Category: Reviews – Opera and Ballet

The Queen’s Closet’s 2022 “Judgement of Paris” a winner

Posted on by Peter Mechen

The Queen’s Closet presents:
Opera – THE JUDGEMENT OF PARIS  (words by William Congreve)
with music by John Eccles, Daniel Purcell, John Weldon and Godfrey Finger
(a new edition by The Queen’s Closet)

CAST:  Paris, a humble shepherd – Toby Gee
Mercury/Hermes, messenger of Jove – David Morriss
Juno/Saturnia, Goddess of Power – Barbara Paterson
Pallas Athena, Goddess of Victory in War – Rowena Simpson
Venus/Aphrodite, Goddess of Love – Anna Sedcole

MUSICIANS: Leader – Gregory Squire: Violins – Gregory Squire, CJ Macfarlane, Sarah Marten, Emma Brewerton: Violas – Lyndsay Mountfort, Gordon Lehany: ‘Cellos – Jane Young, Robert Ibell:  Hoboys –
Sharon Lehany, Rebecca Grimwood: Recorders – Sharon Lehany, Gordon Lehany: Guitar – Peter Maunder: Harpsichord – Kristina Zuelicke: Trumpets – Gordon Lehany, Peter Reid, Chris Woolley, Peter Maunder: Timpani/Percussion – Larry Reese:

The Queen’s Closet Artistic Director: Gordon Lehany

Foxglove Ballroom, 57 Customhouse Quay, Wellington

Sunday 20th February, 2022

It was all as promised! – “…..With our sense of style and fun we will bring this 300 year-old music to life for Wellingtonians today” ran the Queen’s Closet’s online advertising blurb……..at the conclusion of all the fun and gaiety a roomful of Wellingtonians at the Foxglove Ballroom venue on the city’s waterfront readily testified to the success of this venture with sustained applause and subsequent babblings of excitement and satisfaction at the entertainment’s end. What might have appeared on paper to be a somewhat dusty-and-fusty, quasi-restoration of a musical event that happened a world away in London several centuries ago was here brought to life with confidence, elan and style, an operatic production refreshingly without the myriad theatrical trappings of a conventional staging – sets, lights, and  elaborate costumes – and in terms of cheek-by-jowl accessibility all the better for it!

Originally, “The Judgement of Paris” was the subject of an event set up in 1700 by a group of “patrons of the arts” in London wanting to promote interest in “through-sung” opera in English, a form which, up to that time mostly consisted of works combining song with spoken drama. A “Musicke Prize” was offered to composers for the most effective setting of a libretto of the same name by William Congreve, already an established dramatist of the day. Four composers, John Weldon (1676-1736), John Eccles (1668-1735), Daniel Purcell (1664-1717) – a nephew (?) of the famous Henry Purcell – and Godfrey Finger (ca.1655/6-1730) entered the lists, their works being first performed individually during 1701, then staged in a kind of “grand final” in June 1703. By all accounts the result, an audience choice, caused some acrimony, with the supposed favourite, Eccles, beaten into second place by the least-favoured Weldon, with Purcell third, and an extremely disgruntled Finger placed last!

Only three of the four finished versions survive in score today, Finger’s having been lost, though other music of his is still extant – however, this didn’t deter the BBC Proms in 1989 from restaging what they could of the competition’s “Grand Final” in the Royal Albert Hall with the three extant operas (Anthony Rooley conducted the Consorte Of Musicke and Concerto Koln). Once again the audience was invited to choose the winner – and on this later occasion it was Eccles!

This production enterprisingly reconstructs a single performance of the work made up of selected excerpts from the three different complete scores, and compensates  for the “missing composer” with an excerpt from one of Finger’s extant theatrical works, his 1701 suite for “Alexander the Great”, in this instance an aria “Morpheus, gentle God”. In this way we’re given a resounding “overview” of the achievement of the original enterprise and the individual composers concerned – alas, at that time the currents of the tides of fashion were set against the objectives of the promoters of “English opera”, with the new craze for Italian opera dominating the London scene, and setting in train a dearth of “true” English opera until the early twentieth century.

One of the most helpful features of the Queen’s Closet’s presentation was the accompanying written programme, which contained a good deal of the background information to the work summarised above, and a detailed synopsis of the opera’s plot complete with the individual musical numbers named and paired with their composer. We in the audience thus knew “where we were” at every step of the proceedings, adding enormously to our relish of the story, the characters and their interactions!

Interestingly, if one counts the numbers assigned to each composer in this realisation, Daniel Purcell wins the “musicians vote” by fourteen numbers to John Eccles’ twelve, with John Weldon scoring a discreet five. The unfortunate Godfrey Finger is represented by a single but important number, the first-half closer “Morpheus, gentle God”, no less!

It would take far too long to go through the entire work, commenting on each of the numbers, so a precis of the action will suffice for this review’s purposes – Paris, a humble shepherd, is visited by the celestial messenger Mercury/Hermes, who tells the amazed mortal that the gods wish him to award a golden apple to the most deserving of three important goddesses, Juno, Pallas Athena, and Venus. Paris is overwhelmed at the prospect and fearful for his survival in the face of the goddesses’ attentions, but Mercury assures him of his protection during the process. The goddesses arrive on the scene and each tries to persuade the shepherd to award her the prize. Paris’s response is to faint into a sleep during which Morpheus, God of Dreams is evoked to guide the shepherd in his choice.

The second half begins with Paris’s reawakening and interacting with the three Goddesses, each of whom he asks what she would offer him in return for the apple. Juno tempts Paris with power to rule over men, while Pallas Athena offers the shepherd victory in war. Lastly Venus reminds Paris of the true joy of love, which she promises will be his. As much through exhaustion as reason, Paris chooses Venus as the victor and gives her the apple, to the relief and satisfaction of the gods.

I was charmed by how well the semi-staged aspect of the presentation worked – everybody, musicians and audience, shared the same floorspace in the Foxglove Ballroom, with the singers moving through and around the musicians, spread in a semi-circle, to a rostrum at the left of the acting area immediately in front of the audience. The immediacy of it all made everything come alive, both the formal and more improvisatory aspects of what everybody did, the magic of stage transformation as strong as if in a more conventional theatre, perhaps by dint of the performers inviting its audience to participate creatively by “imagining for ourselves” each character’s fuller ramifications instead of having it all already “done” for us.

Each of the singers conveyed her or his character’s essence easily and naturally, Toby Gee’s “Paris” properly simple, rustic and unpretentious, set at first against the easy suavity and insouciance of David Morriss’s Mercury, the latter’s black-and-white garb a touch Mephistophelean, I first thought, if complete with a “sacred rod” (an umbrella, used with a “Singin’ in the Rain” kind of flair in places to great effect! The three Goddesses  made the most of their respectively singular qualities, Barbara Paterson’s suave, worldly Juno by turns kittenish and commanding as required, making the perfect foil for both Rowena Simpson’s no-nonsense, forthright and ‘spot-on” Pallas Athena, and Anna Sedcole’s softer, sweeter, wide-eyed and winning Venus/Aphrodite. The stage business had a certain homespun quality which I found endearing, in the sense that nothing seemed overlaid, but instead “grew out of” both the music and the dramatic situations in an unforced way.

The singing, too, shared these qualities, in each case the vocal qualities managing to fit the characterisation splendidly – Toby Gee’s Paris sounded consistently and believably overawed in the situation he inadvertedly found himself, making the most of his bewilderment in “Distracted I turn, but cannot decide”, and aided by John Eccles’ engagingly “swinging” rhythms.  I’ve never heard David Morriss sing with greater beauty, agility and tonal variety as here, with his Mercury – and his promised protection to Paris, “Fear not Mortal, none shall harm thee!” was suitably bolstered by some wry “umbrella-semaphoring”, to hilarious effect.

Each of the goddesses shone whilst vocally plying their respective virtues and powers – Barbara Paterson’s Juno was at her most imperious with Eccles’ “Let Ambition fire thy Mind”, the voice ringing out, bolstered by the other characters in the music’s reprise, to a most exciting and invigorating string accompaniment. Equally authoritative was Rowena Simpson’s Pallas Athena, with bright, pinging notes supported by stirring work from trumpets and drums as she sang “Hark, hark, the glorious voice of war!”, with the following Handelian “O how glorious ‘tis to see!” further underlining the warlike sentiments.

After such entreaties it was a relief for the finer sensibilities to encounter Anna Sedcole’s Venus imploring Paris to listen to her very different message with, firstly Eccles’  “Stay, lovely Youth” (accompanied winningly by recorders, ‘cello and harpsichord), and then Weldon’s “One only joy mankind can know”, the latter becoming a kind of “Ode to Joy”-like chorale with the other singers joining in – heart-warming! – and if that wasn’t sufficiently disarming, then Sedcole’s singing of  Purcell’s “Gentle Shepherd”, with a delicate guitar accompaniment, was the “piece de resistance” which disarmed Paris (and the rest of us!) completely – the rest, as they say, is – um, history! – with the shepherd completely undone and gladly bestowing upon Venus the golden apple –  Paris’s “I yield” made a particularly moving and solemn impression, the voice alternating phrases with a hoboy, while  guitar, ‘cello and harpsichord murmured in attendance.

There remains to extol the virtues of the band – most authoritatively led by Gregory Squire, the players delivered in spadefuls what seemed to me the essential character of each Symphony, Sonata movement and vocal accompaniment, be it grand or intimate, energetic or graceful. Perhaps the “shared space” venue had something to do with a ready quality of infectious enjoyment, evident in the relish with which each number’s singular quality was delivered by the players – the strings en masse stirred the blood in so many and different places (from stern grandeur to energetic abandonment throughout Eccles’s “Let Ambition fire thy Mind”, for example) as did the thrills and occasional spills of the trumpets, all adding to the excitement and stirringly supported by Larry Reese’s timpani (in the same composer’s music for Pallas Athena – ‘Awake! Awake! Thy spirits arise!” and “Hark, hark! – the glorious voice of war!”). Contrasting most beguilingly with all this were the gentler, softer accents of the recorders, the hoboys, the guitar and ‘cello, invariably partnered by Kris Zuelicke’s eloquent harpsichord continuo, in much of the music for Paris (Finger’s “Morpheus, Gentle God”, where the singers’ voices are echoed by the recorders; and Venus’s appearance to Paris, coloured beautifully by recorders and the continuo instruments).

I, for one, would hope to hear more along these lines from the Queen’s Consort, whose efforts brought to life a world of musical and dramatic expression we don’t often get to experience in such a vivid and well-rounded way – very great honour to all concerned!

Mozart’s Don Giovanni from the new Wellington Opera Company – a promising beginning

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Wellington Opera presents
MOZART – DON GIOVANNI (dramma giocoso)
(libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte)

Cast:   Christian Thurston  (Don Giovanni)
James Ioelu  (Leoporello)
Amelia Berry  (Donna Anna)
Paul Whelan  (The Commendatore)
Oliver Sewell  (Don Ottavio)
Amanda Atlas (Donna Elvira)
Natasha Wilson  (Zerlina)
Joel Amosa  (Masetto)

Wellington Opera Chorus and Orchestra
Music Director –  Matthew Ross
Director – Sara Brodie
Assistant Director – Matthew Kereama
Production Designer – Meg Rollandi
Lighting Designer – Jo Kilgour

Wellington Opera House
Tuesday 20th April, 2021

(to Saturday 24th April 2021 7:30pm)

How refreshing to read in the programme accompanying Wellington Opera’s “Don Giovanni” an appreciation of Mozart’s and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte’s opera from the Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy, thus: “Quite apart from the exquisite pleasures of Mozart’s score, it (the opera) offers a timeless plot line that will resonate with audiences in the “Me Too” era.” For me, that sums up in a nutshell the potential for a classic work born in this case of what historians have termed “The Enlightenment” to express a viewpoint relating to sexual mores in society whose judgement is unequivocally delivered – the condemnation and downfall of a sexual predator.

After I’d read the original “Stuff” article that appeared, one purporting to be a review of the Company’s opening night’s performance, but morphing into a “woke-rant” condemning any age-old artistic portrayals of what’s seen as interaction of male dominance and female submission, my first reaction was along the disturbed lines of “Look out, Classics! – THEY’RE coming for you!” One doesn’t wish to demonise any feminist viewpoint thus – but to gratuitously offload coals of fire upon the heads of the world’s classics holus-bolus is to beg the question of why things are portrayed the way they are in the first place in these works, and how “workings-out” of what people do in human interactive terms can counter and triumph over many such exploitative attitudes. Mozart and da Ponte obviously understood human nature and its resultant behaviours, and in this case responded to the excesses of the opera’s eponymous miscreant in delivering an archetypal “come-uppance” to him at the end.

I once saw a production of “The Don” where the ghostly avenging “Statue” of the man Giovanni had earlier killed in a duel turned out actually to be the peasant lad Masetto in disguise, wanting revenge for Giovanni’s attempted seduction of his girlfriend. After reducing Giovanni to submission, the “stone” figure threw off his disguise and summarily despatched him. It all became something in the manner of a “shabby little shocker” involving nothing more than rough justice, with no overtones of the archetypal or supernatural or any kind of higher moral force at work.  I felt suitably cheated on that occasion, the “rustic revenge” conclusion having nothing uplifting or awe-inspiring about it, no “outward sign of inner expiation”, change or cleansing. Interestingly, Mozart’s “epilogue”, in which the characters whose lives were so intertwined with the Don’s tell one another their plans and deliver a vocal “coup de grace” to the departed libertine, was performed at the premiere in Prague, but omitted when the opera was restaged by the composer in Vienna, and not reintroduced until the early part of the 20thCentury – so the opera’s ending, with Giovanni dragged down to Hell, as depicted in the film “Amadeus”, was the standard for many years!

That “resonance” which Dame Patsy Reddy mentioned regarding recent “Me Too” revelations has already coloured a number of manifestations of this opera worldwide, among them the subject of an in-depth review of a UK production in North London from 2017 which I chanced upon, one staged by an all-female creative team, with modern dress and up-dated surtitles, giving a definite contemporary feel to the goings-on. The characterisations seemed to ring true with the women Giovanni tried to seduce in the opera, with the noblewoman Donna Anna and (eventually) the peasant girl Zerlina portrayed as strong and independent, while the once-abandoned Donna Elvira remaining seriously conflicted to the end by her ex-lover. And there were echoes of Hollywood impresario Harvey Weinstein’s recently-exposed crimes and the initial disbelief at the allegations made by various women concerning his sexual abuse of them, in Donna Anna’s fiancée Don Ottavio’s similar doubts uttered upon first hearing of Giovanni’s transgressions.

Fast forward to 2021 and a girdle about the earth’s distance to Wellington Opera, a recently-formed Trust here in the capital, and presently making the most of the Covid travel restrictions resulting in the availability of so many able home-grown singers for this, the Trust’s first production.  Having enjoyed a number of director Sara Brodie’s productions in the past, I was brimful with expectation, firstly all ears for the Overture, here occasioning a “sneak preview” of the opera’s inaugural crime, the Don’s invasion of the beautiful Donna Anna’s bedroom via a ladder. I thought Matthew Ross’s direction of the music a shade short-breathed with the very opening chords, terse and contained, not conveying to me the sheer drama of those opening sounds, and being too intent with forward movement. smart and snappy, which mode of course does come into its own with the allegro – no qualms about Ross’s urgency and the terrific orchestral response, there!

As the curtain opened again, there was Leoporello, waiting for his master – with an un-nervingly spectral figure gazing at him from further away for a few seconds, before leaving just as mysteriously as he had come. James Ioelu’s Leoporello had the common touch, the voice a roughish edge, the body language casual and footloose. His master, the Don, was all elegance by comparison, Christian Thurston laid-back and casual with his movements, almost an insouciance, but one masking an underlying focus of pursuit and would-be capture. My companion for the evening being of a younger generation, afterwards compared the Don’s “manner” to a Swedish singer she knew of, one Günther, having, she said, a similar kind of euro-trash party energy, complete with pout, open shirt and eye-liner! (on the strength of that, I think Middle C will keep her on……..)

Paul Whelan seemed luxury casting as the Commendatore, Donna Anna’s father, though I actually found him more effective in the “Stone Guest” Scene than here, where I thought his characterisation was, like so many I’ve seen in this opera, a tad too elderly and lacking in real energy in the fight (the ensemble also got a bit “out” necessitating some “catch-up” singing) – surely the Commendatore would be only in his forties and therefore still a dangerous adversary, hence Giovanni’s killing of him to save his own skin! The fight certainly didn’t take enough cues from the slashing, whirling music Mozart provided, though the Commendatore’s actual despatch, by both the Don and Leoporello with a knife, was convincing enough.

Donna Anna’s discovery of her father’s body gave Amelia Berry’s voice the chance to shine – both she and her fiancée, Don Ottavio (a vocally steadfast Oliver Sewell) characterised the confused jumble of emotions beautifully, moving, separately and together, from despair to tenderness to vengeful attack – though their interaction was more static in movement than I would have expected, things like the oath sworn together on the Commendatore’s sword gave the scene both great gravitas and high drama.

After Giovanni affably dismissed Leoporello’s “character references” of his master as of little consequence, the sudden ”scent of a woman” heralded the arrival on the scene of Donna Elvira and her maid (the latter a non-singing role). I couldn’t help but enjoy Amanda Atlas’s extremely gutsy (if in places squally) A Chi mi dice mai, as it captured the character’s agitated,  unfettered feelings, something which carried right through her exchanges for the rest of the evening with the hapless Don, who lost no time here in volunteering Leoporello as a source of further information for her before making himself scarce!

James Ioelu made the most of his opportunities with the notorious “Catalogue Aria”, in which Leoporello presents a list to Elvira of the Don’s female conquests – the most interesting reaction I’ve seen to this from any Elvira (not here) was one during which the latter ridiculed the “list”, thus consigning the activity’s significance to the realms of adolescent train-spotting, or teenaged autograph-collecting!  Here it began as something almost voyeuristic on Leoporello’s part, before burgeoning into the public realm with an enlarged version of the list lowered from above as a banner for all the world to “tut-tut” over, presumably accompanied by some local (though not recent!) conjecture and embarrassment on the part of certain individuals (including, perhaps, a pregnant young woman who appeared from nowhere straight afterwards and disappeared as quickly as she had come, amongst the others….. earlier Leoporello had gotten “carried away” with some mock-gratuitous characterisations  pertaining to “the tall ones” on the list (È la grande maestosa!), before being “snapped out of it” by Elvira in no uncertain terms!

Came the “peasant wedding” scene, and the chance for us to be introduced to the “common folk” couple Zerlina (Natasha Wilson), and Masetto (Joel Amosa), each endowed with engaging voices and winning stage presences, establishing their characters with great elan! I thought the Don’s laid-back manoeuverings regarding  Masetto didn’t sufficiently generate menace and tension between them to motivate the latter’s reaction as per his Ho capito, Signor si aria, though with his fiancée Zerlina, the sparks certainly flew, giving the couple’s subsequent reconciliation scenes plenty of dramatic (and in places suggestive) interest.

From that point, with the dramatis personae introduced, the story’s often vertiginous events whirled us along, with the Don entirely failing here to live up to his reputation as a seducer, being countered by the desperate actions of Donna Elvira (rescuing Zerlina from the seducer’s clutches and sparking off Donna Anna’s recognition of Giovanni as her would-be seducer at the opera’s beginning) and the eventual confrontation at the “Masker’s Ball” scene between the adversaries. The latter scene was, I thought, superbly staged by Sara Brodie’s creative team of Matthew Kereama, Meg Rollandi and Jo Kilgour, particularly its introduction, the sinister, “avenging angels” aspect of Elvira, Anna and the latter’s fiancée, Don Ottavio well-caught by their emergence from the street’s darkness, their appearance illumed from within by the loveliness of their singing at “Protegga il giusto cielo” – “May the just heavens protect us”, and their energies when denouncing Giovanni galvanising the latter into evasive action!

The Second Act afforded numerous delights – the spirited interaction between Giovanni and Leoporello at the beginning, Amanda Atlas’s touching, unforced  Ah taci, ingiusto core – “Ah, be quiet unjust heart”, and in response, Christian Thurston’s loveliest singing of the evening with Giovanni’s entreaty to Elvira, Discendi, o gioia bella – “Come down here, my lovely”, (Leoporello, disguised as the Don, amusingly “miming” the latter’s gesturings throughout). We then enjoyed the sequence involving Giovanni deceiving and then beating the unfortunate Masetto, leaving it to Zerlina to find her beset fiancée and comfort him with some age-old remedies, Natasha Wilson delightfully suggestive during her Vedrai, carino, se sei buonino, – “If you are good, my darling”. And the confusion generated by the trio of Anna, Elvira and Ottavio’s discovery of Leoporello disguised as the Don convincingly drove the action forward through the latter’s escape and to the welcome reflectiveness of Oliver Sewell’s (slightly shortened) Il mio Tesoro – “meanwhile, my treasure” (he had, as Ottavio, already contributed a lyrical, in places beautifully-floated first-Act Dalla sua pace – “Upon her peace of mind”), the second aria contrasting with Elvira’s impassioned Mi tradi quell’alma ingrata – “That ungrateful wretch betrayed me” soon after.

Of course, the overall focus of flight in the opera’s Second Act is towards the denoument of the Final Scene, though a “tipping-point” is the graveyard scene, where the Don, with a casual libidinous remark too many, activates his impending doom. I liked the eeriness of the opening scenario, strange lights and mist and statuesque figures, but wanted it to ambiently change in some way when the statue spoke. I could have imagined an even bigger and blacker voice, but as the statue Paul Whelan was much more in his element, though the impact of his “coming alive” was lessened for me through the figure being veiled, concealing both the moving lips and the nodding head. Then, allowing that scene’s culmination some stand-alone space, was the interim episode where Donna Anna again refused to marry Don Ottavio until a year had elapsed in the wake of her father’s death, Amelia Berry expressing the character’s angst and grief in beautifully fetching tones with Non mi dir, “Do not tell me” though like everybody else I’ve heard in this role, she had to work hard at the coloratura conclusion – what amazing singers Mozart must have had at his disposal to write for them like that!

So to one of opera’s greatest scenes, one which begins with what seem like more of the same from the Don, empty carousings and mindless debaucheries in the company of wrung-out revellers (the Don appearing to feast upon the “spent bodies” of his fellow-carousers as Leoporello helped himself to real food) when suddenly, with Donna Elvira’s scream came a rending asunder of the fabric of the work’s universe accompanied by a reckoning! Again, I thought the great orchestral chords (which we had heard in the Overture) missed an elemental quality, though Paul Whelan’s “Stone Guest” sounded suitably remorseless and sepulchral. As with so many assumptions I’ve seen of this role, I thought it just that bit too unrelievedly static in places to suggest the music’s inexorable advance – and while the hooded Goya-esque figure that bore down on and enfolded the Don at the end made an imposing impression I imagined it could have been altogether darker, even more sinister and elemental,  appearing to have been awakened from the void by the statue’s baleful summons.

However anticlimactic the epilogue after such a profound consignment of the guilty party to the nether regions, it did have the effect of returning the rest of us to our lives, laden with both a plethora of wind-born sound-memories and considerable food for thought. All in all, I’ve reflected since that for a new opera company to bring off such a production and performance first up was a stellar achievement due to committed effort by all concerned. The Wellington Opera Trust would, as well, have been heartened by the public response to this venture – may the company go from strength to strength after such a promising beginning!

 

 

Sleep-walking as Rhona Fraser’s Days Bay Opera returns with a delightful Bellini masterpiece

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Opera in a Days Bay Garden

La Sonnambula (Bellini)

Conductor: Mark Carter; producer and director: Rhona Fraser

Cast: Natasha Wilson (Lisa), Morgan-Andrew King (Alessio), Rhona Fraser (Teresa), Elizabeth Mandeno (Amina), Lila Crichton (Notary), Andrew Grenon (Elvino), James Ioelu (Count Rodolfo).
Chorus: Jemma Chester, Emily Yeap, Sinéad Keane, Olivia Stewart, Simon Hernyak, Samuel McKeever, Patrick Shanahan, Alica Carter

Canna House, Days Bay, Wellington

Friday 12 February, 5:30 pm

In common with most of the world, Bellini is no longer a famous composer in New Zealand; his operas are now rarely performed. Of Bellini’s operas only Norma gets much attention. I’m only aware of Canterbury Opera’s production of it in 2002, since its last professional production by a touring company in 1928.

However, in 2016 Rhona Fraser’s Opera in a Days Bay Garden was responsible for a somewhat rarer Bellini opera – the story that Shakespeare had used in Romeo and Juliet –I Capuleti e i Montecchi; which was staged by Auckland Studio Opera in 2018.

After two productions in 2017 – Handel’s Theodora and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin – Rhona and her husband have been away for two years, in Germany. They returned last year and Rhona seems determined to resume the professional production of interesting operas. Her enterprise has been very missed.

Hers is just one of the small opera groups around the country which, very unevenly, offer opportunities for the public to discover opera and for advanced, mainly young singers, to gain first-class experience. None of these small companies, some, like Days Bay, fully professional, has attracted financial or other significant help from central or local government and few have lasted more than a couple of years.

If anything, there is less amateur or small-scale professional opera in New Zealand than there was 20 years ago, when, for example, both the Victoria University School of Music and the then Wellington Polytechnic Conservatorium produced an opera every year; now Victoria alone produces an opera every other year.

La sonnambula’s history 
Now, Days Bay Opera has brought one of Bellini’s most popular operas, La sonnambula, back to life, though this time, Auckland Opera Studio has been first with it, in 2011, The last previous production was in 1881. More interesting still is the fact that Sonnambula was just the second opera, after Donizetti’s Daughter of the Regiment, to be performed in New Zealand: in 1862. Adrienne Simpson’s splendid history of opera in New Zealand (Opera’s farthest Frontier) records these and a couple of now forgotten English operas in the amateurish English Opera Troupe’s historic productions in the make-shift Royal Princess Theatre in Dunedin.

And the book records that in 1863 the company brought Sonnambula to Wellington: absolutely the first opera in Wellington.

Fine, warm weather offered a delightful environment for the first (and the other two) performances on the lawn below the house and narrow terraces on which the audience sat, The tree-filled garden surrounded by beech forest create what might be the most unique opera setting in the world.

The opera’s staging, created by Rhona Fraser, was contemporary, with a limited number of seats and other props, and with costumes that spoke more of the attitudes and situations of the characters than of their period. The orchestra comprised thirteen players, led by Anne Loeser and conducted by Mark Carter, was somewhat behind and to the left of the audienec; inevitably, it was  bit remote for some of the audience.

During the brief prelude an ill-tempered Lisa (Natasha Wilson) is tidying and cleaning impatiently, though her vivid singing and acting showed a more charming character. But that was not in relation to any member of the chorus; especially, she flaunted contempt for the heedless Alessio, rich-voiced baritone Morgan-Andrew King, who gained attention at the recent Whanganui Opera School. She rejects his love: any qualms about his beard or rude appearance must be set aside in our age of unorthodoxy.

The coming marriage between Amina and Elvino is heralded by the arrival of the Notary (the impressive Samoan bass Lila Crichton).

The opera really took off with the arrival of Amina (Elizabeth Mandeno), and her first big aria, “Come per me sereno” and the cabaletta “Sovra il sen la man” rejoicing in her expected marriage to Elvino. His voice, with his moving greeting “Perdona, o mia diletta”, picking up later with “Prendi: a’nel ti dono”, was agreeable though his demeanour might have fallen short of his propertied standing; however, he portrayed a credibly decent chap. Though one might wonder, as the story evolves, how someone so improbably sensitive could have gained his reputation in the village.

Rodolfo, the Count (James Ioelu), arrives, presenting an imposing demeanour and vocal confidence, all the signs of small-time nobility which he shows through fundamental decency.

The ensemble of villagers has its significant role throughout. In an interesting later episode the villagers in an effective evocation tell Rodolfo of the phantom that locals see at midnight, “Udite, a fosca cielo”,

Elvino and misplaced jealousy
Scene I of Act I ends with Elvino, prompted by the Count making flattering gestures to Amina, confessing to Amina his uncontrollable jealousy, his “Son geloso del zefiro errante” was a curious revelation.

Even though Amina convinces Elvino that his jealousy is misplaced and peace reigns, in scene ii she sleep-walks into Rodolfo’s room at Lisa’s inn (here an AirBNB), and there’s a tentative attraction between them. Amina’s entry, sleep-walking, changes everything; she sees Rodolfo as Elvino and throws herself at him but he gets out before Elvino and the villagers arrive. However, there is Amina, now in Rodolfo’s bed, and no sleep-walking excuse (they’ve never heard of somnambulism) persuades any of the villagers that things are different from what they seem.

It was a splendid scene. Even if suspended at a very high level of improbability and absurdity, it was both dramatic and funny. Throughout, Amina’s foster-mother Teresa (Rhona Fraser), exhibiting calm sanity and in excellent voice in all her several episodes, remains faithful to her, even, one supposes, if Amina were guilty.

At the beginning of the second scene of Act II, Natasha Wilson, as Lisa, plays a vividly stylish part, now seeing herself as the likely winner, able to capture Elvino for herself, and her short, tight white dress illuminated her expectations; she adorns it with a white veil.

The suspense, awaiting Rodolfo’s explanation to the villagers and specifically to Elvino about the nature of somnambulism is protracted. It’s clinched by Amina’s walking along a riskless board between rows of audience (instead of on a fragile plank above the mill-wheels on the river).   The last scene eventually brings an understanding of “sleep-walking” and Amina’s singing at the end is plaintive and moving.

Though sung in Italian, the notes in the programme were sufficient for those new to the work to understand – in any case, the Italian from all singers was admirably clear. Accepting the limitations fundamental to the out-doors setting and various sound and production constraints, the entire performance was admirable and completely enjoyable. Rhona Fraser is warmly welcome back in New Zealand.

If you missed this one, don’t hesitate to book early for the next.

For the record, these are the operas Days Bay has produced so far:

2010   The Marriage of Figaro
2010   The Journey to Rheims  (Rossini)
2012   Alcina (Handel)
2012   Maria Stuarda  (Donizetti)
2013   Cosi fan tutte
2013   L’oca del Cairo (Mozart)
2014   Der Rosenkavalier
2015   Calisto (Cavalli)
2016   Agrippina (Handel)
2016   I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Bellini)
2017   Theodora (Handel)
2017   Eugene Onegin
2021   La sonnambula

NZ Opera’s “Eight Songs for a Mad King” a brilliant, Janus-faced experience

Posted on by Peter Mechen

NZ Opera presents
EIGHT SONGS FOR A MAD KING

Music by Peter Maxwell Davies
Texts by Randolph Stow and George III

The King: Robert Tucker

The Musicians: Stroma New Music Ensemble
Hamish McKeich (conductor)
Rachel Fuller (keyboard/s)
Luca Manghi (flute)
Mark Cookson/Patrick Barry (clarinets)
Yuka Eguchi (violin)
Heather Lewis/Robert Ibell (‘cellos)
Jeremy Fitzsimons (percussion)

Director – Thomas de Mallet Burgess
Production Designer – Robin Rawstorne
Assistant Conductor – Timothy Carpenter
Repetiteur – Rachel Fuller

RNZB Dance Centre, Wellington

Monday 2nd March 2020

Firstly, some background for the curious – the “King” of this concert’s title is King George III of England, who suffered from mental illness throughout his adult life, eventually being removed from his throne and kept under lock and key in Windsor Castle. Over his final decade he lost his eyesight and hearing, and fell prey to frequent manic episodes, by all accounts babbling endlessly as he slid into dementia, and eventually dying in 1820 at the age of eighty-one. The King owned a number of caged bullfinches, and during his confinement became obsessed with teaching his birds how to sing tunes played by a mechanical organ or music-box. This instrument, along with a note identifying its provenance as owned and used by the unfortunate Monarch, came to the notice, almost two hundred years afterwards, of Australian author and poet Randolph Stow, who was inspired to create a series of poems, parts of which were drawn from recollections of witnesses to the King’s outpourings, and directly illustrated his pitiable condition. British avant-garde composer Peter Maxwell Davies set these poems to music, writing with the vocal talents of one Roy Hart in mind, a virtuoso South African singer who had become interested in exploring the range and limits of the human voice.

At the time of the work’s premiere, in April 1969, Davies fully expected “Eight Songs” to remain a “one-off” for Hart, never imagining anybody else being able or even wanting to perform the piece. He was therefore surprised and delighted at how the work soon took on a life of its own, becoming a classic example of a new “music-theatre” genre, which redeployed (and often subverted) existing performance conventions. Davies himself recorded the work with his own virtuoso avant-garde music-group, “The Fires of London”, though sadly for posterity, not with Roy Hart, the creator of the  role – fortunately the soloist on the 1971 Unicorn recording, Julius Eastman, was a worthy successor.

In his notes accompanying the recording, the composer stated that his intention was “to leave open the question – is the persecuted protagonist “Mad George III” or someone who thinks he is George?”. Naturally the work will forever be associated with the monarch in question, given that the song texts contain numerous actual quotations of the King’s words – the novelist Frances (Fanny) Burney was Queen Charlotte’s lady-in-waiting for five years, and during that time she recorded both events and utterances in which the King was central (as an example, the whole of the text of the sixth song, “The Counterfeit” is transcribed by Randolph Stow from Burney’s diary). But the suggestion that the character of the King might also represent any such deluded individual straightaway lifts the work out of its singular and historical confines and into the realm of general human experience, of which mental illness seems in our time to be an increasingly common affliction. Davies reminded us in his notes that until relatively recent times, “madness” was something to ridicule, and in more severe cases isolate, often in the most inhumane and nightmarish conditions; and while treatments and care-environments are nowadays less primitive, the stresses and inbalances that, if ignored, can lead to mental illness are still very much with us.

New Zealand Opera’s innovative production of the work gives audiences not one but two separate and different views of the terrain in all senses of the word – the mindscape of an extremely disturbed individual, firstly (as happened in my particular case) from the “outside” 0f the performance space, visible from the outside through windows, and audible by means of headsets for each audience member. So, first time round, we were seated in the open air, cannily underneath a tarpaulin in a space next to the building in which the opera was being performed – and through the windows we could glimpse the singer performing his on-stage peregrinations, and via the excellent headphones we clearly heard his cocktail mix of song, sprechgesang and random, wide-ranging vocalisings, along with the constant instrumental collaborations from the ensemble – the whole thing was an “outsider’s view”, a process that was observed, but without direct involvement, something that one could easily distance oneself from at a moment’s notice if one felt so inclined.

What a difference after one was ushered inside for the second performance (each took about thirty minutes), to sit right next to the stage (which was a kind of “catwalk” extending the whole width of the audience-space, and with seating on both sides)! Here, we straightaway felt “drawn in” by the immediacies, the sometimes startling proximities , and the “sharing-the-space” phenomenon that can make great theatre (and music-making, of course!). Singer Robert Tucker, looking none the worse for wear after having already given one performance of the piece appeared in close-up somewhat disconcertingly (a) youthful, and (b) dapper, not quite in accordance with my preconceived “image” of a deranged George III, but nevertheless exuding a kind of “authority” from the outset, entering quietly but portentously, and sitting at one end of the catwalk activating a “Newton’s Cradle”, waiting for the first of the instrumental explosions whose force and violence punctuate the music-drama.

In some performances the instrumentalists are positioned in separate giant birdcages, each player representing one of the King’s bullfinches he attempted to teach to sing – here the players weren’t thus confined, but sat as an ensemble at one end of the platform, the singer alternating his attentions between them, his audience(s) and wherever his mind’s fancy took him. And the “double audience” added a dimension to the singer’s confusions, his awareness of interiors and exteriors pathetically expressed amidst his tirades by glances through the windows at an “outside world”. Despite the close physical proximities, the venue’s largely empty spaces behind where we sat and its ample acoustic seemed to me to underline the essential solitude of the King’s existence. His interactions with his musicians and the audience, despite their sometimes startlingly visceral nature seemed all fantasy. “I am weary of this fate – I am alone” sang the character at the conclusion of one of the songs.

The performance in every way was astonishing – Robert Tucker as the King “owned” his character in a way that explored a gamut of human emotion, engaging our sympathies at his “plight” as readily as activating our discomfiture with his volatility. The demands of the role pushed the concept of “singing” into realms of expression which transcended the idea of the voice as a musical instrument as we might generally accept it through what the composer aptly termed “terrifying virtuosity”. But in appearing not as any kind of caricatured asylum-bound lunatic, whose tirades were neither extreme, nor “onslaught-like” as were some of the performers in the role I’ve witnessed on film, Tucker’s delineation of the character always seemed intensely human, in places touchingly bringing out the tendernesses of some of his utterances (as observed by Fanny Burney in her diary), if at times squeamish-inducing (as throughout his “close-up-and-personal” interactions with a hapless flutist, during “The Lady-in-Waiting”, brilliantly carried off by both singer and player). His anger, too, spectacularly vented at one infamous moment in the piece, mirrored a kind of reality of frustration, an impulse in tragic accord with human behaviour gone awry. This “one-of-us” aspect suggested  by the production brought home , to my mind, the “for whom the bell tolls” aspect of our human existence, so that our “relief” at the King’s eventual departure was singed with spots of pity and sorrow and even horror at the finality of the concluding percussive juggernaut, which consigned his heart-rending cries to oblivion.

Conductor Hamish McKeich led the Stroma Ensemble unerringly through a veritable thicket of coruscations, appearing to never miss a beat, shirk an uproar, or delineate a disorder! – and in parallel to these subversions the players sounded the lyrical moments, the dance-tunes and the whimsical parodies (a gorgeous two-step take-off of Handel’s music at one point) with delicious elan, as well as bringing to bear their array of bird-song devices in a veritable “chaos of delight” (alas, Charles Darwin’s words, not mine!). The accordance of theatrical movement with the music was exemplary throughout, the jaunty introduction to “To be sung on the Water” followed by beautiful ‘cello solos evoking a boat-ride down the river, one of a number of enduring memories of the performance.

Director Thomas de Mallet Burgess would have been well-pleased with both the powerful overall impact and the finely-crafted detailed focus his musicians brought to this production. Its dual-performance aspect gives it a singular kind of appeal, no matter in what order one experiences the “outside/inside” presentation, be it a savouring of expectation beforehand, or food for thought afterwards! – It plays again tonight (Wednesday 4th March) at 8:30pm, and then at the same time on both the 5th and 7th later this week at the RNZB Dance Centre next to the MFC in Wakefield St., Wellington.

 

 

 

 

Poulenc’s “La Vox Humaine” given a stunning performance

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Francis POULENC – The Human Voice (“La voix humaine”)
Words by Jean Cocteau (English translation by Johana Arnold and Barbara Paterson)

Barbara Paterson (soprano)
Gabriela Glapska (piano)

Tabitha Arthur (director)
Meredith Dooley (costumier)
Isadora Lao (lighting designer and operator)

{Suite} Gallery, 241 Cuba St., Te Aro, Wellington

Friday 31st January 2020

As we took our seats in the confined spaces of Cuba St.’s Suite gallery, pianist Gabriela Glapska was playing the music of Satie, beautifully coalescing the sounds of the composer’s Gymnopedies, the dance figurations wrought by the pianist almost as “held” as if depicted on a Grecian urn and the tones as “imagined” as they were real – “heard melodies are sweet, but…..” – here, time seemed to be slowed down, every note taking on a suspenseful, becalmed feeling, so much so that I thought Debussy’s Clair de lune which followed broke the spell that had been created (perhaps one of the Gnossiennes may have carried us further along, and into the ensuing silence more appropriately) …………. however, after the piano fell silent I was drawn into  the breathless poise of the stage setting’s opening, with singer Barbara Paterson (as “Elle”, the show’s only on-stage performer) having entered, the character tremulously waiting for what must have been a prearranged telephone call, the silences deliciously redolent with expectation and anxiety, impatience and foreboding.

Our viewing space’s angular intimacy was augmented by asymmetrically-placed ladders and a structural pillar for a centrepiece to boot, besides the art displayed on the gallery walls, Megan Archer’s depictions of what looked like entwined, almost convoluted limbs in various “clinches” underpinning the claustrophobia of the surroundings. The lighting seemed at first impersonal a la a hotel suite or utilitarian meeting-space, but as the interactive play between Elle and her telephone began to take shape, the hues and intensities of the lights responded to certain influences, reflecting the passing of time, the changing of the day and Elle’s state of mind as she struggled to make sense of her interaction with the person (her ex-lover) who had called her.

This was the scenario for a performance of Francis Poulenc’s setting of fellow-countryman Jean Cocteau’s monodrama, La vox humaine, the opera following the original play after a gap of 30 years. In each case a woman is onstage alone throughout, speaking on a telephone with her “ex” from whom she has not long parted. Poulenc worked with the role’s creator, soprano Denise Duval, in adapting Jean Cocteau’s work to operatic form, the composer reducing the original to a more malleable length, and writing for an orchestra as the accompaniment, and, in fact stating at one point that “the work should bathe in the greatest orchestral sensuality”. Duval was the composer’s favourite singer, and the pair seemed ideally matched to tackle what Poulenc described as “a musical confession” – in fact the composer was to describe later how the pair wept together “page-by-page, bar-by-bar” in what he called “a diary of our suffering” – both composer and singer had recently undergone emotional crises, obviously bringing their experiences to bear on these outpourings. Despite Poulenc’s remark concerning orchestral sensuality (I have listened to several performances with orchestral accompaniment) I thought Gabriela Glapska’s piano-playing here beautifully abstracted the colour in the orchestral score and gave us an immediacy of interaction between Elle and her “ex” whose direct quality had a definite and focused impact of their own – and singer and piano could and did, in those intimate spaces of Cuba St’s Suite venue, run a gamut of radiant, searing, euphoric and despairing emotion which made a proper foil for the myriads of more lyrical and intimate moments.

Though the opera was given in English on this occasion, I’m going to briefly revert to the work’s original language in describing this performance by singer and pianist as a veritable tour de force! (incidentally, this was a translation made, and previously performed, by an American soprano, Johana Arnold, who is in fact the mother of THIS performance’s “Elle”!) The opening “charged” silences during which Barbara Paterson compellingly held our attention while waiting for her telephone to ring were nothing short of riveting, her aspect conveying to us both her vulnerability and her determination, with movements affecting a measure of command and confidence but all too readily revealing tension and uncertainty when put under pressure, responding with bird-like rapidity to the telephone’s ringing and various unwanted external interruptions.  Both her face and form displayed remarkable aspects of grace and fluidity throughout (such as her almost coquettish teasing of her “ex” in places, as if either forgetting or choosing to ignore their actual disfunctionality) when contrasted with her rapid, almost furtive reactions to moments of shock or conflict, often succeeded by sequences of deflation and despair as if she suddenly felt drained of energy and will. Incidentally, I was pleased there was a “proper” telephone, and thought the interactions of the singer with the medium totally in keeping with telephonic use at the time – the interruptions of the singer’s conversation with her “ex” by somebody using a “party line”, though outside present-day telephonic experience, are nevertheless significant here, as they underline and indeed symbolise the overall breakdown of the relationship and its presently fraught concourse.

Always Paterson’s movements and expressions synchronised beautifully with both the words and the unheard voices of the people who talked with her, the telephone operator at the very beginning, the party-line neighbour, and, of course, her “ex”, whose status as such we didn’t really “pick up” on until that lump-in-the-throat moment where Elle plaintively responded to a request from him for a “bag” of what she called “your letters and mine” with the submissive words “You can send for it when you like”, conveying the “hurt” of the request all the more poignantly with the phrase “I had no idea you wanted them so quickly” , and of course when contrasted with the playful sensuality and kittenish aspect that entered her description for him (all a fabrication) of what she was wearing at that time.

The singer’s own arresting looks and engaging stage personality couldn’t help but sharpen the focus of our conjecture generated by her character’s relationship’s obvious dissolution – and throughout all of the possible scenarios were adroitly “brushed into” the opera’s action by the production, momentarily reflecting the attitudes and behaviours of both characters and as quickly superseded by other possibilities. Volatilities were suggested on both sides, with Elle in places abruptly and passionately responding to both her own realisations of her conflicted state and her ex’s “anger” in places as a result of things she had said, her more agitated irruptions sometimes ending in tears.  She’s shown as a romantic dreamer, whether by nature or by artifice or both – at one point the mood created by some exquisite pianissimo singing was broken by her own realisation that she was in a dream of denial, while the world pursued its own course, leaving her stranded. Her attempts to preserve the vestiges of an old intimacy was given a wonderful sensuality in places, no more so when she used the piano as if it were her lover’s body, stretching out upon it at one point as if reimagining her words “when we were in bed and I had my head in that small place against your chest”, making the intrusion of the loud music from the ‘phone all the more symptomatic. The subsequent “confession” to him that “what is really hard to bear is the second night, and the third….” is the most enduring impression of all, the mood evoked by singer and pianist readily bringing pathos as we empathise with her predicament, the empty despair of “and getting up and going out, and to go – where?” unequivocally laying all of our emotions bare…….

Very great credit to all concerned regarding this production, the performers’ sterling efforts backed up steadfastedly by Tabitha Arthur’s fluid, naturalistic and unobtrusive direction and Isadora Lao’s sensitively-wrought illuminations. Such finely-crafted and deeply-committed presentations deserve the widest possible currency, as well as the heartfelt thanks of those of us fortunate enough to enjoy what was, for this audience member, a profoundly moving experience

Further performances –
NZ Academy of Fine Arts, 1 Queens Wharf, Wellington
27 – 29 February 2020
6pm
BUY TICKETS

 

Helen Moulder and Sir Jon Trimmer warmly invite all of us to “meet Karpovsky” at Wellington’s Circa Theatre

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Circa Theatre and Willow Productions present:
MEETING KARPOVSKY
A dance-drama devised and written by Helen Moulder and Sir Jon Trimmer
Directed by Sue Rider

Sylvia Morton (Helen Moulder)
Alexander Karpovsky (Sir Jon Trimmer)

Music by Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Adam, JS Bach, Hérold (arr.Oliver), Weber (arr.Berlioz), Lincke

Original design – David Thornley (stage) / Philip Dexter (lighting)
Lighting – Deb McGuire
Sound recording – Joe Hayes

Circa Theatre, Wellington

Wednesday, 6th November 2019 (until 16th November)

I thought, both for myself and for the readers of “Middle C”, I’d explore the colourful genesis of Circa’s current production “Meeting Karpovsky”, as it was something I for one knew very little about, having not seen the original 2002 production. It all came about through actress Helen Moulder wanting to bring to fruition a long-held desire to be able to dance with Sir Jon Trimmer, the doyen of New Zealand ballet dancers – she then shared her idea for a “woman admirer meets famous dancer” scenario with Cathy Downes, director of the Court Theatre in Christchurch, who encouraged her to get in touch with Sir Jon and get something going. So, late in 2001 she contacted Trimmer, and to her delight received an interested and enthusiastic reply, as she did also from Australian director Sue Rider with whom she had previously worked (and whom Court Theatre were keen to have working there). So, with the participants, director, and venue sorted, and technical support, funding applications and projected dates set in place, what was then urgently needed was the actual play!

Gradually the scenario, along the lines of the original idea, took shape between actor, dancer and director, the title evolving from “The Woman and the Dancer”, through “Sylvia Fantastique” to “Meeting Karpovsky” (a fictitious name and character), the woman talking and the dancer communicating with “mime, dance and stillness”. Pictures of Trimmer (as Karpovsky) in “his most famous roles” were used to flesh out both the life-story of the woman,  Sylvia Morton, and the career of the dancer. Additional elements, such as the numerous boxes piled up in the room, and containing things such as a willow-pattern tea-set, found their place in the presentation’s unfolding. And, of course, there was the music, with excerpts from the ballets depicted in the posters taking pride of place in turn with other excerpts occasioned by different references, for example to the ballerina Anna Pavlova.

Reviews at the time were unhesitating in their praise of the presentation – worth quoting is that from the Listener of November 23rd 2002: –  “Moulder is remarkable as the helpless, hopeless Sylvia. She has a luminous quality and imbues the unworldly Sylvia with a rare beauty and charm. Trimmer plays Alexander Karpovsky with delicate grace. He glides silently, elegantly around the stage, tender as a love poem and replete with compassion and kindness. Together, they are magnificent: she a jittery, wounded gazelle gambolling alongside his sure dance of love and understanding”.

Moulder and Trimmer then toured New Zealand with the play in 2003/4, the production winning “The Listener Best Play” and Moulder the “Chapman Tripp Actress of the Year” awards. The production returned to Circa and then to some North Island venues in 2012 before touring the whole country with “Arts on Tour” in 2015.  This current Circa season of eleven performances is to commemorate Sir Jon Trimmer’s 80th birthday. From what we saw this evening no-one could guess as to the play’s extended performance history, everything seeming freshly-minted, and wrought out of impulses whose histories appeared to us to enliven and quicken the senses rather than weigh down and bedraggle the responses or blunt their edges.

Technically, the play is superbly presented, firstly at the very outset and then frequently and startlingly punctuated with disturbingly visceral sequences of sounds of trains passing, as it were “through the middle of the house”, a technical tour de force of evocation, though one felt the intention was more a psychological than a physical assault, akin to an inward cry of terror or scream of pain inflicted by a recurring memory or nightmare. Otherwise the darkness seems to be cultivated as a benign element rather than anything forbidding, especially as it brings the dancer, Alexander Karpovsky, into the room where Sylvia Morton is engaged in an endless struggle with her minutae, her memories and her demons.

Helen Moulder’s comprehensive ownership of her character draws us inexorably into Sylvia’s chaotic world criss-crossed with invisible strands she spontaneously activates, which in turn resonate others, often with through-line gentleness, but at other times with disconcerting, even panic-stricken switches of impulse. These invisible strands are woven through and around each of the large posters of Karpovsky dressed for his most famous roles, which Sylvia refers to in turn during the play’s action – thus she equates her hero Karpovsky with the charismatic Herr Drosselmeyer from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker”, compares her relationship with her own daughter Anna to that of the Widow Simone’s and her daughter’s from “La Fille Mal Gardee”, sees the character of Albrecht, in “Giselle” as similar to that of Charles, her husband, who betrayed her, and identifies with the pain and sufferings of  the puppet Petroushka in Stravinsky’s eponymous ballet.

Sir Jon Trimmer’s equally remarkable assumption of the all-but-silent role of Alexander Karpovsky created the perfect foil for Moulder’s unilaterally besieged characterisation of the beleaguered Sylvia. His aspect was at once the personification of some kind of spontaneous extra-terrestrial whim, and a true figure for the ages, albeit one entirely without a baleful or sinister aspect – a “quality of stillness” instead conveyed his importance, if at first in a truly open-ended way. Dancers are, of course used to such meaningful conveyance, deprived as they are of the use of speech, and, like artists of mime, having to conjure meaning without words. Trimmer’s was a veritable “master-class” in this respect, including that enviable art of creating unprompted impulse, a quality unique and fresh (one, of course, that’s highly prized across all artistic disciplines). For this reason I felt the show’s single flaw was the “one word” uttered by the dancer – perhaps as an idea it seemed to have its own special impact on the process of Sylvia’s emotional journey, but in situ I felt more “deflated” than galvanised by the “alien” sound of the dancer’s voice, and found myself wishing that a simple gesture had been used instead – I thought it a blip of a distraction rather than a revelation.

Having gotten that very idiosyncratic judgement off my chest (I’m certain this aspect of the play would have been “put to the sword” on many an occasion by all and sundry – and by dint of its presence has obviously survived sharper anatomisings than my relatively blunt critical instrument could ever furnish!) I’m bound to say that it mattered hardly a whit to my overall reaction to the play. I thought it all touched greatness in so many places, not the least in conveying the dichotomy of having a character “imagine” and bring into being another character who then appears to step outside the boundaries of the original conception, all by way of portraying an “opening up” of understandings and strengthening of feelings. I could readily relate to it all, and imagine that others would also have invariably been touched in some way by this exceedingly gentle in places but at times surprisingly powerful piece of theatre – my thanks and congratulations to all concerned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enthralling and disturbing – NZ Opera’s take on Britten’s “The Turn of the Screw”

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Opera presents:
BENJAMIN BRITTEN – The Turn of the Screw
(libretto by Myfawny Piper, after the novella by Henry James)

Conductor: Holly Mathieson
Director: Thomas de Mallet Burgess
Designer: Tracy Grant Lord
Lighting: Matthew Marshall
Assistant Director: Eleanor Bishop

Cast: Anna Leese (Governess)
Jared Holt (Prologue/Peter Quint)
Madeleine Pierard (Miss Jessel)
Patricia Wright (Mrs Grose)
Alexa Harwood (Flora)
Alexandros Swallow (Miles)

Members of Orchestra Wellington
Leader: Justine Cormack
Piano/celesta: David Kelly

The Opera House, Wellington

Thursday, October 3rd 2019
(Wellington: Saturday. 5th October

Auckland: 18th, 20th, 23rd October)

 

It’s difficult to think of another opera whose overall theme, story-line and characterisations are more interlaced by ambiguities as Britten’s The Turn of the Screw –  the story on which the opera is based, Henry James’ novella of the same name, carries its own versions of much the same kinds of imponderables, though the opera seems, if anything, to further complicate and intensify the issues. The story tells of a young woman securing a job as governess of two children in a remote setting, only to feel with increasing conviction that the ghosts of a former valet and governess in the house are attempting to “possess” the minds of her young charges for their own purposes.

A critic in 1898 called Henry James’ work “A deliberate, powerful and horribly successful study of the magic of evil”, a judgement that has since been channelled into various critical streams regarding both novella and opera – firstly, that the governess is protecting the children from evil as presented by the ghosts; secondly, that the governess is “imagining” the ghosts, and is thus herself a danger to the children; and thirdly, that the story is purposefully ambiguous in not allowing the reader to decide between these viewpoints. The opera seems to uphold the third course, by ultimately refusing to ascribe blame for the narrative’s ultimate tragedy of the ending to any one cause or party, and leaving us with James’s own dictum, “Make the reader think the evil, make him think it for himself, and (one is) released from weak specifications”.

Mfawny Piper’s libretto gives the ghosts (both mute presences in James’s story) their own voices, well-wrought inventions which enable some background to the past – in particular, these “flesh out” something of the housekeeper Mrs Gros’s knowledge and judgement of each of the characters. She expresses this to the governess, most damningly of the former valet Peter Quint who, in the housekeeper‘s words “made free” with everyone, including one of the children, the boy Miles. Productions of the opera have, since the premiere in 1954, not unexpectedly moved from presenting an out-and-out “ghost” story, and “gone with the times”, by turns reinterpreting the work with Freudian depictions of a frustrated spinster bringing a fevered imagination to bear upon the scenario, fresh awarenesses of issues such as sexual exploitation and corruption of children, and gay “subtexts”, one example of the latter citing the celebrated recitation of Latin nouns by one of the children to the governess, as a “schoolboy list of phallic expressions”.

To its credit, the current production avoids any gross representation of any of those standpoints (as some ego-ridden contemporary opera presentations of any of the standard repertoire mercilessly and deleteriously indulge themselves in), and instead hints at possibilities, leaving its audiences in a state of wonderment (a version of James’s “leaving it to the reader”), which personalises reactions to the details of the events and their outcomes, thus creating far more interesting theatrical situations for people to “take away” from and ponder what they’ve witnessed. An example of this was the scene in the second act where the governess (Anna Leese) sits with the half-undressed Miles (Alexandros Swallow) on his bed, the young woman bent on competing for the boy’s attentions with the marauding ghost of Peter Quint (Jared Holt). The governess’s obvious “longing” for the affections of the children’s guardian (as witness her demeanour when previously  reading aloud what she had written in a letter to him) has sublimated into a version of the same longing for affection from Miles  –  here the dialogue suggested more the talk of lovers who need something from one another than of adult-and-child interaction, yet with the physical boundaries between the two (just) maintained.

In this respect, Anna Leese’s portrayal of the emotionally constrained and psychologically besieged governess – in thrall to a man (her employer, the children’s guardian) she has never met but is bonded to by a sense of duty permeated with her own Molotov-cocktail mix of fantasies involving his approval and her own self-worth – was incredibly finely-crafted. Together with her director, Thomas de Mallet Burgess, she built with great subtlety and whole-heartedness a character with endless depths of longing and anxiety, her voice running the gamut of expressiveness as regards its different versions of beauty and presence. Her singing, though not always entirely clear in terms of diction, gave voice to a character whose sincerity we might not have doubted but whose capacity for self-knowledge and decisive action seemed difficult to fathom, right up to the work’s unnerving conclusion. We left the theatre still carrying a relationship with her that resonated in a somewhat disturbing and unresolved manner – and within our consciousness of what we’ve witnessed echoed most hauntingly that phrase of W.B. Yeats’ from his poem “The Second Coming”, here given by Mfawny Piper to the ghosts to sing separately and together, pertaining to the children, but ultimately to all of us  – “The ceremony of innocence is drowned”.

The governess’s dramatic foil was Patricia Wright’s sonorously-delivered assumption of Mrs Grose, the housekeeper, a long-time servant at the house – a plainly-spoken, simple woman, great of heart, but conscious of her position and lack of education in comparison to the governess. Both singers negotiated this governess/housekeeper relationship with great pliancy and spontaneity, conveying the fragility of things at the point near the story’s climax where the housekeeper took the girl Flora away as if losing faith in the governess’s ability to protect her. I thought Wright’s announcing to the latter (with what seemed like some strangely grim satisfaction) that her letter to the children’s guardian was not delivered, had all the portents of doom required, even if her character at that point  was only a messenger.

The ghosts, Jared Holt’s darkly dangerous Peter Quint, and Madeleine Pierard’s compelling, positively gothic Miss Jessel, were introduced as “presences” long before they actually appeared – their silhouetting on a diaphanous stage-curtain at first underlined their “in the mind” aspect, but their presence was soon made all too tangible at subsequent moments. Jared Holt’s melismatic calls of Miles’ name produced a “frisson” of compelling unease, while Madeleine Pierard’s relatively darker but still riveting tones summonsing Flora gave a more sinister impression of rising from below (perhaps from the lake waters in the house’s grounds).  Holt relished the quasi-heroic music of self-portrait, his words styling him as “ the riderless horse” or the “hero-highwayman”, images associated with unfettered action and feral freedom – Pierard’s darker, more piteous music tied in with her character’s equating with “wronged women” of earlier times. The two ghosts brought matters to a head between one another superbly in their evocation of a shared past, one in which Quint was the wrongdoer and Miss Jessel his victim, uniting only in their common purpose of seeking “a friend”, Quint desiring Miles and Miss Jessel wanting Flora.

No praise can be too high for the on-stage work of the young singers playing the roles of the opera’s two children here in Wellington – Alexa Harwood’s Flora and Alexandros Swallow’s Miles. Neither could be faulted regarding what seemed to me like their total identification with the characters, as if they had each stepped into their respective roles and filled them out from within. Musically, too, each sang like both the angels and the mischief-makers one knows children are capable of appearing to be, all the while. Alexa Harwood’s Flora most convincingly wove her stage movements into the fabric of her singing performance, while Alexandros Swallow, his Miles more often the follower than the leader, matched his stage-sister at every turn, both through gesture and voice, bringing also his considerable theatrical skills to precisely-honed fruition in miming complex piano-playing patterns most convincingly. Each in their different ways conveyed the effect of the drama’s potential for harm upon his or her own character, to profound effect – remarkable performances!

I feel compelled to make the point that, though the opera was sung in English, a good deal of the text I found hard to follow, almost always when the voices were under pressure or singing in ensemble – a number of people I spoke to afterwards confirmed that they would have appreciated surtitles to better serve their understanding of the plot’s finer detail. The clearest enunciation came from Jared Holt in a piano-accompanied Prologue (the opening of a “written account” of the governess’s story) which he delivered in the role of a narrator. In my experience this loss of clarity is a common phenomenon with higher solo voices singing in the vernacular in a large venue – so, in making the difference for listeners between (a) a merely-pleasant-sounding and (b) a “made-more- intelligible” utterance I feel this would be something that everybody would surely want – having said all of this, I find myself wondering how singers themselves feel (felt?) about it?

Initially I was disappointed that the chamber ensemble accompanying the singers was set so far back on stage, almost as a kind of “noises off” accompaniment, having enjoyed so much the vivid interactions between voices and prominently-placed instruments in various recordings I listened to – in the course of the opera’s action I modified this viewpoint to an enjoyment and appreciation of the atmospheric ebb and flow of Britten’s scoring throughout the work. There was certainly no real lessening of impact during the opera’s most forceful moments, once our ears had gotten “the pitch of the hall”, and the quieter, more distant moments had a tragic beauty whose irony gave even more of an edge to the story’s overall impact.

The instrumental playing (largely members of Orchestra Wellington, led by violinist Justine Cormack), and complemented by pianist David Kelly (whose stylish solo accompanying Jared Holt’s narration opened the work) was directed with precision, verve and enthralling atmosphere by New Zealand-born conductor Holly Mathieson, whose work I hope to hear again before too long. I did want to SEE the players play, but as I’ve said the scenario called for a different conception which worked powerfully in its own way.

I couldn’t fathom at first why Alexandros Swallow (who sang Miles) was the first to appear on stage at the work’s beginning UNTIL he sat down at the piano and APPEARED to begin to play the aforementioned solo that accompanied the tenor to begin the opera – and then I remembered he was to play the piano in one of the opera’s later scenes (Variation XIII)  – both sequences were superbly played by the ACTUAL pianist David Kelly (and brilliantly mimed on stage by the young singer!). There were various divergencies of movement and stage placement from what I was expecting, all of which I thought worked save for the appearance of a bed pushed in for no apparent reason at the beginning of Act Two. The rest flowed with irresistible momentum!

Finally, this was a production that looked good and convincing, and maintained a kind of unity throughout – perhaps the scene by the lake during which Flora encounters Miss Jessel didn’t have much “outdoor” ambience, being kept under the omnipresent pall of darkly-inclined variants of illumination that marked nearly all of the scenarios! Still, Matthew Marshall’s lighting generally held us in thrall, scene by scene, by turns revealing and concealing, reassuring and malevolent, warm and chill, delicate and laden, the ambiences working well with designer Tracy Grant Lord’s “framed” portals which gave the spaces at once telescopically-extended vistas with oddly claustrophobic effects – “black holes” of imaginary space in which the characters play out life’s illusions. Director Thomas de Mallet Burgess, together with his assistant Eleanor Bishop, presided over a lucid, if challengingly ambivalent scenario of interaction between the players in the drama, encouraging the essences and their contradictions as expressed in people’s motivations for doing what they do – for ostensible good or evil, or for ends that accord with Peter Quint’s desperate enjoiner to Miles  – “You must be free!” Like anything (and this is perhaps Britten’s (and James’) ultimate message – such freedom comes at a price.

 

 

 

Intense, heartfelt and involving – Verdi’s Rigoletto from Eternity Opera at the Hannah Playhouse

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Eternity Opera presents:
GIUSEPPE VERDI – Rigoletto (Opera in three Acts)

Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave (after Victor Hugo)
English translation by Ruth and Thomas Martin

CAST :
Rigoletto                James Clayton
Gilda                       Hannah Catrin-Jones
The Duke               Boyd Owen
Sparafucile            Robert Lindsay
Maddalena            Jess Segal
Monterone            Roger Wilson
Giovanna               Ruth Armishaw
Count Marullo      Orene Tiai
Count Ceprano     Minto Fung
Countess Ceprano  Karyn Andreassend
Matteo Borsa       Chris Berentson
Court Usher          Olivia Sheat
A Page                    Alexandra Woodhouse-Appleby
Gang Members     Chris Anderson,  Paul Bothwell, Nikita Crosby
Richard Dean, Jessica Mercer-Short, Garth Norman

Director:  Alex Galvin
Assistant Director:  Laura Loach
Music Director:  Matthew Ross
Producers:  Emma Beale & Minto Fung
Production/Stage Manager:  Joel Rudolf
Costume Designer:  Sally Gray
Lighting Designer:  Haami Hawkins

Eternity Orchestra
Leader:  Vivian Stephens
Repetiteur:  Catherine Norton

Hannah Playhouse, Wellington

Saturday, 23rd August, 2019 (until 31st August)

I can’t think of a better instance of a small opera company bringing forth by dint of its own efforts a production with the commitment and calibre of Eternity Opera’s production of “Rigoletto”, which we saw at Wellington’s Hannah Playhouse on Friday evening. I won’t go as far as proclaiming this “the best so far” of the company’s productions in this venue, as comparisons of that sort are odious for all kinds of reasons – but I certainly felt I’d witnessed nothing better overall than this from the company in the past.

Right from the orchestral prelude’s beginning we were riveted, held by the playing and conductor Matthew Ross’s control of the music’s tensions, the atmosphere dark and un-nerving, everything generated by the insistent motifs and their sharply-focused realisation – the brass were spot-on and unrelenting, the strings and winds coiled and uncoiled with sinister intent, like a snake preparing to strike, and the percussion startled with its force at the climax and its even more disturbing muted after-presence. Then came the stunning volte-face of the “party-music”, the Duke’s palace bursting with sounds of fantastic life and energy – a great beginning! On-stage, I thought the party looked somewhat tentative at the outset, with the chorus members (in modern dress) taking a while to “loosen up” movement-wise  – everybody needed to “hit the ground running” more confidently, and mirror the energies of the orchestral playing and the Duke’s free-wheeling licentiousness – however, to compensate, the singing (in English) was alive and dynamic, which helped it all grow most satisfactorily as the scene went on.

I thought Boyd Owen’s Duke looked and sounded totally convincing from his first entry, emanating self-confidence in all respects, his energies transcending the production’s somewhat bland non-hierarchical appearance – a playboy despot, in fact. His “Questo e quella” (“This or that girl”) had all the casual insouciance of the practised lecher to go with the exuberance of his freely-ringing tones. By contrast, James Clayton’s compelling Rigoletto cleverly “insinuated” his way onto the stage, his almost Dadaist garb mocking convention in accord with his character, and heightening the “edge” of his acerbic exchanges with the courtiers – the character at once provocative, volatile and reckless.

The appearance of Count Monterone (Roger Wilson) an aggrieved nobleman whose daughter had been seduced and abandoned by the Duke was a splendid moment, with the Count’s curse (a stumbling block for most modern adaptations of the opera) here made properly baleful and even frightening by a convincing combination of the singer’s commitment and his would-be victim Rigoletto’s terrified reaction. After a gripping chorus response to this, the voices generating incredible vehemence in their rebuttal of the Count’s maledictions, the Act’s second scene stole in, here cleverly integrating the characters of the killer-for-hire, Sparafucile, and his sister-accomplice Maddalena, among the party-guests, so that they seemed almost like “an enemy within”, rather than ostensibly sinister night-creatures. Robert Lindsay as Sparafucile kept his voice smooth and steady during his confrontation with the jester, allowing the disturbing accompaniment of solo strings and throbbing bass drum to underpin the horror of his glib-toned, but deadly message for Rigoletto, still distracted by Monterone’s curse, but interested despite himself – the scene all the more macabre here, in its manicured, almost genteel aspect!

Clayton superbly laid bare the jester’s character in his soliloquy which followed, reiterating the curse, railing against his deformity and execrating the courtiers who mocked him earlier, before giving himself over entirely to his daughter, Gilda, here sung by Hannah Catrin-Jones with a presence and intensity that ideally matched the vividly-wrought character of her besotted but fearful father.  How fortunate we were to have such a triumvirate of singers in this work’s leading roles! As she did in her portrayal of “Madama Butterfly” last year for the company, Catrin-Jones “owned” the character of Gilda with a vocal “presence” and dramatic totality of commitment that rightly put intensity of feeling before every other consideration, in places even beauty of tone – and in doing so she again won our hearts and sympathies.

The singing and playing during this scene did full justice to the composer’s remarkable combination of quicksilver movement and heartfelt emotion – Rigoletto’s tenderness and anxiety at odds with one another, Gilda’s concern for her father set against her interest in a young man she had seen at church, a secret she shared with the maid, Giovanna (sensitively and lyrically portrayed by Ruth Armishaw), and the young man’s sudden, covert entrance into the courtyard in pursuit of Gilda (the Duke in disguise, of course, astonished to learn that the girl is Rigoletto’s daughter, but unremitting in his efforts to “get the girl”!) – supporting the singers’ efforts all the way was Matthew Ross’s conducting, generating playing from his musicians by turns as thrustful and exciting or lyrical and atmospheric as required.

The “no-holds-barred” scene between the disguised Duke and Gilda was a tour de force of emotional outpouring on the part of both characters, vocal elegance mattering less than the raging flow of feeling, carrying us all along in its flow – what a mountain for singers to climb! – especially on the part of the tenor, with Boyd Owen’s voice seemingly at full stretch in most places in places but his character totally convincing dramatically! Gilda’s well-known “Caro nome” (Dearest name) in the wake of the Duke’s departure restored beauty and elegance to the proceedings, Catrin-Jones’s exquisite singing most sensitively supported by the orchestra, the winds in particular partners in fragrant evocation, despite a moment or two’s imprecision between singer and players towards the end.

Great work followed from the chorus, the nobles gathering, in disguise, to carry off whom they believed to be Rigoletto’s mistress, encountering him outside the house and deluding him into thinking they were playing a trick on someone else! The energy and thrust of the singing and playing carried us irresistibly along to the point where Rigoletto suddenly heard Gilda’s voice as she was “taken” by the intruders, thereupon tearing off his “mask” and discovering she was gone.

More full-bloodedly ardent singing from the Duke at the Second Act’s beginning – what a role this is! – (though I’ve often thought Verdi a little inconsistent in his characterisation, here  – was this genuine feeling for the missing Gilda he was expressing?) Boyd Owen was again unfailingly sonorous and romantic in vocal feeling, his anguish transformed to joy upon hearing of Gilda’s conveyance to his clutches. Rigoletto, by comparison, was all care and sorrow, turning to anger as he revealed to the courtiers that they had stolen his daughter, James Clayton’s vocal range and depth of emotion overwhelming, the flood of feeling generated, together with weeping strings and plangent cor anglais, breaking all hearts! Gilda’s sudden entrance from the Duke’s bedroom occasioned an oboe solo of equal poignancy, its phrases movingly matched by Catrin-Jones’ achingly lovely tones – as befitted one of opera’s most heartfelt scenes, this performance delivered the sorrow and anguish of it all in spadefuls!

Here, too, was amply-realised justification for the sparseness of the set – unobtrusive in earlier scenes, but absolutely perfect in this instance, with shadows as well as “substance” resonating on or in front of both walls so dramatically – as if there was nowhere, emotionally, to hide – incredibly moving, thanks also to the perfectly-judged lighting on those bare walls!

By general agreement, though, it’s the final Act that’s thought to be one of its composer’s greatest achievements – and here it certainly maintained the voltages from what had gone before, if channelling them into more overtly sinister and potentially murderous realms.  Perhaps it was the fault of what seemed an out-and-out marathon of vocal effort by Boyd Owen up to that point of the evening, but his “La donna e mobile” (Women are fickle), felt to me a shade sedate compared with the volatile energies of the First-Act’s “Questo e Quella”, and even the orchestral accompaniment seemed to lack the last amount of “fizz” – however, not so the magnificent Quartet, which followed soon after! –  here, the voices realised as heartfelt and wide-ranging an expression of both individual and concerted emotion as was one’s right to expect, Jess Segal’s Maddalena given her chance to shine alongside the three principals, which her voice managed with great aplomb.

Though everything from that moment onwards moved with the surety and inevitability of a Greek tragedy towards its brutal outcome, the performances had such here-and-now spontaneity, it was as if we were seeing something, however well-known, for the first time and willing against hope the impossible to happen and the guiltless be spared rather than sacrificed. So tense, so charged was the ambience when Rigoletto was left alone with the sack containing what he thought – in fact what he gleefully TOLD us – was the Duke’s body, that when we suddenly heard the latter’s voice singing his “signature tune” offstage, somebody in the audience audibly giggled – not through disrespect, I felt, but obviously out of either shock or sheer release of tension – I thought it a kind of tribute to the performance’s cathartic power, as well as to the production in general, AND to the composer and his librettist (not forgetting, of course, Victor Hugo!).

I’ve heard ample testimony from others since regarding the overwhelming effect of this production upon those who were ‘there”. The three principal singers, those in the supporting roles, both individual and chorus, the conductor, Matthew Ross and his musicians, director Alex Galvin and his assistant, Laura Loach, the producers and their various technicians, all contributed to what seemed to me like a fantastically interactive and ensembled effort, to produce something resoundingly memorable and eminently worthwhile. To hear, then, a whisper, as I did, of Eternity Opera facing the prospect of having to struggle to receive the necessary support in oncoming years for more productions such as these simply beggars belief. Though opinions differ as to the factors that contribute to a “civilised society”, my view inclines towards support for the arts being as necessary for the greater good of humanity as measures which provide for us air we can breathe and water we can drink – a truly humanising kind of sustenance. May Eternity Opera be assured of continuance, to furnish for us more of such sustenance!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two out of three from Puccini’s Il Trittico boldly and confidently presented by the NZSM

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music presents:
PUCCINI – Suor Angelica / Gianni Schicchi (from “Il Trittico”)

Cast(s):  Suor Angelica

Suor Angelica………………..Michaela Cadwgan
The Princess………………….Margaret Medlyn
The Abbess……………………Teresa Shields
The Monitress……………….Jennifer Huckle
Sister Genovieffa……………Olivia Stewart
Sister Osmina………………..Lydia Joyce
Sister Dolcina………………..Ruby McKnight
Sister Lucilla………………….Sinéad Keane
Alms sisters…………………..Shaunagh Chambers / Simon Hernyak
Novices and lay sisters……Nikita Aranga / Caitlin Roberts
Ruobing Wang / Emily Yeap
Boy……………………………….Edward Usher

Gianni Schicchi

Gianni Schicchi………………Robert Tucker
Lauretta…………………………Jessie Rosewarne
Zita………………………………..Grace Burt
Rinuccio…………………………LJ Crichton
Gheraldo………………………..Jeffrey Dick
Gheraldino……………………..Edward Usher
Nella………………………………Cheyney Biddlecombe
Betto di Signa………………….Morgan Andrew-King
Simone……………………………Samuel McKeever
Marco……………………………..Masunu Tuua
La Ciesca…………………………Nina Gurau
Maestro Spinelloccio (a doctor)………..Zane Berghuis
Ser Amantio di Nicolao (a lawyer)…….Matt Barris
Pinellino (a cobbler)………………………..Elian Pagalilawan
Guccio (a dyer)………………………………..Tomairangi  Henare
Buoso Donati…………………………………..Gabriel Wee

Director: Jon Hunter
Designer: Sean Coyle
Lighting: Glenn Ashworth
Costumes: Sarah Carswell

Conductor: Kenneth Young
The New Zealand School of Music Orchestra

Hannah Playhouse, Wellington,

Friday 19th July, 2019

(until Sunday, 21st July)

When Giacomo Puccini first penned his Il Trittico (Triptych), consisting of three short operas designed to fill a single evening (premiered as such in New York in December 1918), various considerations combined to elevate the third of these works, the rollickingly comic Gianni Schicchi, to pride of place in the public’s affections, leaving the other two, the violent, bloody Il Tabarro (The Cloak) and the somewhat sanctimonious Suor Angelica (Sister Angelica), to fend for themselves, often elsewhere and in isolation. It would certainly be a tall order to perform all three in a single evening, the time-frames alone creating a certain awkwardness (either with two intervals, or one very long first or second half!). Even then, resources would be fully stretched in terms of casting and of staging, leaving opera houses far more likely to opt for a “double” bill at the most, à la the famous verismo twins, “Cav” and “Pag”.  Of late, there’s been revived interest in going thus far towards Puccini’s original intentions (usually with “Schicchi” as the “drawcard” along with either of the other two).

Here, from Victoria University of Wellington’s Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music we had a classic pairing of tragedy (Suor Angelica) and comedy (Gianni Schicchi) whose contrasts, I thought, worked brilliantly, each to the other’s advantage. Partly I think  due to a welcome circumspection of presentation in both cases, here, neither work was made into a caricature of itself – Suor Angelica’s overtly Catholic ethos wore its religiosity lightly, as did the knockabout comedy of Gianni Schicchi maintain a stylishness that never descended into coarse buffoonery – and this deftness of touch on the part of Jon Hunter’s direction for the most part gave each story the theatricality it needed to work, the climax of Suor Angelica here giving rise to my only reservations in this regard, more of which below.

In keeping with the intimate nature of the performing venue and the corresponding space available, conductor, chorusmaster and musicologist Michael Vinten undertook the task of making a “reduction” of the composer’s orchestral scores which preserved the essential spirit and sound of the originals, and which, if not delivering as much “physical” impact as the full opera orchestra does in places (such as the climax of Suor Angelica), amply suggested a comparable kind of emotional impact. Of course the physical immediacy of the instrumental detailings coupled with the players’ confidence and elan throughout made for stunning orchestral results under conductor Ken Young’s inspirational leadership.

What a vehicle for soprano and mezzo voices is Suor Angelica! The leading role especially runs the gamut of emotion and “fills out” the character in such a short space of time – she goes from being “just another nun” at the opera’s beginning, to a figure of the utmost tragedy within minutes, as another character, one who proves to be her “nemesis”, turns up in the story and whose “hatchet job” on the hapless Angelica is remorseless. As Suor Angelica, Michaela Cadwgan poured herself into the role up to the brim, fearlessly attacking a vocal line which required her in places to push her voice to what seemed almost past its limits in places, readily conveying the character’s intensity and depth of sorrow. Her acting paid full regard to the added tension of maintaining her dignity and bearing as a member of a religious order, while expressing her tragedy of having had to give up what was her greatest worldly joy, her son, before discovering, through the agency of her “nemesis” that her son had actually died without her knowing – the anguish was all too palpable in places, while  in context making total emotional sense.

With her surely-felt dramatic instinct brought fully into play, Margaret Medlyn’s troubled but   still unforgiving Princess made the perfect foil for her unfortunate niece’s desperately-enacted sorrows. We were made to “feel” something of the subtext behind the character’s cruelty and remorseless response to Angelica – a “wicked-stepmother”-like figure but with complex demons of her own. Amongst the other nuns the voice of Jennifer Huckle  resonated steadily and sweetly as the Monitress, while  Olivia Stewart ‘s shining tones enlivened her entreaties to the sisters to observe the rays of sunlight setting the image of Our Lady glowing in the courtyard. All the voices contributed to an essential sense of the ensemble, their surety of “belonging” and contributing to that feeling contrasting all the more with Suor Angelica’s growing desperation to be reunited with her dead son.

Expertly though the production conveyed the ambivalence of the “cloistered” atmosphere with its security/imprisonment dichotomies, and the oppressive ambiences surrounding the visit of the Princess to her virtually incarcerated niece, its staging at the very end didn’t for me catch enough of the transcendence of the story’s climax – the dead boy’s sudden appearance, the “vision from heaven” which draws Angelica towards and up into a numinous web of acceptance and forgiveness. I wanted him to directly “materialise” from the  blinding light which flooded the stage, and be the unequovical focus of things just for a telling instant – but his entrance from the side didn’t for me sufficiently turn into any kind of front-on, fully-focused engagement, missing an overwhelming sense of “revelation” which the music (and the lighting) was doing its best to evoke. It certainly deserved, I felt, at that point,  a surer moment of consummation, which, up to then, had been most whole-heartedly prepared for by all concerned.

Confidence was restored after the interval by the beginning of the opera which followed – Gianni Schicchi – an amusing and ironic vignette involving a photograph of the Donati clan closest to the recently deceased (?) Buoso Donati “freeze-framing” the setting, one which then clicked immediately into the business of the story. This is one of opera’s greatest “ensemble” works, and the give-and-take between all of the “living” characters made for thoroughly convincing and characterful results. All kinds of voices and personalities were registered throughout the interactions, each one conveying its character’s attitude and intent in tandem with engaging physical presence.

Crucial to the action was the information quickly given us by a young man in the group of relatives, Rinuccio, who tells everybody he is in love with and wants to marry Lauretta, the daughter of the well-known “wheeler-and-dealer” Gianni Schicchi, a plan which scandalises his snobbish Aunt, Zita. We were treated to a splendidly open-hearted and ringing-voiced portrayal of the character by LJ Crichton, his tones warm, open and ardent, almost to the very top of his register. If the other voices in the group didn’t match such freedom and amplitude, each still carried sufficient weight and colour to tellingly advance the drama – and the physical interactions were most splendidly choreographed, photo opportunities included!

Of course the attitudes of the relatives to the “upstart Schicchi” change considerable when they find Buoso’s actual will and realise they have been disinherited, and that something needs to be done, quickly. Schicchi’s help is sought, but he is disinclined to help the Donatis when Zita refuses point-blank to allow Rinuccio to marry Lauretta “without a dowry” – which, of course, leads to the opera’s most famous single moment, the girl’s pleading with her father to help, or else she will throw herself into the river Arno (“O mio babbino caro”). Jessie Rosewarne’s direct, simply expressed plea as Lauretta (her singing very much on the trajectory of the dramatic action, rather than self-consciously proclaiming a “great opera moment”) does the trick and wins her father over to the cause, turning the story’s action on a fresh course.

As Schicchi, Robert Tucker rightly dominated the scenario from his first entry, holding everybody in thrall with the workings of his scheming mind, and even convincing us to suspend disbelief at the unlikelihood of the penalty of dismemberment and banishment from the city imposed on people who forge a will having any credence in the 1970s throughout the Western world. Like the “curse” in Verdi’s Rigoletto, this is the stumbling block for me in accepting any “modernising” of the opera’s action unaccountably beloved of present-day productions, however nonsensical the result! Still, here, everything went hilariously and hair-raisingly according to plan, with  both doctor and notary, along with witnesses, convinced that the disguised Schicchi was in fact “dear Buoso”, the deception then deliciously running away from the astonished relatives when Schicchi again turned the story around, proclaiming himself as the heir to the dead man’s house and most valuable assets! – pandemonium!

A great success, then, and an extraordinary achievement on the part of all concerned with both productions, powerfully evoking worlds as different as chalk from cheese! I’ve already mentioned conductor Ken Young’s surety of direction and the dazzling instrumental detailing by the players throughout both works, working hand-in-glove with the onstage action, and  positively oozing atmosphere in both scenarios, aided and abetted by the set, lighting and costumes. Its overall impact, to my mind, worked surely towards director Jon Hunter’s intention that the production express “the enduring power of music”, the raison d’etre of all opera here for all present to enjoy.

 

 

 

A joyful, exhilarating Barber of Seville, New Zealand Opera’s first offering of the year

Posted on by Steven Sedley

New Zealand Opera
The Barber of Seville by Rossini

Orchestra Wellington and Freemasons New Zealand Opera Chorus
Conductor: Wyn Davies; Director: Lindy Hume; Designer: Tracy Grant Lloyd; Assistant director: Jacqueline Coats; Lighting designer: Matthew Marshall

Cast

Count Almaviva: John Tessier
Rosina: Sandra Piques Eddy
Figaro: Morgan Pearse
Dr Bartolo: Andrew Collis
Don Basilio: Ashraf Sewailam
Berta: Morag Atchison
Fiorello/Officer;: Joel Amosa
Ambrogio: Jesse Wikiriwhi

The Opera House, Wellington

Saturday 29 July 2019, 7:30 pm

Colourful, joyful, exhilarating are the words to describe this production of the Barber of Seville. From the very beginning of the Overture, taken at a moderate steady tempo that let every phrase be clearly articulated, we know that we are in for a treat. When the action starts with the chorus, the serenaders, horsing around it is clear that this will be an entertaining show. Almaviva, John Tessier enters and sings his serenade. He is a powerful yet sensitive tenor and sets a high benchmark for the other singers. Figaro joins him and we are at home, this is Figaro the Barber whom everybody knows. Everyone is familiar with the tongue twister ‘Largo al factotum’. Morgan Pearse sang the role with energy and clarity, and with a good deal of comic touch.

We get to know Rosina, Sandra Piques Eddy, as she sings her aria, ‘Una voce poco’ fa’. She has an amazing mezzo-soprano voice, well controlled. Her deep notes were particularly noteworthy for their glorious dark timbre. She sang with meticulous attention to the text and the musical phrasing, while subjecting her aria to the demands of the dramatic action.

Dr. Bartolo, has the least rewarding role, he is a bumbling, comic character whose every endeavour ends in failure. Andrew Collis sang the part with the appropriate rich baritone, while maintaining the sense of comedy of the ridiculous personality of the doctor. Ashraf Sewailam sang the role of Don Basilio, the cunning music teacher and fair weather friend, with a rare resonant bass and an organ like quality of the low notes. Berta, Morag Atchinson had one solo song, that she sang delightfully. She was a striking presence every time she appeared on the stage. The standard of singing was universally outstanding, and this was matched by fine comic acting. If I had any reservation, it was that there was too much unnecessary clowning, situations that were already ridiculous didn’t need to be further highlighted, but the audience obviously greatly enjoyed this.

The staging and production was imaginative, vivid and colourful. There was excellent use of the stage with its many doors, which at various times was a street scene outside Dr, Bartolo’s residence and then the interior of his house. There was ingenious use of strobe lighting highlighting the action. The foils dropping in the last scene just underlined the madcap comedy.

The Barber of Seville dates from 1816, the year after Napoleon was defeated and the normality of the Ancient regime returned to Europe. Beaumarchais on whose play the opera was based had died many years before, but some of the issues explored by the play were very much alive: the power of the aristocracy, the role of the middle class and that of the rising entrepreneur. When soldiers come to arrest Count Almaviva he only had to reveal his name and rank and the soldiers withdrew. Dr. Bartolo, the middle class doctor is a mere figure of fun, wanting to marry his ward for her money. He is also nostalgic for a bygone era, the music of which he much preferred to the new-fangled modern music that Rosina chose to sing. Figaro was the entrepreneur with an eye on money, an obsession shared by Basilio and the singers who were paid to serenade Rosina. Although for Rossini, aged 24 when he wrote this opera, these social considerations were not in the forefront of his mind, the audience that took the opera to heart were probably very aware of these subtle underlying themes.

Nevertheless, the opera was great, rollicking fun. Overheard at the end of the opera, someone said that this was the most enjoyable opera he had ever seen. This impression was endorsed by the enthusiastic applause, the catcalls, the stomping and the whistles coming from the audience the like of which I had never heard before.