Category: Reviews – Opera and Ballet

Melbourne’s Ring cycle revival a spectacular triumph

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Der Ring des Nibelungen by Wagner

Opera Australia

Musical Director: Pietari Inkinen; Stage director: Neil Armfield; set designer: Robert Cousins; costume designer: Alice Babidge

The cast members are named in the course of the text

State Theatre, Melbourne

Friday 9 to Friday 16 December 2016

Introduction
I went to the third run of the Ring in Melbourne, in December. At its first incarnation in 2013, I had rather set it aside, partly because the ticket prices were pretty steep – well over $1000 for the four – and something in me said that, as I have seen the entire cycle five times over the years, in various places including Bayreuth, I doubted whether Opera Australia would offer me any really new insights beyond what one can get a lot cheaper in most parts of Germany.

But when I started getting reports from people who’d been and had their lives changed, I regretted not going. I doubted that it would be revived. After all, the Adelaide Ring of 2004 had been stored in the hope that Opera of South Australia or another Australian company would revive it. But that never happened and the $20 million worth of staging, costumes, sets were sold off for peanuts.

About the end of October I decided to go, reinforced by the chance to see Handel’s Theodora being staged by Pinchgut Opera in Sydney about the same time: I could see all in the space of about 12 days.

I did not plan to write a comprehensive review of all four music dramas; and as I hadn’t asked for press tickets I was under no obligation. Anyway, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be burdened with the inevitable note-taking in the dark that I always rely on to support my erratic memory. In the event I just enjoyed it untroubled by the search for words, but I kept a sort of diary through emails home. Some weeks later, and after writing about Theodora, I decided to bestir myself and pieced together these impressions, to describe the elements that I found especially interesting and which I could remember in sufficient detail. What follows is about five times the size of what I’d planned to write: it kept growing and is still, of course, far from comprehensive and probably not well balanced.

Production
The production was by leading Australian theatre and opera director Neil Armfield with set designs by Robert Cousins and costumes by Alice Babidge. Their approach varied widely from scene to scene – it was at times spectacular and surprising, at other times bare, black and minimalist, so the drama relied largely on the acting and singing. What really sustained it and often held my attention during episodes that I have sometimes found a bit protracted and tedious, was the commitment of the whole production, the portrayal of emotional interaction through acting and singing; above all, and in contrast to many such enterprises, Neil Armfield was largely successful in placing it firmly in the present day.

There are many excellent reviews available on line, most with a selection of photos of representative scenes which you will find interesting and evocative. A good way in is through the Richard Wagner Society (Victoria) which contains links to most of the reviews (http://wagnermelb.org.au/wp/reviews-of-the-melbourne-2016-ring/.

 

Das Rheingold

There’s no other theatrical experience that takes hold of you as powerfully and as filled with excited expectation as the opening of Das Rheingold. It immediately banishes any residual feelings that it might be diminished through knowing the music and the story pretty intimately. In the dark theatre, the below-the-stave E flat arpeggios slow emergence from silence is an almost overwhelming experience.

I wondered whether the many in the audience who saw this production three years ago had misgivings – would it work again?

The first impression as the curtain rose was of a vivid scene with the three Rhine Maidens (Lorina Gore, Jane Ede, and Dominica Matthews), scantily clad in shimmering white cabaret array, emerging from a writhing mass of bathers; they were said to represent the currents of the river, though no attempt was made to represent water. Fortunately, all three singers were so physically endowed as to profit from such exposure. (I can’t resist quoting The Guardian’s review here: “…with the Rhinemaidens in seafoam sparkles, like Tivoli Lovelies en route from a beachfront spectacular…”).

It set the scene for an updating to the present, which convinced through its sheer unapologetic openness; challenging us with, “well, isn’t this how Wagner conceived it?”, even though obviously, he didn’t. And we took it in our stride.

Alberich – Warwick Fyfe – well known in New Zealand, was hardly the repulsive predator sometime portrayed, and his seduction attempts failed amusingly; provoked to revenge, he steals the gold. He sang and acted with gusto and total conviction, and was critically judged one of the chief ornaments of the entire cycle.

In the second scene, we meet Wotan, wife Fricka, daughter Freia; James Johnson’s Wotan, a beautiful if somewhat underpowered voice, Jacqueline Dark, Fricka, the voice of moral responsibility and financial rectitude, alarmed at Wotan’s reckless deal with the giants to build his new castle, Valhalla; and Hyeseoung Kwon in the small but engaging role as Freia, the provider to the gods of the apples of eternal youth. She’s taken hostage by the giants as guarantee of payment for their construction work on Wotan’s unaffordable new palace, Valhalla.

Here, as throughout the cycle, the implications and details of the story were presented with unusual clarity even though some physical elements were passed over. No effort is made to put the two suited giants on stilts or otherwise to simulate giantness: New Zealand bass Jud Arthur and Australian Daniel Sumegi took the roles of Fafner and Fasolt splendidly.

Some reviews, naturally, felt suits diminished the impact of the myth’s universality and meaning, and at certain moments, so did I, though the conviction of the acting and generally superb singing usually overcame that.

Challenged by Fricka to deal with the debt predicament, Wotan and Loge set off to rob the gold that Alberich had stolen from the river, in an underworld whose subterranean horrors had to be created in the mind. No attempt specifically to portray Alberich’s transformations with the power of the tarnhelm though.

In the last scene the giants are paid off with the stolen gold and Freia is released in a curious mix of mythical tale and modern matter-of-factness. The deal, for the giants, includes both the magic tarnhelm and the ring but Wotan at first refuses to give up the ring until convinced by Erda, the earth mother, that he must surrender it. She acts somewhat like Cassandra in the Iliad and Berlioz’s Les Troyens: knowing the past as well as the future but, as with Cassandra, she is ignored: she warns that possession of the ring will bring the reign of the gods to an end. Liane Keegan projected it with impressive power and conviction.

Erda later reappears in Siegfried, forewarning that it will bring about the end of the gods, for Alberich, furious when the ring was taken from him, had placed a curse on it forever. Apart from the gorgeous reappearance of ‘Rainbow girls’, to accompany the gods taking possession of their new home, the music contributed more to the empty grandeur of the gods crossing the rainbow bridge to Valhalla to bring Rheingold to its splendid end.

 

Die Walküre

Right at the start of Walküre there were a few things that didn’t seem to work or at least didn’t fit the story, especially in Act I. Though the hut that served as Sieglinde and Hunding’s home in the forest didn’t need to be a pretentious, columned-portico affair, this was more like a tiny hut in the Tararuas, with scarcely room for one bed and a table. Siegmund couldn’t even enter from the storm and sat outside, while the text makes it clear that he’s stumbled inside. Nor was the great World Ashtree supplied, in which the powerful sword is lodged; when the time came, Siegmund simply pulled it from the floor.

However, Siegmund and Sieglinde (Bradley Daley and Amber Wagner), both performed with strong, elegant and perfectly well-placed voices (but see below) completely in tune with their characters. Their appearance, as twins, was happily reinforced by their singular likeness, but for me their attire didn’t fit one’s preconceptions (though I read no other misgivings on that account). Sieglinde’s violent husband, Hunding, was Jud Arthur who succeeded in exploiting a reversal of his real self in a Jekyll and Hyde manner, cruel and unbending, actually a somewhat more interesting creation than his Fafner in Rheingold.

Nevertheless, with Daley’s  superb “Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond”, the first act came off magnificently with its rapid build-up of energy and excitement, through “Siegmund heiss ich, Siegmund bin ich”, taking the sword, brother and sister race out together.

At the start of Act II there was an announcement that Daley (Siegmund) had a voice problem and would be replaced in the wings by an understudy, Dean Bassett, while the silent one did the acting. I was lucky to be well back in the theatre so the problem of misplaced voice wasn’t too conspicuous. Bassett’s voice was an excellent fit for the task, seeming conscious of the fate that Fricka will demand for him and which becomes clearly inevitable.

Brünnhilde (Lise Lindstrom) appears for the first time, in Act II. At first Wotan tells her to help save Siegmund in the forthcoming fight with Hunding; but then Fricka (Jacqueline Dark) arrives to challenge Wotan, to demand he punish this affront to morality, and the ground shifts.

The stage was dominated by a huge, rotating, spiral ramp on which most of the action took place. In sharp contrast to nil stage sets in other scenes, it was spectacular and visually interesting but hardly in line with one’s picture of the abode of the King of the Teutonic gods (Wotan – James Johnson) and his lady-wife (Fricka). But these things soon diminish in significance.

The beginning of the end of Wotan’s hegemony
The shocking combination of adultery and incest between brother and sister is too much for Fricka. Now, far more than the ritual, carping wife, Jacqueline Dark is assured, clear-sighted, though guided by convention, taking the high moral ground; her voice captured all that confidence and authority. She laid her cards on the table with great skill and Wotan could be seen visibly retreating from his authoritarian position. This further sign of his inevitably crippling loss of power was vividly exposed. Oddly, coincidentally, Wotan’s voice began to show signs of wear during his long Act II monologue, though it was arresting nevertheless.

Eventually Hunding, again violently impressive, strong-voicedly, comes to wreck vengeance on Siegmund; in the fight, Wotan intervenes to break Siegmund’s sword so Hunding can kill him; and then Wotan contemptuously despatches Hunding.

Here Brünnhilde (Lise Lindstrom) intervenes, determined to rescue Sieglinde who, she knows, is carrying the child destined to save Wotan’s godly kingdom (Siegfried). Lindstrom soon emerged the star of the show and got the biggest applause at the end. Slim, pretty, fair, with a splendid but not stentorian voice, that was far from being the archetypal horned-helmeted Valkyrie, but evinced a touch of vulnerability, yet resolute in her essential humanity.

A photo reproduced in the critical website, Man in Chair, review shows Johnson and Lindstrom in Act II about to embrace ecstatically on the spiral ramp with the array of stuffed animals behind them (meaning, a matter of debate). Worth looking at: (https://simonparrismaninchair.com/2016/11/24/opera-australia-die-walkure-review-melbourne-ring-cycle-2016/).

The famous opening of Act III was generally celebrated by critics; typically, David Larkin of Man in Chair wrote graphically:

“Apart from their wonderful singing and stirring acting, the nine women playing the Valkyries deserve bravery medals for their incredible entrances. Flying in from the heavens on swings as they sing the famous war cry, the woman promptly unhook their harnesses and leap into action on the stage. The natural hair and costuming mean that each of these invaluable women can be very clearly identified.” And he proceeded to describe each…

The action was “jaw-dropping, descending from the heavens with voices powerful enough to resurrect the dead”, wrote Tim Byrne in Time Out.

Don’t think I’ve ever seen a production in which the dilemma of the gods and the options available to them have been more vividly explored. The very long dialogue between Wotan and Brünnhilde in Act III can sometimes seem too much, but every statement and counter-statement here had such credibility as a deeply felt confrontation between loving father and daughter that it is worth every long five minutes for the power if its wonderful music.

This long, intensely moving scene in which Wotan relents and agrees to protect his daughter with the fire, is an emotional high point, perhaps THE emotional high point of the entire tetralogy.

There are so many nuances that can be perceived in this denouement, and in the tetralogy as a whole; and as Time Out wrote: “All to the most immersive, often overwhelmingly and intensely beautiful, music written for the stage”.

 

Siegfried

I admit I often find the scene with Mime (Graeme Macfarlane) and Siegfried (Stefan Vinke) trying; their mutual hatred and childishness just wearies me, and I don’t suppose there’s much a director or the singers can do to alter its essential character. This is Siegfried’s first appearance in the cycle, brought up by Mime in a cramped house; the drawings on the wall behind Siegfried’s top bunk speak of a stunted childhood, but also of his already great interest in animals and nature.

(Wagner apparently saw Siegfried as the comedy part of his tetralogy! Equivalent to the Scherzo in a symphony, did he really think all this was amusing?).

Suspension of disbelief is needed too, for Siegfried’s re-forging of Siegmund’s sword which had been shattered by Wotan so that Hunding could kill him (Siegmund). The conflict between realism and symbolism is never convincingly resolved, for the score calls for the hammering to be part of the music.

Things become more interesting in Act II. It reintroduces Alberich and Wotan, aka The Wanderer to do some scene setting. Mime’s long-term plan to get the Ring is revealed; after Siegfried has killed the dragon, Fafner – Jud Arthur – and got the ring, Mime will kill Siegfried and take the ring.

Though I can do without dragons, here I was spared it, as the dragon was invisible behind a screen with a black hole in its centre; we see just a huge projection of his horrible face, snarling and grimacing, with his hollow voice booming and Siegfried seizes the chance to stab Fafner, still unseen, apart from blood that spurts in the form of red ribbons. Then suddenly a stark naked Jud Arthur appears in full view to utter his final words. A coup de théâtre for sure!

Siegfried was infected with a drop of Fafner’s blood which suddenly enables him to understand Mime’s plotting his death, as well as to understand the song of the Woodbird (Julie Lee Goodwin) who is often hardly seen, but here quite visible, and most enchantingly portrayed.

Meantime, Siegfried fully realises Mime’s intentions and kills him. The Woodbird then offers to lead Siegfried to a new companion – behold! Brünnhilde!

Siegfried awakens Brünnhilde
The third act starts with Wotan/Wanderer calling on Erde to advise him, but the sins of men have clouded her mind and the Wanderer finally realises that the end of his world is nigh.

Then there’s his confrontation with the (still) obnoxious Siegfried, ignorant that he’s talking to his grandfather, and he breaks The Wanderer’s spear (which carries the ‘treaties’ by which the gods rule the world). No more is seen of Wotan.

Siegfried is then guided to Brünnhilde by the Woodbird, safely penetrates the fire and wins her. The love scene evolves in which the brilliantly cast Brünnhilde effects the sudden maturing of Siegfried, making him a nearly credible lover, reviving something of the atmosphere of the opening of Walküre; and Siegfried becomes more adult and tolerable.

David Barmby wrote in Performing Arts Hub that Stefan Vinke as Siegfried was the outstanding voice and character of the night, considering him a highly gifted actor and singer and great interpreter of the Wagnerian heroic tenor roles.  He felt that Vinke both looked the part and was “a fully formed character, embracing boredom, loneliness, impetuousness, naivety, heroism and love”.

Reviews varied about the success of the love scene that soon takes hold. One wrote: “Thereafter follows one of the most impassioned duets in the Cycle, wonderfully realised by Lise Lindstrom and Stefan Vinke, finishing the opera with thrilling elation on a unison high C”.

David Larkin in Bachrtrack wrote: “Even the love duet between Siegfried and Brünnhilde at the end of the opera is far inferior to the fervent exchanges between Siegmund and Sieglinde in Die Walküre.” But then he confesses that he found Siegfried the most uniformly enjoyable part of the Melbourne Ring so far: testimony to the production, singers and musicians. But one called that love music that ends Act III “one of the most impassioned duets in the whole cycle”.

 

Götterdämmerung

Here I will reproduce, more or less as I wrote it, my email home describing what I felt the overwhelming impact of Götterdämmerung; it was truly marvellous.

Part of my more than ever delight was the excellent surtitles (English Wagner scholar, Barry Millington) that were bright and clear, didn’t switch off before a relatively slow reader could read and to take in what they meant. There were little things whose relevance I better understood this time: some of the foretelling by the Rhinemaidens at the beginning; Waltraute (Sian Pendry)’s dramatic and movingly sincere plea to Brünnhilde to give the ring back to the river, which struck me more powerfully than ever before.

I’ve never seen the scenes in the Gibichung palace so clearly portrayed, both through design and histrionically – and I don’t mean simply the palace itself: rather, the handling of the potion that makes Siegfried forget Brünnhilde; the awareness/unawareness of the action; and its implications for the roles of Gunter and Gutrune.

The wedding was the most stunning scene of all as Hagen (Daniel Sumegi) seems utterly convinced that Brünnhilde will just accept the inevitable, marriage to Gunther (Luke Gabbedy); however, her reaction on seeing Siegfried about to marry Gutrune (Taryn Fiebig) was tumultuous, her total dismay and fury was hair-raising. Gunther can sometimes be portrayed as a weak-willed inconsequential figure, but here he stood his ground respectably with Siegfried in their particularly graphic and gory blood-brotherhood ceremony. Yet his apparent obliviousness to what had happened and what he was involved in was more bewildering and stupefying than it is sometimes.

The wedding was the conventional middle class affair of a generation ago perhaps: long tables laden with goodies. It was an astonishing scene as the guests remained oblivious to what had happened and blind to the realities until Brünnhilde really spelled it out. Then there was the hunt, proposed by Hagen so that he can kill Siegfried (to get the ring, inter alia); the killing (by revolver) is nakedly perfunctory and the more shocking for it.

It was formal attire all round with both Hagen and Gunter in modern naval uniforms with the correct numbers of bands on the sleeves for naval commander and captain.

The palace however was a bare gabled framework of posts, all on a revolve which was often used but not excessively. And the burning of Valhalla for which the same edifice served, was lines of gas burners the full length of the posts and beams. Perhaps not such a chaotic conflagration, end-of-the-world feeling that I’ve seen in other productions; there was a bit much light, but the tumultuous orchestra and Brünnhilde’s penetrating voice filled out the visual elements. They used a huge chorus, both men and women, though its scored just for men, but they were a prominent part of the Gibichung court and were very present during the last scene.

I’d like to end with a quote from one of the excellent Australian reviews, from Tim Byrne in Time Out: “The rest of the opera is taken up with Brünnhilde’s final act, her self-immolation on the funeral pyre of her husband and other self. It is a purification by fire that seems to take in all the sacraments: a baptism, a confirmation, a wedding and a last rite. Lindstrom is quite simply phenomenal; her voice penetrates to the heart of every note, glorious in the quiet moments and devastating in the throes of passion.”

The stage for the curtain calls was crammed with singers and extras, and then Inkinen called the entire 130-or-so orchestra to come up on stage too. I’ve never seen that before. And the clapping went on and on. Perhaps this especially spectacular curtain call was to mark the last of a total of twelve performances.

Pietari Inkinen and the orchestra
Before finishing, I must refer to the music; orchestra, chorus (in Götterdämmerung), soloists, all conducted by Pietari Inkinen, late of the NZSO. I might be prejudiced in his favour but here are some of the comments:  (To balance the Trans-Tasman tensions, I did see and delight in the Hamburg Ring a few years ago under Simone Young).

“Conductor Pietari Inkinen was masterly, unfailingly sensitive to the singers and to the musical flow, while the 100-strong [about 130 actually] Melbourne Ring Orchestra was superb.” (The Age)

“Pietari Inkinen directing the Melbourne Ring Orchestra brought a new vigour and enthusiasm to the work with particular mention to be made not only for the famous orchestral passages, particularly in Act 3, but also for the extended, sensuous and lingering chromatic sections at the realisation of love in Act 1, complete with some excellent solos from within the ensemble. The exquisitely delicate suspensions as Wotan leads Brünnhilde to her rock were profound and memorable.” (David Barmby, Performing Arts Hub)

“Together, Inkinen and Armfield have created an inward-looking Ring, low on gimmicks and as darkly still as Neidhardt’s was brightly energetic. Armfield’s premise is to tell the Ring as a tale of the human race today, steadily destroying its own environment while failing tragically at the business of love. Wagner’s magic is translated as show-business sleight of hand.” (Shirley Apthorpe in The Financial Times)

“…the orchestra once again turned in a sterling performance … One of the only places where Inkinen let the orchestra dominate was the culmination of Mime’s hallucinations, where the fiery music drowned Macfarlane’s cries of ‘Fafner’, but this was not dramatically unwarranted. The open pit may throw up challenges in terms of balance, but it has also allowed the perception of fine details of Wagner’s colouristic orchestration: particularly gorgeous was the delicate sound beginning the “Ewig war ich” section of the duet, the tune famously repurposed for the Siegfried Idyll.” (David Larkin in Bachtrack)

“Under Inkinen’s watch, the Melbourne Ring Orchestra is in superb form, in particular the lower brass that is the Ring’s thrilling engine (and shout out once more to the Ring feature that so delighted me back in 2013, the “anvil orchestra”: an offstage room full of, well, playable “anvils” that soundtrack Das Rheingold’s descent into Nibelheim).” (The Guardian, London)

“With Pietari Inkinen’s sublime conducting, and the orchestra’s intense and supple playing, the effect is almost uncanny.” (Tim Byrne in Time Out Melbourne).

“Maestro Pietari Inkinen presides over a massive orchestra of players sourced not only from Orchestra Victoria and the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, but also from ten other national and international orchestras. The effect of the glorious music emanating from the voluminous pit from so many players is difficult to describe. Most striking is the sense that various strains of music are originating from distinct sections of the pit; this effect is usual enough in opera orchestras, but is significantly magnified on this scale. With a profound knowledge of the music, and gentle air of assured confidence, Inkinen capably caters to musicians and singers alike.” …
… and elsewhere: “As the Cycle progresses, the supreme capability of maestro Pietari Inkinen becomes ever clearer. Adroitly managing subtle underscoring and dramatic climaxes alike, Inkinen maintains manageably brisk tempi and supportive accompaniment. Inkinen’s expertly judged conducting shows the incredible musicians at their best without ever drawing undue attention.”  (Simon Parris in Man in Chair).

Even though this revival didn’t attract the nationwide excitement and attention that the earlier 2013 one did, by its end the three cycles had created the sort of communal emotional impact that a football world cup might generate in those who derive their spiritual sustenance from that sort of thing. It’s one of the most wonderful music experiences I’ve had (that is, since my last Ring).

 

Orchestra Wellington’s fifth concert excels with last works of Berlioz, Bartok and Tchaikovsky (almost)

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Orchestra Wellington conducted by Marc Taddei and Vincent Hardaker, with Michael Houstoun at the piano
Arohanui Strings – Sistema Hutt Valley, conducted by Vincent Hardaker

Arohanui Strings: arrangements of music by Purcell, Tchaikovsky (Serenade for Strings and the waltz from Sleeping Beauty)

Orchestra Wellington:
Overture to Béatrice et Bénédict (Berlioz)
Bartok: Piano Concerto No 3
Tchaikvosky: Nutcracker – Act II

Michael Fowler Centre

Saturday 15 October, 7:30 pm

This was the once-a-year event for the young musicians involved with the Hutt Valley Arohanui Strings, the project inspired by the famous Venezuelan institution, El Sistema. They filed in after some of Orchestra Wellington’s players had taken their seats: the more advanced ones taking seats alongside a professional player as mentor; the beginners spread across the front of the stage – some of them looked aged about four. They were conducted by the orchestra’s assistant conductor Vincent Hardaker, with assistance from the side by Alison Eldrigde, encouraging the littlies at the front.

Playing some simplified, though genuine classical pieces: Purcell, Tchaikovsky, Scottish dances, they charmed the audience.

Hardaker stayed to conduct the orchestra itself in the Béatrice et Bénédict overture, Berlioz’s last opera and though about six years before his death, really his last work. It’s based on Shakespeare’s Much ado about Nothing, written on commission from the Baden Baden Opera. Though it hasn’t taken root in the regular repertoire, I saw it staged by the Australian Opera in 1998; there’s some fine music, several quotes of which appear in the overture, which has always held its place in the orchestral repertoire. Its brightness and wit were splendidly captured by Hardaker and the players, with secretive little passages from clarinets, edgy brass and dancing violins.

Bartok’s last piano concerto, left a few bars short of completion when he died in New York in 1945, as WW2, too, was ending. I recalled with bemusement how barbaric it sounded when I first heard it in my late teens, which was, after all, only about 10 years after its composition.

Musicologists enjoy themselves identifyjng its odd modal tonalities; all quite beside the point. Any audience can assess its blending of Balkan folk music with ancient modes and contemporary musical obsessions, all overlaid by sheer musical inspiration. Houstoun approached the first movement with a sense of determination and energy, though its generally lyrical character emerged clearly, allowing melodic figures to take root; lovely flute notes at its end. It confirmed the admirable collaboration between Houstoun and conductor Taddei.

The second movement on the other hand can be heard simply as a rather beautiful piece of music, even though analysis shows characteristics uncommon in western classical music. But ‘beautiful’ hardly touches the enigmatic, spiritual, orphic quality of this singular movement. The orchestra alone and many individual players proved their capacity for exquisite, contemplative playing at the start and throughout there are some breathlessly calm, slow passages for the piano alone, Bach-like figurations, in which Houstoun captured a metaphysical spirit, perhaps the composer meditating on his imminent death – it’s entitled Adagio religioso. But then there’s an upbeat interlude, curiously alive with bird-calls in the middle, ending with skittering keyboard.

The third movement returns to an energetic, folk-dance-inspired Allegro vivace, where there’s still more opportunities for individual instruments to shine, like horns and the piano to indulge in fast fugal passages that come to envelope the whole orchestra.

In all, a splendid show-case for the orchestra and pianist, in one of the 20th century’s real masterpieces.

The opportunity to hear a whole of Act II of Nutcracker played without the distraction of dancers proved hugely rewarding, as the score is endlessly inventive and memorable as pure music, quite apart from its qualities of marvellous danceabilty with which choreographers and dancers have been able to create indelible productions.  While I have grown very tired of performances of the Suite that compacts the character dances, in their setting, as little orchestral pieces played by a live orchestra in the concert hall, they sit perfectly in context; their genius, their instrumental brilliance, and the way they flow the one into the next is simply a delight. The programme note records that Nureyev said that it was Tchaikovsky who encouraged serious composers to engage with choreographers, making possible masterpieces like the Stravinsky ballets, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloë, Prokofiev, as well as dozens of wonderful scores by other great 20th century composers.

Nutcracker engages with an orchestra, inspiring spirited and moving playing from almost every section and including a few instruments like the celesta which Tchaikovsky was the first to use symphonically (though Chausson had actually beaten him by a few years with incidental music for a French version of The Tempest). It’s the great Pas de deux that follows the Waltz of the Flowers that especially enchants me, and it was wonderful to hear this played so well by a ‘live’ orchestra.

Nutcracker mightn’t have fitted perfectly with the ‘Last Words’ theme of this year’s concerts, for the Sixth Symphony, and some piano pieces and songs followed it. But it served a higher purpose: to elevate the genre of great ballet music to the concert hall, and with this performance Marc Taddei proved the case most convincingly.

Taddei gave the first clues to the 2017 programme, which will follow the same most successful pattern as this year, disclosing the general theme of the music, associated with the great impresario Diaghilev, and at least two of his greatest collaborators: Stravinsky and Ravel. If you buy before the next and last of this year’s concerts, the sub is only $120.

 

Sweeney Todd – powerful and disturbing theatre at St.James’, Wellington

Posted on by Peter Mechen

New Zealand Opera (in association with Victorian Opera) presents:
SWEENEY TODD – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Music and Lyrics by STEPHEN SONDHEIM
Book by HUGH WHEELER (from a play by Christopher Bond)

Cast: Sweeney Todd – Teddy Tahu Rhodes
Mrs Lovett – Antoinette Halloran
Anthony Hope – James Benjamin Rodgers
Johanna – Amelia Berry
Tobias Ragg – Joel Granger
Judge Turpin – Phillip Rhodes
Beadle Bamford – Andrew Glover
Beggar Woman – Helen Medlyn
Adolfo Pirelli – Robert Tucker
Jonas Fogg – James Ioelu

Ensemble: Cameron Barclay, Stuart Coats, Declan Cudd
Barbara Graham, Elisabeth Harris, David Holmes
Morag McDowell, Chris McRae, Catherine Reaburn
Emma Sloman, Imogen Thirlwall

Conductor: Benjamin Northey
Director: Stuart Maunder
Designer: Roger Kirk
Lighting: Philip Lethlean
Audio: Jim Aitkins
Wardrobe: Elizabeth Whiting

Orchestra Wellington

St.James Theatre, Wellington

Friday 30th September, 2016

Stuart Maunder, New Zealand Opera’s chief, and the director of the company’s current production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd”, showing at Wellington’s St.James Theatre, called the show in a welcome message written in the programme “a meaty night out at the opera”. I admit I took fright for an instant, irrespective of my largely carnivorous food preferences history. It was just that I didn’t really fancy watching a series of lurid, blood-letting encounters served up for the edification of a respectable opera-going audience who might, without warning, transmogrify into a baleful mob calling for the entrails of the next unfortunate Christian thrown into the middle of the Circus Maximus.

However, reason prevailed – and suspecting that my reaction was probably due to a somewhat over-developed imagination, I resolved to bravely gird my loins, and “tough” my way through the predicted carnage!  While I’m not exactly a veteran of many cutting-edge, “anything goes” theatrical productions in the flesh (so to speak) I had seen sufficient examples on film of no-holds-barred ventures into some pretty visceral stuff to know that some present-day forays into the theatre could be pretty harrowing for audiences – so I resigned myself to be ready for anything!

As it turned out, my protective shields soon began to fall away, as, during the course of the drama, I became increasingly involved and/or empathetic with the intricacies, impulses and foibles of the story’s various characters. It was obvious that this production, with its ready and compelling amalgam of colourful Victorian atmosphere and accompanying operatic volatility and tragic darkness at its heart would bring out so much more than merely the notorious examples of violent blood-letting that the subject of “the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” has become renowned for above all other considerations.

I couldn’t help feeling the parallels between Sweeney Todd, the “demon barber”, and one of the most famous of all grand operatic characters, the misshapen jester Rigoletto. Each story has at its heart the darkness of wrong being done and having to be paid for in blood by the main character – Sweeney, the innocent victim of the rapacious desires of a judge who through deportation deprived him of his wife (whom he described as “virtuous”) and daughter; and Rigoletto, the unfortunate victim of his own physical deformity and the unfortunate loss of his wife, (whom he described as “an angel”), and, eventually, his daughter. (There’s actually a posting on the web which takes up this theme and develops it – it can be found on the following link http://dropera.blogspot.co.nz/2014/09/rigoletto-todd-demon-jester-of-mantua.html)

I won’t reiterate the points made by the linked article – but the upshot of Sondheim’s music and librettist Hugh Wheeler’s book is that the original “penny-dreadful” character-creation, Sweeney Todd, is fleshed-out, becoming a man with a “past” who is done a great wrong by society, and is determined to wreak revenge upon those responsible (Sondheim was inspired by Christopher Bond’s eponymous 1970s play, which set the character of Sweeney on the road to a kind of almost heroic status, transcending his former grisly serial-killer populist origins).

Quite frankly I couldn’t imagine the work more effectively realized in broad brush-stroke terms than in the performance we witnessed on opening night here in Wellington – one could perhaps cavil at this and that detail, most of which would anyway be matters of individual taste rather than theatrical and operatic absolutes. I haven’t seen another “Sweeney” live, but looked at several complete performance on you-tube, finding nothing that essentially superseded my memory and appreciation of what I witnessed “live” in the St.James last Friday evening. To me the overall atmosphere, the general plan and specific detailings of the set, the powerfully-focused lighting, the costumes that looked as though they had “grown” on the characters, and the sheer, no-holds-barred identification of each cast member with his or her role made for an overwhelming theatrical experience.

What a gift for a vibrant, energetic chorus this work is! – no mere indiscriminate body of variously-garbed onlookers upon whatever, these people lived their different roles as though their lives depended upon the outcome – often they were the story’s trajectory-makers, recounting and commenting on scenarios and events, almost always with clearly-ennunciated diction, even if some of Sondheim’s contrapuntal efforts resulted in general effect rather than specific detailing. Musical and dramatic force occasionally fused to telling effect, an example being the occasional appearance of the well-known “Dies irae” theme, beloved of Requiem settings by various composers throughout the ages, delivered with chilling, almost apocalyptic focus apposite to the stage action.

I thought one of the chorus’s greatest, and most breathtaking moments came mid-way through the Second Act, when vocalized storytelling power was suddenly and dramatically made flesh as the various members broke ranks and assumed the guises of an asylum’s inmates. The ensemble relished the depictions of chaos before regrouping at the scene’s end to drive the music’s fate-saturated course to the point of combustion with their repeated phrase “city on fire!”, echoing and abetting the various characters’ agitations – all very organically and compellingly advanced, the final reiterations of the “Dies ire” theme in the final chorus suitably cathartic, considering the Shakespearian body-count at the work’s conclusion.

The story-line takes in both dark, life-embittered business and youthful, idealized romance, but, there again, so does Beethoven’s Fidelio – rather than regard the scenes between Sweeney’s daughter, Johanna, and her young lover, Anthony, as lacking in edge, one must welcome their presence as stars determinedly negating the all-enveloping gloom of a night sky. I thought both Amelia Berry and James Benjamin Rodgers a whole-hearted, life-enhancing duo, making the most of their admittedly under-developed opportunities (though both the first appearance and the reprise of their duet “Kiss me!” was a delight, regarding both its singing and the pair’s accompanying interactions!). Each continued that quality of identification displayed in roles I’d previously seen them take, Berry as an attractive and spirited Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Rodgers as a beautifully characterized Goro in Madama Butterfly.

Antitheses of characterization were provided by a different partnership, that of Robert Tucker’s strong and vibrant-cum-sleazy Adfolfo Pirelli, the showman who attempted to blackmail Sweeney with the latter’s secret past, and his young assistant Tobias Ragg, played by Joel Granger, who conveyed with heartfelt ease his character’s almost naive wholeheartedness and loyalty towards his “protector”, the redoubtable Mrs Lovett, Sweeney’s partner in crime. But an extra dimension of character antithesis rolled into one was conveyed most masterfully by Helen Medlyn, whose portrayal as a mysterious, sometimes deranged, occasionally grisette-like, but at moments almost visionary beggar-woman was a kind of tour-de-force of characterization, transcending the almost “Game-of-Thrones” brutality with which she was despatched by the by-then-maniacal Sweeney (which action proved to be his ultimate undoing).

Villainy of interestingly-coloured threads was variously displayed by both Phillip Rhodes’ Judge Turpin, and Andrew Glover’s Beadle Bamford. The judge’s self-flagellation scene (partly confessional, partly self-indulgent airings of his lustful thoughts regarding Johanna, whom he had adopted as his ward after deporting her father to Australia!) I thought an interesting “take” on proverbial Victorian hypocrisy – through no fault of Phillip Rhodes’ I didn’t think it wasn’t entirely convincing, (and those actual whips seemed very “stylized”, almost to a fault!) – though compared with some rather naff fully-clothed equivalent self-flagellations I watched on You Tube which seemed particularly hypocritical, at least this Judge Turpin appeared to be actually punishing his bare flesh – which, I suppose, might have done it for some members of the audience. More importantly, Rhodes’ singing was a joy – characteristically deep, dark and satisfyingly sinister-sounding, and able to adopt more honeyed tones when appropriate.

And I did relish Andrew Glover’s portrayal of the free-wheeling Beadle Bamford, particularly enjoying the contrast between his swaggering First-Act manner and those almost genteel flecks of self-satisfaction he emitted when playing Mrs Lovett’s harmonium and singing a duet with her. Throughout, his calculated interactions with other characters (such as his suggestions to the Judge regarding ways of making the latter appear more attractive to women – “Ladies in their Sensitivities”) most effectively contributed to something of a study of controlled menace, all the more potent in its implications for whatever outcomes might result.

It could be said that one couldn’t have a “Sweeney Todd” without a performer to do the title role justice – but a great Sweeney would be almost nothing without an equally charismatic partner. This was, of course, the pie-shop lady, Mrs Lovett, who knew Sweeney in his previous life, and who told him upon his return from exile her version of what happened to his wife and his daughter. Here, it was the superb Antoinette Halloran, who brought energy, vibrancy, a great singing voice and well-honed acting skills to the role, bringing out all of the character’s charm and humour as well as a toughness and pragmatism necessary for survival in what were, obviously, tough times in a tough environment.

Though different as chalk from cheese to her Sweeney on this occasion, it was, in a sense, a match made in a theatrical heaven, as each character’s particular largesse complemented the other’s, presenting a kind of united front to the world, even if the fatal flaws in their interaction led to their eventual undoing. As Sweeney, Teddy Tahu Rhodes’ imposing figure certainly commanded the stage, his presence as enigmatic as Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, and as deep-browed as Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard. In contrast to Halloran’s flexible instrument, Rhodes’ tones had a rock-steadiness that allowed for little more than a basic variation of emotion, but which was expressive enough to convey grief at the memory of his long-lost wife and child, tender and flexible enough to salute his long-forgotten barber’s tools (“My Friends”) restored to him by the resourceful Mrs Lovett, and characterful enough to be her foil and allow occasional sparks to fly from their intermingling – their quick-fire-rhyming duet, “A Little Priest”, for instance, demonstrating adroit musical reflexes and teamwork, and producing an exhilarating and enjoyable result.

Yes, bucketfuls of blood were indeed spilt, but in almost every case the killings were practically ritualised, indeed, choreographed, sometimes with the music, so as to add a kind of execution-like air to the vengeful Sweeney’s murderous activities. Come-uppances were also the order of the day for most of the major players in the drama, with only the young lovers and the somewhat (by the end) deranged Tobias remaining more-or-less intact regarding life and limb! So the final sequence featured a ghostly parade of victims and perpetrators of violence alike, as the opening music returned and the chorus delivered the “Dies irae” motif amongst the pulsating textures and tones for the last time, with, fittingly, Sweeney and Mrs Lovett giving the audience the show’s final ironic salute just before the superbly-timed blackout.

So, great theatre, supported by brilliant direction from conductor Benjamin Northey, and on-the-spot playing from Orchestra Wellington. Altogether, it made for an  experience which I thought would have given the average opera-goer food for thought regarding the divisions often drawn between musical theatre and opera, ones which the musical genius of Stephen Sondheim seemed often in this work to call to question/

(A reminder: final two performances in Wellington at the St.James Theatre tonight (Tuesday) 4th Oct. at 6pm and Wednesday 5th Oct. at 7:30pm)

Annual Wellington Aria Contest final showcases some fine talent

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Wellington Regional Vocal Competitions: Final
(Hutt Valley Performing Arts Competition Society)

Adjudicator: Martin Snell
Finalists: Laura Loach, Elyse Hemara, Emily Mwila, Sophie Sparrow, Frederick Jones, Pasquale Orchard, Olivia Sheat, Joe Haddow
Accompanists: Catherine Norton and Mark Dorrell
Commentator: Georgia Jamieson Emms

St Andrew’s on The Terrace

Sunday 18 September, 7:30 pm

This year eighteen singers entered for the annual aria contest (it used to be the Hutt Valley Aria, when there was also a Wellington-based contest, run by the Wellington Competitions Society which died in the 1970s).

Some names were more familiar to me than others. I had only recalled Laura Loach in a smaller role in last year’s Gondoliers from Wellington G&S Light Opera, but couldn’t recall her voice. Her first aria was ‘Vissi d’arte’ from Tosca in which her large voice emerged both accurately but perhaps with rather more ferocity than pathos. Her second piece was Agathe’s beautiful ‘Leise, leise fromme Weise’ from Der Freischütz; it calls for quite marked contrasts, as it moves from the recitative-like ‘Wie nahte mir der Schlummer’, to the aria proper. Her voice was under nice control, even and subdued, then preparing a good contrast as the intensity builds to the big tune from the overture: ‘All meine Pulse schlagen, Und das Herz wallt ungestüm…’ which I thought was really fine.

Elyse Hemara’s first aria was one of Massenet’s loveliest from his little known Hérodiade, ‘Il est doux, il est bon’, that one only hears in anthologies by the likes of Kiri and Angela Gheorghiu. Intonation was a bit shaky to begin, but as she gained confidence there was sensitivity, and a sense that she meant what she was saying. Here she was in a quite different sort of role, having heard her as Lady Billows in the excerpt from Albert Herring a couple of weeks ago; but just as comvincing.

Like Massenet’s Hérodiade, I Vespri siciliani is not one of Verdi’s best known operas, but Elena’s fifth act aria, ‘Mercé, dilette amiche’, known as the ‘Bolero’, stands out in a somewhat laborious, if essentially Verdian score. Elyse, now in a rich deep purple dress, hinting at Roman aristocracy, shone in this bravura aria (no matter the missing top note), supported by Mark Dorrell’s scintillating piano.

I’d been impressed by Emily Mwila who sang Zerlina in both casts of Eternity Opera’s Don Giovanni: made for her. I was impressed that she’d tackle the only pre-Mozart aria in the Finals and she succeeded in expressing dignified grief in Handel’s Giulio Cesare (‘Piangero’); slightly desperate in the faster middle section, with accurate bravura flourishes.

For her second item, Emily also departed from the Italian repertory to which almost all the other finalists confined themselves: ‘Je veux vivre’, or the Waltz Song as it used to be called, from Roméo et Juliette. I admired Emily’s taste in dress, a subdued brocaded yellow. With teen-aged delirium she almost danced through her excitement at attending the ball where she’ll meet Romeo for the first time. Fully in command of her technique, it confirmed her radiant soubrette flair.

For the last year or so Georgia Jamieson Emms has introduced each item with amusing and pertinent remarks and sometimes a flippant precis of an opera plot which have added richly to the audience’s enjoyment. Her remarks about obscure works were particularly engaging.

I hadn’t come across the fourth finalist, Sophie Sparrow, before. Accompanied with colour and subtlety by Catherine Norton, she unearthed an aria from Mozart’s youthful La finta giardiniera, which I seem to recall, inconsequentially, as an opera in which Malvina Major had a principal role in the late 1980s. It was at La Monnaie, the national opera in Brussels, when her career was seriously taking off. ‘Gema la tortorella’ is sung by one Sandrina, the name assumed by the ‘fake gardener’. In truth, as Georgina hinted, it’s one of the more absurd opera plots, but contains lovely music; I wondered whether Miss Sparrow had picked an aria about a bird (a dove) deliberately (better known of course is Antonia’s aria in The Tales of Hoffmann ‘Elle a fui, la tourterelle’, and perhaps Stephano’s ‘Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle?’ from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette). A fine bird simulation, with high staccato notes.

Her second choice was from an American opera that has become reasonably well known in the United States: Douglas Moore’s 1956 work, Baby Doe (not a nice story). It revealed a voice under very good control, again much of it lying high yet comfortably within her range, without becoming attenuated.

Sophie Sparrow was placed as runner-up by adjudicator Martin Snell.

Frederick Jones has a tenor voice of considerable purity and emotional range. I’ve come across him at the Opera School in Whanganui and in a couple of productions (Il Corsaro from the NZSM in 2013 and Der Rosenkavalier from Opera at Days Bay). He stuck to arias that exploited both his command of major tenor roles as well as strongly contrasted emotions : great happiness in the case of Alfredo in La traviata, and despair at becoming victim of a stupid masculine honour code in the case of Lensky in Eugene Onegin.

That he wore a dinner suit for both, in contrast to all the other singers who sought to match dress with the roles, clearly did him no harm. His voice was refined and polished and created, with limited hand or facial gestures, the emotion of each aria. Even so, it seemed to me that Alfredo’s words ‘bollenti spiriti’ lacked much real ecstasy. Lensky’s aria however, was full of helpless grief.

Jones was awarded the main prize, the $4000 Dame Malvina Major Foundation Wellington Aria Prize.

Pasquale Orchard has sung in at least a couple of G&S Light Opera’s productions; and she also reached for Der Freischütz, this time the aria from Agathe’s cousin Ännchen, ‘Kommt ein schlanker Bursch gegangen’, her effort to relieve Agathe’s anxiety about Max’s chances in the shooting contest. She was in cheerful peasant gear, a green top and pink apron and she sang with even tone, investing it with a similar spirit.

Pasquale also sang Norina’s spunky aria from Don Pasquale (no pun intended). ‘Quel guardo il cavalieri’. Though she sang excellently, her voice showed more brilliance and accuracy than beauty in her high register.

Pasquale Orchard won the Rokfire prize for the most outstanding singer overall (strangely, a prize that seemed not to be mentioned in the programme).

She and the next singer, Olivia Sheat, had sung together as Frasquita and Mercedes in the Card Scene from Carmen at the NZSM opera excerpts concert 10 days ago.

Olivia Sheat’s first item was from Peter Grimes: the Embroidery Aria where Ellen sees the jersey that she had embroidered for Grimes’s apprentice who is presumed drowned. With every sign of natural dramatic talent, she captured the vein of confusion and enigmatic concern that invest not just this episode but the whole opera; her choice was no doubt a mark of her training at the New Zealand School of Music.

For her second aria Olivia also drew on Faust, with Marguérite’s Jewel Song, in which, with slightly excessive gestures, she displayed a well-supported voice in growing wonderment and susceptibility to the combined forces of avarice and passion.

Finally, Joseph Haddow, who was winner of the Robin Dumbell Memorial Cup for the young aria entrant with most potential, sang first ‘Ah, per sempre io ti perdei’ from I Puritani, and then the Catalogue aria from Don Giovanni.

I’d heard him a couple of weeks before singing Mozart’s Figaro in the School of Music’s concert of opera scenes. His is a well-founded baritone, a warm voice with a resonant quality, that handled the bravura aspect of the Bellini’s belcanto role well.

And the final offering of the evening, Leporello’s list of the Count’s conquests, is one of the most quintessential and well known arias. Though he didn’t hold the famous ‘catalogue’ in his hands, the hands and facial gestures, with even a touch of cynical sleeziness at the end were the marks of an instinctive singer.

So, as with every occasion when gifted young singers (and classical musicians in general) perform, one feels deep uneasiness at the ever-increasing numbers of fine young artists facing a steadily declining market, in a society that is led by a purportedly educated class that is largely unlettered and uncultivated in fields that separate the civilised from the barbarians.

In addition to the occasional reference in the above notes, I have to remark on the very supportive and artistically appropriate accompaniments from both Catherine Norton and Mark Dorrell.

It may be unorthodox to mention singers that I felt were a bit unlucky not to be named, either those among the Finalists or other entrants whom I’ve heard singing recently. Jamie Henare, heard as Leporello in Don Giovanni last month; Emily Mwila (Zerlina in the same production of Don Giovanni, as well as in the school of music’s recent ‘Scenes from opera’).

Admirably staged and sung opera and music theatre excerpts from the school of music

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

“Collision”: Opera Scenes 2016
New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University

Musical director: Mark Dorrell; Director: Jon Hunter
Performance tutor: Maaike Christie-Beekman

Memorial Theatre, Victoria University

Sunday 11 September, 2:30 pm (earlier performances on 9 and 10 September)

The school of music’s once annual opera productions have in recent years fallen back to biennial events. In the between years, students create a series of scenes from opera, against a background of elementary sets and a few props that can, with a bit of imagination, be used in various settings.

This production employed around sixteen singers, though the photo gallery in the printed programme contained 23 faces which included first-year students and two guest singers who were not individually listed, but contributed to the chorus; many took part in two or three scenes.

The scenes from eleven works were divided between opera proper and various sub-categories that go by a variety of definitions like operetta, comic opera, musicals, musical theatre. The excerpts from heartland opera came first while the various kinds of musical theatre were in the second half.

As a generalized comment, the quality of singing, acting, energy level, and spirit of enthusiasm and enjoyment were very high, and at moments where musical or story quality limped, the dynamism that invested the whole show carried it.

The marvellous discovery scene from Act 3 of The Marriage of Figaro made a hilarious and fast-paced beginning: Marcellina and Bartolo are revealed as Figaro’s real parents, and their portrayals were vocally strong (Katrina Brougham and William King), as was the devil-may-care Figaro of Joseph Haddow.,with Alexandra Gandionco as Susanna.

Donizetti’s Tudor opera Anna Bolena handles the revelation to Henry VIII’s Queen, Anne Boleyn, of her unwilling rival, Jane Seymour. It exposed Shayna Tweed’s (the Queen’s) voice at the start, but it gained strength and individuality alongside Olivia Sheat’s vivid depiction of Seymour, as the latter’s uncomfortable role is exposed.

Britten’s comedy Albert Herring which may not have had a professional production in New Zealand since the 1960s, is not easy to bring comfortably to life; its humour can seem naïve. Before the opening scene, four singers set the spirit of the piece with a ball game, from later in the first act. A village meeting in the first scene decides to replace the annual Queen of the May contest (no girl is seen as virtuous enough) by a King of the May – and the chosen boy is the simple, but virtuous Albert Herring. Several earlier singers consolidated their talents here, plus the Lady Billows of Elyse Hemara, who assumed the role of patroness and village matriarch, in a spirited scene.

The card scene from Carmen and the mutual disclosure of Falstaff’s identical letters to Alice and Meg were further opera excerpts between operetta and musical in the second half. In the card scene, Frasquita and Mercedes (Olivia Sheat and Pasquale Orchard) study their fates in the cards before the light-hearted tone suddenly vanishes with Carmen’s arrival. There was a somewhat nervous vibrato in Sally Haywood’s voice which may coincidentally have matched the revelation of her fate.

Both Sheat and Haywood reappeared in the famous scene from Falstaff in which the two ladies discover Falstaff’s foolish ploy and decide to play along. Elizabeth Harré, who had sung the spoiler’s role of Florence in Albert Herring, took another strong character role as Mistress Quickly. (How I’d have loved it if the Nannetta, Alexandra Gandionco, had sung that magical ‘Sul fil d’un soffio etesio’ in the last scene – Angela Gheorghiu totally undid me with her recording).

The Broadway musicals included the 1975 satire on police corruption, Chicago, with the highlight scene, ‘Cell Block Tango’, for six prison inmates who celebrate their achievements in punishing errant husbands: a hilarious, if alarming scene that was splendidly carried off.  All have been mentioned elsewhere, except for Nicole Davey: and all that needs be said is that there was no weakness among the six.

Then Sondheim’s Into the Woods, one of his most successful near-musicals, in which Garth Norman and William King vividly illuminated the two fairy-tale princes to Cinderella and to the Grimm tale, Rapunzel, in the scene, ‘Agony’.

Fiddler on the Roof originated as a Yiddish story from Russia, and its most famous number, ‘Matchmaker, Matchmaker’, again characterized in genuine Broadway style, though only subtly satirizing the practice of arranged marriages; the three daughters: Eleanor McGechie, Emma Cronshaw-Hunt and Karishma Thanawala.

Les Misérables was the only one of the musicals that did not originate in New York (Paris, though its real success came after its English adaptation for the Royal Shakespeare Company in London). It offered yet another kind of love dilemma, ‘In my life’ and ‘A heart full of love’, with Karishma Thanawala (after her Chava in ‘Matchmaker’), here sang Eponine, grief-stricken at giving up Marius (Julian Chu-Tan) to Pasquale Orchard’s Cosette.

Three scenes from The Pirates of Penzance brought the show to a close. They began with ‘When a felon’s not engaged in his employment’, which is near the end, led by the Sergeant (Haddow), and inserted ‘Dry the glistening tear’, from Mabel (Sheat) and the female chorus, which actually opens Act II.

I could understand the reason for departing from the order of the three numbers, to put the most rambunctious at the end: ‘When the foeman bares his steel’. (Though I have to confess my greater love of Offenbach, and in this context the Gendarmes Duet, or ‘Couplets des deux hommes d’armes’ from Geneviève de Brabant). The slightly problematic ‘baring of steel’ march number held no fears for the final ensemble of Mabel, Edith (Elyse Hemara), Sergeant, and choruses of policemen and daughters).

Throughout one admired the often virtuosic performance at the piano by Mark Dorrell, especially in the well-rehearsed table lamp episode, always carefully secondary to the singers, but the more admirable for that. And the production team, the movement tutor (is that short for ‘choreographer’?) Lyne Pringle; and most importantly vocal tutors Margaret Medlyn, Richard Greager, James Clayton, Jenny Wollerman and Lisa Harper-Brown.

One looks forward to a main-stage, full opera production in 2017.

Maaike Christie-Beekman with Rachel Thomson in admirable song recital

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Wednesday Lunchtime Concerts

Maaike Christie-Beekman (mezzo-soprano) and Rachel Thomson (piano)

Debussy: Trois Chansons de Bilitis
Samuel Barber: Hermit Songs
Poulenc: Banalités

St. Andrew’s on The Terrace

Wednesday, 31 August 2016, 12.15pm

A recital entirely of song-cycles is perhaps a little unusual, but it made for a very satisfying concert.  Maaike Christie-Beekman introduced each in a lively and informative way, giving a summary of the words of each song.  Even though she was not using a microphone, most of what she said could be heard clearly.

The Debussy cycle used poems by Pierre Louÿs, which the latter claimed were translations of the Greek, but were in fact his own work, based on Greek styles and in some cases, sources.  The first, ‘La flûte de Pan’, was dreamy in character, with the enchanting flute written into both voice and piano parts in unmistakable French style.  It was a gorgeous song, sung by a gorgeous voice, with its very expressive, beautifully controlled range of dynamics.  ‘La Chevelure’ (head of hair), the second song, was livelier, with the French language pronounced with clarity.

The third, ‘Le tombeau des Naiades’ became quite excited, but ended in a quiet, contemplative mood.  The piano was always sympathetic and eloquent.

The performers turned next to the English language and Samuel Barber.  The poems were translations of Irish poems written from the 8th to the 13th centuries, and translated by W.H. Auden and others.  Most had religious themes, starting with a spiky ‘At Saint Patrick’s Purgatory’.  Here again, in English, Christie-Beekman’s words were for the most part very clear.  ‘Church Bell at Night’ was much more mellow, like the bell.  ‘St. Ita’s Vision’ followed.  I had never heard of this Irish saint, but apparently she lived a virginal life in the fifth century.  The song began in declamatory fashion, and then flowed into euphoria.

By contrast, ‘A Heavenly Banquet’ sounded like a very a jolly party. ‘The Crucifixion’ focused on the drama and pain, expressing grief.  ‘Sea-Snatch’ was fast and furious, like the action of a stormy sea, while the brief ‘Promiscuity’ was angular, questioning whether someone was sleeping alone.  ‘The Monk and his Cat’ contained delightful meows and other feline features, particularly in the lovely frisky accompaniment.  ‘The Praises of God’ was also short – and powerful.  Finally, ‘The Desire for Hermitage’ was solemn and flowing.  The sustained notes were beautiful.  All were characterised, and sung with appropriate feeling and clarity.

Banalités is Poulenc’s setting of poems by Guillaume Apollinaire (real name Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Apollinaris Kostrowitzky); this was the last in the tri-cycle.  Its opening number was ‘Chanson d’Orkenise’.  Not the Orkney Islands, but a village in France.  It was a fast, spirited song in a set all about love and heartbreak (but banal?).  The second , ‘Hôtel’, was more thoughtful, with a lazy mood.  The poem was about a young man who just wanted to stay in his room and smoke.  ‘Fagnes de Wallonie’ concerned a wander through the woods in Wallonie in Belgium – but sounded more like a quick trot.

‘Voyage à Paris’ was described by Christie-Beekman as ‘Carmenesque’.  It began with decisive chords from the piano, and the words confidently described ‘gay Paree’.  Finally, ‘Sanglots’ (sobs).  It was quieter and more introspective, but developed dramatically, having a sublime ending.

The singer conveyed lovely tone throughout a wide tessitura.  All the songs were sung in a thoroughly accomplished and comfortable manner.  Moreover, Christie-Beekman gave a lesson in fine presentation.

 

Magical I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Bellini) the tenth production by Rhona Fraser’s Opera in Days Bay

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Bellini)
Opera in a Days Bay Garden (But now in the house)
Produced by Rhona Fraser
Musical director and piano: Rosemary Barnes; Hayden Sinclair – clarinet; Greg Hill – horn

Cast: Barry Mora – Capellio, Bianca Andrew – Romeo, Katherine McIndoe – Giulietto, Filipe Manu – Tebaldo, William King – Lorenzo

Canna House, Moana Road, Days Bay

Saturday 27 August, 7:30 pm

This production of Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, like the productions of several of the operas done by Rhona Fraser’s Days Bay company, was probably the New Zealand premiere. Though there may have been performances by minor opera groups over recent years, I’m sure no recent professional production would have escaped me. (but see more in the Appendix below)

One of the problems with this assumed Shakespeare-modelled piece has been the tendency among English-speaking people to scorn any treatment of their great dramatist’s works by foreigners who don’t understand the essential character of Shakespeare’s plays. They forget that Shakespeare invented almost none of his plots, but drew them from many sources, as did almost everyone then, and would still do today if it weren’t for the literary impediments and excesses of the Law of Intellectual Property. Shakespeare’s main sources for the plays were Holinshed’s Chronicles of British history, classical historians like Plutarch and a variety of recent plays, poems and novelle from France and Italy. The latter creations account for Romeo and Juliet.

That is not to denigrate the extraordinary genius of Shakespeare who clothed them in rich and marvelous language, fully developed charcterisations, vivid dramatic situations, wit, irony, pathos and delight in the sheer virtuosity of his imagination, that turned dry raw material into the richest and most amazing literary creations.

Medieval origins of the story
The story, that no doubt had its origins in anonymous oral myth in the earlier Middle Ages, took written form from the 14th century, through Boccaccio, Bandello and others. Bellini’s librettist, Romani, had originally written his libretto (Giulietta e Romeo) for Nicola Vaccai in 1825, the story adapted from an earlier libretto by Giuseppe Maria Foppa for a 1796 opera by Zingarelli. (There is the curious story that certain singers, Malibran and Pasta inter alia, demanded the Vaccai version of the last act instead of Bellini’s).

These Italian librettists were probably using the Italian sources, as Shakespeare did not begin to be translated into other languages till around 1800. One of the first to translate Shakespeare into Italian, starting from 1811 was Michele Leoni and his translation of Romeo and Juliet was published in 1814. Romani could have known it.

So here’s a slender connection with Shakespeare. Michele Leoni’s translation and a separate Italian play by Scevolo, of 1816; both appeared before 1825 when Romani wrote his libretto for Vaccai. But the fact that there’s almost no trace of the Shakespearean story or language in Bellini, makes Shakespeare an unlikely source.

That is a long way of saying that Bellini’s librettist, Romani, had a much greater range of Romeo and Juliet stories to draw on than Shakespeare had. English literature need not feel demeaned by any sort of corruption of the great Shakespeare’s work in the Bellini account of the story.

Guelfs and Ghibellines; Campbells and MacDonalds
The other historical element in the story is the allegiances of the two families to actual long-standing factional warfare that had blighted Italy for centuries, between Guelfs and Ghibellines (the Capulets adhered to the Guelfs while the Montagues were Ghibelline); the feud was driven by the overarching political and ecclesiastical forces of the late Middle Ages – supporters of the Pope (Guelfs) and supporters of the Holy Roman Emperor (Ghibellines). The various states of Italy were ruled by one faction or the other; some were happily neutral. And these warring parties continued to bring grief to many parts of the country for centuries.

To be aware of these perpetually feuding elements is to help understand the viciousness and implacability of the hatred between Capulets and Montagues. (Look up accounts of the Guelfs and Ghibellines – Wikipedia is a good place to start).

To these dualities, Rhona Fraser added another, reflecting perhaps Scottish, family antecedents: warring clans, the Campbells and MacDonalds, replaced Capulets and Montagues. Thus the Capulets wore the Campbell kilt while the Montagues wore MacDonald tartan; though in truth nothing much was made of the geographical and ethnic shift.

However, to be aware of all the historical, textual, political and factional background to the opera hugely enlarges the fascination of the work.

See the Appendix to this review for more detailed account of the story’s antecedents, both of Shakespeare and of Bellini, and other peripheral stuff.

Turning seriously to Capuleti e Montecchi
This was the tenth production from Rhona Fraser and Co’s Days Bay opera enterprise. We happy band of Wellingtonians can be grateful for these sometimes more than once a year opportunities to discover delights of out-of-the-way opera repertoire. For the first time this production was in the house at Days Bay which managed to accommodate over 100 completely filled seats in the interestingly disposed living areas.

A first-rate cast was assembled. Bianca Andrew in trouser role of Romeo and Katherine McIndoe as Giulietta, Barry Mora at the patriarch Capellio (a stark contrast to Shakespeare’s conciliatory, rather human, Capulet!). What a formidable challenge Mora presented straight away, his voice and his very presence chilling in their power and authority. Nor was his de facto lieutenant, Tebaldo, less dangerous: Filipe Manu, who was runner-up in last month’s Lexus Song Quest. His younger, polished voice captured his angry inflexibility, and we tremble at the improbability of negotiating any sort of peace, given that Romani’s Tebaldo is even more filled with insane hate as is Shakespeare’s Tybalt.

But the third party in the opening scene was William King as Lorenzo: here it’s not Friar Lawrence, but the family doctor, Dr Lorenzo, which makes his later familiarity with potions and poisons rather more credible. His role is integral in the story from the start, and his singing and acting make the situation more interesting than the unmitigated hostility, emphasis much more on revenge and the killing of each other, that Shakespeare delivers. Sort of a UN Secretary-General mediating between Assad and Netanyahu.

And we note, perhaps with a certain relief, that we only have to get five roles identified, compared with the dozen or so in Shakespeare. We have no Montagues apart from Romeo himself (and he is disguised as a Capulet/Campbell).

Behind it all was producer and founding genius Rhona Fraser, this time directly in charge of the staging generally. If one had wondered how effective an attempt at staging would be in the somewhat constrained space in the house, the arrival of the first singers left no doubt. The shape of the rooms and their furnishings proved as convincing as any theatre stage, and use of tartan meant no need for elaborate Renaissance costumes. Props were limited to a few knives or swords, and dozens of candles along with subdued lighting removed us to a different time and place.

Though Romeo’s first appearance is as an anonymous envoy suing for peace between the ancient enemies. Romeo has already killed Capulet’s son, in a situation of ‘warfare’ (in which killing is not necessarily a crime). Trouser roles have become pretty familiar over the years as more and more operas of the 18th century, and quite a few later, are uncovered (and after all, Octavian in Rosenkavalier and the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos are cases). Even with her fairly high mezzo voice, Bianca adopted with total conviction her role as a strong, energetic, attractive young man which somehow made Romeo a genuinely conciliatory figure.

But Tebaldo wants blood. Romeo’s moving and placatory appeal for peace is accompanied by Hayden Sinclair’s clarinet which seems a symbol of reconciliation, but his plea is scorned. For apart from Rosemary Barnes’s piano, the only instruments used, most tellingly in their isolation, are the clarinet and Greg Hill’s French horn which then, and at points later seemed to provide the very timbre that evoked the essence of an orchestral accompaniment.

It becomes a high-tension trio, and its absolute integrity and balance through contrast, and the tension it creates made me feel that this was a performance that could support a fully staged, professional production.

The poignant sound of the horn introduced the recitative before Giulietta’s great, heart-felt aria, as she stood visible, behind a glass door, leading to the heart-breaking ‘Oh! quante volte’. Then, though the pair have met before, unlike the encounter at the Capulets’ ball in Shakespeare, Lorenzo enters with Romeo; and that leads to the beautiful love duet, the two, soprano and mezzo, both looking and sounding enchantingly beautiful, to a degree I’ve rarely experienced. It was intensified by the closeness of audience to performers.

The wedding ceremonies preparation demanded rather more space and numbers than were possible but the appearance of Romeo and Lorenzo together, with differing ideas about tactics sustained the agitated emotion: Romeo’s followers are about to storm the wedding, Romeo reveals his identity as Tebaldo’s rival for Giulietta’s hand, and it’s all on. And again, in spite of space constraints and smallness of chorus numbers, the drama was undiminished. Again Romeo failed to persuade Giulietta to escape with him.

Unlike in Shakespeare, for Romani and Bellini the couple’s great passion is not enough to overcome Giulietta’s fears and family loyalty, and finally, in Act II, Doctor Lorenzo’s remedy is the death-seeming potion to avoid being taken by force to Tybalt’s house. As her father arrives she finally takes it; there were further confrontations between Tebaldo and Romeo which end in the hearing of what is supposed to be funeral music which, for one of the very few occasions, the piano alone seemed inadequate. But it caused the two rival lovers strangely to unite in their common loss. Capellio’s implacability remains till the very end however, and there’s no coming together of the two families. The sequence of events leading to Romeo’s suicide and Giulietta’s awakening just seconds too late, were among the few elements in the tale where English play and Italian libretto came together.

The scene, beautifully lit with candles, moved slowly, demanding long-sustained stillness and almost mesmerizing effects that transfixed the audience.

I doubt whether there was anyone in the house who left with the feeling that this opera had offered an experience that was less powerful and convincing than Shakespeare’s, even though only a fraction of the words was employed. It certainly put this opera in the same class as Norma, and for me ahead of Sonnambula and Puritani.

Appendix

Italian origins of the story
The Romeo and Juliet story comes from an Italian story that was handled by several writers from the 14th century onwards.

The earliest traces of the story are in Boccaccio’s mid-14th century Decameron (III,8 and X,4) and an anonymous tales of two lovers called Leonora de Bardi and Ippolito Bondelmonti. They may have been the sources for the novella by Masuccio Salernitano published in 1476, about two lovers in Siena, Mariotto and Ganozza.

But the story takes something of its Shakespearean shape with the novella of Luigi da Porto about 1524 where the lovers are named Romeo and Giulietta, respectively members of the Montecchi and Capuleti families who inhabit Verona.

The drama then moves to France where Adrien Sevin in 1542 published a tale clearly indebted to Da Porto, though given a pseudo ancient Greek setting.

Then an Italian, Gerardo Boldieri, published a poem in 1553, introducing several innovations.

And in Lucca the next year Matteo Bandello published a Novella in the style of Boccaccio’s Decameron. Bandello drew on Da Porto with borrowings from the story of Leonora and Ippolito as well as from Boldieri.

This, together with five other Bandello stories were translated into French by Pierre Boaistuau in 1559, and that was adapted and translated in a long English poem by Arthur Brooke, published in 1562; and then a prose version by William Painter in 1567.

It is believed that Shakespeare knew both versions but based his play primarily on Brooke.

(Much ado about Nothing and Twelfth Night as well as Webster’s Duchess of Malfi were also based on Bandello’s stories, via Brooke).

Origins of the story in Italian opera
As for the origins of the story in Italian opera, the first opera libretto was probably by Luzzi for Marescalchi (1785, Venice), then Foppa for Zingarelli (1796, Milan), and Buonaiuti for Pietro Carlo Guglielmi (1810, London).

Felice Romani had written a libretto in 1825 called Giulietta e Romeo for composer Nicola Vaccai. (Vaccai’s career has been the subject of musicological research by Wellington’s opera and literary scholar Jeremy Commons). Romani’s libretto for Vaccai’s opera was probably based on the play of the same name by Luigi Scevola, written in 1818, and/or on Giuseppe Maria Foppa’s libretto for Zingarelli of 1796, the ultimate derivation of which was the Salernitano version from the 15th century, referred to above.

First translations into Italian
They were doubtless using the Italian sources, as Shakespeare did not begin to be translated into other languages till around 1800.
However, Michele Leoni was one of the first to translate Shakespeare into Italian, starting from 1811 and his translation of Romeo and Juliet was published in 1814, so it is very possible that Luigi Scevola’s play of 1818 drew on that translation though that is not based on any textual examination, and that Romani was influenced by it, for both Vaccai and Bellini. (An entry in Wikipedia declares simply that Romani’s libretto was based on Scevola’s play).

The first Italian libretto explicitly based on Shakespeare’s play did not appear until 1865; it was by Marco Marcello, for composer Filippo Marchetti’s Romeo e Giulietta first given in Trieste.

Bellini in New Zealand
I was curious to look at the early history of Bellini productions in 19th century New Zealand, to find Sonnambula by far the most frequently staged – seven productions between 1864 and 1881, and then none, and none in modern times, followed by Norma (and Canterbury Opera did that in 2002) and a couple of Puritanis in the tours of the 1860s and 1870s.

But no sign at all of I Capuleti, or of any of the other Bellini operas, like Il pirata, or La straniera. While we have been awakened to 18th century opera, and earlier – Monteverdi and Cavalli – Bellini has not had the same attention as Donizetti, understandable when the latter composed about seven times as many operas as Bellini.

Today, worldwide, things are not very different. Bellini is not among the most performed composers by any means as attention still dives deeper into the 17th and 18th centuries. London’s Opera magazine index of reviews for last year recorded Norma first, Puritani second and Capuleti and Sonnambula, with just one or two each. There was also one review of La straniera.

A night in Hanover 2003
It also helped that I’d seen it before, once in 2003 in Hanover, where I’d heard the conductor’s introductory talk where in which he described the Italian, non-Shakespearean origins of the story. The production was in some ways a characteristic, wilful German reinterpretation, but re-reading my account, as recorded in an article in New Zealand Opera News, it’s clear that I enjoyed and was moved by it. I found the striking black and white costumes arresting (still the fashion colour for today’s stage designers): Romeo, black and Giuletta, white, in the gorgeously sung love scene; and I remarked that the opera captured the character of the inter-tribal feud more poignantly than Shakespeare.

A friend who’d seen the 80s production at Covent Garden, full of top singers, asked me about the singers at Hanover; I couldn’t remember. As with most of my opera excursions in Germany and France I don’t look primarily for famous singers, but seek operas I don’t know, and opera houses, for their own sake. However, the two principals were Ina Kancheva (Giulietta) and Christiane Iven (Romeo).

But you need to dip into the Shakespeare for only a moment, as I was doing writing this, for any sort of one-dimensional comparison with Bellini to be ridiculous. One is totally seduced by the fluency, richness and wit of Shakespeare’s language, his imagination, the emotional and intellectual complexity of the interactions between his so subtly portrayed characters. And did you hear in the interval of a BBC Proms broadcast on Radio New Zealand Concert, a marvelous discussion between the BBC presenter and a Shakespeare actor (whose name I didn’t get), on Tuesday evening (30/8), just before despatching this? Finally, he delivered a spectacular speech from Henry VI Part 3 (I think; I’ve emailed RNZ Concert for help identifying). One wept in astonishment.

 

 

Don Giovanni scores impressively in performance by Eternity Opera’s second cast

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Don Giovanni by Mozart
Produced by Eternity Opera: producer Sandra Malesic
Conductor: Simon Romanos; stage director: Alex Galvin
(Sung in English translation by Edward Dent)

Sixteen-piece orchestra, led by Douglas Beilman
Cast in order of appearance: Nino Raphael, Orene Tiai, Amanda Barclay, Derek Miller, Chris Berentson, Hannah Catrin Jones, Emily Mwila, Charles Wilson

Hannah Playhouse (former Downstage Theatre)

Wednesday 24 August, 7:30 pm

When I arrived at the theatre at 7pm, I was surprised (and delighted) to find a box office queue out to the street. Though it proved to be largely because there was only one person handling both sales and the collection of already purchased tickets, it did show that the production had attracted high interest, and indeed by 7.30, there was scarcely an empty seat in the house.

This was the first evening at which a second cast was engaged – all except the Zerlina of the brilliantly cast Emily Mwila, who’d sung in the first cast too. The other singers this evening were rather the covers for the first cast, though each cast served as the chorus for the other; thus all were on stage for all performances.

It confirmed the success of the implicit intention expressed in the programme booklet: that here was a new opera company that sought to reach a wide audience with productions that were exciting and accessible to all, and reasonably priced.

The staging, costuming, orchestra
One can sense an audience that’s expecting to have a good time, almost through the sounds of their breathing; they were lively and responsive, ready to laugh generously at the least excuse; few operas offer as many opportunities as this. Which was a happy situation since the orchestra was tasked with creating a Mozart accompaniment from a very reduced score that was rather remote from the spirit and elegance of the original. (I could find no acknowledgement of the arranger in the programme; assume it was music director Romanos). Though the one-to-a-part strings presented a challenge in terms of orchestral warmth, I was glad that pairs of clarinets and bassoons were employed – instruments Mozart took special pleasure in. Any deficiencies in orchestral opulence were compensated by a sort of youthful energy and gusto, and also demonstrating sensitivity to the singers’ needs.

An imaginative stroke was to use guitarist Christopher Hill to accompany recitative, and to become the mandolin for Giovanni’s serenade.

Ignoring the music for a moment, the next thing was sets and costumes. The former were elementary, consisting of a dark back wall with door, and an upstairs balcony for Giovanni’s hurried first-scene exit from Donna Anna bedroom, and for Donna Elvira’s maid to be proxy-serenaded in the Act II costume swap between the Don and his servant; and dramatically useful curtains at the sides. The costumes on the other hand approached authenticity, sometimes richly, and so contributed hugely to the luminous hilarity of the staging that often depended on forced economies, near-misses of characterization.

The hand of an experienced stage director, Alex Galvin, was clear, often coming to the aid of singers whose vocal talents needed a certain support from meaningful acting and interaction.

Singers, seduction and swordsmanship
That opening scene is the devil though; virtuosic acting and singing is demanded straight away, and split-second timing. One hopes for a convincing sword fight; this consisted of just a couple of thrusts and the almost immediate dispatch of the Commendatore by Excelencia Don Giovanni (New Zealand’s weapons of choice these days are clearly not swords, noting the variety of devices employed in our daily murder cases).

It didn’t all work perfectly, for it’s so hard to fit words to action and the disposition of the singers. For example, Anna in the opening scene claims her intruder is threatening her, when in fact the Don by then is trying to escape; such things can often be explained – here for example, as part of Anna’s continuing effort to construct a rape scene for the sake of her reputation (though I don’t share that explanation of the situation).

Anna was sung by singing lawyer Amanda Barclay (who rather failed to explore all the remedies that might have been available to one schooled in the law); but here, her singing and acting were energetic and accurate and in her later appearances she confirmed her grasp of the complex nature of the role.

Her sexual abuser was Orene Tiai who has been singing successfully for a decade or so (I recall him early in his career, in the 2007 Tales of Hoffmann staged by Wellington G&S Light Opera). Larger than life, a warm, big voice, and acting that was perhaps just a little too plebeian for his role as local potentate-cum-rake.

Nino Raphael (NZSM alumnus) sang Leporello; he was dressed more like the Don’s gardener than as his man-servant; he is usually presented as the equivalent of Figaro: his master’s equal in all but wealth and power. His broad asides were in keeping with the more menial character, slightly lop-sided, and his acting, though lively enough, would better have fitted one of Shakespeare’s ‘mechanicals’. His singing matched that character well enough and later, his Catalogue aria appalled and amused cast and audience alike.

Donna Anna’s usually pathetically-portrayed lover, Don Ottavio, was sung by tenor Chris Berentson, another G&S stalwart. Though there was no announcement to the effect, I had to assume that he was struggling with a vocal problem as his voice was troubled; his ‘Dalla sua pace’ was omitted but he did sing, as well as could be expected given his vocal condition, the rather more taxing ‘Il mio tesoro’ in the second act, which is what Mozart substituted for a better tenor at a later, Viennese, performance. On the other hand, he acted the role with convincing, dead-pan, bloodless dignity, white costumed and every inch the honourable version of the aristocrat (in somewhat marked contrast to Don Giovanni).

Italian or English
And here I must confess to a little disappointment with the use of English (even in the version, now a little dated, by the distinguished Edward Dent). Any of the trained singers would have known all the main arias and ensemble pieces in Italian, and one felt a bit deprived without that aspect of a package of sound where words and music are so inseparable. But I know surtitles cost, and that for many of the audience, English would have helped. Diction naturally varied, but the English words were generally comprehensible.

Then there was the Commendatore of Derek Miller, an experienced singer, mainly in the Gilbert and Sullivan mold; again, there was some gap between his brief singing and acting – mainly dueling – and the timing and performance demands of his last few minutes on earth. He seemed at a loss in his confrontation with his daughter’s alleged rapist; here and at many places, more rehearsal with both stage and musical directors might have put the pieces together better (though I doubt that swordsmanship is a major part of singers’ training these days).

In that scene we encountered Donna Elvira, now, in contrast to Anna, fully dressed, wearing a rather gorgeous dark floral brocade gown. Hannah Catrin Jones, like the other Donna, revealed a good, well-projected voice, expressive and quietly passionate, but without a great deal of dynamic variety; later, in her intercession to defend Zerlina against the Don’s scoring another notch in his belt, she sang and acted with flair, only her top a little unrestrained. One looked forward to Elvira’s great aria ‘Mi tradi quell’ alma ingrata’ in the last scene, and it came off splendidly.

Defending Zerlina
That brings us to Zerlina, sung by Emily Mwila in both casts. She was the quintessentially flirtatious, spunky, all too ready to fall in with Giovanni’s plans that involved marriage and status and a life-time of faithful loving. And she’s not altogether pleased at Elvira’s interference. It was a high point of the show.

Throughout, the small orchestral ensemble does interesting and illuminating things, warmly supportive, and it was good to be able to pick them up at times, such as the cello solo after Zerlina’s ‘Batti, batti o bel Masetto’, and following woodwind echoing.

Zerlina’s lover was sung by Charles Wilson and he too was well cast, acting almost too well the humourless, powerless, put-upon, about-to-be-betrayed fiancé. For some reason Masetto doesn’t engage our sympathy much, and Wilson manfully (shall we say) exploited his role as the ritually laughed-at cuckold, a stock character from Greek and Roman comedy, and the Renaissance.

The final scene can be one of the great operatic experiences, but a lot of elements need to be right. A carefully crafted Giovanni/Leporello relationship is vital, but the rustic character of the servant somewhat militated against the suppressed hilarity and the conflicted feelings we have for the Don’s inevitable fate.

There’s only a limited role for the small, effective chorus. But a very important role for orchestra. As I note above, there was much to be grateful for, but the balance of tone and style between limited strings and winds suggested that singers and players could have benefitted from more rehearsal together. More time was needed for the integrity of the orchestral reduction to be properly absorbed by both.

However, let me not be misunderstood. An enterprise like this must be enthusiastically welcomed; it provides a little of the vital intermediate stage to a professional career that is almost entirely absent in New Zealand. One keeps hoping that one of the groups that arise from time to time will survive and flourish, and become professional, just as the De La Tour Opera of the 1980s turned into Wellington City Opera.

Onwards towards professional opera again
For Wellington now has no professional opera company. In spite of initial assurances of even-handed division of work between Auckland and Wellington when the two companies merged in 2000, Auckland has slowly absorbed everything, leaving Wellington as mere recipient of New Zealand Opera ‘touring performances’.

Let me recall that through its some 16 years of life Wellington City Opera staged about 34 productions, more than any other city over that period, and about the same number that New Zealand Opera has staged in Wellington in the past 16 years.

Over the past decade or so many groups have staged opera in Wellington; they come and they go. Essential to survival are determined management with the personal skills capable of winning funding, and pursuing sensible, adventurous artistic aims. Eternity Opera could be it. At least their name and this initial performance offers a pointer.

The Don rides out again – Eternity Opera’s “other” Don Giovanni

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Don Giovanni – Eternity Opera’s “understudy” cast

Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte
English Translation by Edward Dent

Alex Galvin (director)
Simon Romanos (music director)
Sandra Malesic (producer)

Cast:
Leoporello – Nino Raphael
Don Giovanni – Orene Tiai
Donna Anna – Amanda Barclay
Commendatore/Statue – Derek Miller
Don Ottavio – Chris Berentson
Donna Elvira – Hannah Catrin Jones
Zerlina – Emily Mwila
Masetto – Charles Wilson

Dancers and Chorus: Taryn Baxter, Minto Fung,
India Loveday, Sarah Munn, Jessica Short

Orchestra:
Douglas Beilman (concertmaster),
Anna van der Zee (violin) Victoria Janëcke (viola),
Inbal Meggido (‘cello) Victoria Jones (double-bass),
Timothy Jenkin (flute) Merran Cooke (oboe),
Mark Cookson, Moira Hurst (clarinet),
Ed Allen (horn),
 Christopher Hill (guitars),
Josh Crump (trumpet),
Andrew Yorkstone, Mark Davey (alto trombone),
Hannah Neman (timpani)

Hannah Playhouse, Wellington

Wednesday 24th August, 2016

What a delight to be able to enjoy, within the space of a few days, a second, almost entirely different cast performing the same operatic production! Eternity Opera’s Don Giovanni had opened on the previous Saturday (reviewed by Middle C, below) and this was the single chance for the “understudy cast” members to demonstrate what they could do in public – with the exception of the Zerlina, Emily Mwila, for whom there was no understudy, and whose performance was a great pleasure to see again, in any case!). So this evening’s performance was a tantalizing mixture of deja vu with fresh, new faces and voices and characterizations, as interesting to compare with the “other” as to enjoy for its own qualities. I confess that I’m inclined towards the latter approach, though I may let the occasional counter-impression slip through the net by accident, as it were.

Firstly, though, there were the constants between the two performances – the joy of listening all over again, for example, to Mozart’s score brought forward and sharpened in focus as conducted with great energy and commitment by Simon Romanos, and expertly played by the first-rate ensemble. I was seated in a different place in the auditorium this time round, in front of the singers and further away from the orchestra, and didn’t get the “edge” of the instrumental attack to the same extent, the music seeming to having a more rounded and integrated-with-the-stage sound. I noticed a couple of dropped notes in places in the solo lines, which could be put down to fatigue, but registered just as strongly the support the players gave to one another and to the singers – at the risk of singling out certain players, I delighted all over again, for example, in cellist Inbal Meggido’s obbligato accompaniment of Zerlina’s “You are cruel, dear Masetto” (“Batti, batti o bel Masetto”), the playing at once so deliciously insouciant and having great tensile strength, signifying the encirclement and breaking-down of her jealous lover Masetto’s defences with her abundant, coquettish charms.

Of course that was just one of many felicitous detailings which we were able to enjoy, aspects of the sterling work done by the entire quintet of string players throughout. Another delight was guitarist Christopher Hill’s accompanying of Don Giovanni’s serenade to Donna Elvira, following on of course from the player’s unfailingly sensitive recitative accompaniments, which I thought worked surprisingly well. The various winds, including the horn, aided and abetted the singing throughout with gorgeously-phrased melodic introductions, counterpoints and resonating harmonies – and I loved the impact made by the introduction of those extra brass and the timpani for the Second Act’s “statue” scenes.

I was grateful to director Alex Galvin for his decision to present the show in period costume and with stage settings that reflected the composer’s time, enabling the full flavour of Mozart’s and his librettist Lorenzo da Ponte’s partnership to play freely in a more-or-less “intended” context. The use of English greatly benefitted these interactions, the point as I saw it being not to “update” but to illuminate the story. I thought Galvin’s conception of the staging nicely took the wind out of the sails of those who ceaselessly contend that opera needs to be contextually “modernised” for today’s audiences to “connect” with. And the response of a young friend of mine who also saw the show on this particular evening was, at the end, to excitedly ask when the company would be staging its next production!

Of course, reproducing what one imagines would be anything like the settings and atmospheres prevalent in the composer’s own era is an art-form in itself, even using the libretto’s detailing as source-material. I liked very much Alex Galvin’s opting for black backdrops which couched the production in more-or-less constant darkness, one that for most of the time connects with the story’s time-of-day frame and its rather Goya-esque settings. Having said that, I thought the opening needed to be made even darker, the characters (Leporello, Donna Anna and Don Giovanni) too viscerally identifiable during the latter’s attempted violation of Donna Anna. Conversely, there were a couple of moments where the oppressiveness of the gloom might for the sake of theatrical contrast have been momentarily brightened, such as the Act One scene where Zerlina and Masetto are celebrating their marriage with their friends, and even, a little later, the meeting of Don Giovanni with Donna Anna, the woman he had attempted to seduce the night before. However, the production’s instinctive and on-going evocation of darkness served the story and its various themes well.

What colour we experienced came largely from the costumes which in nearly all cases in both performances eloquently “spoke” for their particular characters, with only the first-choice Donna Elvira (Kate Lineham) being, I thought, made to look a touch too matronly. The rest of both casts inhabited their various garments readily and easefully, allowing the essential personalities to shine forth – perhaps in the cemetery scene, the “Darth Vader” (from the film “Star Wars”) aspect of the Statue, a memorial to the Commendatore, slain by Don Giovanni, looked somewhat incongruous at first, but the apparition’s supernatural aspect logically gave its appearance a kind of “carte blanche”, stimulating, to say the least!

So, what of the cast this time round? Away from the “comparison” aspect of putting the two ensembles together role-by-role, I would say that each of the singers had something unique and tantalizing to bring to their individual parts. In some cases stage deportments and voices took time to warm up and properly activate, but in almost every case were firing and exuding energies and resonances by the opera’s end. A case in point was Giovanni’s servant Leporello, portrayed by Nino Raphael, whom I thought somewhat indolent, both physically and vocally, at the start, adopting a passive, arguably too nonchalant-sounding aspect when viewing his master’s would-be amorous exploits, and in doing so for me making his character seem uninvolved almost to a fault. As the story proceeded he seemed to gradually wake his Leporello up and bring out a sparkle more readily in both word and deed, until by the end he seemed in much greater possession of the part, or vice versa.

Something of the same languidity hung about the well-developed shoulders of the Don, Orene Tiai – his aspect seemed more happy-go-lucky than intense and predatory, an “easy-come-easy-go” attitude which didn’t develop any pronounced “edge” normally associated with the character’s efforts to pursue sexual adventures. He did at certain times convey a mode which suggested he was accustomed to getting his way, but he rarely gave a sense of having that unquenchable appetite for women which he admitted to at one point in the opera, despite the impressive statistics proffered by Leporello concerning his master’s amorous activities. His voice was by turns charming and sonorous in his set numbers, more alive and purposeful there, I thought, than in recitative, where he tended to “sing-song” rather than “point” his delivery of the lines. Still, he did well to move the action on at the beginning when “confronted” by the Commendatore, the latter either missing or failing to properly emphasise a movement or gestural cue or a vocal challenge to fight, so that the Don had to propel the action on unprovoked – or so it seemed!

The great ensemble finale at the end of the first act was a true galvanising point, which seemed from the new act’s beginning to give everybody’s stage personae more intensity – a kind of edge was raised which, in the Don’s case, carried him on something of a tide towards his confrontation with the Statue in the cemetery and fuelled their final encounter at the conclusion of Giovanni’s supper scene. Derek Miller’s Statue seemed fortunately to be able to generate more heft and power than he managed to find as the ineffectual Commendatore, which set the scene for the Don’s final despatch at the hands of a group of infernal cohorts of Hell – all women, incidentally, which seemed properly meet and just.

As for the women who were the objects of the Don’s somewhat haphazard attentions at various stages of the evening, all conveyed a distinction of character which enhanced their place in the drama – Amanda Barclay’s Donna Anna fiery and volatile, Hannah Catrin Jones’s Donna Elvira upright and dignified, mingling constraint with moments of deeply-felt grief and desire, and Emily Mwila’s Zerlina, pert, vivacious and totally winning. I did feel a little startled at the immediacy of some of Amanda Barclay’s expressions of blood-lust made in her “vengeance” duet with her hapless fiancee, Don Ottavio, but otherwise responded to her obvious involvment with the character and the story. Hannah Catrin Jones, in comparison, was more controlled in both deportment and vocal expression, wanting, I thought something of Amanda Barclay’s impulsiveness and spontaneity in her expression, but not too much! Both singers gave pleasure when shaping their longer lyrical lines with beauty and sensitivity, and not having their voices subjected to pressure from the strictures of the composer’s more intensely-wrought vocal figurations.

Victims, too, by proxy, of the Don’s predatory activities, were the men involved with these women, such as Don Ottavio, who seemed here, to all intents and purposes, practically neutered by Giovanni’s near-violation of his fiancee, Donna Anna. At the best of times, long on declamatory intent and short on effective action, Don Ottavio (sung by Chris Berentson) made a noble-hearted and dutiful, if somewhat emasculated impression as per his character. Berentson’s acting was consistent and reliable, as was his ensemble singing, but his voice needed more heft and juice when heard solo. Da Ponte and Mozart certainly got it right in ascribing desperate marriage-delaying tactics to poor Donna Anna, faced with the deadening prospect of eking out her days with a dutiful but lacklustre husband.

On the other hand, Masetto (here portrayed by Charles Wilson), the peasant lad betrothed to the pretty and vivacious Zerlina, whom the Don took a shine to in the first act, readily displayed his displeasure at the situation, railing against his partner’s coquettish behaviour and causing her great remorse, leading to some delicious interplay between the characters as Zerlina exerted her well-nigh irresistible charms upon her aggrieved sweetheart, and achieved the desired result. Though arguably not appearing robust and rustic enough for a peasant lad, Wilson’s sense of character made it work, singing and acting alongside Emily Mwila’s Zerlina with heartwarming involvement.

In both productions the chorus work sparkled (in the wedding and festive scenes) and resounded with doom-laden tones (in the opera’s final scene, where the Don is dragged down to Hell by the femme fatales turned demons!). Whatever the scene the deployment of people on stage created atmosphere, colour and excitement, and advanced the drama.

While the performance by-and-large confirmed the choice of principals for the “first” cast the performances described here enshrined for the most part viable alternatives whose realisation worked in each case, enabling the show “to go on”. I thought doing both an excellent idea, especially considering the number of people I saw who, like myself had attended the other production as well.

One is left with more-than-ample feelings of enthusiasm and goodwill towards the company and its director, with a hopeful view to there being further operatic worlds for them to conquer – on its own, the audience attendance and its response to the performances would have been heartening. The production certainly demonstrated that, if there’s sufficient energy, commitment and feeling for the art-form, it’s so very worthwhile and rewarding to have opera done in almost any performance scale, if the resources to do so can be found.

I can only echo the sentiments expressed in the final sentence of my review of the “first cast” performance in wishing Alex Galvin and Eternity Opera every future success.

Opera with energy and excitement – Eternity Opera Company’s Don Giovanni at the Hannah Playhouse

Posted on by Peter Mechen

Eternity Opera Company presents:
DON GIOVANNI

Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte
English Translation by Edward Dent

Alex Galvin (director)
Simon Romanos (music director)
Sandra Malesic (producer)

Cast: Leporello – Jamie Henare
        Don Giovanni – Mark Bobb
        Donna Anna – Barbara Paterson
        Commendatore/Statue – Roger Wilson
        Don Ottavio – Jamie Young
        Donna Elvira – Kate Lineham
        Zerlina – Emily Mwila
        Masetto – Laurence Walls
        Dancers and Chorus: Taryn Baxter, Minto Fung, India Loveday
        Sarah Munn, Jessica Short

Orchestra: Douglas Beilman (concertmaster), Anna van der Zee (violin)
                Victoria Janëcke (viola), Inbal Meggido (‘cello)
                Victoria Jones (double-bass), Timothy Jenkin (flute)
                Merran Cooke (oboe), Mark Cookson, Moira Hurst (clarinet)
                Leni Mäckle, Peter Lamb (bassoon), Ed Allen (horn)
                Christopher Hill (guitars), Josh Crump (trumpet)
                Andrew Yorkstone, Mark Davey (alto trombone)
                Hannah Neman (timpani)
                   
Hannah Playhouse, Wellington

20-27th August, 2016

The name “Eternity Opera” is itself a splendid gauntlet-brandishing gesture, an assertive declaration of overall purpose and intent, reinforced by a note in the programme for Saturday night’s opening of the new company’s season of “Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”–  firstly, “to stage productions that are exciting and accessible to anyone” and, just as importantly, “to support the many talented singers and musicians in the Wellington region”. Judging by what the opening night’s performance managed to achieve in terms of immediacy and intensity, there was plenty of excitement and involvement for the audience in Wellington’s Hannah Playhouse, strange though it might have seemed for those of us familiar with the venue’s history to see opera performed there.

Whatever misgivings one might have felt beforehand along these lines, particularly regarding the venue’s relatively limited performing space for both singers and orchestra, were immediately blown away by the impact of the Overture’s opening.  The immediacy of it all seemed to me to bring one far closer to the “inner life” of the music than the somewhat distanced effect of having the performers on a vast stage and in a sunken orchestral pit. Instead, here they all were, almost, it seemed, within touching distance! The effect was, I thought, electric and energising, right throughout the work.

With the Overture at the beginning, one relished the instrumental playing’s focus, energy and infinite variety of colour and nuance. It all “clicked” as, amid the gloom, my eyes began to “pick out”, one by one, the faces of some of Wellington’s top musicians. Conductor Simon Romanos readily found the “tempo giusto” for both the music’s monumental opening and the allegro which followed, pointing up for us the opera’s Janus-faced aspect – what the composer himself styled as both a “dramma giocoso” (a mix of drama and comedy), and, in his own catalogue of compositions, an “opera buffa” (comic opera).

The performance used Edward Dent’s English translation, which came across well in the theatre’s intimate spaces. First to appear on the stage was Leporello, the Don’s servant, sung by Jamie Henare with wry, Sancho Panza-like humour throughout, understandably taking a little time to warm up his voice’s energies in this opening scene, but, a little later, making the most of the famous “Catalogue aria”, singing and characterising the words with obvious relish. Servant and master played off one another along the way with plenty of complementary panache and mordant wit, a highlight being Leporello’s “Mr.Bean cut down to size” transformation at the hands of his master, when being disguised as the latter for further nefarious purposes.

As for the redoubtable Don Giovanni himself, Mark Bobb made a personable hero/villain, conveying both the energy and underlying world-weariness of the habitual seducer – reflected, of course in the character’s almost total lack of success with the sexual conquests he pursued in the course of the opera. While his voice had its limits, such as insufficient “top” with which to clinch the hedonistic splendour of his “Champagne aria”,  his singing early on in the piece wasn’t without charm, in the first act convincingly and seductively all but completely breaking down the defences of the peasant girl, Zerlina, about to be married, and, in the second act, mockingly serenading firstly his jilted lover Donna Elvira, who’d come to town in pursuit of him and to make life as difficult for him as possible, and then switching his focus to her maid.

Sparks were effectively struck by Giovanni’s encounters with the Commendatore, the father of Donna Anna, the latter another of the Don’s would-be conquests. Both the first-act duel between the two men, and the return of the murdered Commendatore as a statue to take revenge on the reprobate worked up plenty of dramatic and musical steam. Throughout these escapades, Mark Bobb’s portrayal veered convincingly between bravado and dissipation, strongly conveying at the end both his character’s defiance of heavenly retribution for his crimes of excess, and his grim acceptance of the fate in store for him.

Roger Wilson brought sonorous authority to the Commendatore/Statue role, using his powerful voice to great effect, though thanks to his costume his “Statue” persona for me more readily evoked “Darth Vader” (of “Star Wars” fame) than anything else. Nevertheless, he and Giovanni really made something of their supernatural confrontation, building up to the “mark of doom” moment when their hands clasped, here most excitingly realized.

Don Giovanni is certainly an opera that puts relationships to the sword, as witness the ardent but largely ineffectual peregrinations of Don Ottavio, who’s Donna Anna’s betrothed and who seemed destined to remain so indefinitely, on account of his beloved’s grief at her father’s death. Jamie Young enacted what can be a thankless part, with plenty of palpable feeling for his sweetheart, best expressed in recitative, dialogue and ensembles set-pieces rather than in full-scale arias, where his voice seemed to lose its quality under pressure.

Another victim was Masetto, one of the villagers, along with his to-be-partner, Zerlina, whom the Don had already lost no time in making the focus of his attentions for a while. I always saw (or heard) Mazetto as someone essentially rustic, a “salt-of-the-earth” character with a few rough edges, which the elegant, modulated portrayal of Laurence Walls seemed to have knocked off and smoothed around, making the character appear in manner and voice more poet and philosopher than country boy. Still, his interaction with Emily Mwila’s Zerlina, his sweetheart, had a lovely innocence, beautifully delineated during her singing of “Batti, batti” (Beat me, beat me), by way of winning back his ruffled affections in the wake of her “dalliance” with the Don.

Turning to the women, the first we encountered was Donna Anna, daughter of the Commendatore and betrothed of Don Ottavio, but who had somehow aroused the interest and attentions of Giovanni – Barbara Paterson’s portrayal of Anna captured, I think, much of the character’s ambivalence regarding her attempted seduction by the Don, thus “awakening” aspects of her as a woman which the dutiful Don Ottavio might well have left undisturbed. A certain “edge” to her voice sharpened the vibrant intensity of her character, one which became almost too incisive at certain pressure-points. Still, there was no doubting her dramatic commitment and the willingness to interact with others – a well-honed sequence was the “vengeance” vow demanded of Ottavio by Anna immediately following the discovery of her murdered father’s corpse, Barbara Paterson and Jamie Young between them generating and conveying plenty of force and weight.

By contrast Giovanni’s rejected sweetheart, Donna Elvira, beautifully realized by Kate Lineham, mingled intensity of feeling for her treacherous ex-lover with anger, scorn, and despair on one hand and frustration and determination on the other. Hers was a voice that, apart from the occasional moment of pressure affecting the singing line’s trajectory, filled out the melodic contours with such beauty as to produce moments of glowing warm amidst the gloom. Her Elvira was, it seemed, a character ready to forgive and reconcile with any wrongs done by others, imparting a human dimension to the drama whose privations engaged our sympathy.

Where both Anna and Elvira were sophisticated society women, the third female role was Zerlina, whose delightfully coquettish portrayal by Emily Mwila was one of the show’s highlights, and who exuded both rude, rustic health and artfully-wound persuasive charm right from the start. Helped by a beautifully-modulated and flexibly adept voice she “owned” both music and character and brought them together with an ease and fluency that suggested here was a “natural” at what she did on the musical stage – I’ve already mentioned her winning “Batti batti” in tandem with Laurence Walls’ Masetto, and altogether enjoyed her work immensely.

Though the set couldn’t be described in any way as “lavish”, its darkness matched the atmosphere of most of the opera’s scenes, with the exception, perhaps of the first garden scene, during which Zerlina and Mazettto were to be married. The remainder framed the spherical settings with black curtains, underlining the darkness at the centre of the Don’s self-destructive impulses and the despair/fear felt by those attempting to keep in tabs on him. Costumes were more-than-usually striking against the black  backdrops, generally mirroring what we were able to glean of each character, with a few unexpected stimulations, such as the space-age statue in the cemetery scene!

In terms of purpose and intent one could safely declare that this production of “Don Giovanni” did excellently well, making what I thought were all the right gestures for encouragement of further production activities, given that, unlike the way pursued by the opera’s eponymous hero, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, for fledgling artistic ventures. One can only wish director Alex Galvin and his company every success, while at the same time encouraging enthusiasts and interested parties to get behind them with all the support an artistic community sympathetic to such a venture can muster.