by Kaija Saariaho
At English National Opera
I think I enjoyed this. I'm certainly glad that I went, and I stayed to the end.
I have actually got this on DVD and I have watched it once. I do recall enjoying it, even though I suspect I might have been multi-tasking at the time.
It was certainly worth it for twenty quid in the second row of the stalls, and I can safely say that every aspect of it was technically of a high nature.
The singers - Roderick Williams (a very under-rated singer, IMO), Joan Rodgers and Faith Sherman - presented a cogent and pleasant evening, and were wonderfully supported by their body doubles/trebles, in a production by new wave circus director, Daniele Finzi Pasca. I enjoyed the acrobatics as much as I enjoyed the music, and I liked the general atmosphere of the piece, visually and aurally.
I suppose my main reservation was that it was too long. The music is pleasant but soporific, so I had an opera nap* in each of the two halves. I read something somewhere recently, it might have been apropos Rufus Wainwright, that said that writing an opera is very difficult. It requires more than just writing a long piece of music.
At a little over two hours, it certainly isn't long, not in contrast to Wagner and Handel. But it makes it much the same length as Otello, Boheme etc, which pack a lot of action and emotional range. They also have more identifiable characters and crowd scenes, too.
Like a TV drama series or a film, there is little to be gained by fleshing an opera out with atmospheric mood music, unless it is of such a high quality and provides sufficient contrast to be a feature in itself. 19th century composers moved away from opera seria because of the inherent problems of the recitative holding up the action for little effect other than allowing a key change; I don't want the same ponderousness in 21st century operas.
I think if you are making an opera last more than an hour or so you have to have a lot of good music, or have roles where the audience can experience their characters developing, or you have to have a lot of action. Better to have at least two if not three of those elements. L'amour de loin lacked all three.
It was clear from the programme that this was an Ed Gardner project, and as, far as I could tell, it was another sterling performance from him. We are lucky to have him as Music Director, both for what he does in the pit and for having the courage to bring such productions to the stage. I suspect he will be sought after by bigger organisations before too long. I was closer to him than I have been before, and he looks even impossibly younger than he does from the Upper Circle, although I am surprised that he is 35.
* this is a frequent and very sensual experience where I fall half asleep. It drives my mind into a hyperactivity of over-stimulus which it is unable to deal with rationally. So I end up being very trippy and having osme marvellous verbal and visual imaginings which are totally disconnected with the opera I am seeing but, surely, are stimulated and inspired by it. Better than drugs!
