'Cavalleria Rusticana' and 'Pagliacci'

by Pietro Mascagni and Ruggero Leoncavallo respectively

seen at Covent Garden on 10 December 2015

This double bill of two short operas now traditionally linked together is presented in a new production by Damiano Michieletto, conducted by Antonio Pappano with the sets designed by Paolo Fantin.

In Cavalleria Rusticana Aleksandr Antonenko sang Turiddu, Eva-Maria Westbroek sang Santuzza, Elena Zilio sang Mamma Lucia, Dimitri Platanias sang Alfio, and Martina Belli sang Lola. 

In Pagliacci Aleksandr Antonenko sang Canio/Pagliaccio, Dimitri Platanias sang Tonio/Taddeo, Carmen Giannattasio sang Nedda/Columbina, Dioynios Sourbis sang Silvio, Benjamin Hulett sang Beppe/Arlecchino, and Elliott Goldie and Nigel Cliffe sang the parts of two villagers.

Morgen und Abend

by Georg Friedrich Haas, libretto by Jon Fosse

seen at Covent Garden on 25 November 2015

This opera is receiving its world premiere at Covent Garden, directed by Graham Vick, designed by Richard Hudson with lighting by Giuseppe di Iorio, and conducted by Michael Boder, with Klaus Maria Brandauer as Olai (a speaking part), Christoph Pohl as Johannes (Olai's son), Helena Rasker as Erna (the wife of Johannes), Sarah Wegener as Signe (the daughter of Johannes) and also a midwife, and Will Hartmann as Peter (a friend of Johannes). It is based on Jon Fosse's novel Morgon og kveld.

The entire synopsis in the programme reads, in one sentence:

Morgen und Abend (Morning and Evening) is the struggle of Johannes into and out of life.

Clearly, we are not to expect a busy piece, given such a restrained precis.

In the first part, Olai is ruminating about sound and silence as he awaits news of the birth of his child. He is puzzled that all is quiet, considering that a birth is taking place, but he does not enter the room where his wife (named Signe) is. Eventually a midwife appears to tell him that he has a son, and that mother and child are well. He names the boy Johannes and looks forward to sharing the task of fishing with him.

In the second part (continuous with the first), we see Johannes, now a widower with a number of children of whom Signe is the youngest, named after her grandmother. Johannes cannot understand why Signe is distant from him, and why he can converse with his deceased wife Erne, and also with his deceased friend Peter. Eventually he realises that he is dead, and that Signe is reacting to finding his body; Peter explains that he has been sent to guide him on the next stage of his journey. 

The Force of Destiny

by Giuseppe Verdi

seen at the Coliseum on 18 November 2015

Directed by Calixto Bieito, designed by Rebecca Ringst and conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, this new production of Verdi's 1862 opera (with most of the 1869 revisions) features Tamara Wilson as Donna Leonora, Gwyn Hughes Jones as Don Alvaro (her lover) and Anthony Michaels-Moore as Don Carlos (her brother), with Andrew Shore as Friar Melitone, James Creswell as the Father Superior and Rinat Shaham as Preziosilla (a camp follower).

Musically this was a powerful production. The three leads sang and acted extremely well, Tamara Wilson in particular having a beautiful tone but wonderful power when she needed to soar above the chorus or the orchestra. At the same time, she portrayed a deeply insecure heroine whose indecision at the start (which generates the entire catastrophe of the opera) arose believably from a chronic state of nervousness, later expressed in extreme self-mortification. 

Her brother revealed a similar state of insecurity, masked by an inflexible reliance on his aristocratic code of honour; his proud utterances were belied by pathological physical gestures which reduced him from proud soldier to emotional wreck. The constant rubbing of his left temple, where Don Alvaro had touched him after the fervid swearing of blood-brotherhood, showed, as much as his sister's rocking and general self-disgust, the cost of misplaced aristocratic hauteur. In the meantime, Don Alvaro himself, protesting his own nobility (unrecognised by the others because of its Inca background) and attempting to find a way out of the trap of honour, seemed more sympathetic when restrained, but was subject to outbursts of rage which eventually proved his nemesis.

Carmen

by Georges Bizet

seen at Covent Garden on 16 November 2015

This is a revival of Royal Opera's 2006 production originally directed by Francesca Zambello (here directed by Duncan MacFarland) and designed by Tanya McCallin. It was conducted by Alexander Joel with Anita Rachvelishvili as Carmen, Andrea Carè as Don José, Gábor Bretz as Escamillo and Sonya Yoncheva as Micaëla.

A compelling reason for seeing this particular performance was to have been the appearance of Jonas Kaufmann as Don José, but as he was ill Andrea Carè took the part, and sang very creditably; he was received most enthusiastically by the audience, as were the other principals. Indeed, the musical standards were high, with clear and attractive singing, fine orchestral playing and good chorus work. Carmen was as wilful as might be, with a fabulously scornful laugh in the first act, and a superb dynamic range for the tricky arias. Don José was convincingly tormented and the fatal mixture of weak will and desperation was well conveyed, while Escamillo was a commanding presence as the celebrity toreador. 

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

by Will Todd, libretto by Maggie Gottleib

seen at the Linbury Studios, Covent Garden on 6 November 2015

Directed by Martin Duncan and designed by Leslie Travers, this new opera was conducted by Matthew Waldren and featured Fflur Wyn as Alice with Robert Burt as the Queen of Hearts and James Cleverton as the White Rabbit. 

This adaptation of the two Lewis Carroll 'Alice' books was commissioned by Holland Park Opera in 2013 and has been revived by them each summer since. It transferred to the Linbury Studios for four performances this November, requiring a considerable re-staging, since in the Park the audience moved from scene to scene, whereas in the auditorium the scene changes had to be managed on the stage.

Tannhäuser

by Richard Wagner

seen by live streaming from The Metropolitan Opera New York on 31 October 2015

In a production originally given by Otto Schenk in 1977, James Levine conducted and Tannhäuser was sung by Johan Botha, Elisabeth by Eva-Maria Westbroek, Venus by Michelle DeYoung, Wolfram by Peter Mattei, and Landgrave Hermann by Günther Groissböck. The sets were designed by Günther Schneider-Siemssen, a name now from the past in Wagner lore.

Tannhäuser takes place in an identifiable time and location, and this production is totally naturalistic in both these details, with an atmospheric mountain road and way-side shrine for the Wartburg, and a grand hall for the singing competition. The costumes are sumptuously medieval, in subdued but warm tones and gorgeous fabrics. Nothing looks synthetic (which is not to comment on the actual fabrics used) and the bright blue and reds imported from illuminated manuscripts so often seen in recent historical or fantasy dramas were mercifully absent. It has to be said that the exterior scene in particular looked decidedly old-fashioned, given the current plethora of abstract Wagner productions, very like a Romantic painting come to life, but in some ways this was refreshing.

Ariadne auf Naxos

by Richard Strauss, libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal

seen at Covent Garden on 10 October 2015

This revival of Christof Loy's 2002 production was directed by Julia Burbach, designed by Herbert Murauer and conducted by Lothar Koenigs. It featured Karita Mattila as Ariadne, Robert Dean Smith as Bacchus and Jane Archibld as Zerbinetta, with Ruxandra Donose as the Composer, Thomas Allen as the Music Master, Norbert Ernst as the Dancing Master and Christoph Guest as the Major Domo.

The opera comprises firstly a Prologue, in which preparations are being made and disrupted for the performance of a new opera about Ariadne at a private party, and secondly the Opera itself as 'amended' by the requirements imposed during the Prologue. It was developed (in 1916) from a 1912 project in which von Hofmannstahl and Strauss collaborated on a German version of Molière's play 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme'. This helps to explain the rather unusual construction of the piece. Somewhat in the manner of 'The Taming of the Shrew', once the framing device has set the scene and fulfilled its comic potential, it fades away; when the Opera is finished, so is the whole performance.

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

by Dmitri Shostakovitch

seen at the Coliseum on 8 October 2015

This new production from ENO (in participation with several European opera houses) is directed and designed originally by Dmitri Tcherniakov, and conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, he new music director of English National Opera. It stars Patricia Racette as Katerina, John Daszak as Sergei, Robert Hayward as Boris and Peter Hoare as Zinovy.

The story, based on a work by Nicolai Leskov, is grim and oppressive: Katerina, the bored second wife of Zinovy, takes as a lover the new employee Sergei. When her father-in-law Boris discovers the affair (and also tries to rape her) she adds rat poison to his dish of mushrooms, and he dies in great pain. Later Zinovy is murdered by the couple. On their wedding day Katerina breaks under the strain of a police raid and confesses the murders. While the pair are in prison, Sergei has become indifferent to Katerina, and tricks her into giving him some new stockings which he immediately gives to a new woman. Katerina plots the death of this woman and herself.

Le Nozze di Figaro

by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

seen by live streaming from Covent Garden on 5 October 2015

This is a revival of David McVicar's 2006 production overseen by Leah Hausman, designed by Tanya McCallin and conducted by Ivor Bolton, with Erwin Schrott as Figaro, Sophie Bevan as Susanna, Kate Lindsey as Cherubino, Stéphane Degout as the Count and Ellie Dean as the Countess.

Orphée et Eurydice

by Christoph Willibald Gluck

seen at Covent Garden on 30 September 2015

This is Gluck's 1774 revision of his Italian opera of 1762, prepared for the Paris Opera. The castrato role of Orfeo was altered to be sung by a (high) tenor, and the dance movements were substantially expanded to satisfy Parisian taste.

This production is directed by Hofesh Shechter (principally for the choreography) and John Fulljames. Orphée is sung by Juan Diego Flórez, Amour by Amanda Forsythe, and Eurydice by Lucy Crowe. John Eliot Gardiner conducted the English Baroque Soloists with the Monteverdi Choir, with the Hofesh Shechter Company providing the dancers. The set and costumes were designed by Conor Murphy, and the lighting by Lee Curran.

L'amore dei tre Re

by Italo Montemezzi

seen at Holland Park on 28 July 2015

This production of the opera, composed in 1913, was first seen at Holland Park in 2007. The revival features Natalya Romaniw as Fiora, Joel Montero as Avito, Simon Thorpe as Manfredo, Mikhail Svetlov as Archibaldo and Aled Hall as Flaminio, and is directed by Martin Lloyd-Evans, designed by Jamie Vartin and conducted by Peter Robinson.

The orchestration is lush and dramatic, the plot rather over-heated with heady proclamations of mystical love (between Fiora and her erstwhile suitor Avito, and also from her husband Manfredo, though this is not reciprocated) and unwavering suspicion and vengeance (on the part of Archibaldo, Manfredo's blind and suspicious father). 

Lakmé

by Léo Delibes

seen at Holland Park on 15 July 2015

This is a new production directed by Aylin Bozok and conducted by Matthew Waldren, with Fflur Wyn as Lakmé, Robert Murray as Gérald, David Soar as Nilakantha, Nicholas Lester as Frédéric and Katie Bray as Mallika.

The opera reflects the late nineteenth (and early twentieth) century European fascination with 'the East'. Notionally set in India where British supremacy is causing unrest amongst the Hindu population, it uses this background only to lavish attention on yet another mysterious and ostensibly unavailable woman (Lakmé) and on her response to love offered by someone supposedly inappropriate. In generic terms this is rather like the situation between Turandot and Calaf, except that this time it is Lakmé's father Nilakantha (a Brahmin priest) who channels all the anger, and the opera ends with Lakmé's self-sacrifice, a rather more tragic example of love triumphant. 

Musically the piece has virtually no Oriental flavour. Unlike Puccini, who was interested in giving hints of Chinese music to 'Turandot' and of Japanese to 'Madama Butterfly', Delibes is satisfied to produce wonderful but entirely 'western' music. Fflur Wyn sang the difficult part of Lakmé beautifully; the Flower Duet with Katie Bray as her servant Mallika shimmered, while the technically demanding Bell Song seemed almost effortless. She was ably supported by Robert Murray as Gérald the bewildered lover and by David Soar as her commanding and vengeful father.

Carmen

by Georges Bizet

seen by live streaming from the Coliseum on 1 July 2015

This is a revival of ENO's 2012 production which was directed by Calixto Bieito with sets designed by Alfons Flores. The revival is directed by Joan Anton Rechi and features Justina Gringyte as Carmen, Eric Cutler as Don José, Leigh Melrose as Escamillo and Eleanor Dennis as Micaëla. The conductor is Richard Armstrong.

The setting is modern and the opening emphasises a military presence on the verge of outright oppression. The soldiers are bored, the officers probably corrupt or bullying (there is a hapless near-naked soldier running to the point of exhaustion as some sort of punishment), the heat adding to a sense of torpor and danger. Naturally the sultry Carmen thrives in this atmosphere and for the impressionable Don José she is just a disaster waiting to happen. The rather gauche Micaëla can be no serious competition; indeed José's sentimental attachment to his mother is an awkward barrier to the development of anything between him and her emissary.

Il Trittico

by Giacomo Puccini

seen at Holland Park on 13 June 2015

Three one act operas - 'Il Tabarro', set on a barge in Paris, 'Suor Angelica', set in an Italian convent, and 'Gianni Schicchi' , set in Florence, were composed by Puccini as a triptych in 1916-18. Amongst a large cast, Anna Sophie Duprels sang the parts of Giorgetta in 'Il Tabarro' and the eponymous Suor Angelica, Rosalind Plowright sang the part of Angelica's aunt, Stephen Gadd sang Michele, the bargeman in 'Il Tabarro', Jeff Gwaltney sang Luigi in 'Il Tabarro', Richard Burkhard sang the eponymous Gianni Schicchi, Anna Patalong sang his daughter Lauretta and William Robert Allenby sang her lover Simone.

Here they form part of Holland Park Opera's 2015 summer season - a large canopy is erected in the Park beside one of the buildings, to house the stage, orchestra pit and auditorium.  'Gianni Schicchi' is a revival of the 2012 production; the other two are new productions.

The three pieces are very different - the first a domestic melodrama in working-class Paris, the second a tragedy of family repression and loss in which an aristocratic girl has been sequestered in a convent for seven years after bearing an illegitimate son, and the third a light-hearted comedy about the re-writing of a will after the death of a wealthy man. At Holland Park, all three received excellent performances packing emotional weight in the first two, and relieving it with farcical insouciance in the third. 

The Pirates of Penzance

by Sir Arthur Sullivan, libretto by W. S. Gilbert

seen by live streaming from the Coliseum on 19 May 2015

Mike Leigh directs English National Opera's new production of this G&S favourite, with Andrew Shore as Major-General Stanley, Joshua Bloom as the Pirate King, Robert Murray as Frederic, Claudia Boyle as Mabel and Rebecca de Pont Davies as Ruth. Sets and costumes are by Alison Chitty, lighting by Paul Pyant and choreography by Francesca James.

Musically, the singing was fine but the pace occasionally slackened. Andrew Shore was an excellent Major-General Stanley, delivering the patter song with impressive agility and clarity, and later playing up the ridiculousness of his position for all it was worth. Robert Murray was a sweet-voiced Frederic, and Claudia Boyle a wonderfully accomplished Mabel. Rebecca de Pont Davies sang Ruth with conviction but no sentimentality, and contrived to look convincingly piratical. Joshua Bloom's Pirate King dominated his men with a fine voice and wonderful swagger.

Król Roger

by Karol Szymanowski

seen at Covent Garden on 12 May 2015

The Royal Opera's first production of Szymanowski's 1918-1924 opera is directed by Kasper Holten (artistic director of the Royal Opera House) and conducted by Antonio Pappano, with designs by Steffen Aarfing. King Roger is sung by Mariusz Kwiecień, Queen Roxana by Georgia Jarman, the Shepherd by Saimir Pirgu, and Edrisi by Kim Begley. 

King Roger II of Sicily is an historical figure (reigned 1112-1154) but the opera is really a meditation on the conflicting Apollonian and Dionysian impulses within human experiences (derived from Nietzschean writings), as the Shepherd preaches a potentially subversive cult of abandonment. The 'people', led by an archbishop and an abbess, clamour for the Shepherd's execution, but Roger wavers on the pleas of his wife Roxana and an adviser and friend Edrisi. When the Shepherd arrives he sings almost exclusively to Roger, who orders the execution then once again relents and asks the Shepherd to present himself 'for trial' that evening in private.

During the evening interview the Shepherd unleashes his Dionysian forces, in which Roxana becomes involved. However, when he finally appeals to Roger to follow him, the king appears to resist and instead places his allegiance with the rising sun.

Between Worlds

by Tansy Davies, libretto Nick Drake

seen at the Barbican on 25 April 2015

This opera, co-commissioned by ENO and the Barbican, follows five imagined but representative figures in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11 2001. Directed by Deborah Warner and conducted by Gerry Cornelius, it features Andrew Watts as a Shaman, Eric Greene as a Janitor, Rhian Lois as a Younger Woman, Clare Presland as a Realtor (estate agent) William Morgan as a Younger Man, Phillip Rhodes as an Older Man and Susan Bickley as a Mother (of the Younger Man).

Both composer and librettist in the accompanying program refer to the events of 9/11 (as they are still so clumsily referred to) as 'unspeakable', and one senses the difficulty of approaching the subject with the appropriate degrees of tact and artistic conviction. By and large this production succeeds in overcoming the obstacles of glibness, sentimentality, voyeurism and presumption which could all too easily have bedevilled it.

Atthis

by Georg Friedrich Haas

seen at the Linbury Studios, Covent Garden on 24 April 2015

This short piece, hovering between a song cycle and a mini-opera, sets fragments of Sappho's poetry, sung in German by Claire Booth accompanied by the London Sinfonietta. 

The program began with Haas's second string quartet, played by members of the Sinfonietta, with two dancers representing Sappho (Laure Bachelot) and Atthis (Rachel Maybank). Direction, design, costumes and video were by Netia Jones. 

The Indian Queen

by Henry Purcell

seen 14 March 2015

Purcell's music, created to adapt a play by Sir Henry Howard and John Dryden into a semi-opera, was left unfinished at the composer's death in 1695. The production at English National Opera by Peter Sellars is a co-production between ENO, Perm State Opera (Russia) and Teatro Real in Madrid. It uses the fifty minutes Purcell had composed, together with excerpts from other works and settings of religious music by him, and also spoken text from Rosario Aguilar's novel 'The Lost Chronicles of Terra Firma'. The original plot of the play has been completely abandoned (it concerns a totally fictional struggle between 'Peru' and 'Mexico' set before the European arrival in the Americas) in favour of an extended rumination on the Spanish conquest of the Mayan peoples.

Der Fliegende Holländer

by Richard Wagner

seen by live streaming from Covent Garden 24 February 2015

This is a revival of Tim Albery's 2009 production. It stars Bryn Terfel as the Dutchman, Adrianne Pieczonka as Senta, Peter Rose as Daland, Michael König as Erik, Ed Lyon as the Steersman, and Catherine Wyn-Rogers as Mary. The conductor is Andris Nelsons.

Bryn Terfel gives a compelling performance as the flying Dutchman, by turns weary, passionate, hopeful and despairing. His is a commanding presence on the large stage, with a set that tends to dwarf the characters in its great sweep of curved metal.

Adrianne Pieczonka is a warm Senta living in a world of her own, and genuinely puzzled to be called to account by the hapless Erik. It really does not seem to have occurred to her that she may have a conflict of loyalties until he reminds her of what he has taken to be her promises to him. Her impact in the second scene (here set in a clothing workshop with lots of sewing machines) is less striking than that of Anja Kampe, whose swooping attack on the descending notes of the Dutchman's ballad in the original production was utterly sensational.

The Mastersingers of Nuremberg

by Richard Wagner

seen on 14 February 2015

This production from English National Opera at the Coliseum was first presented by Welsh National Opera in 2010. Richard Jones has directed the transfer with a new cast including Iain Paterson as Hans Sachs, Gwyn Hughes Jones as Walther von Stolzing, Rachel Nicholls as Eva Pogner, and Andrew Shore as Sixtus Beckmesser. It is set notionally (but not entirely realistically - there are electric lights in the houses) in 1868, the year of the opera's premiere, rather than in the sixteenth century in which Hans Sachs lived.

Andrea Chénier

by Umberto Giordano

seen 26 January 2015

Covent Garden's first production of this opera in about 30 years stars Jonas Kaufmann in the title role, with Eva-Maria Westbroek as Maddalena de Coigny and Željko Lučić as Carlo Gérard. It is directed by David McVicar and conducted by Antonio Pappano.

The opera concerns the poet Andrea Chénier who, though supportive of the French Revolution, was critical of the Jacobin Terror, and who was eventually executed just days before the fall of Robespierre in 1794. Robespierre famously wrote on the execution order 'Même Platon a banni les poètes de sa République', a statement scrawled across the bloodstained tricoleur used as a curtain drop between scene changes. A romantic interest, in which Maddalena de Coigny is loved by both Chénier and Gérard, is an invention of the opera.  Gérard was once a servant on the Coigny estate, but he rises to political importance as a Jacobin; Maddalena, however, only has eyes for Chénier and goes with him to his death; Gérard is powerless to save them.

The Merry Widow

by Franz Lehar

seen by live streaming from The Metropolitan Opera New York on 17 January 2015

The Met's new production of 'The Merry Widow' is directed with great style and verve by Broadway's Susan Stroman and conducted by Andrew Davis. Renee Fleming sang the role of the widow Hanna Glawari, Nathan Gunn the reluctant suitor Count Danilo Danilovitch, Thomas Allen the ambassador Baron Mirko Zeta, Kelli O'Hara his wife Valencienne and Alek Shrader her would-be lover Camille de Rosillon. Carson Elrod provided extra comedy as the hapless aide Njegus. All had great presence served by sumptuous costumes and grand but deliberately stagey settings which presented a theatrical confection of Paris in la belle epoque.

Un Ballo in Maschera

by Giuseppe Verdi

seen 6 January 2015

A new production at Covent Garden directed by Katharine Thoma with Joseph Calleja as Riccardo, Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Renato and Liudmila Monastyrska as Amelia.

The piece exists in several versions occasioned by the objections of various Neapolitan and Roman censors at the time that the opera was being composed. Sometimes the male leads are called Gustavo and Anckarström to reflect the fact that the opera's plot is based on the assassination of King Gustavus III of Sweden. This production uses the 'American' names (the accepted original version was set in Boston), but in this production the court is European - not to say Austro-Hungarian - and it is set just prior to the First World War.