![Katherine Rohrer as Lady Macbeth [Photo by Dan Swerdlow]](http://www.operatoday.com/Lady_Macbeth.gif)
30 Mar 2009
Bloch’s Macbeth by UC Opera, London
Mention Macbeth — The Opera and most think of Verdi. Ernest Bloch took on the subject more than half a century later, in Paris in 1910, when Verdi’s version was almost as obscure as Bloch’s is today.
Recently in Reviews
Schoenberg and company
With Schoenberg, I tend to take every opportunity I can — at least since my first visit to the Salzburg Festival, when understandably I chose to see Figaro over Boulez conducting Moses und Aron, though I have rued the loss ever since.
Benjamin Britten: The Prince of the Pagodas
As the Britten centenary events draw to a close, the Birmingham Royal Ballet are offering one final highlight: a new version of Britten’s only ballet, The Prince of the Pagodas, with choreography by David Bintley.
Arizona Opera Presents La Traviata as Violetta’s Dream
Nashville Opera Artistic Director John Hoomes set the opera as Violetta’s dying dream, so colors and other aspects of the backgrounds were symbolic and bright.
Elisir d’amore in Monte-Carlo
Will wonders never cease? Wheat stalks 6 meters high? Rats 2 meters tall. Setting Donizetti’s little comedy amidst biological mutations engendered by Chernobyl does seem a bit farfetched.
Torn Between Rival Loyalties
Handel’s great opus, Rodelinda, at English National Opera on Friday night was the latest in the Coliseum’s recent run of new and co-produced productions, and also renowned director Peter Jones’ latest foray into the world of opera.
San Diego Opera’s Elixir of Love
On Sunday afternoon, February 23, 2014, San Diego Opera presented The Elixir of Love in a traditional production by Stephen Lawless.
LA Opera Presents a Parable of Good and Evil
Billy Budd, portrayed by handsome lyric tenor Liam Bonner, is a charismatic embodiment of innocence.
Turandot, Royal Opera
This was in almost every respect an excellent performance — which therefore exacerbates the problem lying at the heart, or whatever it is that lies in its place, of the work itself.
Carmen in Bilbao
Bilbao is always news, Calixto Bieito is always news, Carmen with a good cast is always news. So here is the news.
La Favorite in Toulouse
French mistresses are much in the news these days, and now the Théâtre du Capitole’s new production of Donizetti’s La Favorite has added considerable fuel to the fire.
Benjamin Britten: Paul Bunyan
In a 1960 BBC interview, Britten explained to Lord Harewood: ‘I was very much influenced by [W.H.] Auden …
Tippett’s King Priam
Michael Tippett’s opera King Priam premiered as part of the same arts festival in Coventry for which Britten’s War Requiem was written and in fact the two works have something in common, dealing with the issues of war and its consequences.
Die Fledermaus in Chicago
In Lyric Opera of Chicago’s recent performances of Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus several debuts are notable to both American and Chicago audiences.
Rigoletto, ENO
One wonders if it wasn’t rather risky of ENO to stage a new version of Rigoletto when Jonathan Miller’s ‘mafioso’ production, which served the company so well for a quarter of a century, is still fresh in opera-goers’ minds and hearts?
John Dowland: In Darkness
Its soothing wooden walls gently bathed in aquamarine light, the very modern Hall at King’s Place made a surprisingly fitting venue for a musical journey to the intimate Elizabethan chamber.
Lucia di Lammermoor in Marseille
A handsome new production, beautifully staged in Marseille’s fine old opera house cried out for a cast to make the opera bel canto.
Theodora at the Barbican
Harry Bicket and the English Concert brought Handel's wonderful late oratorio Theodora to the Barbican on Saturday 8 February 2014 after a Tour in America and now taking in Birmingham, London and Paris.
Book Review: Opera in the British Isles, 1875 – 1918
Opera in the British Isles might seem a rather sparse subject in the period 1875 to 1918. Notoriously described as the land without music, even the revival of the native tradition of composers did not include a strong vein of opera.
The Tender Land in Lyon
It is not often that a Aaron Copland's The Tender Land comes along with resources like those of the Opéra de Lyon, one of Europe's finest. So carpe diem!
Don Giovanni, Royal Opera
Kasper Holten’s new production of Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House risks laying the house’s Director of Opera open to charges of antiquated mores and misogyny: for he seems to suggest that the women are just as bad, if not worse, than their seducer — and that a soulful man who seeks genuine love is likely to find his ‘ideal beloved’ forever out of reach.
OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »
Reviews
Originally the opera was composed to a French libretto by Edmond Fleg, but Bloch revisited the piece forty years later and adapted it to an English libretto, much of it Shakespeare’s own text. The French version of Bloch’s opera had its UK concert premiere in 1975 at the Royal Festival Hall, but it has never been performed here in the English version, nor in a fully staged production. Not, that is, until UC Opera — that champion of neglected masterpieces and justly forgotten flops alike — took it upon themselves to rectify the omission from the repertoire.
George von Bergen as Macbeth
This is an opera which concentrates on private moments, monologues and
dialogues; the sleepwalking scene is a private nightmare, without the usual
pair of onlookers. Far more of the play’s soliloquys survive than in the
libretto Piave wrote for Verdi; even the Drunken Porter makes an appearance,
with the opera’s one straightforward strophic song; a contrast in
word-setting which reflects Shakespeare’s own switch from blank verse to
prose.
The score is primarily reminiscent of Debussy in its often rather nebulous drift through the text, but has shades of Salome and Götterdämmerung as well. The student orchestra (UCL has no music department) was problematic: in a woodwind-dominated score, the wind and brass playing was at best weak and at worst excruciating. In his one-monologue cameo as Duncan, the distinguished veteran tenor Ryland Davies sang with a expertly-crafted lyrical arch to his phrasing which showed up the accompanying instrumentalists as being flat as a pancake beneath. The string playing was better, the basses making a particularly strong atmospheric impression with the darkly throbbing pizzicato in the scene immediately after Duncan’s murder. Charles Peebles, conducting, shaped the orchestration and choral singing as best he could; the final rhythmically-driven chorus in which all are united against Macbeth comes as a refreshing climax.
Bloch changes the order of the later scenes (Shakespeare’s Acts 4 and 5) giving an alternative slant to the plot: it’s not until after the (apparently motiveless) slaughter of Macduff’s family that Macbeth seeks the witches a second time, and they reveal to him only the parade of kings and the Birnam Wood prophecy. The other two prophecies are cut, so Macbeth’s only reason to fear Macduff is that he will be seeking to avenge his wife and children. It takes the tautness out of the structure: this is a play in which bad things definitely come in threes.
Scene from Act 3
And indeed, director John Ramster makes good use of the Witches (student soloists Mimi Kroll, Jessica Blackstone and Ella Jackson). They hover over the battle-slain like malign Valkyries, and travel as tree-spirits with the avenging army to see the final part of their prophecy played out. It’s a very strong staging all round, with space and lighting always used effectively; Bridget Kimak’s set is presided over by a blood-red moon, which moves into a total eclipse at the denouement — a strong visual evocation of the coming together of all the fateful prophecies which have governed Macbeth’s bloody reign.
The (hired) major principals were also strong — considerably stronger, in fact, than most of UC Opera’s casting in recent years. George von Bergen was especially good in the title role, dominating his every scene with a strong stage presence and full, finely-nuanced baritone. The young American mezzo Katherine Rohrer (Glyndebourne on Tour’s recent Carmen) has a lightish, agile voice with an excellent top; her Lady Macbeth was elegant and fiery, the progress of her self-destruction visible in her face. Richard Rowe sang Banquo in an even, well-produced tenor (his murder takes place offstage). The bass-baritone Carl Gombrich (National Opera Studio trained, now on the administrative staff at UCL) was a soft-grained Macduff, needing a little more heft and edge when urging the household to awake and hear the news of Duncan’s murder. Of the student soloists, tenor Hal Brindley’s Malcolm was the stand-out performance.
Ruth Elleson © 2009