A while ago I was listening to a radio broadcast of a recording from last year’s Wexford Festival Opera. The Opera in question was Handel’s Deidamia. In fact you can see a video of the whole performance here. Like most baroque operas, the plot of Deidamia is rather complex but it is drawn directly from familiar Greek legend, and features Achilles and Ulysses. The former spends much of the opera dressed in women’s clothing because his father Peleus doesn’t want him dragged off to fight in the Trojan War and has hidden him on the island of Skyros among the daughters of his friend Lycomedes. Eventually Ulysses lands on Skyros to try to persuade Achilles to lead his army, but the disguise is so good that he fails to identify him. He does however develop a bit of a crush on the hot young girl Pyrrha, who is actually Achilles in drag…
I won’t give any more spoilers because the Opera Deidamia is not really the point of this post, which is that the part of Pyrrha is written for a soprano. It’s not unusual in Handel’s operas for a male part to be sung by a woman – as indeed this part was when it was first performed in London in January 1741 or a castrato. The practice of castrating boys to prevent their voices breaking has long been discontinued, thankfully, so I assumed that the voice I had been listening to was that of a female singer. Then, in the interval, I learnt that this part was actually sung by a man, Bruno de Sá. Here he is in a short clip from that production.
Bruno de Sá is a sopranist, a man whose modal voice is in the soprano register, i.e. he sings that high without using falsetto. I’ve seen and heard quite a few operas in my time but I didn’t realise that there was such a thing as a sopranist. You live and learn!
I did a bit of searching on the interwebs and found the following clip which shows another sopranist, Samuel Mariño, having fun in a duet with an oboist at a concert in Versailles:
Samuel Mariño is from Venezuela. He is gay and was bullied at school when he was young for that, and for the fact that his voice didn’t break when he reached adolescence. He sought medical advice to see if he could have surgery to lower his voice, but the doctor instead suggested he embark on a career as an opera singer. And that’s what he did. Don’t be fooled by the fun he is having in that clip; he’s not some sort of novely act, he’s a very serious vocal artist.
I find his story very inspiring because of his determination to follow his own path and I love the above clip because it is so joyful. It warms this old gay’s heart to see someone daring to be different and making such a success of it.
I had seen the by Vincenzo Bellini‘s opera Norma twice (before yesterday evening) but both times were before I starting blogging so I was very pleased to see that Irish National Opera were doing a new production this year. It had a run at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, but I took the chance to see it National Opera House in Wexford. The first time I went there was last year and was to see a very different opera, although that one and Norma are both generally categorized by the term bel canto. I was so excited by the prospect of seeing this production that I made myself a Bellini on Saturday, only to discover that the cocktail is named after a different Bellini…
Norma is not performed all that often, largely because it is difficult to find a singer capable of doing justice to the title role which is acknowledged as being one of the most vocally demanding roles in all opera. It is a role that the great Maria Callas made her own in the 1950s which places the additional burden on the the singer of stepping out of the shadow of such a legend. I was delighted that in Salome Jicia INO found an artist who could meet the challenges of the part. She was stunning.
I think the part of Norma is difficult not only because of the vocal range of the part, from the lyrical beauty of the famous aria Casta Diva to the agility needed to perform the coloratura passages, but also for the sheer stamina required. There really is a lot of singing for her to do in this opera! Jicia took it in her stride. Bellini rarely gets the orchestra to double the vocal line, so the voice of the singer is very exposed. At times it’s like watching acrobatics knowing that there’s no safety net!
Anyway, to the plot.
Norma is a tragedia lirica in two Acts, set in ancient Gaul which is under occupation by the Romans. The eponymous Norma is the high priestess of the native Druids. She is also a complex chartacter, not least because she is in a relationship with a high-ranking Roman, Pollione, with whom she has had two kids. It turns out that Pollione is tiring of Norma and has turned his attention to her friend Adalgisa, who does not know about Pollione’s involvement with Norma.
The Opera begins with the heavily armed Gauls, led by Norma’s father Oroveso, planning to rise up against the Roman occupiers. But only Norma can sanction an armed rebellion and she says no. The aria Casta Diva expresses Norma’s desire for peace, but this is not just because she feels the Romans have greater military strength and would crush the rising, but because of her thing with Pollione. Over the course of the Opera we find out about Pollione’s infatuation with Adalgisa and their planned elopement to Rome which sends Norma into such a rage she threatens to kill her own children. Eventually Norma decides to change her mind about the uprising and calls for it to go ahead. Protocol requires a human sacrifice to initiate such a move, so the question is who is for the chop? Will it be Pollione, or Adalgisa? Norma surprises the assembled Gauls by confessing her sacreligious relationship with Pollione and declaring herself to be the sacrifice. Pollione is overcome by remorse at what he has done, and decides to join Norma in death.
Well, what did you expect in an Opera, a happy ending?
This production eschews the Normal (geddit?) setting of forest groves and scared shrines and places it in a sort of modern post-apocalyptic dystopia. The stage is dominated by barricades apparently hastily constructed from broken furniture and scrap metal. Lighting is sombre and claustrophobic. This jars with Bellini’s music when it evokes pastoral beauty – the music is too light and pretty for such a gloomy setting.
Gone are the swords, spears and druidic robes and in come AK-47s, pistols and somewhat scruffy modern-looking outfits. Even Norma’s dress is nothing fancy. The Gauls look like a ramshackle but heavily armed paramilitary group and are indistinguishable in costume from the Romans, except that the latter have special haircuts – mohawks died bright red on top. I found this a bit confusing and felt that it negated the theme of “occupiers versus occupied” which runs throughout the piece. This choice is probably intended to show the struggle as one between two rival groups in a polarized community. In the hands of the chorus the guns create a very menacing backgroup to several scenes, and of course the ending ends not by ritual burning, as in the original, but by firing squad.
The musical pyrotechnics do pose challenges for the staging, however, because an opera is not just a concert. It doesn’t work as music drama if the singers are just standing there belting out tunes. They also need to employ gestures and facial expressions to match the emotions expressed by the score and it can’t be too static. In this production the set is rather simple, and when I first saw it I assumed that it would be moved around a lot to create different locations, but that was only done to a limited extent. To compensate for the inflexible scenery, the chorus often provides a moving backdrop to the action. In the hands of the chorus the proliferation of guns create a very menacing backgroup to several scenes, and of course the ending ends not by ritual burning, as in the original, but by firing squad. The chorus was used very imaginatively, I’d say, not only to make up the numbers on stage, but also in their singing. I liked the idea of the chorus being split for some passages, leading one’s attention around the stage as the different groups gave voice.
I already mentioned Salome Jicia, but the other principals were also very good. Mario Chang (tenor) was a fine Pollione, William Guanbo Su a towering Oroveso with a rich bass and Siobhan Stagge as Adalgisa sang and acted beautifully. Despite some reservations about the staging, I thought this was a hugely enjoyable performance. Bellini has his critics, but I think the last part of Act II, the principals and chorus singing their hearts out to wonderful music, as the drama moves inexorably to its tragic conclusion, is one of the most intensely moving experiences in the entire operatic repertoire.
P.S. If you have 20 minutes to spare, listen to the Act II finale as performed by Callas here.
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.
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