Gertsamtkunstwerk

Salome @ Royal Opera House 6 July

 A bit late, yeah, well!

The only directly relevant tweet I produced was

At Salome curtain I had perfect tweet using 'grotesque', 'extreme frottage' 'psychologically/' 'fucked-up', 'bloody' & 'ace'. Gone now

Although before curtain up I had been a bit surprised to see a Primary School-aged child on the terrace. I'm as liberal as the next person, and think, for child is able to sit still that long, an outing to Carmen or Eugene Onegin is excellent.

But I doubt the judgement of the parent who takes their child to Salome. Even while I make allowances for an exceptional child, for one with an unusual love of Strauss dating from days in the pram, I still find it disturbing. It crosses my mind that maybe that the whole point of the drama has gone completely over the parents' head.

That wouldn't surprise me, it depresses me that there are people who consider opera to be exclusively about pretty - relaxing - tunes in pretty dresses. Or maybe they thought that it would be full of Viennese Waltzes in the style of Johann, Joseph etc Strauss. But there is no excuse for not doing at least some research when taking a small child into a fundamentally adult space. I do note that last time I saw it I commended it as an excellent first opera for teens. Teens very different from barely-out-of-Infant-school.

I feel that no 8 year old child needs to be confronted with the darkness of this story; conversely, I do not wish to live in a word where everything is wiped clean to 'protect the children'. I'm an adult, and I want to see disturbing and unsettling operas (and plays and Fine Art). I need to see art that challenges my complacency and settled view about the world and our interactions within it. By making me feel uncomfortable throughout, it holds my attention absolutely.

It's a taut work, about 100 minutes, through composed without an interval. It's also noticeable that there is - not to mince words - a better class of audience member, everyone seemingly absorbed, not there on a 'Romantic date' or behaving like a coach-party-member-at-Oliver, or there to preen and be seen. I imagine there were coughs, knocked over water bottles and rattles of sweet papers, but if so, they were not intrusive.

I described the set in some detail previously, and also to some extent the production. What really stayed me was an excruciating feeling of inappropriateness, claustrophobia, of silences pregnant with unspoken knowledge of dreadful deeds.

The relationship between Salome and Herod chilled me to the marrow. Never directly alluded to, but the dynamics and chemistry were all wrong. This culminated in his insistence that she danced for him, not taking no as an answer, not accepting a pretty little number she'd practiced in her ballet class. She had to dance the Dance of the Seven Veils, or, as realised here, the Seven Rooms. Each room depicted a stage in her development, from infanthood to where she was now, a too-knowing psychologically damaged young woman. Never directly said, but the implications were frightening.

And in return, she demanded the head of John the Baptist. Herod was powerless to refuse. Why? What hold did she have over him that made him, so seemingly powerful, unable to refuse this grotesque demand?

I recall studying the Bible Story at Primary School. Violent death in stories was commonplace, and, barely a decade after the Abolition of Capital Punishment perhaps not so shocking. But the death of a living breathing actual person who had appeared on the stage, preaching and singing, someone she knew, that was too much. I had imagined she saw his head on the plate and went 'Yeah, well, sorted' and went back to playing with her toys.

The culmination of the shock was the grotesque display of out-of-control public sexuality. One can debate for ever society's perceptions of public displays of autonomous female sexuality. I just think that using a freshly severed head as a masturbatory aid breaks every taboo and every commonly held standard of acceptable behaviour. And in front of one's parents, too.

It is difficult to imagine a more shocking display of depravity, especially when it was clear that she was not doing it for show, but as a physical and psychological necessity, an elusive search for expiation. As the final note sounded, the audience was silent with palpable shock.

I barely spared a thought to marking the singers nor attempting objective comment upon the orchestra playing: it was a superb example of Gesamtkuntswerk.

I suppose the most obvious comparison must be made between Angela Denoke who sang Salome this time, and Nadja Michael who sang the role when this production premièred in 2008. I like Nadja's voice a lot, for many of the reasons that other people don't, but nevertheless it was clear to me that Angela's vocal performance was significantly better.

However, I found her physical performance somewhat lacking. I am surprised to read she is nearly fifty, for she played Salome as a fully mature but young woman, whereas I think the role demands an absolutely perverted mirror of youthful innocence. Her sexual exhibitionism was more the experienced seductress and less than the anguished abused damaged child.

The rest of the cast was magnificent in aggregation, Gerhard Siegel particularly memorable as Herod. And I do recall thinking the orchestra, under Hartmut Haenchen, was splendid. Though I do not consider myself a Straussian, I could go back to this opera again and again.

But like Rupert, I was a bit disappointed that, given the executioner was absolutely naked, we didn't see anything of his 'dangly bits'. This isn't some pathetic frustrated desire for clandestine sightings of cock (I speak for myself, not necessarily for Rupert), but more a puzzlement at why the coyness, given the context - the discrete cover-up reeks of suburban propriety and jars with the setting. Perhaps there was an artistic dilemma - should the executioner be aroused by the act, but what angle of dangle would be acceptable to the obscenity police? Would a resting member be equally jarring and out-of-place?

The original run of the production is available on DVD

Der Rosenkavalier in the cinema

I haven't gone to many of these cinema showings of operas, for all sorts of reasons. Perhaps I should go more often. The ones from New York show here on Saturday nights. Generally, Jimmy works Saturdays, so I might as well go to the pictures as sit at home alone. And there are two cinemas very close to me  that show them, so I'm short of excuses.

So, yesterday evening found me in a slightly snowy Brixton and settling down for Der Rosenkavalier. I don't know the opera in intimate detail, but I seem to remember there are lots of longeurs, so I was a bit anxious in case I got bored and fidgety. Actually, as it turns out, I know it a lot better than I thought I did -which still isn't enough to pass intelligent comment on the intricate details and subtle nuances.

I was trying to work out whether I have seen this exact precise staging before or whether there are several staid and unimaginative productions of the same opera available on DVD.

I will fully confess that I found the scenery beautiful and the costumes exquisite, but prettiness doesn't an opera production make. I suppose I came away with a very strong sense of a linear narrative and two dimensional characters. I am at a loss as to how to make the characters more rounded and sympathetic, but that's the director's role, not mine.

I have seen several versions on TV or DVD, and even though none was especially memorable together they have left sufficient of an impression for me to have some basis for comparison.

I thought Susan Graham was far -and- away the star. I've only actually heard her live in one part, in two locations! (Iphigenie) and I don't have much of her on CD or DVD, but what I know of her I like, and I thought she was very convincing as Octavian and mugged and hammed well. I suppose ultimately, her voice doesn't move me, but I find it unerringly pleasing. I did read someone mentioning her struggle with a few of the notes and I did notice this, but I'll prefer a singer, like her, who does these sotto voce rather than the screamers and shriekers.

I'm afraid I just don't get Renée Fleming and I am startled at descriptions about her epitomising the role. I tweeted frivolously about her resembling Mrs Robinson, startled at how well cast Renée would be (physically) as Iris (I am certain that Renée doesn't share the same hateful views). One of my Tweeps from outside the UK assumed, not unsurprisingly, I was referring to Mrs Robinson from The Graduate and commented that Renée has none of the class he would expect from the Marschallin. I'm not saying she was bad, and there was a welcome absence of her characteristic scoops and swoops and jazz style. And she is rather delicious looking.But she isn't quite the Marschallin one would desire.

I rather took to Kristinn Sigmundsson as Baron Ochs. I rarely make a point of commenting on the vocal qualities of basses but I think he was marvellously obnoxious, playing the role straight for the maximum of laughs.

Christine Schäfer was okay in places but I can't say she did much for me - which is a shame considering I have booked to see her six times in March! I am sure I would have preferred Miah Persson who appeared earlier in the run.  Unfortunately, Christine resembles Celia Imrie in a bad Victoria Wood* sketch, and I have to say I found most of Acts II and III to be pure provincial pantomime. To a certain extent Act III is meant to be, whereas I'm not sure Act II is.

That having been said, I think that the point of the opera is a satire on certain society mores and perhaps an innovative modern production would bring this out more. The pantomime mugging and hamming of Act II and the vague hints of grotesquery in Act III, all hinted at the work's potential, but I think probably just about everybody went away with a strong sense of this being about a love triangle in gorgeously pretty frocks.  I didn't see the ENO production of this work but I would expect a director of the calibre of David McVicar to pick up the undercurrent.

With ultra-traditional, ultra-conservative and very pretty productions, the devil is in the detail. For example, the Marschallin's breakfast is brought and she is poured a drink (turns out to be hot chocolate) from a china pot into a china cup with matching saucer. The pot was decorated with pink flowers, the cup and saucer were predominantly green.

I told myself not to be nit-picking, but I detected a fidgeting in the cinema, and one almost totally audible stage whisper from two rows in front of me "Teapot doesn't...tea-cup"

Another time, minor character Valzacchi was supposed to be opening the big heavy doors of Faninal Palace, only to reveal that they were light insubstantial things.

Overall I enjoyed the performance. I'm not sufficiently familiar to be able to say how the conducting and orchestra playing compared against the field. I didn't notice any bad moments, either flubs or strange tempi. But I also didn't find anything that revealed anything about the orchestra colours, layers and textures, which, ultimately, is the joy of Richard Strauss, and nothing that moved me to rapture.  So, given my caveats of ignorance, I would award it a good not great!

And I shall devote a separate blog post to other aspects of the transmission!

* I'm not suggesting Victoria Wood is bad, but she does parody the farcical, so imagine a bad version of a VW parody of farce

Salome

They said it was by Strauss, so I was expecting nice Viennese ball music and floaty frocks. Hmm, I think I've done that 'joke' to death.

Richard Strauss, after a German translation of Oscar Wilde's French play.

Disturbing is all I can say. And chilling, and macabre and grisly.

Only an hour and three quarters, and that's probably enough. I don't really know the opera, although I have seen it a couple of times on DVD. Definitely one to be seen live. This was a compelling production. There has been criticism that because the stage was divided into two levels, upstairs and downstairs, people in the Amphitheatre missed a lot of the action. I was in the Amphitheatre, albeit towards the front, and I didn't feel there was much to miss. It might be a case of 'you don't miss what you haven't got'.

So, despite there being an upstairs where the posh people were dining, most of the action took place downstairs, in the kitchen. I found the kitchen to be evocative and forbidding, dirty floor and a real cold feel. And, held prisoner in the cistern (ie the drain) was John the Baptist, or Jokanaan. Three main movements, the compelling duet between Salome and Jokanaan, when she tried to seduce him; the Dance of the Seven Veils, transformed into Dance of the Seven Rooms, achieved by having a set consisting of doors that periodically moved from left to right across stage to depict Salome dancing for Herod and then fleeing to the next room.

And finally, where Salome demanded her price for having danced for Herod. She would not accept jewellery, or peacocks, or half his kingdom. All she wanted was Jokanaan's head. Her mother egged her on, enraged by his accusation that her marriage was incestuous (she married her dead husband's brother). But Salome was not interested in that. She had touched his body and was not satisfied; she had touched his hair and was not satisfied. She needed to touch his lips.

So the Executioner aka a Human Statue from the Piazza took off his overcoat and descended naked into the cistern, to re-emerge blood-soaked and carrying the head of Jokanaan's. This set off Salome's utter debauchery and she caressed and kissed John's head, her white slip becoming blood-soaked, too. Her sexual arousal was obvious and clearly insatiable. She kissed his lips, she lay kissing him as she would have lain if she could have made love with his body. All around, the onlookers were disgusted, not least her mother and step-father. Disgusted but mesmerised.

Disturbing. She showed that she knew no shame, there was no limit to her debauchery and her self-debasement. Prior to this, and particularly in the Dance of the Seven Doors, there had been hints (big, unsubtle hints) that she had been abused by Herod for years. A possible explanation for her lack of self-awareness. That and that she was clearly spoilt and indulged, getting everything she wanted.

I thought Nadja Michael was fabulous. I have read the reviews that commented that her top was a bit weak, and I won't argue, but I liked everything else about her voice, the tone, the timbre, the pitch, and a lovely creamy sound at the bottom of the range. Michael Volle was impressive as Jokanaan, and although he wasn't around for long, I liked Joseph Kaiser enough as Narraboth to make me want to hear him again. There weren't any obvious weak links in the cast, the full details of which are copied-and-pasted below the fold.

Strangely, I don't really remember the music. I don't know the opera very well. On the way out I overheard three teenage boys. for one, it was his first opera. The other two opined it was a strange 'first opera' because he wouldn't be going out humming the tunes. True, but, actually, I would think, a great first opera for a teenage boy. Nothing silly or trivial in that story line. I do recall the orchestra being raucous, and enjoying the percussion. At times maybe too raucous, occasionally drowning out the singers. But it didn't drag. This morning I had not been looking forward to seeing it, but I'm glad I did. I might not even have booked if it wasn't that David McVicar was directing. And he didn't let me down.

Lots of pictures here

The Southbank show on Sunday (2310, ITV1) will document the two years David McVicar spent creating this

When it started I found it irritating that I couldn't properly hear the singers, and certainly couldn't see them. A man wandered onto the stage wearing a head-set and waving his arms around. The music stopped, and the curtains opened slightly to hint at the set. The chap said "Ladies and Gentleman I'm very sorry but we're going to have to start again because the set tracking is stuck..." (or words to that effect). Some moments later "Take it away Phil, it's all yours!", telling Philippe Jordan he could start stick-waving again.

Beforehand, I had surrendered my coat at the cloakroom, and turned round to find standing behind me someone pretty senior from work. I don't know him very well, but I gave him rather a hard time in a seminar a few months ago and ever since he's greeted me warmly round the office. So this evening, it was warm greetings all round, each of us registering a mild surprise at seeing the other, followed by slight amused embarrassment that we each knew the other was attending a somewhat pervy disturbingly erotic opera, slightly incongruous from our work acquaintanceship.

Elektra

Couple before a performance of Elektra. She: "I don't think I know this one, do I dear?" He: "Remember that splendid Viennese night we went to - it's the same composer, Strauss."

Well, no, it isn't, it's not exactly full of cheerful waltzes and polkas. The accompanying booklet that comes with this explains that at the time of writing Richard Strauss and Hugo Hofmenstahl were heavily influenced by the newly fashionable Freud. I don't know a great deal about psychology etc and if I did I doubt I would be much of a Freudian. Nevertheless, I sort of like the idea of an opera influenced by psychoanalysis or whatever, one which is as much about the characters' inner turmoil etc. More specifically it is based upon Greek Mythology, an don the Jungian/Freudian ridiculous notion of the Electra complex. I was going to stick in a link to the Wikipedia on the Electra complex but it's dreadful. There is the Wiki-caveat of disputed neutrality. It is a misogynist diatribe but I'm so ignorant I don't know whether that because Freud/Jung's original theory was misogynist bunk or whether some pygmy with an agenda has decided to parody it in a way that almost as comical as it is insulting.
 So let's move swiftly on to the opera. I am yet to get Richard Strauss. I feel I ought to, because there are some beautiful tunes* surrounded by some fascinating orchestration. In some ways, someone who likes Wagner ought to like Strauss, but, as I say I have not (yet) grasped Strauss in the warm and all embracing embrace that I have with Wagner.

As far as I can tell the performances are of high quality, with Eva Marton being a tour de force in what is obviously a taxing role. Good dramatic singing.

I suppose it's the difference between 'accessibility' and 'non-accessibility'. Wagner is so instantly accessible, whereas Strauss isn't. I feel a bit guilty, like I ought to, but with an opera CD/video/DVD database containing 174 items and growing, I am not sure I really want to spend a great deal of time examining this inside out. I played this a week or so ago, and I am playing it again this evening, Boxing Day, which is sheer lunacy, but I want to move on, rather than getting into my very own Elektra Complex**.

It's a good DVD, in that it's an imaginative staging, and is well-filmed etc. Some excellent personenregie and compelling performances. It's very dark, persistently and unremittingly dark, recorded at Wiener Staatsoper in 1989. I just don't feel enough about these characters to really care, and I am wishing it over, although at less than two hours it's hardly an ordeal. the Royal Opera House is planning to put on a whole load of Strauss later this decade, and I guess this would be the time to spend time really exploring his works.

I feel all wrong writing this, because I'm basically dismissing an acknowledged great work by a great composer. I've done it before in my "Aida's crap" post, not to mention my "Bohème's crap" post. Any half intelligent person will accuse me of great impertinence and arrogance in presuming to have any meaningful thoughts on an opera I barely know, and further impertinence and arrogance in publishing them on the internet, but what the hell, my blog my rules. In time, having reached die Zauberflote, I shall return to A, and introduce previously omitted operas, and revise already blogged ones, and in this way I shall grow in my knowledge and understanding. Maybe this isn't about any specific opera in particular, but about the corpus

So I wrote all that, and suddenly it started drawing me in, more than midway through, at about the time Orestes returns home. but then, I lose interest again. I know, I know, I ought to try. I'm too much of an instant gratification girl, the more effort you put in, the more you get out of it etc etc, but I have to be motivated to put the effort in. I keep hearing reminders of the Ring and I am tempted to have an all night (and all day) vigil of the Ring, confident that its sixteen hours will pass more quickly than the remaining fifteen minutes of this. Still, we've had an extended Mad Scene, and two murders and a death-by-extended-mad-scene.

* the Presentation of the Rose can lull one into thinking Der Rosenkavalier is full of tunes.
** of gagging for L'elisir d'amore but being denied by alphabetical constraints.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Light

Okay, a pretty stupid title for a post but I couldn't resist after the previous post those reading by categories please look suitably confused...!

But there were pleasant signs of the imminent arrival of Spring and the evenings becoming lighter as I went out to this concert. Just before the conductor came on the platform the curtains opened in the hall to let the light stream in through stained-glass windows. There is little pleasanter than spending a spring's evening in a sunlight filled concert hall. A chilled glass of white would top it off nicely, but alas, no.

The title of the concert was City of London Sinfonia and Opera Holland Park present Anne-Sophie Duprels singing Strauss's Four Last Songs, timed no doubt to coincide with the opening of public booking for Opera Holland Park's season.

The programme was discussed elsewhere on the internet and I swiftly concluded that I barely knew any of the items on the programme. Such is life, I thought.

Britten: Soirees Musicales
Puccini: Intermezzo from Manon Lescaut
Catalani: Ebben, ne andro lontano from La Wally
Giordano: Intermezzo from Fedora
Tchaikovsky: Overture-fantasy Romeo and Juliet
Weber: Overture Der Freischutz
Strauss: Four Last Songs

(conductor: Peter Robinson)

The concert opened and I remembered I had heard Britten's Soiree's Musicals less than four months ago in the same venue. Except that this evening we only got three of the movements. I considered that a shame because the concert wasn't overlong so we could have had a bit more. And I have to say that it was played better in December than it was this evening. In my humble opinion. But, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record, every time I hear Britten I like him more and more.

I certainly know the intermezzo from Manon Lescaut and I have every intention of booking to see Manon Lescaut this coming summer. It's a bit neglected as far as Puccini goes (but I could recommend a couple of splendid DVDs...!). I love it, I love the music and I find the story absorbing.

Of course I know the aria from La Wally. I was wondering whether the actual opera is ever actually performed. A search on Operabase yielded three performances around the new year in Dusseldorf, but I suspect they are rare. This aria is in the portfolio of every soprano worth her salt, and Anne-Sophie Duprels sung it delightfully.

I then realised that I also know the intermezzo from Fedora, and, especially the quoting of that wonderful tenor aria, Amor ti vieta. I think I will also book to see Fedora at OHP.

The Tchaikovsky had barely begun when I realised that, of course, I am tremendously familiar with it. God, how much I like Tchaikovsky. I presume this was stuck in as a sort of taster for Queen of Spades which I will probably book at OHP in the summer. A wonderful piece of music wonderfully orchestrated that just puts a great big smile on my face. Up until then I had been rather unsure of the orchestra but something happened in this piece, my highlight of the evening On all the occasions I have been to Cadogan Hall I have been sat downstairs; this evening I was in the balcony and I just revelled in a glorious acoustic as the sound of the orchestra swelled around me. Worth the price of the ticket in itself.

After the interval was the overture to Der Freischutz. I enjoyed that, too. I thought 'it's a bit wannabe Wagner', then checking my programme, I realised that Weber predated Wagner. I don't know a great deal of Weber - this opera is sitting in my pile of DVDs 'to be played'. But one of my favourite 'unknown' pieces of music is his Konzertstück for piano and orchestra.

The concert ended with Strauss's four Last Songs, which are beautiful. And they were performed fine. I have a lovely CD at home with Lucia Popp singing them, and, inevitably, one always compares the live performance with the CD. And I prefer the CD. I felt that in this performance the singer's voice was very much part of the orchestra, which was interesting, but I prefer to have the voice over the orchestra. And whilst Anne Duprels has a pleasant voice, with no obvious flaws, it never quite the spot with me.

Overall, I would put this down as a nice and pleasant evening rather than one that necessarily roused my passions. And I do so like Cadogan Hall as a venue. It takes a bit of time to exit, although because the balconies were far from full, it was not a problem. But most importantly, the acoustics are good, and the hall is comfortable. For lovers of legroom, there is loads in the balcony. And it's really easy to escape to the outside world.

The Guardian

Evenings out, past and future

The Bach Choir / Philharmonia / Hunt, Royal Festival Hall, London; a concert I went to nearly two weeks ago. The Independent doesn't like Christ on the Mount of Olives:

Yet its continuity is oddly choppy, its material obstinately unmemorable.

However, it's a piece with which I have recently fallen inextricably in love, and keep playing and playing, one of the very few works for which I have an urge to get the score, and, incidentally, the CD which is playing even now, gets an excellent review in yesterday's New York Times

Mr. Domingo has by far the most substantial role, and he sings with enviable robustness for a man over 60. A committed Wagnerian in recent decades, he has no trouble with Huber's German lyrics, imparting tender feeling to the words, especially in his anguished duet with Ms. Orgonasova. For her part, she is undaunted by high-flying passages.

That duet is sublime gorgeousness.

Cautious and reserved praise for Carmen, which I'm seeing next week.

A disgraceful review in the Observer of Arabella, which I saw last week. It is not the critics' place to criticise the audience. The audience who are paying - possibly three times (taxes, donations and ticket purchase) - for the presumably free seat enjoyed by the critic. A very nice seat, too, no doubt, one that prevented him from knowing that the booing audience was actually pissed off by not being able to see a significant proportion of the action from the cheaper seats bought with a guarantee of clear sight of the stage.

I am so disappointed that I missed Karita Mattila.

Arabella

Not an opera I am familiar with. It was okay, without being brilliant, or, to be honest, even very good. Karita Mattila, reportedly one of, if not the best Straussian sopranos, was suffering from an allergy and replaced by Nancy Gustafson, who is due to sing the role next week, anyway. I wasn't that impressed, her voice just didn't seem big enough to carry properly to the cheap seats.

There was a problem with the production, which was alluded to in yesterday's Guardian review. The set was quite minimalist, consisting mainly of a gently spiring staircase leading up to a raised platform at the back of the stage. A fair amount of the action and singing took place from this raised platform, leaving me with the bizarre sight of only being able to see the singers from the waist down, their top halves obscured by the proscenium arch.

I have a mind to complain to the Royal Opera, because I bought my ticket online and the website states "All seats bookable online have a clear view of the stage." I didn't, and feel like threatening them with the Sale of Goods Act or Trades Description Act or something.

It was one of those performances where I would have happily have done without the singing just to listen to the orchestra, which sounded gorgeously lush under Christoph von Dohnányi. The plot was okay, and reasonably well staged and acted (except for the problem with the raised platform).

Barbara Bonney sounded good as Zdenka, and Thomas Hampson was impressive as Mandryka, although I don't especially care for his voice. He is rumoured to bbe so vain as to own 250 mirrors, but I didn't see any sign of it.

I was particularly impressed by Artur Korn as Arabella's father. the biggest cheer of the evening was for Diana Damrau, playing the small but exquisite part of The Fiakermilli - cabaret artiste. Perhaps she had a claque with her.

I suppose the best thing to say about this is "It's No Rosenkavalier..."