La Bohème

by Giacomo Puccini

seen at the King's Head Theatre Islington on 6 May 2022

Mark Ravenhill directs an ingenious streamlined version of Puccini's La Bohème in the tiny theatre attached to the King's Head in Islington, with Philip Lee as Lucas (aka Mimi), Daniel Koek as Robin (the Rodolfo character), Matt Kellett as Marcus (the Marcello character) and Grace Nyandoro as Marissa (the Musette character). David Eaton and Philip Lee re-arranged the score for keyboard and reduced and modernised the libretto to provide a ninety-minute version of the opera with just four characters.

In a hospital A&E ward an almost catatonic young man is brought in and as the staff try to save his life the scene shifts to what may be his experience or may only be a fantasy; the hospital staff become Robin, Marco and Marissa, and Mimi meets Robin through a hook-up app. Initially hesitant, they fall for each other, determine to 'see where it goes', quarrel and make up, and then after a period apart Mimi comes back into Robin's life desperately ill. His friends take him to hospital .....

There are lighthearted touches in the libretto, reminding us that we are not in nineteenth century Paris (Marco's flat is conveniently near a Lidl store), but the story of aspirational yet frustrated young love transfers well to the new setting, and all the poignancy of Puccini's score is still manifested even when two men are singing the famous duets. In what is a tiny auditorium for opera the voices were strong and the keyboard accompaniment just right to produce an engaging new look at a very familiar piece.

The Handmaid's Tale

by Poul Ruders, libretto by Paul Bentley from Margaret Atwood's novel

seen at the London Coliseum on 14 April 2022

This is ENO's second production of The Handmaid's Tale, the first being staged in 2003 (the opera had its premeire in Copenhagen in 2000). The work is based on Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel of the same name, first published in 1985 and recently brought to attention again through a TV adaptation.

Annilese Miskimmon directs Kate Lindsey as Offred, Susan Bickley as Offred's mother, Emma Bell as Aunt Lydia, Avery Amereau as Serena Joy and Robert Heyward as the Commander, with an excellent supporting cast. The technical credits are all female, and the production is conducted by Joana Carneiro.

The premiss of the story is that a declining birthrate has brought about a crisis in the US during which fundamentalist 'Christian' groups have taken control and instituted the Republic of Gilead, in which women have lost all rights of citizenship and those that are fertile are farmed out to high-status men to produce children on behalf of their sterile wives. The situation is grotesque, the mechanics are demeaning, the abuse of power needed to keep everything functioning is appalling, but Atwood observed that nothing she had depicted had not been proposed or even enacted at various times or in various places in the past.

The opera is framed by a conference examining the Republic of Gilead presumably some time after its demise; attendees (us, the audience) are invited to listen to recently discovered tapes which are Offred's testimony of her experience as the chattel of Fred (the Commander). Her recollections of the political turmoil prior to the coup give some indication of the disruption and trauma of her young adulthood, though one of the most chilling events in the book, the day that all women discovered that their credit card accounts had been frozen and confiscated, is not directly mentioned. Most of the action, however, takes place in Gilead itself, and we witness various rituals and soon have a sense of the staggering oppression imposed by the authorities and colluded in by almost everybody.

Wisely, but depressingly, Offred's story has no satisfying conclusion. She appears to have been offered an escape from her predicament, but the tapes which generate the story of the opera were evidently made in secret before her escape, and so there is no knowing whether or not she survived - or even whether the 'escape' was itself a trick engineered by the authorities. Likewise the history of the Republic is not directly addressed: from the tone of the conference we assume it fell, but it is not the business of this particular tale to enlighten us about broader historical events. (A recently published sequel apparently provides some information about these matters, but I have not read it.)

Though much of the book is concerned with Offred's own intimate experience and inner reactions, it turns out that opera is an excellent vehicle for evoking the environment in which she is forced to survive. The training sessions, the intoning of rules, the stark and pre-determined conventions for dress, the routines of shopping, the stagey sessions of copulation and the revolting public executions are all made more powerful through the accompaniment of music and the sung voice. In a story in which the usual intererst of character development is almst entirely absent the operatic form provides a convincing framework for showing us a society which is quite alien and yet which is disturbingly plausible. 

Once again ENO has created a visual impression largely composed of stage curtains - huge neutral swathes forming a square around the stage, which can be lit as stark grey or pale green, and occasionally a long pink curtain dropped towards the front of the stage to indicate a domestic interior - but on this occasion the device is entirely appropriate rather than cheese-paring. With only minimal props to indicate shopping emporia, a commemorative wall, medical rooms, and so forth, the overall impression is of institutional bleakness and suffocating pressure, offset by the managed explosions of emotional violence directed at dissidents and traitors. With the current awareness of the power of the state to manipulate news and the interpreation of events through social media (something not even conceived of in the 1980s when the book was written) the experience of watching this story unfold was in some ways even more disturbing than reading it decades ago. (I have not watched the TV series.)

I wondered whether the transfer from book to stage could work; this production and these performers convinced me that it does work very well.

The Cunning Little Vixen

by Leoš Janáček

seen at the London Coliseum on 22 February 2022

Martyn Brabbins conducts Sally Matthews as the Vixen and Lester Lynch as the Forester in Jamie Manton's new production of  Leoš Janáček's 1924 opera The Cunning Little Vixen, based on a newspaper comic strip by Rudolf Těsnolídek which had triggered his imagination.

The Forester captures the vixen cub and attempts to domesticate her, but inevitably it doesn't work out well: his wife and children, and the family dog, are less than impressed and in any case the vixen's inherent nature cannot be tamed. After attacking a patriarchal cockerel she escapes, falls pregnant to a fox, and they begin to bring up the next generation. In the meantime there are petty jealousies in the village community. A trap set for the vixen is foiled, but a poacher shoots her. The Forester sees another cub; will the cycle be repeated?

It's a strange piece, sometimes whimsical, with gorgeous musical attention paid to the natural world - all sorts of creatures inhabit the forest where the vixen lives - and a powerful sense of the cyclical nature of life lies beneath the surface vignettes of both village and animal life. The somewhat minimalist design by Tom Scutt revealed the stark vastness of the Coliseum stage which is hard to reconcile with settings in the natural world. A single huge sheet dropped from a cylindrical drum suspended above the stage unfurled progressively throughout the performance with stylised evocations of the passage of the seasons, but this served to emphasise a disorienting staginess about the whole affair.

As well as the primary characters there was a panoply of critters moving about - a frog, a cricket, a grasshopper, a mosquito, a large number of fox cubs, and so forth - and also a soberly dressed stage crew moving huge screens and stylised piles of logs into various positions. In the domestic setting the human characters wore peasant clothing, but the cockerel was a gorgeous overblown narcissist, while the dog was inexplicably a huge sphere of fur. Personally I did not find this vision particularly convincing; I preferred the celebrated Bill Bryden production for Covent Garden originally staged in 1990, a revival of which I saw in 2010, in which the mysteriousness of the world was more compelling.

Musically this ENO production was attractive, with radiant orchestral playing in the great climaxes and fine singing by the principals. Visually, however, I felt let down.

Theodora

by George Frideric Handel

seen at Covent Garden on 14 February 2022

Harry Bicket conducts Katie Mitchell's production of Theodora, a piece composed by Handel as an oratorio rather than an opea, and not performed at Covent Garden since its less than enthusiastically received premiere in 1750. 

The plot is inspired by the fourth century story of the martyr Theodora, here sung by soprano Julia Bullock, one of many who refused the obligation to sacrifice to the Roman emperor as a deity, or to the Roman pantheon in general, and who thus risked execution. In this instance the implacable governor Valens (baritone Gyula Orendt) recognises that consignment to a brothel would be a worse punishment than death, since it would both compromise Theodora's chastity and frustrate her eagerness for a martyr's crown.

Didymus (countertenor Jakub Jósef Orliński), a soldier in love with Theodora, manages to help her escape by an ingenious exchange of clothing, but in the process is himself captured and sentenced to death, prompting Theodora to surrender herself hoping to save him; Valens not unreasonably points out that those who break the law cannot dictate the terms of their own punishment, and maintains his condemnation of both of them.

The moral complexities of the situation are further examined through Irene (mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato), a friend of Theodora who often acts as spokeswoman of the Christian community, and Septimus (tenor Ed Lyon), a sympathetic soldier friend of Didymus who nevertheless puts duty before the ties of personal loyalty or private conviction.

The story unfolds through a series of recitatives, da capo arias, choruses and occasional duets. Harry Bicket maintinas a firm control of the score while the cast is uniformly excellent, supremely confident in the vocal techniques needed to sing Handel arias with conviction as characters as well as skill as singers. The whole evening was a joy to listen to.

Katie Mitchell's often controversial interrogations of classic stories of female oppression begin by questioning the ways in which these stories emphasise women reacting to bad things happening to them. She prefers to provide some agency to the female protagonists, and equally does not shy away from acknowledging the personal cost in emotional and psychological terms of the damage being perpetrated on the victim. Thus in her reading of this story, which is updated from late Roman imperial times to be set in a modern 'Roman' embassy, Theodora and Irene are among many lowly kitchen staff in the Embassy, covertly using the equipment to make a bomb. The brothel (the 'vile place' of the text) becomes a private pole-dancing room attached to a boudoir for the delectation of Valens and his underlings, the seediness of the venue quietly emphasised while the musical action plays out in the adjoining state room. There is a startling moment when Didymus, having disguised himself as Theodora, is taught the basic techniques of pole dancing by one of the other dancers. No doubt Jakub Jósef Orliński's skill at break dancing helped him here!

There was considerable advance 'publicity' about Mitchell's production offered by Covent Garden: an email to those who had bought tickets contined the following trigger warning

As we approach the final stages of the rehearsal process, we feel we should let you know that we are now recommending the production to audiences over the age of 16, owing to its explicit presentation of scenes of sexual violence, harassment and exploitation and its evocation of themes of terrorism

Later, a press release announced the appointment of an intimacy co-ordinator to ensure that all the actors and singers were comfortable with the levels of explicitness required by the director. The House has perhaps felt threatened by the intensity of the critical response to some of Mitchell's earlier productions (particularly Lucia di Lammermore), though on the other hand her work on George Benjamin's operas Written on Skini and Lessons in Love and Violence seemed to me to be entirely appropriate and deeply illuminating. It is possible that Covent Garden was deliberately fomenting interest to pre-empt criticism for this new production.

In the case of Theodora there is no doubt that uncomfortable issues concerning the conflict between personal adherence to faith and the overbearing dictates of civic authority lie not very far underneath so-called inspiring tales of martyrdom. In most of the older Christian stories the persecuted do not engage in acts of aggression, and the more responsible Christian leaders generally were dismayed by those who actively sought martyrdom even as they extolled this ultimate expression of faith under pressure. Mitchell has shifted the weight of the story by imagining Theodora and Irene as terrorists in the making, since it means that the complicit Christians (at least some of the kitchen staff are complicit) are doing more than just standing on their principles by refusing to worship false gods. The denouement she imagines for the opera in particular is at most variance with the original tale of martyrdom, with the authority figures rather than the Christians brought low.

The method for introducing these subversions is classic Mitchell. Chloe Lamford has designed a set of five rooms and two passageways, though we see at most three rooms at any one time, and usually only one or two. The set slides slowly to left or right as required, with black walls at the front to widen or narow the view, so that we either focus entirely on the singing and action of the singers, or else see dumbshow actions in adjoining spaces which broaden our perspective on what is really happening. Sometimes, it must be admitted, this technique is a distraction, but often it works extremely well. There is an element of ritual about the measured pace, intensified in moments of high drama when everything proceeds in carefully choreographed slow motion. Curiously, both the making of the bomb by Theodroa and Irene, and its subsequent defusing by a nervous but determined Septimus, echo these ritualistic proceedings, and it seems all of a piece with the moving proto-baptism of Didymus at the close of the first act as he prepares to rescure Theodora.

I found the visual interpretation very often enhanced the music, but could not escape the feeling that the original story had been subverted by the conclusion imposed on it. We are often frightened by martyrs if their cause opposes our way of life; most of us are now hardly inspired by martyrs from within the Christian tradition. On either count the story of a woman embracing martyrdom is now problematic. Whether the image of Theodora and Didymus grimly leaving the chaotic scene of their apparent escape from death in an industral freezer as the final curtain falls is more palatable it is hard to say. 

 

 

 

Bajazet (or Il Tamerlano)

by Antonio Vivaldi, libretto by Agostino Piovene and others

seen at the Linbury Theatre, Covent Garden on 12 February 2022

Vivaldi composed his opera Bajazet in 1735, some dozen years after Handel's treatment of the same story titled Tamerlano (performed on the main Covent Garden stage in 2010). This production, essentially created by and for Irish National Opera with the Royal Opera in collaboration, is directed by Adele Thomas with Peter Whelan conducting the Irish Baroque Orchestra (ten instrumentalists and himself).

The Linbury Theatre provides an intimate, and perhaps ultimately more satisfactory, setting for Baroque opera than the main auditorium, especially with such a small instrumental ensemble. In a simple box set of roughly gilded walls all the action between the six characters can easily take place, and their various experiences of entrapment can be presented credibly.

Bajazet, the defeated Turkish sultan (bass-baritone Gianluca Margheri), is the most obvious prisoner, often chained to a giant rope attached to a formidable pulley hook breaking through the ceiling. He is bedraggled, with flesh wounds on his arms and face, and dressed in dull clothing, the plaything of the victorious Tamerlano (an extraordinarily seedy countertenor James Laing, exuding sleaze and entitlement in equal measure). Andronico, a Greek prince and ally of Tamerlano (also a countertenor, Eric Jurenas) is by contrast smartly dressed in a suit with a sumptuous sash in royal blue, a picture of pained collusion with the brutal conqueror. While these two men are not physical prisoners like the hapless Bajazet, Tamerlano is at the mercy of his capricious whims, and these in turn constrain everyone around him: Andronico's hopes of marriage with Asteria, the daughter of Bajazet, are confounded when Tamerlano takes a liking to her and ditches his intended bride Irene (offering her to Andronico instead, where of course 'offering' only means insisting that they marry).

Asteria (mezzo soprano Niamh O'Sullivan), though not in chains like her father, is trapped by the sudden shift in Tamerlano's marriage plans, and is well aware of her powerlessness; we first see her in rags, wild-eyed and injured, and she wastes no time in venting her fury and frustration at Andronico whom she assumes has betrayed their love for the promise of Irene's superior political position. The contrast with the imperious Irene herself (soprano Claire Booth) is marked by the latter's stunning blue costume, but even she, though clearly a woman not to be messed with, is trapped into the degrading position of pretending to be a servant in order to further her ambitions.

The story is thus full of opportunities for recrimination, misunderstanding, the naked use and abuse of power, despair and rage, and correspondingly lacking in any indication of tenderness or finer feeling - even the love of Asteria and Andronico never comes across as revivifying, and the father/daughter relationship has none of the depth explored by later operatic composers. In a court dominated by a psychopathic vulgarian such as Tamerlano perhaps one cannot expect anything refined to survive. But there is ample opportunity for vocal pyrotechnics on all sides, including a staggering aria from Irene to close the first act, stunningly executed by Claire Booth. Even Idapse (soprano Aoife Miskelly), the only non-royal character, has moments in the limelight, and, having been given the role of dispensing Tamerlano's medicines, it turns out she has a crucial role in a surprising denouement.

The decorousness of Baroque music, and the potentially deadening awkwardness of a long succession of da capo arias (in which the first phrases are always repeated with more elaborated ornamentaton after the middle section) are both overcome in this production by spirited playing and electrifying singing and acting, with several characters literally bouncing off the walls in their various frustrations. Vivaldi's operatic oeuvre is not well known, but this was an exciting introduction to his repertoire. 

The Valkyrie

by Richard Wagner

seen at the London Coliseum on 4 December 2021

English National Opera is embarking on a new Ring cycle in a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and this is the first offering though it is the second work in the cycle. Richard Jones directs a production designed by Stewart Laing, with Nicky Spence as Siegmund, Emma Bell as Sieglinde, Brindley Sherratt as Hunding, Matthew Rose as Wotan, Rachel Nicholls as Brünnhilde and Susan Bickley as Fricka, and Martyn Brabbins conducting.

Wagner's music is intense, demanding, sometimes overwhelming, somethimes surprisingly intimate, and the overall complexity of the Ring narrative can be daunting; The Valkyrie is often seen as the most approachable opera since its narrative development is so compelling. Nevertheless there are practical difficulties, once hilariously lampooned by Anna Russell in an attempt to explain it all to a novice audience. There is, for example, a dwelling with a tree growing through it; later something has to be done to deal with not only nine valkyrie sisters in full cry, but also by implication the dead warriors they are bringing to Valhalla, and possibly the horses they ride, and finally Brünnhilde is put to sleep while Wotan calls up walls of impenetrable flame to protect her from all but the most valiant hero.

Musically the standard was good if not totally electrifying as it should be: the opening storm music was rather muted. The singing was clear (particularly important when delivering an English translation) and the often tense dynamics between the various characters were well conveyed. Visually however this production was surprisingly austere. In the first act there was indeed a house with a tree in it, surrounded by a few other leafless and wind-blasted trees sketching in the idea of a wild forest, but there was no pretence of realism overall as the limits of the stage were bounded by featureless grey curtains. The whole edifice of Hunding's house was at one point wheeled around by black-clad stagehands presumably representing Hunding's vassals, to provide a different space for Siegmund and Sieglinde's rapturous welcoming of spring. Of course the house need to resume its original space in order for the sword to be retrieved from the tree.

In the opening scenes of the second act the human plane is left behind for Valhalla, where Wotan instructs his daughter Brünnhilde, argues ineffectively with his wife Fricka, then changes his instructions to Brünnhilde with a lengthy explananation of his quandary. It was disconcerting to see Brünnhilde in a strangely patterned outfit that might have suited a beach holiday, and Wotan in a scarlet shellsuit with a plaid shirt, but this rather suited the evocation of Valhalla itself as an overblown log cabin stretched across the whole width of the (large) Coliseum stage. Fricka, in immaculate white, was a far more classy dresser, emphasising her imperious moral authority in contrast to the wily but inadequate self-deceptions of her husband. In the concluding scenes of the act, back in the human realm, the bleakness of the situation was again emphasised by the wind-blasted trees, and the disturbing presence of raven-like figures, perhaps Wotan's messengers, or perhaps the Norns witnessing the ineluctible fate unwinding before them. Again the austerity of the design was emphasised by the ever present grey curtains at the edges of the stage.

In the third act there was really nothing on the stage to distract from the final confrontation between Wotan and Brünnhilde. The valkyries (in vivid green shellsuits clearly linking them to Wotan) had attached their fallen warriors to ropes which raised them off the ground and finally out of sight above the stage; the horses were strange prancing figures, dancers with large horse heads (and on this occasion one was missing), their momvements occasionally distracting. The awkward disappointment was the matter of the protective fire, since Westminster Council and the safety officers of the theatre had forbidden the extensive use of naked flame (although there were small domesticated fires in the previous acts). An announcer at the beginning of the performance begged our indulgence for this omission of stage spectacle, but it was remarkable that neither the director nor the designer had seen fit to offer or imagine any sort of substitute. Instead, while Brünnhilde herself was raised above the stage in slumber, there were no lighting effects at all, and the massive expanse of grey curtains was all we could contemplate as the magic fire music dwindled to its conclusion.

Considering that the Met in New York currently has a visually sophisticated Ring cycle making full use of elaborate stage machinery and dazzling video projections, it is hard to see that they will be enthused with this far more subdued vision, even supposing that it proves to be coherent when the entire cycle is ready in 2025.

Jenůfa

by Leoš Janáček

seen at Covent Garden on 2 October 2021

The Royal Opera's first new production of Jenůfa in twenty years is conducted by Henrik Nánási and directed by Claus Guth (his first Janáček production). It features the Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian in the title role (her Covent Garden debut), Karita Mattila from Finland as her stepmother the Kostelnička (village Sacristan), Nicky Spence as Laca and the Albanian Saimir Pirgu as Števa, the two half-brothers who vie for Jenůfa's affections - Covent Garden keeps its tradition of drawing international singers to its stage despite the complications of pandemic restrictions and an increased visa bureaucracy.

The opera, based on a play by Gabriela Preissová from which Janáček devised his own libretto, is a grim tale of late nineteenth century village life in which the moral strictures of society all too easily crush its individual members should they step out of line. Jenůfa has the misfortune of having fallen pregnant by the feckless Števa, while the ostensibly more patient Laca is driven to distraction and 'accidentally' inflicts a wound on her face. In the meantime her stepmother, mindful of her own standing in village life, which reqires the utmost personal rectitude, and remembering the catastrophes of her own married life when she was young and being determined to protect Jenůfa from a similar fate, takes matters into her own hand with disastrous results.

The situations are thus potentially too melodramatic, but the opera transcends the danger, largely due to the extraordinary dramatic force of Janáček's music and the stark way it exposes the inner torments of the two women. Ravishing melodic scraps flit through the score, often gone almost before they can be appreciated, while the climactic confrontations which conclude the first two acts have a shattering impact. In the final act Jenůfa rises above all the provocations with an act of forgiveness that seems almost impossible to contemplate, but the music convinces utterly in its radiant hopefulness.

Claus Guth has decided to abstract the opera from a realistic setting, preferring a huge white box with slatted walls - indeed when the curtain goes up on each act there is a second curtain of slats which must also be raised to reveal the stage. In the first act villagers are spaced against each of the three walls performing menial tasks at the mill owned by the two brothers, their almost uniform actions a silent but potent reminder of the narowness of their lives. In the second act there are fewer villagers, but they are all women dressed in black, their faces completely hidden by formidable bonnets not dissimlar to the profile of the huge raven which also prowls the scene intimating disaster. Instead of seeing the interior of the Kostelnička's house, where Jenůfa has been hidden until giving birth to her child, we see only a series of bedframes upended to indicate the cottage's walls in a way that is uncomfortably reminiscent of a prison. Only in the third act, in which Jenůfa and Laca are about to be married, does some colour enter, with bright yellow flowers scattered across the floor and the village women arriving in colourful skirts (wondering why Jenůfa has chosen to be married in black).

The cast was superb, and the orchestral playing beautifully managed, even if at times the climaxes overwhelmed the singing. In particular Asmik Grigorian brought a poignant mix of fragility and growing self awareness to her role, while Karita Mattila showed us the desperation of a woman driven to betray fundamental decency through a twisted notion of social acceptability. She is not just a nasty piece of work like the fearsome mother in Kaťá Kabanová, but rather another victim of village morality.

In a gracious touch at the curtain call, Asmik Grigorin curtsied deeply before Karita Mattila, who had sung the role of Jenůfa at Covent Garden in its last outing in 2000. This new production is a worthy addition to the current repertoire of the house, visually compelling and musically wonderful.