Written on Skin

by George Benjamin, libretto by Martin Crimp

seen at Covent Garden on 30 January 2017

This revival of Benjamin's 2012 opera is conducted by the composer and features Christopher Purves as the Protector, Barbara Hannigan as Agnès (his wife), Iestyn Davies as the first Angel and the Boy, Victoria Simmonds as the second Angel and Marie (the sister of Agnès) and Mark Padmore as the third Angel and John (the husband of Marie). It is directed by Katie Mitchell and designed by Vicki Mortimer.

The story derives from the fate of the troubadour Guillem de Cabestaing, employed by Raimon de Castel Rossillon. Guillem began an affair with Raimon's wife, and the nobleman exacted his revenge by killing the troubadour and serving his heart to his wife. She in turn refused to eat or drink another thing so that the taste of her lover's heart would remain with her for ever. She escaped from Raimon's attack by leaping to her death from a balcony.

The Beggar's Opera

by John Gay

seen at Farnham Maltings on 27 January 2017

This comic ballad opera from 1728 was presented in modern dress by the Farnham Amateur Operatic Society directed by Heather Legat. A small orchestra directed by Diana Vivian provided the musical accompaniment.

It's a curious piece, satirising the Italian operatic style so popular in early 18th century London by allotting operatic arias to criminals and whores, the arias in many cases being based on popular ballad tunes. Spoken dialogue replaces the recitatives common at the time. The result is that a sordid tale of prostitution, highway robbery and the corrupt management of both crimes and arrests is invested with often quite ravishing tunes, most of which vanish before they can be properly appreciated (the arias are very short). A ridiculous reprieve 'by popular demand' rounds off the story just when its logic leads one to suppose that Macheath, the principal highwayman and object of several women's affections, will be executed. This too is a joke at the expense of Italian opera conventions.

In this production the setting was wisely modernised, but even so it must be admitted that the ladies of FAOS are not really comfortable playing a group of prostitutes. However, the chorus singing was accomplished, and both Polly Peachum and Macheath had fine voices. Some of the dialogue fell flat - the verbosity of 18th century prose is not easy to manage on stage, and the targets of its satire are long gone so that only the general gist of the joke survives.

It was perhaps an odd choice for an amateur production, though it does provide opportunities for a wide number of soloists as many of the characters have at least one aria to sing.

Der Rosenkavalier

by Richard Strauss, libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal

seen at Covent Garden on 17 January 2017

This new production for the Royal Opera House was directed by Robert Carsen and conducted by Andris Nelsons. It featured Anna Stéphany as Octavian, Rachel Willis-Sørensen as the Marschallin, Sophie Bevan as Sophie and Matthew Rose as Baron Ochs. (The principal attraction in this season was to hear Renée Fleming as the Marschallin in her farewell performances of the role, and Alice Coote as Octavian, but they were not singing at all performances.)

The production, designed by Paul Steinberg (sets) and Brigitte Reiffenstuel (costumes), was set in 1911, the year of its premiere, rather than the 1740s as specified in the libretto. The justification for this is that the both times were periods of uncertainty and aristocratic melancholy; indeed that the librettist and composer deliberately chose to echo the ethos of their own time in the earlier period of the Empress Maria Theresa.  The choice of 1911 worked well because of a modern audience's sensitivity to the charmed but sleepwalking age immediately before the First World War, particularly as Vienna, the city in which the action takes place, was unknowingly in the last days of its Austro-Hungarian imperial splendour, before becoming the capital of a much reduced Austrian republic.