Eventually, she developed some affectionate feelings for Tadeo, despite her attempts to dispel them. Sometime before her ordeal she had become engaged to Tomas, a medical student who went to the United States to study. Returning after the war, he wants to marry her but she gives him back his ring. When she shows her preference for Tadeo, Tomas pulls out a gun and aims for the soldier but kills Rosa. Actually, in Allende’s original, Rosa commits suicide, but librettist and stage director Richard Sparks changed it for the opera. It is a sad story from Latin America in the 1950s, but its dramatic situations work very well onstage. Sparks did not ask the singers to do very much acting and there really could have been a great deal more action, but the story was well told and the music was delightful.

Composer Lee Holdridge has written a tonal, melodic opera with an interesting, complex orchestration. Holdridge is obviously a follower of Puccini. His music is a little bit like that of the late Daniel Catan, but with a stronger string component. Interspersed in the drama is some affecting Church music that adds solemnity and historical context, while offering a bit of respite from the drama. Most of the scenery for the production was composed of Jenny Okun’s projections which were focused on a simple arch with two upper windows designed by Yael Pardess. She projected the lush scenery of a South American spring, stained glass church windows, the devastation of war and the beginning of a post-war rebirth. Anne Militello’s lighting designs added greatly to the ambience seen on stage. Durinda Wood’s costumes were a mixture of Latin American folk dress, army uniforms, and 1950s street and formal clothing.

The most important aspect of this performance was the singing. Uruguayan soprano Maria Antúnez not only has sterling silver high notes, she also has a warm, creamy middle register. Tall and slim, she was a most believable Rosa. In truth, she is an excellent new artist whom I hope to hear in other roles as well. Greg Fedderly, whose voice seems to have grown as of late, was Rosa’s overbearing father. In Act I his tones were warm and his nature inviting. When he returned as a ghost in Act II, he was an avenging angel who even threatened his daughter. Like many starring sopranos, Rosa has a mezzo-soprano companion. Sung passionately by Peabody Southwell, Inez not only provided pleasant harmonies, but also an occasional Allende one-liner.

Warm voiced tenor, Benjamin Bliss, soon to sing Alfredo in La Traviata, was the disappointed fiancé who returns to find that his Rosa has become an entirely different person. Dark voiced Mexican baritone Alfredo Daza was the sexy bad boy who eventually won Rosa’s heart. He made Tadeo an intriguing character and probably won a few hearts in the audience as well. In the middle of war and conflict of emotions, the politician Aguilar, sung and acted most effectively by Craig Colclough, played both sides against each other and gained high office. His character was one we know all too well. Grant Gershon’s chorus was usually heard singing Holdridge’s charming Church music. Plácido Domingo conducted the moderate sized orchestra, bringing out Holdridge’s complex, nuanced melodies and the dramatic tonal language that supported Sparks’ text. Although the performances in Santa Monica are sung in English, a Spanish translation will soon be ready. Dulce Rosa is at the Broad Stage through June seventh.

Maria Nockin

Click here for cast and production information.

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product_id=Above: Maria Antunez as Rosa and Alfredo Daza as Tadeo [Photo by Robert Millard courtesy of Los Angeles Opera]

We begin in a rather genteel, wood-panelled local saloon bar, The Garter Inn; a portrait of George VI and an extravagantly antlered stag’s head oversee proceedings — a reminder of the class tensions and cuckoldry which will disturb the bourgeois complacency. Centre-stage sprawls Falstaff, ardently typing amorous missives, audaciously and insouciantly adding to his alcohol tab, and flamboyantly issuing commands to his senseless sidekicks, Bardolfo and Pistola.

Laurent Naouri’s Sir John is imposingly wide of girth — thanks to an impressive fat-suit — and generously resounding of voice. His authoritative bellow vanquishes complaints from his snivelling underlings; with beguiling tone, he serenades and courts the ladies. There is no doubting his haughty bumptiousness and Naouri emphasises his essential aristocratic dignity. But, at times this Falstaff is overly curmudgeonly, aggrieved that others do not recognise his ‘nobility’ — an anachronistic note in 1950s England — and his irritability and crabbiness do not endear him. Naouri is light on his feet, despite the prodigious abdominal encumbrance, and can neatly execute a dainty flounce. But, while the voice is sweet and enticing, this Falstaff lacks a certain wicked sparkle in the eye and the debonair charm that might win a feminine heart regardless of his physical decrepitude. Falstaff should be both dignified and vulgar, both arrogant and aware of his own coarseness and comic crassness — he should laugh at himself, so that we can laugh with him.

Part of the problem is Jones’ uncharacteristic lack of attention to comic detail and gesture; there are a few neat touches — the faux leave-taking courtesies of Ford and Falstaff, the obsequious pleading for forgiveness of the perfidious Bardolfo and Pistola, the tidal wave which bursts through the Fords’ front window when Falstaff tumbles from the window ledge and belly-flops into the Thames — but most of the audience laughter was prompted by the surtitles rather than the stage action itself (excepting the feline wriggles of the furry puppet adorning the Garter’s bar-top). The lengthy pauses between scenes, necessitated by some hefty scene-shifting, further diminished the comic briskness. The sets themselves are neat and credible, and troupes of rowing eights and girl guides add to the period feel — although they have little relevance to the drama itself. Three such scouts cross-stitch the local panorama across the front cloth before curtain-up, but it’s stretching things somewhat to ask us to imagine that they have won their needlepoint brownie badges creating a tapestry screen of Windsor Castle to adorn Alice Ford’s morning room. The latter is rather sparsely decorated, leaving few opportunities for chaotic concealment in what should be a farcical man-hunt for the lascivious Falstaff during his lecherous assignation in Act 2.

Elena Tsallagova, Ailyn Perez, Susanne Resmark and Lucia Cirillo

The huge oak in the final scene is impressively anthropomorphic and, swathed in unnatural colours by lighting designer Mimi Jordan Sherin, casts eerie, dancing shadows. But, the scene is poorly choreographed, the stage overly cluttered, and the ghoulish, lurid Halloween costumes — bought, presumably, at the high-street Joke Shop depicted in the previous scene — sported by the boy scouts and brownies are at odds with the Shakespearean mood of enchantment and magic. More ‘trick or treat’ than Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Ultimately, these flaws in the staging do not overly trouble us, for there is not a single weak link in the cast. Making her Glyndebourne debut, American soprano Ailyn Pérez was a self-possessed and spirited Alice Ford. Never histrionic but always secure in her self-belief, Pérez’ golden voice soared lyrically; at times slyly coy, she commanded the stage with ease. Susanne Resmark as Mistress Quickly, purposefully attired in an Auxiliary Territorial Service uniform, demonstrated masterly comic timing, particularly in her scenes with Falstaff — tongue-firmly-in-cheek, she relished the ironic resonances of the mocking salutation, ‘with respect’.

Russian baritone Roman Burdenko was a proud, indignant Ford; Falstaff may be the one with the title, but Burdenko’s powerful yet elegant delivery left no doubt about his own sense of entitlement. In this production, Fenton is a GI, and the Italian tenor, Antonio Poli exuded freshness and optimism, although he was surpassed in graceful airiness by Elena Tsallagova as Nanetta, whose angelic faerie supplication in Act 3 was the musical highlight of the evening. Lucia Cirillo was a fiery Meg; Graham Clark as Dr Caius, and Colin Judson and Paolo Battaglia — Bardolfo and Pistola respectively — completed the fine line-up.

Conducting much of the score from memory, Mark Elder led the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in a crisp but warm account, alert to every detail and unfailingly conjuring deft musical humour even when the stage action was less buoyant. The sombre, slightly melancholic tone of the natural horns coupled with the darker gut string timbre, made for an unusual but convincing musical colour. There was much fine playing and the instrumentalists fully captured the conviviality and essential geniality of the work; they richly deserved their ovation.

Claire Seymour

Click here for a podcast relating to this production.

Cast and production information:

Falstaff: Laurent Naouri; Alice Ford: Ailyn Pérez; Ford: Roman Burdenko; Meg Page: Lucia Cirillo; Mistress Quickly: Susanne Resmark; Nannetta: Elena Tsallagova; Fenton: Antonio Poli; Dr Cajus: Graham Clark; Bardolfo: Colin Judson; Pistola: Paolo Battaglia; Conductor Mark Elder; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment; The Glyndebourne Chorus; Director Richard Jones; Revival Director Sarah Fahie; Designer Ultz; Lighting Designer Mimi Jordan Sherin. Glyndebourne Festival, Sunday, 19th May 2013.

We began with Schubert, four settings of Mayrhofer and one by Heine which share a ‘watery’ theme. Fletcher’s exuberant opening hurled us straight into the wind and storm of ‘Der Schiffer’ (‘The Skipper’) as the protagonist battles with the teaming rain and lashing waves. John’s strong voice was a more than equal match for the turbulent weather and waves; the tone was, however, rather unyielding at times and it took a little while for the intonation to settle. In ‘Der Strom’ (‘The Stream’), the baritone used the text effectively, the expression ardent and moving. Best of the bunch was ‘Wie Ulfru fischt’ (‘How Ulfru fishes’); here John found a wider tonal palette which he used to inject drama into the battle of wits between man and fish. Some intelligent, controlled rubato in the final stanza initiated a more meditative mood, as the poet-speaker reflects on the brevity and unpredictability of life: “Die Erde ist gewaltig schön,/ Doch sicher ist sie nicht” (“The world is certainly beautiful/, But safe, it is not”).

Fletcher was alert to textural details and the accompaniment enhanced both the mood and the narrative of the poetry. In ‘Auf der Donau’ the rapid left-hand motifs were deftly articulated, imitating the rippling waves, while at the close a more lyrical mood captured the prevailing melancholy and vulnerability.

A well-shaped performance of ‘Nachtstck’ (‘Nocturne’) concluded the Schubert sequence, throughout which John’s accurate delivery of the text was exemplary. He produced a consistently clear vocal line too. It’s a big voice, and a warm one, with a very full, rich sound; the tone is evenly sustained across the range, with exceptionally focused lower register. Now, more diversity of tone, colour and weight would add even greater nuance and depth.

An earnest, urgent reading of ‘Es liebt sich so lieblich im Lenze!’ (‘How lovely to love in spring!’) initiated a series of songs by Johannes Brahms. The powerful assertion of this opening song contrasted with the poignant softness of the yearning lover’s reflection, “Keine Ferne kann es heilen,/ Nu rein holder Blick von dir” (“No distance can heal it,/ Only a loving glance from you”) in ‘And den Mond’ (‘To the moon’), where the rich shimmering accompaniment effectively delineated the silvery, shimmering rays of the moon.

‘Minnelied’ (‘Love Song’) and ‘Willst du, daß ich geh’?’ (‘Do you want me to go?’) were both characterised by fervour and passion, the vocal phrases well-crafted, the accompaniment full of drama and energy. In contrast, ‘Geheimnis’ (‘Secret’) was wonderfully tender, John using registral contrasts to exploit different colours which were complemented by the arpeggiated accompaniment. The performers captured the folk-like simplicity of ‘Sonntag’ (‘Sunday’), making much of the brief, pianissimo twist to the minor mode. The final stanza of ‘Da unten im Tale’ was similarly poignant and contemplative, as the poet-speaker poignantly wishes his former love farewell: “Un I wünsch, daß dir’s anderswo/ Besser mag gehn” (“And wish that elsewhere/ You might fare better”).

The second half of the recital moved from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, beginning with Maurice Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, a set of three songs (‘Chanson romanesque’, ‘chanson épique’ and ‘chanson à boire’). This was the last work that Ravel completed before his death in 1937. Each song employs a different Spanish dance rhythm to portray Don Quixote as first a noble lover, then a devout soldier and finally a raucous, rabble-rousing drinker. Fletcher’s accompaniment was full of Iberian fluidity and charm, although John’s French was less idiomatic than his flawless German and his voice a little too weighty and unbending to capture the spontaneity and impulsiveness of the madcap Quixote.

John’s rendering of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel was a noteworthy element of his winning Kathleen Ferrier Award performance, and to conclude the programme he offered an incisive and vigorous account of these R.L. Stevenson settings, one which consistently emphasised the freshness of the texts. ‘The Vagabond’ established a driving momentum, but in ‘Let Beauty Awake’ John’s vocal line unfolded more gently above the piano’s arabesques. The final verse of ‘The Roadside Fire’ was delightfully expansive, as the traveller reflects on the private moments that he and his beloved will share: “And this shall be for music when no one else is near,/ The fine song for singing, the rare song tor hear.”

An uplifting airiness characterised ‘The Infinite Shining Heavens’, the supple undulations of the accompaniment creating a magical soundscape suggesting the “Uncountable angel stars/ Showering sorrow and light”. John conveyed a true sense of enchantment and wonder in the final lines: “Til lo! I looked in the dusk / And a star had come down to me.” The strophic repetitions of ‘Wither Must I Wander?’ reminded us of the headlong march of the opening song, but here the journey onwards was tinged with sadness in recognition that while “Spring shall come, come again”, for the traveller the past will never be re-visited: “But I go for ever and come again no more.” John countered this sorrow in the following ‘Bright’, the declamation of the title word ringing with hope and positivity. The concluding ‘I have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope’, with its arioso recollections of fragments of the preceding songs, brought the recital to an affecting, moving close.

Claire Seymour

Programme:

Schubert: ‘Der Schiffer’, ‘Auf der Donau’, ‘Der Strom’, ‘Das Dischermädchen’, ‘Wie Ulfru fischt’, ‘Nachtstück’; Brahms: Fünf Gesänge Op.71, ‘Sonntag’, selection from 49 Deutsche Volkslieder; Ravel: Don Quichotte à Dulcinée; Vaughan Williams: Songs of Travel. Gareth John, baritone; Matthew Fletcher piano. Wigmore Hall, London, Thursday, 16th May 2013.

Described in the publicity blurb as a ‘cast of young British talent’, that is for the most part what it is. I have little patience with those who castigate ENO — or Covent Garden, for that matter — for ‘failing to promote British artists’. The arts world has, let us be grateful, yet to capitulate to the insidious yet hysterical nationalism pervading much of our political class and media. What we want are singers, artists in general, who are good, and preferably more than that. With the exception of Gwyn Hughes Jones, we did pretty well. Though his Rodolfo improved somewhat during the third and fourth acts, and was not without sensitivity, there was too much that was simply crude, almost an allegedly ‘Italianate’ parody, or strangely faceless. The vacuum extended to stage presence too; it would have been well-nigh impossible to believe in him as a Romantic lead. Kate Valentine’s Mimì, on the other hand, was a credit to her and to ENO. Nobility of spirit was allied to sterling, necessary musical values of phrasing and tonal variegation. It was a delight to make the acquaintance of the charismatic American singer, the splendidly named Angel Blue (an exception in terms of nationality, but certainly not quality). She sang as well as she acted, holding the stage without effort, imparting both ‘artistic’ superiority to Musetta as singer and, increasingly, warm humanity to her as woman. Richard Burkhard’s Marcello impressed too, as did the excellently sung — and acted — Colline of Andrew Craig Brown and Schaunard of Duncan Rock. It was a pity that Simon Butteriss over-acted — ‘silly voice’ rather than expression of the text through singing — in the role of Benoit; maybe he was doing so under orders. A greater pity was the banality of Amanda Holden’s translation; making Puccini sound satisfactory in English is not the easiest of tasks, but too often, a tin ear revealed itself in the straightforward incompatibility of words and vocal line.

Oleg Caetani made a very welcome return to the Coliseum. His direction of the ENO Orchestra was splendid, rich in tone — sometimes, a little more, alla Daniele Gatti, would have been appreciated there, but then Gatti, last summer, had the Vienna Philharmonic — but above all, dramatically alert. Temptations to linger, to sentimentalise, were eschewed, without draining the drama of its lifeblood. Wagnerisms — I noticed some especially Tristan-esque progressions — and modernisms were not necessarily underlined, yet, given Caetani’s ear for balance and line, caught one’s ear nevertheless. I should love one day to hear a properly modernistic Bohème — or Tosca. This was not it, but refusal to play to the gallery, and underlining of solid, yet certainly not stolid, musical virtues proved a great relief for a work in which superficial gloss can all too readily hold sway. Choral singing and direction of the chorus also proved estimable throughout.

Mark Berry

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Cast and production information:

Marcello: Richard Burkhard; Rodolfo: Gwyn Hughes Jones; Colline: Andrew Craig Brown; Schaunard: Duncan Rock; Benoit: Simon Butteriss; Mimì: Kate Valentine; Parpignol: Philip Daggett; Musetta: Angel Blue; Alcindoro: Simon Butteriss; Policeman: Paul Sheehan; Foreman; Andrew Tinkler. Jonathan Miller (director); Natascha Metherell (revival director); Isabella Bywater (designs); Jean Kalman, Kevin Sleep (lighting). Orchestra and Chorus (chorus master: Genevieve Ellis) of the English National Opera/Oleg Caetani (conductor). The Coliseum, London, 29.4.2013.

The selection has been carefully chosen to avoid potential technical pitfalls and reveal Villazón’s diversity and dramatic assurance. Each aria or scena in this engaging performance was individualised and differentiated — in terms of both musical characterisation and dramatic tone; all were marked by intelligence, composure and much vocal beauty. Villazón may have lost some of the warm lustre and ease which characterised his voice prior to his pre-2009 operation, but he is still capable of producing some lovely shading of the top notes and spinning a wonderfully long line.

Following a well-shaped, deft performance of the overture to Nabucco, Villazón began with the relatively brief cavatina, ‘La mia letizia infondere’ from I Lombardi alla prima crociata. Despite its succinctness, Villazón left us in no doubt of the readiness and ease with which he can adopt a persona — like an actor slipping on a hat or coat to indicate a change of role — and, although the performance was fairly reserved and contained (we’d been pre-warned that he was suffering from a slight cold) the voice was agile and bright.

The Act 3 scena from Il Corsaro, ‘Eccomi prigioniero!’, afforded more space for vocal expansion and dramatic development, moving from an intense accompanied recitative as the imprisoned Corrado laments his lost dreams, to a lyrical outpouring of poignant disillusionment as he realises that his visions of freedom are simply dreams. Here, the pulsing orchestral motifs, echoed in the tenor’s voice which trembled with emotion, presented a complementary contrast to Karen Stephenson’s affecting cello solo. There was both lingering pain in Corrado’s recognition of his own “vane lusinghe!” (“flattering delusions”), and muscular assertion in his desire for the body to be granted a moment’s rest.

Verdi’s output is almost wholly operatic — even the Requiem is dramatic in essence and effect — but in both 1838 and 1845, the composer published sets of six songs for voice and piano, eight of which were later orchestrated by Luciano Berio. In ‘Il mistero’, which tells of a lover’s hidden passions, Villazón combined long-breathed lines with buoyancy and forward motion, although at times the rather dense orchestral textures and pedal points absorbed the voice in its middle to lower registers. The final phrase, “Chè alimento da sè stesso/ Prende amore in nobil cor” (“Because love feeds itself in a noble heart”) was heart-breakingly tender and sweet.

An urgent, nimble rendering of the overture from Luisa Miller — noteworthy for the clarity of the clarinet and flute solos, and for striking dynamic and textural contrasts — was followed by ‘Quando le sere al placido’ which Villazón infused with sustained burning emotion and drama, demonstrating confident breath control.

The ‘Preludio’ to Otello opened the second half, Voronkov drawing, as throughout the evening, a precise account from his players, one characterised by a diverse expressive range and well-crafted overall form. With ‘Ciel, che feci … Ciel pietoso’ from Oberto, Villazón began to relax, building Riccardo’s aria to a powerful climax in the central lines, “Ah no! l’ultimo lament/ è del misero che muor” (“Ah no! These are the last lamenting tones of the wretched man dying”), a full-hearted outpouring of anguished guilt and regret following the duel which kills the eponymous protagonist. After the tenor’s convincing and moving expression of genuine remorse, the legato celli arpeggiation brought some sense of ease as Riccardo prays for pardon for his murderous act.

The concluding number, the rarely heard ‘L’esule’, confirmed — if it were necessary — Villazón’s ability to build broad structures and sustain a firm line, losing nothing of the vibrancy and impact within the longer, substantial form.

Three encores, including a beer-swilling brindisi, allowed the effervescent tenor to indulge in some hyperactive acknowledgement of the audience’s adulation — Villazón leapt about like an irrepressible jack-in-a-box, roses were strewn far and wide, and a female violinist was waltzed from the stage! Jolly japes which seemed to go down well with the tenor’s affectionate fans.

So, having presented ‘The Genius Of Verdi’ on BBC television just five days previously, Villazón now offers us, ‘The Gifts of Villazón’: singer, actor, entertainer, communicator. His passionate belief in this music was evident from the start, and he communicated this conviction with unfailing directness and immediacy. Villazón has recently explained: ’for me the most important reason why he remains modern and popular is because he wanted to reach his audience. He did not want to impress his listeners; he did not try to gain the acceptance and praise of musicologists or critics. His goal was always to serve the drama, to give music to the feelings of his characters and above all, to move us.’ He might well have been describing himself.

Claire Seymour

Programme:

Overture, Nabucco; ‘La mia letizia infondere’ from I Lombardi; Prelude, I masnadieri; ‘Eccomi prigioniero!’ from Il corsaro; ‘Il mistero’ from 8 Romances for tenor and orchestra (orch. Berio); Overture, ‘Quando le sere al placido’ from Luisa Miller; Prelude, Otello; ‘Ciel, che feci!’ from Oberto; Baletti. ‘O figli, o figli miei!’, ‘Ah,la paterna mano’ from Macbeth; Overture, I vespri siciliani; ‘Deh, pietoso, oh Addolorata’, ‘L’esule’ from 8 Romances for tenor and orchestra (orch. Berio), Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre London, Wednesday, 15th May 2013

It was opera, and this was understood by the audience who felt each movement as an extended aria, and unabashedly applauded each movement in unbridled appreciation of great singing. It was symphony as opera, the fifty-year-old composer spinning this famous yarn of contentment, its thematic play subsumed into joy of performance. Bel canto indeed.

The maestro can sometimes, even often be accused of imposing excessive drama, but Brahms offers him very little of it to manipulate. Thus the musical excess — and there was plenty of it — was limited to expected extreme tempo alterations and cantabile melodic exaggerations that illuminated and transfixed more than distorted an Alpine pastoral lyricism. Though it seemed a subdued Luisotti it was still a possessed Luisotti, a powerful conductor with a unique voice.

The Opera orchestra is known to be a very able ensemble, after all it performs the most difficult orchestral scores that exist. The sludgy sound of the War Memorial Opera House prevents perception of the beauty of its sound, sounds that until now we could only imagine. Though Zellerbach Hall is a dowdy acoustical space — the sound at first had a cavernous quality but once accepted it permitted the winds of the orchestra to sing with a beauty of tone reminiscent of the Vienna Philharmonic (yes, really it’s true). What the strings may lack in clarity of tone they make up in boldness, and this alone defines and qualifies this ensemble as a truly dramatic orchestra.

It was an evening of orchestral drama. Not least of which was the Nino Rota 1962 Piano Concerto in C major. Not much of Italian Fascist musical culture is around these days, but its heroic post-Romanticism certainly informed composer Rota’s musical formation and aspiration. Add this to the heady filmic creativity at mid-century Cinecitta and you have the sense of this musical relic. It challenged elegant French pianist Aldo Ciccolini at its premiere in 1987 but was a-piece-of-cake just now for 34 year-old Italian pianist Giuseppe Albanese (no relationship to Licia).

Dressed in formal wear with scarlet spats young Albanese visually startled, and then attacked the American Steinway with the confidence of a finished post-Boulez virtuoso and a highly intelligent contemporary musician. Like Luisotti pianist Albanese was possessed by the music, the mechanics of the score and its execution played out physically and intellectually in full view, or let us say a vista. It was pure theater of musical performance. Mr. Albanese is also Professor of Philosophy at the University of Messina where he teaches the “methodology of musical communication.”

The Rota concerto was Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky but more so it was the myriad moods that composer Rota mined for films ranging from 8 1/2 to Godfather. These moods were often conversations between the piano and an instrument of the orchestra, raptly and rapturously executed in an atmosphere of absolute artistic collaboration imposed by the maestro.

The audience roared (yes, it was a vocal opera audience), and brought Albanese back for curtain calls. But two were enough for these lovers of voices. Never mind. This determined artist came back unsummoned to perform four encores — to our great pleasure! The highlights were Scriabin’s Left Hand Nocturne played with his downstage arm (the right one) hanging limply, and a version (showers of notes) of Gershwin’s song The Man I Love created by American piano virtuoso Earl Wilde.

Conductor Luisotti opened the program with Puccini’s 1883 Capriccio Sinfonico. From this early work Puccini literally recycled the flashier moments to La boheme (1896) and even Suor Angelica (1918). It served as a perfect, amusing overture to the evening.

Michael Milenski

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The music and the production, which I witnessed live in Barcelona, are reproduced faithfully here in high-resolution Blu-Ray quality. Musically, the best thing about it is Denève’s conducting. He manages to convey Dukas’ half-tone mix of Debussy, Wagner and Strauss (all of whom are both quoted and imitated in the score), though he struggles to keep the volume down and achieve the requisite palette of orchestral color. The singing is no more than adequate. Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet is committed singer with a large voice, good diction, and stage presence, but her voice is unpleasantly stressed by louder and higher passages in way that grates in an opera where she is continuously on stage. Irish soprano Patricia Barden has made something of a specialty of the Nurse, and she is solid, though shows similar strains. José van Dam delivers a focused, careful performance of the surprisingly short role of Barbe-Bleue; though over 70 at the time of the production, looks more convincing on stage than anyone else. Of the wives, the strongest musically is rising Catalan mezzo-soprano Gemma Coma-Alabert as Sélysette. Yet all this does not add up to a recording that matches the best CD effort (under Armin Jordan) or even Toscanini’s excerpt.

So the case for seeking out this recording comes down to the production of Claus Guth. Any smart and successful German opera director these days—Guth is both—bends the libretto’s explicit instructions. Most spectators, lacking previous experience with Ariane, will find the result in this case confusing: its sparseness leads to absurd inconsistencies with the libretto. Those with some knowledge of the work, or the time and inclination to think through Guth’s production, may be even more troubled. Guth’s basic interpretive trope is to modernize settings and then to contrast bleak naturalism to individual madness. For him, every libretto contains a hidden Wozzeck longing to get out. This treatment is singularly unsuited to Dukas’ delicate and subtle work.

To see why, a little background is useful. The Nobel-prize winning Belgian Symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck—who provided Ariane’s libretto and that of Debussy’s Pelleas—was widely viewed as the greatest Francophone writer of his time. He believed that human emotions and choice are secondary. We are all marionettes driven by silent, slow-moving forces of which we are, at best, semi-conscious. His plays do not portray stark realities, philosophical concepts or madness, but moods, often of feminine melancholy and foreboding. Maeterlinck seeks to capture these deeper forces and moods through deliberately ambiguous symbols, metaphors and rituals couched in sparse French prose-poetry.

The plot, as Maeterlinck and Dukas meant it to be, turns neither on Ariane’s relentless impulse to liberate, nor on the feeble resistance of Barbe-Bleue, but on the fact that his five former wives do not in the end leave their wounded warrior, reactionary though he may be. Not by chance, they are evocatively named Sélysette, Ygraine, Bellangère, Alladine, and Mélisande—all mythic heroines from Maeterlinck’s beloved previous dramas. Nor is it incidental that Dukas serenades them with his most lovely music: the chorus of the daughters of Orlamonde, two sets of jewel variations, the escape from the dungeons, and the finale. The staging and costuming instructions portray them as unique visions. Whether they are real, or just visions of what Ariane might be or thinks they are, is unclear. Yet Maeterlinck and Dukas’s underlying message is clear as it is deliberately ambiguous: the ancient world of richly imaginative private visions and the modern world of public justice and mass equality cannot coexist or even communicate. Those who discover this are not crazy, even if they cannot express precisely why they act as they do. They are just profoundly human.

Guth has no sense of these existential and historical undertones, or he chooses to ignore them in the interest of a chic and topical setting. So Maeterlinck’s medieval castle, with its finely shaded distinctions between gloomy interiors and imaginary vistas of stained glass, forests and the sea, becomes the plain off-white interior of a row house, suggesting an asylum. Barbe-Bleue becomes a suburban psychopath who compensates for his masculine inadequacies by keeping five former wives chained in its cellar. Ariane becomes a woman’s libber who sweeps in with the opening chord proclaiming freedom and independence for all, quickly dominates her new husband, and rescues his prisoners.

The sole reason left for the wives to reject Ariane’s road to freedom in favor of servitude in the hands of a criminal is because they are insane, as indicated by their relentless eye rolling, limb twitching, hair twisting, and clutching of stuffed animals. To assume that fictional characters must be out of their minds to act as they do demonstrates a lack of dramaturgical and cultural imagination. This transforms what is already a subtle and challenging opera into a very long evening indeed.

Andrew Moravcsik

First Performance: 26 July 1882, Bayreuth (Festspielhaus)

Characters:

Time and Place: In the vicinity of Monsalvat, the castle of the Knights of the Grail, located in the northern mountains of Gothic Spain.

Synopsis:

Act I

In a wood near the castle of Monsalvat, home to the Knights of the Grail, Gurnemanz, one of the Knights of the Grail, wakes his young squires and leads them in prayer. He notices the retinue of Amfortas approach, and asks the leading Knight for news of the King’s health. The knight tells him that the King has suffered during the night and is going early for his bath. The squires ask Gurnemanz to explain how the King’s injuries can be healed, but before he can do so a wild woman - Kundry - bursts in. She offers a balsam for the King’s pain which she claims is from Arabia and then collapses, exhausted.

Amfortas, King of the Grail Knights, arrives, carried on a stretcher. He asks for Gawain, only to be told that this Knight has left without his permission. Angrily, Amfortas says that this sort of impetuousity was what led him to Klingsor’s realm and to his downfall. He receives Kundry’s potion and tries to thank her, but she answers, incoherently, that thanks will not help and urges him to his bath.

The King leaves, and the squires question Kundry mistrustfully. Gurnemanz tells them that Kundry has often helped the Grail Knights but that she appears and disappears at her whim. When he asks her why she does not stay to help, she replies that she never helps. The squires think she is a witch and sneer that if she is so helpful, why does she not find the Holy Spear for them? Gurnemanz says that this is destined to be the job of another. He tells them that Amfortas had been the guardian of the Spear, but lost it when seduced by a fearsomely attractive woman in Klingsor’s domain. Klingsor had stabbed Amfortas with the Spear: this is the wound which causes Amfortas’ suffering and it will never heal.

Two squires, returning from the King’s bath, tell Gurnemanz that Kundry’s balsam has eased the King’s sufferings for the moment. His squires ask Gurnemanz whether he knew Klingsor. He tells them of how the Holy Spear, which was used to wound the Redeemer on the Cross, and the Grail which caught His blood, had come to Monsalvat to be guarded by the Knights of the Grail under the rule of Titurel - Amfortas’ father. Klingsor had yearned to join the Knights, but had been unable to drive impure thoughts from his mind and resorted to self-castration which led to his expulsion. Klingsor then bitterly set himself up in opposition to the Kingdom of the Grail, learning dark arts and establishing a domain full of beautiful flower-maidens who seduce and destroy the Knights of the Grail. It was in this way that Amfortas lost the Holy Spear, which is now in Klingsor’s hand. Gurnemanz relates how Amfortas then had a vision in which he was told to wait for a “holy fool, enlightened by compassion” (“Durch Mitleid Wissend, der Reine Tor”) who would finally heal his wound.

At this moment, cries are heard from the Knights: a swan has been shot, and a young man is dragged in carrying a bow. Gurnemanz berates the boy, telling him that this is a holy domain, and asking what had the swan ever done to injure the boy. The boy remorsefully breaks his bow and is unable to answer any question put to him: why is he here, who is his father, how did he arrive at the realm of the Grail and what is his name? When asked what he does know, the boy says he has a mother called Herzeleide, and that he made his bow himself. Kundry has been watching and now she tells them that the boy’s father was Gamuret, a knight killed in battle, and how the boy’s mother had forbidden her son to use a sword, fearing that he would suffer the same fate as his father. The boy exclaims that after seeing Knights passing through his forest he immediately left his mother to follow them. Kundry laughs and tells the boy that his mother has died of grief, at which the boy attempts to attack Kundry, but then collapses in grief. Kundry suddenly seems overcome with sleep, but cries out that she must not sleep and wishes that she would never waken. She crawls off to rest.

Gurnemanz invites the boy to observe the Grail ritual at Monsalvat. The boy does not know what the Grail is, but remarks as they walk that although he scarcely moves, he has travelled far. Gurnemanz tells him that in this realm, time becomes space.

They arrive at the Hall of the Grail and observe the ceremony. The voice of Titurel is heard, telling his son, Amfortas, to uncover the Grail. Amfortas is racked with shame and suffering. He is the Guardian of the Grail, and yet he has succumbed to temptation and lost the Holy Spear: he declares himself unworthy of his office. He cries out for forgiveness (“Erbarmen!”) but hears only the promise of future redemption by the “Holy Fool, enlightened by compassion”. The Knights and Titurel urge him to reveal the Grail, which he finally does. The Hall is bathed in the light of the Grail as the Knight commune by taking bread and wine. Amfortas has collapsed, and is taken out. Slowly the Hall empties leaving only the boy and Gurnemanz, who asks him if he has understood what he has seen. The boy cannot answer and is roughly ejected by Gurnemanz with a warning not to shoot swans. A voice from on high repeats the promise of redemption.

Act II

The second act begins in Klingsor’s castle, where Klingsor calls up his servant to destroy the boy who has strayed into his domain. He calls her: HellRose, Herodias, Gunddrigga and finally Kundry, transformed here into the fearsomely beautiful woman who seduced Amfortas. She wakes from her sleep and initially resists Klingsor, mocking his enforced chastity, but soon succumbs to his spell. Klingsor calls up Knights from his domain to attack the boy, but can only watch as they are slain. He sees the boy stray into his Flowermaiden garden and calls on Kundry to seek the boy out - but she has already gone.

The boy finds himself in a Garden surrounded by the beautiful and seductive Flower-maidens. They call to him and entwine themselves around him, chiding him for killing their lovers and for resisting their charms. They fight amongst themselves to win his love but are stilled when a voice calls out the boy’s name: Parsifal. Parsifal suddenly remembers that this is the name his mother used when she appeared in his dreams. The Flower-maidens fade away, calling him a fool, leaving Parsifal and Kundry alone. He wonders if this has all been a dream and asks how she knows his name. Kundry tells him that she knows his name from his Mother who had loved him and tried to protect him from his father’s fate, but who had been abandoned by him and finally died of grief. Parsifal is overcome with grief and blames himself for his mother’s death. He thinks he must be very stupid to have forgotten his mother. Kundry says that this is his first sign of understanding, and that she can help him understand his mother’s love by kissing him. Kundry’s kiss is, however, anything but maternal, and Parsifal reacts immediately by realising that this is how Amfortas was seduced - he feels the wound burn in his side, and now understands Amfortas’ passion during the Grail Ceremony. Filled with this compassion for Amfortas, Parsifal rejects Kundry.

Furious, Kundry tells Parsifal that if he can feel compassion for Amfortas, then he should feel compassion for her as well. She relates how she saw the Redeemer on the cross and laughed at Him. For this lack of compassion, she has been condemned to wander through the centuries looking for rest. Parsifal tells her that they would both be condemned for ever if he succumbed to her. Kundry again calls for his compassion, telling him that she is now the slave of the Spear-carrier. As he rejects her again, she curses him to wander without ever returning to the Kingdom of the Grail, and finally she calls on Klingsor to help her.

Klingsor appears and throws the Spear at Parsifal, but the Holy Fool catches it and destroys Klingsor and his Kingdom by making the sign of the Cross with the Spear. As he leaves, he tells Kundry that she knows where she will find him.

Act III

The Third act opens again at the Kingdom of the Grail, many years later. Gurnemanz, now aged and bent, hears a crying outside his hut and discovers Kundry unconscious. He revives her, using water from the Holy Spring, but she will only speak the word “serve” (“Dienen”). Gurnemanz wonders if there is any significance in the fact that she has reappeared on this, special, day. He then notices a figure dressed in full armour approaching. He cannot see who it is because the stranger wears a helmet, and does not speak. Finally the apparition removes its helmet and Guremanz recognises the boy who shot the swan, and then realises that the spear carried by him is the Holy Spear.

Parsifal tells of his desire to return to Amfortas. He relates his journey, wandering for years unable to find the path back to the Grail: he has often been forced to fight, but has never wielded the Spear in battle. Gurnemanz tells him that the curse preventing Parsifal from finding his right path has now been lifted, but that in his absence Amfortas has refused to reveal the Grail, and that Titurel has died. Parsifal is overcome with remorse, blaming himself for this state of affairs. Gurnemanz tells him that today is the day of Titurel’s funeral rites, and that Parsifal has a great duty to perform. Kundry washes Parsifal’s feet and Gurnemanz anoints him with water from the Holy Spring, recognising him as the pure Holy Fool, now enlightened by compassion, and as the new King of the Knights of the Grail.

Parsifal comments on the beauty of the meadow and Gurnemanz explains that today is Good Friday, when all the world is renewed. Parsifal gives his blessing to the weeping Kundry.

Once more they travel to the Hall of the Grail. Amfortas is brought before the Grail and before Titurel’s coffin. He cries out to his dead father to offer him rest from his sufferings, and wishes to join him in death. The Knights of Grail urge Amfortas angrily to reveal the Grail to them again, but Amfortas in a frenzy says he will never reveal the Grail and commands his Knights to kill him. At this moment, Parsifal arrives and says that only one weapon can perform this task: with the Spear he heals Amfortas’ wound and forgives him. He returns the Spear to the keeping of the Grail knights and once more reveals the Grail. All kneel before him and Kundry, released from her curse, sinks lifeless to the ground.

[Synopsis Source: Wikipedia]

Click here for the complete libretto (English translation).

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product_title=Parsifal, Bayreuth 2012 Live
product_by=Bayreuther Festspiele 2012
product_id=Above: Illustration of Parsifal by Rogelio Egusquiza [Courtesy of The British Museum]

James Sohre

Cast and production information:

Owen Wingrave: Laurent Deleuil; Spencer Coyle: Sévag Tachdjian; Lechmere: Jérémy Duffau; Miss Wingrave: Mélanie Moussay; Mrs. Julian: Kristina Bitene; Kate: Marie Cubaynes; Sir Philip, Narrator, Phantom: Guillaume François; Boy Ghost: Victor Collin; Conductor: David Syrus; Stage Director: Christophe Gayral; Set and Lighting Design: Eric Soyer; Costume Design: Cidalia Da Costa; Video Design: Renaud Rubiamo

James Sohre

Idomeneo: Roberto Saccà; Idamante: Martin Mitterutzner; Ilia: Juanita Lascarro; Elettra: Elsa van den Heever; Arbace: Julian Prégardien; Neptune’s High Priest: Beau Gibson; Voice: Philipp Alexander Mehr; Neptune: Olaf Reinecke; Two Cretans: Camilla Suzana Peteu, Thomas Charrois; Two Trojans: Yvonne Hettegger, Pere Llompart; Conductor: Julia Jones; Stage Director: Jan Philipp Gloger; Set Design: Franziska Bornkamm; Costume Design: Karin Jud; Lighting Design: Jan Hartmann; Chorus Master: Matthias Köhler