aria, from Andrea Chenier, features most movingly in the film Philadelphia. This live version, however, is notable for a number of reasons. One is that you get some idea of the power of the Callas voice in the way she pushes aside the entire orchestra and is even able to cut through the distortions introduced by the rather primitive recording technology. The second thing is that she sings it so beautifully, with such feeling, lovely phrasing, and so much colour and vitality. Listen to the way the texture of her voice matches perfectly her changing emotions as she tells her story. The shattering, climactic high C that occurs near the end is a perfect example of what I was saying above. She stabs this note out like her life depended on it. It sends shivers down my spine and clearly had the same effect on the audience. The thunderous applause that follows the end of this aria is quite frightening in its intensity, but gives a good idea how much her public adored her. If you can put up with the lo-fi recording, this is certainly a better performance than the studio version.
The final piece has to be from Norma. I think Bellini is a wonderful composer of opera, but he doesn’t make life easy for the singers. There’s never any doubling of the vocal line by the orchestra so the singer is very exposed. This doesn’t bother Maria Callas. This is the famous aria Casta Diva, which has become a kind of signature tune for her and it’s one of the pieces that she always seemed to perform beautifully. It might be a bit hackneyed but I love it and, after all, it’s my blog. There’s also a nice compilation of pictures.
I wonder how many times and in how many places, Casta Diva is being played today?
The book I’m currently reading in the evenings contains a scene in which members of a family listen to a gramophone record of Leo Slezak singing In fernem Land from the opera Lohengrin by Richard Wagner. Being the anorak I am I searched around the many recordings made by Slezak and I reckon it must be this one. The sound quality isn’t great, but then it was recorded way back in 1907 and it always amazes me that you can hear anything at all from over a century ago. It’s an interesting performance because it’s taken at quite a slow tempo and Slezak’s voice sounds to my ears more like a lyric tenor than the Heldentenor one normally associates with Wagnerian roles. Anyway, it’s well worth a listen as there’s much to appreciate and it’s very different from modern renditions.
Now that you’ve heard the record, I wonder if you can guess the book I’m reading? Answers through the comments box please!
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In the Dark 