Tag: opera

Great enthusiasm at Jenny McLeod’s “Hōhepa” premiere

Posted on by Peter Mechen

JENNY McLEOD – HŌHEPA (opera) – World premiere performance

New Zealand International Festival of the Arts / NBR New Zealand Opera

Cast: Phillip Rhodes (Hōhepa) / Jonathan Lemalu (Te Kumete) / Deborah Wai Kapohe (Te Rai)

Jane Mason (Jenny Wollerman) / Nicky Spence (Thomas Mason) / Martin Snell (Governor George Grey)

Narrator (Te Tokotoko /Te Waha): Rawiri Paratene

Director: Sara Brodie

Members of the Vector Wellington Orchestra

Conductor: Marc Taddei

Wellington Opera House

Thursday, 15th March, 2012

I’m not sure whether I ought to admit to readers of this review that, earlier in the same day that I attended the opening of Jenny McLeod’s “Hōhepa” I took up a friend’s invitation to accompany him to a screening of the latest New York Metropolitean Opera production of “Götterdämmerung”.

Perhaps my abrupt juxapositioning of the two experiences was foolhardy, considering the chalk-and-cheese aspect of the works involved. But I found the inevitable comparisons thrown up by these “close encounters” thought-provoking, residues of which have undoubtedly coloured my reactions to Jenny McLeod’s work, outlined below.

The first thing that must be said of “Hōhepa” is that it’s a pretty stunning creative achievement on McLeod’s part, in line with Wagner’s achievement of writing his own texts for his stage works. And as with Wagner in his “Götterdämmerung” I felt an incredible emmeshment of words and music throughout the work, if at the opposite end of the grandly operatic textural and tonal spectrum.

Employing a moderately-sized cast and chorus with a small orchestra, McLeod created an evocative and enduring variety of ambiences throughout the story’s presentation, the sounds shaping and enlivening the narrative with firmly-focused contouring and colorings. In a sense I thought the orchestral score the most consistently dramatic protagonist, one from which nearly everything on the stage seemed to take its cue. One’s ear was constantly being drawn forwards and into that “world of light”, the sounds suggesting an order presided over by ancient gods and disrupted by unexpected change.

To briefly outline some background – Hōhepa Te Umuroa was a Whanganui Maori living in the Hutt Valley during the 1840s, one who, though well-disposed towards the European settlers he met and befriended, opposed the land-confiscation policies of Governor George Grey and took arms against the British militia. Captured, he and others, including his friend Te Kumete, were exiled to a penal colony in Tasmania, where Hōhepa died. His forgotten grave was rediscovered by a New Zealand child visiting Tasmania, whose parents alerted the authorities, and began a process that would see the remains of the exiled chief returned to New Zealand in 1988.

Through her involvement with writing church music for use by Maori people in the Ohakune district, Jenny McLeod had developed an association with Ngati Rangi. She was asked by Matthew Mareikura, elder, and leader of the mission which brought home Hohepa’s remains, if she would undertake to write the history of the entire saga – not as an opera, but hopefully in book form, a task she accepted. She was then approached by the current director of NBR New Zealand Opera, Alex Reedijk to write “a New Zealand work” for the stage, and she thus decided that it would be appropriate to adapt Hohepa’s story for the purpose.

In the course of her compositional career, McLeod has, in a sense, covered more territory than most, her works ranging from avant-garde innovation and her own brand of neo-primitivism, through popular styles, including hymn-writing for present-day worship, to a re-thinking of an avant-garde “tone-clock theory” involving innovative use of the chromatic scale, something she found influenced her writing of “Hōhepa”. She’s refreshingly pragmatic about her use of such techniques in as much as they have an impact on what the ordinary concert- or opera-goer hears in her music – in a recent “Listener” interview she talked about listeners not needing to know too much about the technicalities, expressing confidence that people would instinctively sense a “structural coherence” in her work.

I wondered, as I listened to the evening’s finely-wrought tapestry of sounds, whether this “structural coherence” of McLeod’s would generate sufficient energy of itself to implant a stage work with requisite dramatic possibilities. What I felt must have posed an enormous challenge for director Sara Brodie was how to respond to McLeod’s writing – how to render it onstage as “dramatic” or “theatrical” in an operatic sense. The presentation involved a great deal of “storytelling” via a narrator, one self-styled as a “talking stick” – Te Tokotoko, who is also the hero’s spirit guardian. Actor Rawiri Paratene looked and sounded the role to perfection, though I wondered whether his prominence throughout actually diminished the impact made on the proceedings by Hōhepa himself, whose dramatic character could have “taken on” more of his own story and enhanced the depth of his onstage presence in doing so.

In an article in the programme, Diana Balham writes of Hōhepa that he “is really an ideal opera leading man” – an ordinary man caught up in events which lead to his wrongful exile, imprisonment and eventual death, his fate leavened by a kind of post-mortem coda of wrongs addressed and put to rights. On the face of things that’s perfectly true – but the writer’s words created an expectation that, as a character Hōhepa would behave more “operatically”, which didn’t seem to be the composer’s (and following on, perhaps not the director’s) intention.

McLeod’s work itself seemed to me stylistically more like a kind of “dramatic legend” – something of the ilk of Berlioz’s “La Damnation de Faust”, a work which is equally successful in concert as when staged. There were occasional moments during Hōhepa of physical energy and dramatic movement (a brutal killing was depicted at one point), but in general the stage movement and configuration had a gradually unfolding aspect suggesting pageantry or ritual more than theatrical cut-and-thrust.

This impression was heightened by the composer’s use of some of the drama’s supporting characters, as well as the chorus, to advance the narrative – while the effect wasn’t unlike stylized classical drama, I felt the balance between storytelling and theatrical depiction was pushed away from the latter to the point of dramatic dilution. Ironically, I also thought that Hōhepa himself wasn’t given sufficient prominence throughout the first two acts to capture our attention, to train our focus upon him with sufficient force so that his fate as the tragic embodiment of a victim of gross injustice would later have its full dramatic impact.

Phillip Rhodes, who played Hōhepa, did everything he could with the part – he looked and sounded splendid throughout, and had both powerful and touching moments, the most enduring of which for me over the first two acts were the imposing warrior’s delight in his Christianity-inspired “Holy Family”, and his teaching of the names of birds to his children. But the Pakeha settler couple, Jane and Thomas Mason, made even more of a lasting impression on me, dramatically (splendid singing from both Jenny Wollerman and Nicky Spence), while Deborah Wai Kapohe’s Te Rai (Hōhepa’s wife) and Jonathan Lemalu’s Te Kumete (Hōhepa’s friend), both richly-characterised roles, seemed just as prominent in the scheme of things as the eponymous hero.

And yet – perhaps one shouldn’t be making such an issue of this. After all, in Maoridom it is the whanau, hapu, iwi, and the associated whakapapa which matters more than the individual; and Hōhepa’s tragedy was essentially a communal one, given that he endured great personal privation of both a physical and spiritual kind up until his death in exile in Tasmania. In that sense it’s appropriate that the character be portrayed as an integral member of a group as much as an individual, particularly as the Western operatic concept of a “hero” doesn’t sit well with the scenario that McLeod evokes. Should the work, then, be actually called “Hōhepa”? Is it more about a darker aspect of this country’s history than about what actually happened to him? Is it even more universal than that?

At the time, in the opera house, I felt myself musically entranced by it all, despite some bemusement – upon reflection, and having read back through what I’ve already said in this review, I feel myself beginning to incline towards taking the things I saw and heard on their own terms, and greatly enjoying them. Above all was, as I’ve said, the beauty and variation of McLeod’s illuminated tapestry of instrumental sounds, rendered with the utmost skill by a chamber-sized group of players drawn from the Vector Wellington Orchestra, here under the guidance of conductor Marc Taddei.

Then there were the voices, at the beginning of the work as people of the land enacting the rituals of acknowledging the tipuna, and paying homage to their living descendants. These choruses then merged with the drama, as Hōhepa’s descendants witnessing the recovery and repatriation of his bones, and afterwards as his contemporaries, expressing in heartfelt tones the shared ignominious humiliation of displacement, and the sorrow of his loss to exile and death.

Each of the solo voices suggested oceans more capacity for characterization than was allowed by the composer – apart from those I’ve mentioned, Martin Snell as Governor George Grey quickly established the character’s arrogance and implaccable nature, again largely with audience-directed pronouncements, though in places with engagingly jaunty (and ironic) Stravinsky-like accompaniments.

Given that McLeod’s treatment of the subject-matter demanded a good deal of recitative-like storytelling on the part of the characters, director Sara Brodie wisely responded with stagings designed by Tony de Goldi that emphasized and underpinned the ritual-like aspect of the drama. Her “less-is-more” instincts gave our imaginations space to augment the physical movements of the characters with impulses of our own, suggested either by music, words or backdrop images, sensitively applied here by Louise Potiki Bryant.

Opera is meant to be a visual as well as an aural experience – while this unconventional work of McLeod’s seemed to me to work just as effectively as abstract music and storytelling as it did as a theatrical event, the production’s feeling for ritual and atmosphere grew beautifully from the sounds made by voices and instruments. An enthusiastic and heartwarming reception was accorded the composer, along with her singers and musicians and her creative team, by an enthralled audience at the final curtain. I thought it richly deserved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stravinsky at the Festival: Distinguished performances of powerful works heard by too few

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

New Zealand International Arts Festival

Stravinsky:   Symphony of Psalms and Oedipus Rex

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus (Michael Vinten, chorus master), Joana Carneiro (conductor), Stuart Skelton (Oedipus, tenor), Margaret Medlyn (Jocasta, mezzo-soprano), Daniel Sumegi (Creon; Messenger, bass-baritone), Martin Snell (Tiresias, bass), Virgilio Marino (shepherd, tenor), Rawiri Paratene (narrator, speaker)

Michael Fowler Centre

Friday, 24 February 2012, 8pm

As a Festival opener, this programme obviously did not have the appeal of the Mahler Symphony no.8 performed at the last Festival, when the hall was packed, and there were people sitting out in Civic Square watching the performance on a huge screen and hearing it relayed on loudspeakers.  Another draw-card on that occasion was the presence of the famous Vladimir Ashkenazy as conductor.

This time, by no means all the seats in the hall were filled, which was a pity, because these were fine and powerful performances.

My first reaction was pleasure at the appearance of the programmes.  The printed programmes in 2010 had a ghostly pallor, and the letters so skinny you could have driven a bus between them.  This time, the font was Times New Roman or similar, there was plenty of ink, no back-grounding of text, and they could be read even during the performance – most important when full libretti and translations into English were generously provided.

The other feature of the programmes were the copious and detailed notes provided.  There was far too much to read before or during the concert, but they make very interesting reading afterwards.  The New Zealand Opera Company has in the past sent programmes ahead of the season to those who book in advance; this practice could have been adopted here, with benefit to the audience’s understanding and appreciation.

The Chapman Tripp opera chorus was obviously augmented; some familiar faces that one doesn’t usually see in the chorus, graced it on this occasion.  My first impression at the opening of the Symphony of Psalms was that the choir was too far distant from the orchestra and the audience, making the sound likewise distant, and therefore the words did not have the clarity they should have.  We got volume at times, but seldom clarity.  This was the fault of the hall and the placement of the choir, not directly of inadequacy on the choir’s part.  If the performance had been in the Town Hall, the problem would not have existed; there would have been more impact.   The problem did not exist with the Mahler two years ago, because the choir was very much bigger, though so too was the orchestra.

Stravinsky’s unusual orchestration for this work provides plenty of wind players, and cellos and basses plus harp, two pianos, and percussion, but no violins or violas.  Therefore there was lots of rich, resonant low bass sound, while the incisiveness and wonderful colours of the winds were more apparent than usual, especially in the delicious melodies with cross-rhythms, played between Psalm 38 and Psalm 39.

Psalm 38 opened with spiky rhythms but they didn’t continue.  Instead, the effect was of long melismatic lines, like old Russian chants, though the work was sung in Latin.

The verses from Psalm 39 were given gentler treatment than the incisive previous psalm.  Sonorities built up; there were dense harmonies and clashes providing a rich sound – although some of the sopranos were a little too strident.  The final verse, ‘He put a new song in my mouth…’ was thunderous in its praise to God.

An Alleluia preceded Psalm 150.  These passages were quiet; the distance between choir and orchestra didn’t matter so much here, and there was some lovely singing. However, the choir, while good, and obviously very well rehearsed, sounded rather pedestrian in the psalm itself.   It again emphasised that a bigger choir would have coped better.

The psalm speaks of trumpets and other instruments; the NZSO instrumentalists fulfilled their parts radiantly, especially the ‘loud clashing cymbals’.  Despite their presence, this was a very lyrical verse, with the last section, ‘Let everything that breathes praise the Lord’ having an ethereal quality.

The pianists, Donald Nicolson and Rachel Thomson, had a very busy part in this last psalm. It ended with another Alleluia – quiet and exultant in tone. The growing woodwind tone against the choir’s soft intoning, along with piano and strings, was magical.  Stravinsky’s constantly shifting chords and soundscapes provided an experience unlike that to be had from any other composer; the result, satisfyingly unique.

Joana Carneiro is petite and very youthful in appearance, yet she conducts with energy and commitment.  In a radio interview prior to the performance, she remarked how good it was to have the narration in Oedipus Rex, since the music was so intense, complicated, yet direct, that time to breathe was needed.  She stressed that the music was not indulgent of the tragedies in the story; rather it was ‘about’ the story and characters.

One suspects that Festival Director Lissa Twomey (an Australian) programmed Oedipus Rex based on the success of this work at the Sydney Festival a couple of years ago, with the same conductor.  But with a much smaller population to draw on, and no full-time opera company here, its drawing power could not be relied on to be the same as in the much bigger city.  Maybe a semi-stage performance would have been more appealing – and it certainly would have conveyed the story in a more meaningful way.

Carneiro also said, and we experienced, that the choir was well-prepared.  The music of Oedipus Rex, she felt, was a pre-cursor of minimalism through its economy of means, but also employed leitmotif.  The latter helped to tie the story together musically, and gave something of a guide to the hearers.

Oedipus Rex, an opera-oratorio, was something completely different from the Symphony of Psalms, composed three years later.  Its similarity to the latter was probably confined to its reference back to polyphony, in the form of breaking up of the words, and the long lines.

Outstanding here, aside from the astonishing music, was the singing of tenor Stuart Skelton, as Oedipus.  This Australian singer has had great international success, and we were fortunate to hear him at the height of his powers.  His voice is  quite brilliant, and he has a wide range.  It cut through the textures without difficulty – strong, with great carrying quality, but never harsh or strident.  When he sang the words translated as ‘Your silence accuses you: you are the murderer! (to Tiresias), there was drama in every syllable.  His further accusation of Tiresias ‘Envy hates good fortune…’ featured high notes that were quite lovely, poignant and eloquent.

The other soloists could not measure up to Skelton, which is not to deny that they were good.  Their roles were all much smaller than that of Skelton.  Daniel Sumegi had the two roles of Creon and the Messenger, and his robust bass-baritone was effective and expressive, with wonderful low notes.  He had a very powerful passage in Act Two, singing ‘Jocasta the Queen is dead!’

Margaret Medlyn sang the mezzo role of the queen with perhaps less force at times than the part required, but nevertheless with appropriate levels of dramatic intensity.  Sometimes her music had echoes of the cabarets of Berlin.  The small part of the Shepherd was well sung by tenor Virgilio Marino.  (Was it really necessary to bring someone from Australia for a role with so little singing?).  He was particularly noteworthy for the duet with the Messenger, where they explain in Act Two that as a baby, Oedipus was found in the mountains.

Martin Snell’s smallish role as Tiresias was confidently and expressively sung, with lustrous resonance and deep, rich tones, but he did not always cut through the orchestra sufficiently.  However, his words were excellent.

An important role was that of the narrator, taken by well-known actor Rawiri Paratene.  He fulfilled it extremely well.  As Rachel Hyde said in her radio review, he was controlled and dignified.  His amplified words were very clear, his tone rich, and neither pompous nor intimate.  He struck the right note in giving the background commentary.

The male chorus sang for all they were worth in their demanding music, but occasionally were out of synch with the orchestra; more often the problem was that the words could not be sufficiently conveyed because the volume of the orchestra overwhelmed them.  At the distance the singers were, it was surprising that they kept together with the orchestra as much as they did; a tribute to their thorough preparation which meant they could keep eyes on the conductor much of the time.  Perhaps the conductor should have done more to tone down the dynamism of the orchestra.  However, it is really more a matter of the size and placement of the choir.  As Rachel Hyde said, the music in this work is really driven by the chorus, which has a large part, but too much in the background in this performance.

The orchestra was returned to its full glory with violins and violas, for this work.  The opening sound from choir and orchestra was tremendous.  Everywhere, we heard Stravinsky’s intriguing and innovative orchestrations brought out relentlessly; his invention knew no bounds.  The orchestra has a major role in Oedipus Rex, compared with its role in most operas or oratorios.

The chorus had its very effective moments, too: when they cry to Oedipus to solve the riddle of who murdered the king, Laius, their intoning of ‘Solve! Solve, Oedipus, solve!’ was startling.  It was strong again in the appeal to the goddesses that followed soon after; here, there was little accompaniment, allowing them to shine.  Soon incessant drumming was heard, adding to the doom-laden atmosphere, as they spoke of the many dead in Thebes, from the plague.

Again with incessant drumming, and with cymbal crashes, the chorus ‘Glory! Glory! Glory!’ sung in praise of the queen Jocasta (Margaret Medlyn) at the end of Act I was very fine, with tremendous unity in declamation.

In the second Act Margaret Medlyn had a long aria with piano – a most difficult part sung in very queenly fashion, and ending with swoops of agitation from the clarinet.  The chorus followed with a beautifully quiet entry, the singing continuing very smoothly over wonderful strumming on the strings.

One of Oedipus’s many notable moments came when he finally confessed to his crimes.  A fanfare followed this despairing utterance.  Skelton was a tremendous and very worthy Oedipus.

More good moments for the chorus: a very incisive short burst stating ‘The shepherd who knows all is here’, and strong, accurate and rhythmic singing of ‘He was not the true father of Oedipus’ (referring to Polybus).  Later, the difficult music for ‘The woman in the chamber…’ was rendered heartily and with precision.  The final chorus ‘Behold!  Oedipus the King!’ spilt out into immense noise from orchestra and chorus, but when full orchestra was employed, the chorus was overwhelmed.

Despite all, the chorus covered itself with glory, especially as amateurs amongst a stage full of professionals.

The performance of Oedipus Rex gave us a tremendous work, brought off with distinction.  It was powerful, shocking and complex, and a triumph (despite its flaws) for the performers and their unassuming young conductor, who held everything in suspense for an appreciable time at the end, so that the impact was not immediately lost in applause.

 

 

Handelian enchantment upon Alcina’s magic island

Posted on by Peter Mechen

HANDEL – Alcina

Presented by Opera In a Days Bay Garden

Producer – Rhona Fraser

Director – Sara Brodie

Conductor – Michael Vinten

(orchestra led by Donald Armstrong)

(sung in English, translation by Amanda Holden)

Cast: Alcina (Bryony Williams) / Ruggiero (Stephen Diaz) / Bradamante (Bianca Andrew)

Morgana (Rhona Fraser) / Oberto (Olga Gryniewicz) / Oronte (Thomas Atkins) / Melisso (Kieran Rayner)

Chorus: Amelia Ryman, Imogen Thirwell, Emily Simcox, Natalie Williams, Fredi Jones, Laurence Walls, Thomas Barker, Ken Ryan

Canna House, Days Bay, Wellington

Saturday, 11 February

Magic of a kind was certainly in the air both leading up to and throughout the performance of Handel’s Alcina, staged in the garden of Canna House, the Days Bay home of one of the singers in the cast, soprano Rhona Fraser, who took the part of Morgana in the production. With a director, Sara Brodie, whose vision, theatrical instinct and creative capacities made light of the difficulties of a very “Baroque-opera” story-line, the out-of-doors production by turns sparkled and glowed, judiciously balancing and shaping the drama’s movement and energy with cadence-points of heartrending beauty and reflection.

We were seated on terraces in front of the house on various levels, our vistas taking in the largest of the grassy areas, on which most of the theatrical action took place, and thence to bush-clad valley-sides framing a harbour view, the picture redolent of the opera’s actual setting, the magic island realm of the enchantress Alcina. The only slight inconvenience we experienced was directly facing the sun for the time it took to move across the wedge of sky in the west during the opera’s first half – by way of “compensation by enchantment” we were, throughout the second half, able to enjoy the evening star in all its crepuscular glory, prompting thoughts of imagining that a production of “Tannhauser” would go down well in such a setting (I can almost see and hear the chorus of Pilgrims slowly making its way up the arc of the driveway from the road…..)

As one might imagine, the setting provided all kinds of opportunities for different exits, entrances and “layered” action – at the very outset of the story we were intrigued and amused with the sudden pursuit of a silver-haired figure by several “gorillas in suits” down the path towards the front gate. Presumably, an escape of some kind was in mind – but, alas for the “inmate” concerned, freedom was not achieved. Nevertheless, with the singers freely coming and going on all different levels, and practically brushing past audience members in some instances, it wasn’t difficult for spectators to be drawn into the actual physical ebb-and-flow of things, sharing, as we seemed to be for much of the time, the same living-and-breathing-spaces. I ought to report, however, that a friend, sitting on the lawn in the third row, over to the right, had a less-than-good view of some of the action, and a tad too much sun in her eyes for a while – so obviously not ALL of the seating was without some compromise.

The opera’s original story was taken from the epic poem Orlando Furioso by the sixteenth-century Italian Ludovico Ariosto, and involved plenty of fashionable enchantment and magical transformation, liberally taken up by Antonio Marshi’s libretto for Handel. Of course, the current trend vis-a-vis opera production is to update such scenarios (as comedian Michael Flanders once said in a slightly different context, “Anything to stop it being done straight!”) so that opera-goers find themselves fair game for directorial reworkings that can in the wrong hands vary between the prosy-dull and the downright offensive. Sara Brodie’s design and direction adroitly maintained a tantalizing modicum of the sorceress’s mystery, while suggesting in parallel some kind of medico-scientific experimental scenario involving the ageing process. One of the characters, Morgana (sister-enchantress of the Circe-like Alcina) sported a nurse’s tunic at the start, and seemed in charge of a chorus group of “inmates” whose aspect presented ghostly decrepitude and bewilderment – though the “suits” in their shades were designated as security guards rather than caregivers.

In this way the production certainly toyed most imaginatively with the ideas floated in the programme’s “synopsis” note, concerning reality and illusion, and the power of true love. The flights of fancy which cropped up in the updated libretto for the most part seemed actually to counterweight some of the original ones (the soldier, Melisso, imitating an apparition and declaring to the ex-soldier Ruggiero that he, the former, is the latter’s old sergeant – instead of his old tutor – for example)! Of course, however cardboard cut-out some operatic situations might be, it’s invariably the music which ennobles and crystallizes thought, word and deed on stage – and in my view any recasting of these pieces in whatever style or era will work if the composer’s intentions are properly honoured. As recitative followed dialogue followed aria and back to recitative, music and dramatic action seemed to fit hand-in-glove on the terraces and pathways of this wonderful Days Bay garden – obviously all kinds of enchantments were at work, here.

Still more connection was readily provided by the orchestra, seated to one side, but sharing the main stage level area with the singers. This meant that the players and conductor seemed more than usually involved with the drama, and the choreography of instrumental gesturing, so often concealed in the opera house here became almost part of the stage action. At one point Handel nicely underlines this singer/instrumentalist relationship with extended passages for solo violin accompanying Morgana’s aria “He loves, he sighs”. This took on the intent of a true operatic duet up to a break-point when Alcina, agitated by the thought of her lover’s infidelity, hustled the poor violinist from the stage!

Having had limited experience of out-of-doors opera, I was prepared for a somewhat compromised orchestral sound with little or no resonances – and was instead delighted with the al fresco effect, the players’ tones nicely activating the receptive stillness of the evening in that sheltered spot. I also liked the musicians’ dress and wigs, none more so than that sported by conductor Michael Vinten, the effect being almost as if the shade of the composer himself had miraculously materialized to conduct the performance!

So, at the story’s beginning, following the excitement of the thwarted breakout, we witnessed the commando-like arrival on Alcina’s island of Bradamante and her colleague Melisso, dressed as soldiers in camouflage gear. They were looking for Bradamante’s lover, Ruggiero, who had, like many others, fallen under Alcina’s enchantment. Mezzo-soprano Bianca Andrew played Bradamante, suitably boyish in military attire, and a perfect foil for baritone Kieran Rayner as the hard-bitten Melisso, the pair as well-disciplined with their tactical manoeuvrings as with the focus and direction of their singing and characterizations. Their first encounter was with Rhona Fraser’s Morgana, her nurse’s garb straightaway all a-quiver, conveying her instantly combustible interest in Bradamante. Before long she had coquettishly dismissed out-of-hand her hapless current lover, Oronte, a tenor role played by an engagingly boyish Thomas Atkins, who was understandably put out by the arrival on the island of these troublesome visitors.

When Ruggiero arrived in tow with the beautiful Alcina, they presented as a well-established “item”, the pair utterly besotted with one another, to Bradamante’s scarcely-concealed distress. Soprano Bryony Williams and counter-tenor Stephen Diaz made an exceedingly glamorous-looking couple, throwing into bold relief the chorus of spectre-like ancients, grey of hair and decrepit of aspect, almost ghost-like, carefully watched-over by Morgana and her Mafia-like cohorts. The remaining player in the scenario was the boy-scout-like figure of Oberto (a late addition by Handel to the story, apparently, to include in his cast a famous boy-treble of the time, William Savage). Soprano Olga Gryniewicz brought a charmingly boyish manner and a silvery voice to her portrayal of a young man looking for his lost father.

The “adventures on a magic island” theme has many rich and strange instances throughout world literature and theatre from Homeric times and beyond. Most recently there’s been the New York Metropolitean Opera’s live-streamed production “The Enchanted Isle”, an amalgam of fantasy works for the stage (mostly a combination of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “The Tempest”) placing characters from these various works on Prospero’s magic island and developing various conflicts and romantic entanglements.

Obviously, there’s something about an island environment that lends itself to a kind of other-worldliness, where mainland traditions are tested, modified and even transformed by different orders of things. Such is certainly the case with the plot of Alcina, even if on the face of it, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde’s Miss Prism, “the good end happily, and the bad unhappily”. By far the most interesting character is Alcina, herself, at least as characterized by Handel’s music, some of the greatest for the stage he ever wrote. One or two malevolent impulses and actions aside, she garners the listener’s sympathies by dint of her extraordinary declarations of love and piteous laments, suggesting that Ruggiero’s sojourn with her has somehow humanized her nature to the point that her dark arts no longer work as she would desire.

From her first entrance Bryony Williams’ Alcina dominated the proceedings – striking to look at, her characterizations compelling and her singing simply captivating, she lived the part throughout all of its different aspects. She encompassed the erotic sensuousness of her opening aria “Show them the forests”, and through the sudden tribulations and heart-break of her hurt at Ruggiero’s accusations  in “Yes I am she” to the despair at the loss of his love in “Ah, my heart”. Her soft singing in particular, throughout, touched our inner places; and though some of her more vigorously-produced tones tended to splinter at their effortful edges she always conveyed an impressive totality of characterful feeling, so that our sensibilities at her eventual fate were beset at the evening’s end by a good deal of ambivalent impulse (all the fault of the composer, of course).

Her ownership of the role was never more evident than in her Act Two aria “Ah, my heart”, an affecting concentration of emotion, the veiled tones exquisitely shaped and coloured, even more so at the reprise, after her energetic resolve with “But can this be Alcina?” . The whole strengthened one’s ambivalent sympathies for a character whose cruel customs and tender emotions were at such odds with each other and with the beauty of some of her music – a state of things strongly and tellingly advanced by the singer. Again, with both her dark and impotent invocations at “You pale shadows” (generating plenty of exciting vocal virtuosity), and her broken utterances with “Only tears remain to me” she commanded our attention for whole vistas – and Michael Vinten and his players were right with her throughout, the instrumental sounds breathing and mirroring the same heartfelt phrases in complete accord.

Opposite her as Ruggiero, counter-tenor Stephen Diaz used well a natural and easeful stage-presence, his soft singing a joy (the Act Two “Verdant Pastures” was beautifully and raptly sung), and his unfailing charm of manner carrying him through the occasional phrase of borderline intonation – though I thought his reaction to Bradamante’s identity revelation surprisingly ingenuous in manner. Happily, he more readily captured the audience’s attention with a nicely-pointed sotto voce delivery of the asides in the aria “My cherished love” – and it was a nice idea to blindfold him and lead him to the tent where his faithful and frustrated Bradamante had earlier rendered herself comatose with an unaccustomed puff from a hookah – a nice way to end the opera’s first half.

Bradamante is reckoned by some commentators as representing reality, common-sense, duty and fidelity, as opposed to Alcina’s escapist romantic fantasy-allurements – though such readings conveniently play down the heroic and romantic nature of the former’s escapade in attempting to regain her lover. Bianca Andrew had the presence and vocal strength to convey the character’s firm resolve and steadfastness, standing up to the threat posed by the fury of Oronte in her aria “I see you are jealous”, during which she skilfully negotiated a touch of rhythmic insecurity at the words “you feel offended”. Even stronger was the exciting use she put to the coloratura runs of “I long to be avenged”, by way of expressing her frustration and anger with Ruggiero, after he refuses to believe she is who she says she is, and then all but baring her womanly breast to make the point more graphically.

In a sense, Morgana, Alcina’s sister, is just as much Bradamante’s opposite – the latter’s Leonore-like steadfastness a stark contrast to Morgana’s coquetry, the irony being that it is the disguised Bradamante whom Morgana falls for at the outset. Rhona Fraser acted superbly, using her face nicely in tandem with her voice, and eagerly expressing the exuberance of her “Come quickly back” to Bradamante, believing that he (she) returned her love. Though not every note was ideally secure, her singing was invariably expressive, the effect always musical – and what a lovely duet she made with violinist Donald Armstrong in her “He loves, he sighs”! – attempting to explain to both Ruggiero and Alcina that the new boy on the block, Bradamante, is already “spoken for”.

Morgana’s hapless lover, Oronte, is really too straight-down-the-middle a guy for such a flirtatious partner, though his susceptibility to womanly charms is all too obvious in his “One moment’s happiness” aria. Thomas Atkins seemed just the man for the job, bright-eyed and ready for whatever main chance might present itself. Though his wide-ranging vocal lines weren’t ideally pliant in places, he was never less than reliable;  and towards the end the choreographed ritual of his reconciliation with Morgana made their scene eminently worthwhile.

Even more ramrod-straight was Bradamante’s soldier-companion Melisso, though he obviously would have a future beyond the army as a virtual reality facilitator, demonstrated by his assumption of the role of a senior sergeant to bring Ruggiero to his senses. Kieran Rayner brought a lighter, more than usually agile and flexible baritonal voice to the part, though he generated plenty of authority when needed. He was thus able to make something both strong and elegant of his one aria, “Think of her who mourns” addressed to a somewhat bewildered Ruggiero. By comparison with the macho-Melisso, Olga Gryniewicz’s Oberto was a boy-soldier, touchingly gauche of manner, but sufficiently steadfast to defy Alcina’s command to kill the lion which the boy suspects is really his transformed father. Her singing-voice was exotically accented, but her superb diction really told as the boy lamented the loss of his father and gave tongue to his hopes of finding him again.

Having been held in a kind of thrall for so long by Alcina’s enchantments, the chorus members at the end perhaps understandably overdid their exuberance at being freed and returned to youthful vigor by racing ahead of Michael Vinten’s beat in their final chorus “After so many bitter trials” – necessitating some echt-Handelian gestures of frustration from the podium of the kind that would probably have had many a historical precedent! I’m certain my ears weren’t playing me false in imagining that it was Vinten’s voice I heard singing the first of the individual chorus members’ descriptions of their enchanted forms – a filling-in for an absent singer, perhaps, or merely an expression of solidarity?….. after that I almost expected to hear some admonishment from the conductor regarding the final ensemble, perhaps along the lines of Handel’s proverbially fractured English, thus: “You vatch my beatings and vave at the gallery aftervards!” – but perhaps that would have been applying historical verisimilitude a little too liberally.

Apart from these moments of excessive zeal the chorus acquitted itself sturdily and tellingly, if more often as a visual rather than a vocal presence. The orchestra was a band of heroes under Michael Vinten’s obviously inspired direction, the players’ sweetly-focused tones and elegant rhythmic figurations a joy to hear, providing the singers all the support they needed throughout.

Alcina is herself transformed at the end of the opera and her power is taken from her – though I felt her “closure” here somehow lacked true finality, perhaps in accordance with Handel’s own ambivalence towards her. Or again, as with other villains and their influences, it was intended that her spirit lived on, and that she would re-emerge in some parallel guise at another time and in another place. In a way it was characteristic of Sara Brodie’s direction to not cross and dot every “t” and “i” for us, but leave us tantalized by the experience of the encounter in an ongoing way.

At the time of writing, the production has two more nights to run (Thursday 16th and Friday 17th February) – it deserves full-to-bursting houses and clement weather of the kind we were lucky to experience. One sincerely hopes there will be more of these wonderful productions from Rhona Fraser and Opera in a Days Bay Garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PAG edges out CAV in double-headed NBR NZ Opera thriller

Posted on by Peter Mechen

NBR New Zealand Opera – CAV and PAG

MASCAGNI – Cavalleria Rusticana

LEONCAVALLO – Pagliacci

Casts: (Cavalleria Rusticana) – Anna Shafajinskaya (Santuzza), Peter Auty (Turiddu), Marcin Bronikowski (Alfio), Anna Pierard (Lola), Wendy Doyle (Mamma Lucia)

(Pagliacci) – Rafael Rojas (Canio), Elizabeth Futral (Nedda), Warwick Fyfe (Tonio), Marcin Bronikowski (Silvio), Andrew Glover (Beppe)

The Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus (Michael Vinten, chorusmaster)

Vector Wellington Orchestra

Oliver von Dohnanyi (conductor)

Directed by Mike Ashman

St. James Theatre, Wellington

Saturday 27th August, 2011

It was a points decision, and a close call, but most who attended the opening night of NBR New Zealand Opera’s double-header of CAV and PAG would, I think, have agreed that the latter (Pagliacci), boxing far above its weight on the night, landed too many telling counter-punches for the big guns of its glamorous rival (Cavalleria) – Intermezzo or no Intermezzo! Both operas gave their supporters plenty of thrilling moments, but PAG performed just a tad more consistently, with energetic and sustained focus throughout, both musically and dramatically.

To be fair, one perhaps ought to regard this particular presentation as a kind of fusion of the two operas by way of some well-placed connective tissue (I won’t spoil the surprise by undue description), though one does wonder how the tiny Sicilian community portrayed would in reality have coped with three violent murders in the course of a single day. The unities of time and place I thought suited Pagliacci better than it did Cavalleria, given that some compromises would have been made establishing commonalities between the stories. And I suspect Leoncavallo’s work responds more readily to updating than does Mascagni’s, with the latter’s depictions of old-fashioned religious observances strongly flavouring the story – though recent overseas productions of CAV seem to have hacked away at the Gordion Knot of the liturgical year by determinedly secularizing the settings. Director Mike Ashman didn’t go that far, but his Sicilian villagers seemed as well-versed in the use of cellphone technology as in the medieval pageantry of their Easter processionals.

In short the not-particularly-radical updatings therefore largely allowed both works to roar forth virtually unimpeded, which they did, thanks to singing and orchestral playing which gloriously filled the vistas of Wellington’s St James Theatre. Under the expert direction of conductor Oliver von Dohnanyi, the Vector Wellington Orchestra took to the music of both works with precision, energy and burning commitment, releasing all the overt passion in the instrumental writing, and occasionally and very properly overwhelming us with sounds. Mishaps and mis-hits amid the excitement were there few, the most noticeable being recalcitrant bells at one point! – but far more were there beautifully-turned solos and detailed and colourful episodes of ensemble work which did their bit in enhancing whatever aspects of the dramas they accompanied.

Sometimes in CAV the playing waxed eloquently to little theatrical avail – an expressively-turned passage for lower strings just before the “wronged” village girl Santuzza’s first entrance, so much deeper and darker than what had immediately gone before, seemed to fall on deaf ears stage-wise, when one would have thought it denoted some kind of dramatic action or response. Conversely, the famous mid-action orchestra-only Intermezzo was unnecessarily “choreographed” by Santuzza emoting hopes and dreams, in counterpoint to some equally gratuitous posing from a young man at the raised entrance to the church – both figures had, for me, a contrived presence, as the orchestral playing of the interlude perfectly expresses the moment’s peaceful “eye of the hurricane” without any additional illustration .

On-stage I thought the CAV chorus took a while to bring some purpose to what was happening – movements seemed tentative and lacking in motivation as if people were drifting in and waiting for the “real business” to begin. Gradually, things coalesced and began to liven up – the on-the-spot women’s choir rehearsal was a nice touch, and the business of getting dressed for the Easter Pageant afforded plenty of interesting detail (including, during the subsequent processional, a couple of self-flagellators whipping things along, though it has to be said, somewhat less than convincingly). But what helped redeem the chorus’s overall purpose was the ready-toned, superbly-disciplined singing, which I thought utterly committed throughout both operas, the result obviously a credit to the training of chorusmaster Michael Vinten.

Another feature which for me tipped an equable balance into distraction, specifically during CAV, was the revolving stage, employed brilliantly at one or two places – a veritable M.C.Escher effect at one point, with the villagers walking in one direction while being simultaneously taken the opposite way, during the Easter Hymn – but at other times moved, one felt, merely for the sake of movement, as if untrusting of the audience to make any kind of quantum adjustment of physical place on its own. PAG was better in this respect – every rotation had a clearly-focused motivation, the stage revolving as inevitably as a planet’s course around the sun.

Of course, opinion is a subjective beast; and my feelings may well run counter to what many people felt about the two operas’ respective merits – there was certainly much to enjoy, on both sides of the “divide”. Ultimately, though, these are singers’ pieces; and though a number of people I spoke to after CAV at the interval optioned that it seemed to their ears like “can belto” with a vengeance, I confess I didn’t feel quite so set upon because the singing was, for me, so committed, so heartfelt and involving. It wasn’t note-perfect, but despite emotion running freely and dangerously, the principals’ singing lines stayed remarkably intact throughout – Peter Auty, the British tenor, sang the role of Turiddu in CAV to great acclaim in Britain in 2008; and his ringing tones and wholehearted stage presence brought the free-wheeling, irresponsible and tragically fated village-boy-character to life with a vengeance. His pregnant and subsequently rejected ex-partner Santuzza was Ukranian-born Canadian-based soprano Anna Shafajinskaya, a singer diminutive in physical stature but not in stage presence. Her performance was one that lived every impulse of the part in both word and deed, her intensity occasionally risking her line in the name of heightened expression, but extracting a ready and immediate audience response to her predicament as the rejected “fallen woman”.

New Zealanders Anna Pierard (as a spunkily alluring Lola, Turiddu’s other” woman, the wife of Alfio) and Wendy Doyle (a severe but sympathetic Mamma Lucia, Tuiddu’s mother) turned in beautifully-focused singing and acting performances, though I thought Turiddu’s and Lola’s brief beginning-of-the-story tryst could have been lit and placed more suggestively, underlining both the clandestine and erotic in the encounter. Polish baritone Marcin Bronikowski’s initial engaging affability turned powerfully to vengeful rage upon discovering his wife’s infidelity – and though his acting didn’t entirely avoid the “stand-and-deliver” method, he still came across dramatically as a force to be reckoned with. However, his ear-biting encounter with Turiddu, I thought, generated far more deathly menace than the actual killing of the latter (done onstage, contrary to the composer’s directive, but par for the course in the anything-goes world of contemporary opera production). Presented this way the killing seemed a “pasted-on” act of over-the-top violence – but in an updated sense brutally true to the term “verismo”.

Warwick Fyfe’s ghoulish appearance as the unfortunate clown Tonio, announcing the players and their play, made a sensational effect at the second half’s beginning, bringing PAG to the same setting as CAV in what seemed like a macabre twist to the aftermath of Turiddu’s murder. It was as if a hole in the world’s fabric had suddenly been torn and a spectral being from “the other side” had climbed through. Fyfe’s singing and acting during the famous Prologue, apart from the slightest of strain on his highest notes, was stunning – though such was the “ensemble” quality of both productions, that it seemed as organically flowing in the scheme of things as any of the singers’ performances during the evening. Dohnanyi and the orchestra as well took to the brighter, more energetic atmosphere of the opening of PAG with plenty of engaging élan and muscle – an ever-so-slight horn blip mattering not a whit during the ensemble’s wonderfully sonorous precursor of the well-known “Vesti la giubba”.

As for the ill-fated couple, Canio and his wife Nedda, these were also memorable assumptions – Mexican tenor Rafael Rojas gave to his role of Canio a vocally heroic, though dramatically unattractive macho-plus flavour, one which underlined his dysfunctional relationship with Nedda, his wife (Elizabeth Futral). In fact, I felt his brutality deflected our sympathies away from the whole character of his gut-wrenching “Vesti la giubba”, his heartbreak at the discover of Nedda’s betrayal ringing hollow in the light of his previous behaviour towards her (despite this, his wonderful performance of the famous aria brought parts of the house to its feet). Futral’s portrayal of Nedda, beautifully voiced and nicely choreographed, was the very stuff of gone-to-seed male fantasy, using her physical allure with nicely insoucient but still visceral effect, while showing an underbelly of cruelty towards her besotted acting colleague Tonio. Its mirror-image was, of course, her love for Silvio, with whom she planned to escape that very evening. The duetting between Futral and Marcin Bronikowski (returning to the stage as Sylvio) transported us to realms of passionately lyrical pleasure, the more so against the aftermath of Canio’s rage against his wife for her refusal to tell him her lover’s name.

Act Two, featuring the players’ Commedia dell’arte-type presentation enabled us to enjoy the considerable theatrical skills of Andrew Glover, a reliable Beppe during the first act, but now a vibrant, attention-catching, guitar-playing punk-rocker Harlequin, the clandestine stage-lover of Columbina (Nedda), acting and moving with the greatest of confidence and surety. I did think the group’s performing stage rather too high, too removed from the on-stage spectators for meaningful interaction (more to the point towards the end, when it was next-to-impossible for Silvio to get to Nedda to try and save her). However the light-framing lines brought down from above were certainly effective, helping both to define the stage area and add to the occasion’s tinsel and glitter. From Canio’s entrance as Pagliaccio, the action rapidly became fraught, perhaps too quickly too soon, but certainly with dramatic impact, the curdling of the comedy’s fun-and-games burning and searing as Canio’s rage drove the action towards his brutal murder of Nedda, and throat-cutting of her hapless, ineffective would-be rescuer Silvio. Thus it was that PAG traversed a full, murderous circle in this production, the psychotic brutalities pretty much of a piece with the performance’s raw overall impact.

All-in-all, this is, to use the current jargon, a “must-see”! There are two Wellington performances left at this review’s time of writing, before the company moves on to Auckland, later in September (all details below). Though it’s strong and shocking stuff, it’s also great theatre, with some marvellous singing performances and high general production values. We’re privileged to have the opportunity of experiencing its resounding impact.

Wellington performances: St.James Theatre – 7:30pm Thursday 1st September; 7:30pm Saturday 3rd September

Auckland performances: Aotea Centre, THE EDGE – 7:30pm 15th, 17th, 21st, 23rd September – Matinee: 25th September 2:30pm

A night to savour – Britten’s “Dream” enchants at NZSM

Posted on by Peter Mechen

BRITTEN – A Midsummer Night’s Dream (opera in 3 acts)

The New Zealand School of Music, Wellington

Director: Sara Brodie

Cast:  The Fairies – Joe Baxter (Puck) / Bianca Andrew (Oberon) / Bridget Costello (Tytania) / Angelique MacDonald (Cobweb) / Amelia Ryman (Peaseblossom) / Daniela Young (Mustardseed) / (Christina Orgias (Moth)  Mitchell Chin (Indian Boy)

The Lovers – Imogen Thirwall (Hermia) / Thomas Atkins (Lysander) / Bryony Williams (Helena) / Kieran Rayner (Demetrius)

The Mechanicals – Simon Harnden (Peter Quince) / Thomas O’Brien (Flute) / Christian Thurston (Snug) / Fredi Jones (Starveling) / William McElwee (Snout) / Thomas Barker (Bottom)

The Royals – Robert Gray (Theseus) / Emily Simcox (Hippolyta)

Chorus: Awhina Waimotu / Rebekah Giesbers / Esther Leefe / Isabella Moore / Tess Robinson

New Zealand School Of Music Opera Orchestra (Leader: Arna Shaw)

Conductor: Michael Vinten

Memorial Theatre,Victoria University of Wellington

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Performances to come: Saturday 6th (sold out) / Tuesday 9th August

Enchanting! – put simply, a “must-see!” production – so all-pervading was the atmosphere emanating from the stage of the Memorial Theatre I found myself enjoying a child’s delight at the magical evocations of sight and sound, the production taking me to what felt like the beating heart of a creative fusion of words, movement and music. I did have wits about me enough to scribble a few things in the dark along the way, mostly hardly intelligible afterwards – but I had little need of these skeletal hieroglyphics, as only part of me was awakened at the end, leaving other parts even now still dreaming the wood outside Athens and the shadowy epilogues of the “most lamentable comedy” performed by the Mechanicals in the house of Duke Theseus.

Bearing in mind what I’d heard concerning the almost perversion-ridden and voyeuristic slants taken by some recent overseas productions of this opera, I read beforehand with some relief in director Sara Brodie’s notes her avowed desire to “celebrate and balance the scales in favour of revealing the lighter side of Britten’s genius”, thus holding at arm’s length the current, somewhat pathological urge on the part of opera directors to imbue established works with spurious, and often, at the most, peripheral up-datings and psycho-analytical re-workings. Brodie’s significant comment regarding directorial alternatives for this production – “such journeying…I suspect, would have led to darkness” is evidently well borne out elsewhere in the operatic world, and, one would think in some cases, to everybody’s cost in the long run. The power of mere suggestion was, by contrast, here amply brought into play by the Mozartean ambivalence (hang on, but who came first, da Ponte or Shakespeare?) of the lovers towards one another at the conclusion (well, maybe) of their confused and dream-like re-partnerings (echoes of another opera, Cosi fan tutte, indeed…perhaps I meant Britten – or Mozart!).

Britten’s genius was, I think, expressed in completely entering the Shakespearean world of “reality versus dream” that runs almost seamlessly through the latter’s works, with merely Lysander’s line “compelling thee to marry with Demetrius” being the sole, explanatory non-Shakespeare original utterance in the opera. Writing as someone who’s acted in the original play, I’m at every hearing struck freshly dumb at Britten’s imaginative response to words and dramatic situations I imagined I already knew, but realize how much more there is still to know. Far more than merely re-activating that process for me, this production stimulated wonder that Britten hadn’t subsequently turned to that most operatic of Shakespearean plays, “The Tempest”, one which might have, I suspect, as strongly fired his creative sensibilities (alas, my wish the stuff of different kinds of dreams, I fear.)

That chink of curtained magic and mystery which parted to the touch of the sweetly-pyjama-ed “Indian Boy” at the beginning drew us inexorably into the world of Faery, the orchestral playing darkly- and diaphonously-woven under conductor Michael Vinten’s direction (the orchestra on the stage), and the fairies of marvellously unearthly substance, singing with haunting tones, and galvanized by Puck’s equally fantastical but more visceral and volatile appearance, brilliantly realized throughout by Joe Baxter. Our audience-space was magically enveloped by the warring monarchs of Fairyland, Oberon and Tytania, hurling their opening disputations across the auditorium’s vistas, drawing us into the conflict over the “Indian Boy”. As Oberon, Bianca Andrew’s richly-wrought tones brilliantly and easefully negotiated music the composer originally conceived for a counter-tenor (the renowned Alfred Deller was the role’s creator), and her haughty deportment and piercingly-focused gaze powerfully informed her scenes with the equally implacable Tytania of Bridget Costello (who made a drop-dead stunning appearance upon the auditorium’s stairs). Though the latter’s singing wanted a shade more vocal allure in places (during her love-potion-induced reaction to the bemused ass-headed Bottom, for instance) she looked wonderful, and made something lasting of “Oh, how I love thee – how I dote on thee!”

Both fairy monarchs are slightly undone, Oberon by Puck’s injurious approximations with the flower’s love-juices, and Tytania by being, of course, temporarily “enamor’d of an ass”. Oberon’s thwarted desires brought out nicely-accented tantalizing touches of androgynously-coloured eroticism in his dealings with the hapless Puck, though I felt Tytania’s parallel journeyings through her dream-experience didn’t seem greatly to infuse her subsequent character (she’s somewhat inert and “unconnecting” with Oberon in the dance sequence when he sings “Now thou and I are new in amity”, thus failing to suggest that the experience of her “sleep” has actually touched her in any way). This certainly wasn’t the case with the lovers, whose experiences in the Athens wood (so rich a symbol of what outwardly conceals the inner fecundity and revelatory power of the mind’s explorations) were depicted as having changed them forever, in terms of both the world and their inner selves – their subconsciously-driven partner-exchange dance after their final awakening an insightful representation, I thought, of the deeply equivocal nature of things, akin to an “elective affinities” scenario, with which the story leaves us.

As much as the excellence of most of the singing I was struck by the security and confidence of the acting of the couples – they LOOKED so right, for one, and throughout their marriage of movement and gesture to their vocal declamations had a rightness that I felt faltered only during parts of the confrontation scene between Hermia and Helena, when for me the musical and dramatic focus was blurred with too much stage movement – we lost some of the poignancy of Helena’s grief at Hermia’s apparent rending of “our ancient love asunder”, much of which was sacrificed to excessive hurly-burly. This impression apart, I found so much to admire in each performance, securely sung and characterfully acted. I liked the differentiation between them – Thomas Atkins’ Lysander very boyish, overcoming some initial inertia and producing some beautiful singing of some of his later phrases, and Kieran Rayner’s more worldly Demetrius, the voice ever-sonorous and expressive as to word-values. The women were similarly contrasted, Imogen Thirwell’s demure aspect and beautifully modulated utterances as Hermia a perfect foil for Bryony Williams’ wonderfully uninhibited Helena, vocally and dramatically risking composure in search of the appropriate expression, and engaging our sympathy throughout.

Against these “real” people, the cardboard cut-out figures of Duke Theseus and his Queen Hippolyta were always going to struggle; and Robert Gray and Emily Simcox did their best with ungrateful parts, singing their phrases clearly and directly (dressed thus, I feel sure I also would have had trouble with Theseus’s words “Hippolyta, I woo’d thee with my sword and won thy love, doing thee injuries”….perhaps a notch or two more dramatic stylization of their characters might have helped overlay the occasional chinks of discomfort evinced by people with, in reality, very little to do – the “idle rich” personified, no doubt). However, there was definitely not a shred of doubt regarding the status of the renowned “Mechanicals”, the group of common workmen desirous of performing a play for the nuptial celebrations of their Master, the Duke. Their representation on stage was, here, simply a delight from beginning to end. The plum of the parts is, of course, Bottom, played and sung here with terrific energy and enviable dramatic skill by Thomas Barker – one imagines his skills would be as successfully applied to spoken theatre as to opera, though the latter would be the poorer if such a circumstance were to take him in the other direction. His command of the stage in places was unequivocal, though such was the strength of the production’s dramatic instincts for balance, his rustic collaborators were by no means overshadowed.

While Bottom more-or-less superimposes his own personality upon his part of the hero, Pyramus, in the play, the others, apart from the group’s nominal leader, Peter Quince, have “double-personae” with whom to engage. Firstly, William McElwee’s Snout diverted us greatly with his Wall and chink, while, together with Bottom as Pyramus, Thomas O’Brien’s Flute won our hearts against all good judgement with his tremulous portrayal of Thisbe, Pyramus’s would-be sweetheart. Christian Thurston’s Snug the joiner awakened our sympathies for the underdog before assuming the Lion in the play to wrathful effect; while Fredi Jones’s Starveling marvellously delineated his own discomfiture on stage as Moonshine, and his annoyance at being constantly interrupted! And finally, in the first utterances of the group’s nominal leader, Peter Quince, we enjoyed the sonorous tones of Simon Harnden, whose rich bass-baritone I would anticipate hearing more of, in years to come.

This was a stunningly-dressed production – there simply wasn’t a costume that I thought didn’t do its job nicely, a tribute to the expertise of designer Diane Brodie. The colours and configurations of these shone truly and satisfyingly throughout, apart from one or two upstage moments (generally avoided by the director, and with good reason) where people emerged from relative gloom into the full atmospheric splendor of Tony Rabbit’s fluidly-applied lighting scheme. Incidentally, the proscenium arch also seemed to my ears a barrier to vocal quality and volume, though again, Sara Brodie cannily kept things well to the fore as often as she could.

No praise can be too high for conductor Michael Vinten, and for his committed, hard-working musicians, whose realization of Britten’s score had, at their best by turns moments of such evocative mystery, gossamer loveliness, and bright, unequivocal gaiety as to take one’s breath away in many places. True, there were a couple of moments, especially towards the end, where the string tone faltered and some orchestral poise had to be regained. But my over-riding impression was one of kaleidoscopic beauty and infectious energy, with many and varied contributions (special mention must be made of trumpeter Raynor Martin, dragged around and about the stage on a leash by the mischievous Puck during one of the former’s fiendish first-act trumpet solos, yet managing to accurately hit nearly all of his notes in a spirited fashion!) Added to this was singing from the chorus that also made many moments unforgettable, none more so than the lump-in-the-throat conclusion to Act Two, when the assembled fairy group sings the unearthly “On the ground, sleep sound” to the exhausted and totally confused lovers. It was a moment that for me seemed to sum up the achievement of director Sara Brodie and all others concerned with this beautiful production – a New Zealand premiere of the work, incidentally; and one of which the same people (and opera-lovers in general in this country) can be justly proud.

Handel’s Xerxes from New Zealand Opera in brilliant period orchestral setting

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Handel: Xerxes, an opera in three acts, sung in the original Italian with English surtitles.

NBR New Zealand Opera with the Lautten Compagney conducted by Wolfgang Katschner, directed by Roger Hodgman

Xerxes: Tobias Cole; Romilda: Tiffany Speight; Arsamene: William Purefoy; Atalanta: Amy Wilkinson; Amastre: Kristen Darragh; Ariodate: Martin Snell; Elviro: Stephen Bennett; Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus (chorus master Michael Vinten)

St. James Theatre

16 March 2011 (season in Wellington: 15-16, 18-19 March)

It was very satisfying to see a fully-staged performance of Xerxes, unusually with two counter-tenors singing lead roles, rather than at least one being a woman, and to hear the arias at the original pitch.

A further bonus was to have an experienced and professional baroque orchestra accompany in the pit. There were some rumblings about using an imported orchestra when this was first announced, but it is unlikely that New Zealand has enough baroque players who could be available to play a professional season in both Auckland and Wellington. Certainly the decision to employ this orchestra (whose name means ‘company of lutes’) was fully vindicated, even if the lute and theorbo could seldom be heard.

While the stalls were almost full, and presumably the circle, I understand the upper gallery was less than half full that day.

The printed programme was careful on the point of this being the first fully staged professional production of a Handel opera performance in New Zealand (as opposed to concert performance). The newspapers and the Listener have not been so careful, referring to ‘the first fully-staged performance of a Handel opera in New Zealand’, which is simply untrue. Less than two years ago the New Zealand School of Music put on Handel’s Semele in a delightful production, as fully staged as you like. Several decades earlier, Victoria University School of Music performed a fully staged Julius Caesar of Handel, in the university’s Memorial Theatre. There were earlier semi-staged performances of Julius Caesar, Alcina, Ariodante and Rinaldo in Christchurch by Academy Opera. There may have been other staged productions of Handel operas of which I am not aware.

Another point about the printed programme was its readability. It was sumptuously produced with gorgeous photographs. But please, programme designers, don’t have white print on a black background! It is too hard to read, especially for that substantial portion of your audience that is over the age of 55. Even, worse, all the print was in Arial, or similar sans-serif font, which readability tests have shown is not nearly as readable as fonts with serifs. People think sans-serif looks modern; actually the serifs carry the eye forward and aid reading.

Now to the performance itself, on 16 March. The opening overture was a delight: the orchestra’s crisp rhythms, fast tempi and detached playing set an energetic mood that continued for the whole opera. A feature was lovely recorder playing.

The colonnaded set designed by John Verryt, with projected distant scenes behind, reminiscent of Italy, was most handsome, especially under the lighting by Matt Scott, with its frequently changing colours to reflect situations and moods (a little too frequently, I thought).

Costuming was a little more problematical. Xerxes, Romilda, Atalanta and Amastre (the latter as a soldier) wore gorgeous costumes by Trelise Cooper. But the other principals and the chorus wore extremely dull outfits. Why would a general in what appeared to be early nineteenth-century times, wear a khaki -coloured uniform? Surely camouflage hadn’t been invented then (whenever ‘then’ was)? And why did the chorus and those fulfilling acting rather than singing roles, and the remainder of the chorus, wear dull grey and black bits and pieces of body-clinging modern casual garments?

The opera was sung in very good Italian; the surtitles only occasionally moved too fast to read. Some opera-goers thought the translations should have had been repeated on the screens during the repetitions of the da capo arias .

Xerxes (Tobias Cole), in a costume featuring white trousers and a purple (kingly) jacket with a gold and be-jewelled peacock embroidered on the back, sang his famous ‘Ombrai mai fu’ beautifully, in a flexible, high counter-tenor voice. His was the less mellifluous voice of the two counter-tenors – appropriate for the nastier character. It seemed ludicrous to sing in praise of the shade and protection of the tree when the tree was tiny, sitting in a pot. Perhaps it was a token gesture, in irony. The stage business of Xerxes tending the tree, assisted by sundry silent servants, was good fun.

Soon we saw Arsamene (William Purefoy), surprisingly dressed in very dull costume, and with short hair, as opposed to Xerxes’s flowing shoulder-length ringlets.  One might have supposed that the royal brother would also look royal, but perhaps his more active life-style precluded that. Purefoy’s voice is different in quality from that of Cole  rather warmer, fuller and more mellow, but equally flexible.  His lower notes were beautiful.

Then Romilda arrived (Tiffany Speight) in a glorious bright pink floating long coat over a gold dress.  Speight’s voice is splendid, and carried even from the back of the stage (which wasn’t true of all the singers); naturally, it was even better from the front  clear and fluent.  Her wonderful aria about the brook flowing to the sea showed Handel’s skill with word-painting, trills describing the water.

Romilda’s sister Atalanta (Amy Wilkinson) revealed a rich, flexible, expressive voice, along with an expressive face, and excellent acting ability.

Next on stage was Amastre, Xerxes’s fiancée, dressed as a man. Although her attire was obviously military, she boasted white trousers and a red jacket – was this intended to show that she was of higher birth (a princess, indeed) than Ariodante, the general, in his sombre dress? Amastre was sung by Kristen Darragh, the first of the New Zealanders to come on stage. Her mezzo was not as strong as the other soloists voices, particularly from further back on the stage, but she carried off her role extremely well. In her suicide aria she was clearer, and the full beauty of her voice was revealed.

The General, Ariodante (Martin Snell), was next to arrive, and immediately his sonorous bass made an impression. His conversation with Xerxes had its funny side, since Xerxes’s apparently heavily jewelled crown did not inhibit small movements of his head at all!

A florid bass aria for Ariodante was splendidly sung, the low notes quite thrilling. The orchestral accompaniment varied between legato and staccato, maintaining interest, as did the excellent lighting, and the projected images.

An extended aria from Xerxes was well-sustained; the florid singing superlative. Just one or two shrieks at the very top, and the occasional flat top note here and elsewhere marred the performance. The humorous production details were enjoyable; acting was almost universally good.

The most humorous character was the servant, Elviro, who, not to be outdone by Xerxes and Arsamene, got to sing falsetto as well. Stephen Bennett invested this character with slapstick, particularly when dressed as a woman flower-seller, where his impersonation was achingly funny, as he switched between falsetto and his usual voice. His costume was a bright note.

Acts 1 and 2 were continuous, which made for a rather long first session, in which my attention occasionally flagged.

‘Opera Exposed’ in the interval consisted of Aidan Lang, the General Director of New Zealand Opera interviewing several of the participants in a light-hearted but informative way. Conductor Katschner talked briefly about the orchestra, and had the theorbo, lute and violin demonstrate their instruments – and the last, the baroque bow. Purefoy spoke about his role and his voice, with a few jokes about counter-tenors thrown in, and Kristen Darragh was interviewed about playing trouser roles.

Another attractive overture preceded the third Act, but the violins were too loud for lute and theorbo, which became indistinguishable from the harpsichord, though soon after I was able to hear the lute, accompanying Atalanta.

Purefoy gave us a lovely liquid sound in his aria in this Act. The chorus, which Handel allowed only a couple of outings, had a lively, fresh sound, and were perfectly balanced; their movement, too, was admirable.

Elviro entertained us again, demonstrating that Xerxes’s bridge across the Hellespont was not a thing of any permanence – accompanied by very jolly orchestral music. A very decorated aria for Romilda revealed Speight’s consistent excellence. Her characterisation and acting were always of a high order. She made singing Handel, even the many florid passages, seem so easy, not least in her duet with Purefoy.

Ariodante returned, delighted to have married his daughter (Romilda) to Arsamene (misunderstanding Xerxes’s intentions to have her for himself), and between delicious low notes, executed a couple of amusing jubilant dances.

Kristen Darragh had another opportunity to show off her attractive contralto register; with cello and recorder accompaniment, this aria was exquisite.

Tobias Cole again displayed the power of his voice, and showed that he is athletic both vocally and bodily. Not to mention his ability to express humour in both voice and acting, as well as the rage he delivers variously to most other principals. Some of his stage movement in ‘Soak me in the vile abyss’ echoed that of Atalanta when her deceit is found out. The third chorus number was very good indeed.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable production. Handel’s marvellous long lines in the arias were outstandingly performed by singers and orchestra, and the humour and fallibility of the characters endeared them and the music to the audience to the extent of a partial standing ovation at the end, and much applause greeting each aria and ensemble.

Whanganui hosts a sell-out opera school gala concert

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Seventeenth New Zealand Opera School at Whanganui. Director of the school: Donald Trott; Performance director: Sara Brodie

Royal Wanganui Opera House

Thursday 13 January 2011

For the first time, the gala concert to end the summer opera school was a sell-out. A brilliantly contrived TV item may have been partly responsible, with a rehearsed ‘ad hoc’ performance in a street market a couple of days before featuring the brindisi from La traviata.

In recent years a group has become established, Wanganui Opera Week, which helps popularise and make visible and audible the school’s activities in the city. And year by the year appreciation of the rare distinction that Whanganui enjoys in the survival of its Victorian opera house grows. A house not only of considerable architectural interest but also with excellent acoustics.

The last four summer opera schools have had the benefit of staging and, shall we say, dramaturgical embellishment by choreographer and opera and theatre director Sara Brodie. And it was this element, in addition to the widely acknowledged rise in vocal skills, that dominated audience conversations. In contrast to last year’s concert which comprised a series of tableaux each with something of a common theme, this concert was guided by two ideas.

The first was an audition session from the inside, with Sara Brodie playing the key role in the assessments. The first candidate, Bianca Andrew, sang a vivid ‘Parto, parto’ from La clemenza di Tito, all the taxing roulades cleanly delivered, and she was rewarded with an immediate, ‘You’re hired!’.

The auditioning process recurred from time to time throughout, but it was overlaid by a French cabaret or revue setting, and the colour blue seemed to be a constant image, along with the sensuous use of large feather boas; they became a sort of trade mark. The joint MCs of the revue scenes were Bianca Andrew and Cameron Barclay; he later sang the aria from Les Troyens.

Nothing could have been more French than the four excerpts from Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann and the panel’s conferring about the singer led to the Students’ drinking song from the Prologue to that opera, sung by the men – I counted nine. Was this a record? I don’t think there have been so many excellent male singers at the school before.

The first ‘Act’ closed with the Barcarolle – the duet from the Giulietta act, with the surprise inclusion of the Sri Lankan counter-tenor Stephen Diaz, who had attracted wide attention last year. He took Nicklausse’s mezzo role, inauthentically, as a female mezzo normally sings the part of Hoffmann’s male friend. His performance was immaculate and authoritative. Bryony Williams sang Giulietta, well, though the two voices seemed to inhabit quite different acoustic spaces; was it a quirk of the theatre or was there some subtle amplification taking place?

Diaz had earlier sung an aria by one of the great composers of the castrato era – Riccardo Broschi, the brother of Carlo, more famous as the castrato Farinelli, from his opera called Idaspe (Venice, 1730). Though this year’s aria (‘Ombra fedele anch’io’) was unknown, it made no less impact than Handel’s ‘Ombra mai fu’ did in 2010. Though Diaz made his performance with its dazzling embellishments look easy, it was not merely the uncommon vocal register that made him stand out, but also his musicianship and lyrical gift, his natural expressive powers, the penetrating strength and subtlety of his singing that placed him in a class of his own.

Bryony Williams’s solo aria was in the second half – Catalani’s greatest hit, ‘Ebben? Ne andrò lontana’ from La Wally. Here, in a long blue gown, Wally enters being chased from her father’s house because she persists in her love for the son of her father’s enemy. Her polished voice and arresting stage presence did full justice to this evocative aria.

The second offering from The Tales of Hoffmann was the Kleinzach chorus, sung in English, with the final sound of both that name and the Bach town of Eisenach pronounced ‘k’; no need to anglicize to that degree. However the singing was spirited. It was followed as if there was some narrative connection, by ‘Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix’ from Samson et Dalila; Elisha Fai sang it in French, showing a few flaws though hers is a pleasing and promising voice.

A Samson presented himself at her feet during her performance, which was followed by the metamorphosis from Samson to Hoffmann to a continuation of Kleinzach. Darren Pene Pati’s voice exhibited colour and real beauty as well as impressive control.

We did not hear him in an extended aria till his beautiful performance of ‘Che gelida manina’ (Bohème) near the end of the concert. His was one of the highlights of the concert and it received a well merited ovation. His Mimi, Xing Xing Wang, followed it naturally with ‘Si, mi chiamano Mimi’ in a perfect interpretation that was vocally affecting and histrionically poised and moving. Applause for her was hardly less enthusiastic.

The third piece from Hoffmann was the above mentioned Barcarolle; the fourth, fittingly, was the septet that brings the opera to an end, as it did the concert itself, with the entire assembly singing with huge gusto and enjoyment. Bruce Greenfield accompanied all the Hoffmann excerpts, lending the spirit of the fantastic and the recklessness that characterizes the story of Offenbach’s hero.

Other French pieces included a lovely aria that is familiar but whose provenance is probably obscure: ‘Oh! Ne t’éveille pas encore’ from Jocelyn by Benjamin Godard, a contemporary of Fauré and Chausson. Oliver Sewell did not altogether avoid the danger of allowing its charming sentiment from sliding towards the sentimental; a good voice but as yet little stage presence.

In ‘Act II’, the first French aria came from a rather neglected quarter: Berlioz.

Cameron Barclay repeated his successful recipe from last year, with something very unfamiliar. In 2010 he sang an aria from Copland’s The Tender Land; this time it was Iopas’s aria ‘O blonde Cérès’ sung to console Dido in Act IV of Les Troyens. His French was good and the quality of his voice promising as he found the right idiom and phrasing for Berlioz’s sometimes unusual metres.

There followed two familiar arias from familiar operas, Carmen and Faust, but first, and most remarkably, the final scene from Poulenc’s devastating opera Dialogues des Carmélites. (Note the proper title of the opera is without the definite article). Here, in the opera based on Georges Bernanos’s novel, all 11 women in the school took the parts of the nuns, falling dead in full view on stage as we hear the swoosh of the guillotine, in one of the many terrible acts of fanaticism perpetrated during the Terror following the French Revolution. In the only live production I’ve seen, the nuns are led out one by one to be executed out of sight; the effect is, as always, far more chilling and powerful than for violent acts to be portrayed graphically, a fact to which most theatre and film directors today seem oblivious.

It was perhaps the most dramatic and memorable item on the evening.

School director Donald Trott reminded those of the audience unaware of the career of founder tutor of the school Virginia Zeani, that she had sung the major role of Blanche de la Force at the La Scala world premiere of Carmélites in 1947 – the opera made such a remarkable impact that productions followed in the same year in Paris, Cologne and San Francisco.

Kieran Rayner followed that with Valentin’s aria from Faust pleading that God watch over his sister Marguérite while he is away at war. As with his brindisi from Thomas’s Hamlet in 2010, aria Rayner showed his flair in the French repertoire, striking presence and a robust attractive voice. Oddly, I found some of his French vowels a little eccentric.

From fifteen years later, Carmen made its appearance in Micaela’s second aria, ‘Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante’.Rachel Day chose it well for it lay comfortably for her even though her top notes were a little shrill.

Other nationalities were represented in a few items.

American operas had interesting exposure, starting with Bernstein’s Candide. Here was a splendid vehicle for promising coloratura Olga Gryniewicz who sang a Rimsky-Korsakov aria in 2010. In truth, some of the high notes in ‘Glitter and be Gay’ showed her at a little below the polished and assured brilliance of some earlier performances, but there is both fine musicianship and vocal virtuosity here; and she is a vivid actress.

Menotti is American rather than Italian and the aria from The Old Maid and the Thief opened ‘Act II’; Bridget Costello sang the droll ‘Steal me, sweet thief’ with clear diction and straight-faced irony; her voice is well schooled, has excellent dynamic control and she inhabited the role well.

The third American opera was Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah from which Amelia Berry sang ‘The trees on the mountain’. She sings with skill and confidence, her voice firm, accurate and expressive. In choosing this aria she demonstrated both adventurousness and a musicality that should take her far.

Two singers had chosen Britten.

Rose Blake sang the Embroidery aria from Peter Grimes, a long and difficult piece to interpret musically and with lyricism, yet her well-supported voice and secure high notes complemented her musicality.

Considerably less familiar is Britten’s Rape of Lucretia though its first appearance just after World War II led to many productions. The former Wellington Polytechnic produced it about a decade ago. It was not the title-role we heard – made famous by Ferrier and Baker – but the part of Tarquin, as he contemplates the sleeping Lucretia. Thomas Barker’s baritone was beguiling and attractive rather that expressing the violent lust that drives him.

Stravinsky’s The Rakes’s Progress can also be classed as English for Stravinsky set this operatic interpretation of Hogarth’s set of engravings in English. Imogen Thirlwell sang Anne’s poignant aria, ‘No news from Tom’ with clarity and some sensitivity.

Since the last gala concert of the opera school, several of these singers were heard in one or both of the operas in Rhona Fraser’s Days Bay garden: The Marriage of Figaro and Rossini’s The Journey to Rheims. There they all demonstrated their ability to handle not just individual arias but sustained performance in a real opera.

Mozart in fact out-numbered Offenbach, with six singers in a variety of well-known arias from four operas. There were two arias from Figaro.

Isabella Moore sang the Countess’s ‘Porgi amor’, her first appearance at the beginning of Act II. I thought her red dress offered the wrong image for the betrayed wife, but her singing showed her understanding nevertheless.

A little later in Act II the young page Cherubino, a mezzo trouser role, seeks the help of Susanna and the Countess in understanding his unrelenting priapism: ‘Voi che sapete’, and Ceit McLean sang it well enough; as yet she has not developed the flair and confidence to carry such an aria off with real elan.

I mentioned Bianca Andrew’s ‘Parto, parto’ from Tito, which opened the concert.

Tavis Gravatt sang the baritone role of Guglielmo from Così fan tutte: ‘Donne mie, la fate a tanti’, in a sturdy, capable performance, not yet invested with much charm.

Another baritone, Anthony Schneider, sang the first of two arias from The Magic Flute: Papageno’s ‘Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja’, natural seeming; the by-play seemed a little de trop, as the Three Ladies made their appearance which would have made sense only to those familiar with the story. There were glosses on several other performances that would have had meaning only to the initiated. Schneider carried it very well.

The tenor ‘hero’ Tamino in the Flute is less funny than Papageno, and so makes quite different demands. A somewhat rapturous reaction is called for as he looks at a vignette of the princess Pamina, and neither Jamie Young’s costume nor his demeanour quite met the requirements; the by-play was again a little distracting but his actual singing portrayed Tamino effectively.

Accompaniments were uniformly splendid; in addition to Greenfield, they were Greg Neil, Iola Shelley, Evans Chang, Travis Baker, Mark Dorrell, and Philippa Safey. Michael Vinten conducted choruses. The tutors were Prof Paul Farrington, Margaret Medlyn, Barry Mora, Richard Greager; Flavio Villani tutors in Italian and Kararaina Walker was production assistant and delivered the opening Karanga.

In a country so isolated from the musical, especially operatic, resources and performances available in Europe and even in North America, more than usual efforts need to be made to provide opportunities to hone skills and cultivate talents and interpretive insight as well as taking part in live performance. This now 17-year-old opera school at Whanganui provides some of the scarce experiences of the first kind.

The Whanganui project is the result of extraordinary efforts on the part of a few dedicated enthusiasts, led by Donald Trott, dependent on huge fund-raising efforts which ought to be taken up to a far greater degree through the state-assisted tertiary education system.

We need both advanced training and journeyman experiences for our rising singers, plus professional companies that can stage more than two productions a year to provide a basic livelihood in their own country.

While New Zealand often seems content to congratulate itself for producing gifted musicians and others in the arts, little attention is paid to the stark fact that this country is right at the bottom of the OECD in terms of arts funding at all levels and in all the serious genres. What initiatives the Government does take seem, extraordinarily, to be devoted to energy and money-wasting ‘reviews’ and consultative processes, to cutting and imposing ever-increasing barriers and demands on poverty-stricken, already struggling enterprises.

Days Bay Opera triumphs with Rossini rarity: The Journey to Rheims

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Opera in a Days Bay Garden. Il viaggio a Reims. Producer: Rhona Fraser.

Musical director: Michael Vinten; stage director: Sara Brodie. Singers as named in the text; an orchestra of piano (Richard Mapp) and flute, oboe, clarinets, bassoon, horn and double bass

Canna House, Moana Road, Days Bay

Wednesday 1 December (repeated on 2, 3 and 4 December)

This production, announced as the Australasian premiere, was staged in the enchanting garden of soprano Rhona Fraser and her husband Professor Campbell McLachlan, where The Marriage of Figaro was so brilliantly staged in March. It lies in a natural amphitheatre in the beech-clad hills behind Days Bay. Rhona had sung in a production of the opera when she was a student at the Guildhall School of Music and she had filed away its potential for use somewhere else.

This was it.

It was in Andrew Porter’s English translation; director Sara Brodie (who had directed Figaro) had brought it into the present day, and had given her cast licence to turn their roles into something that suited their personalities and their own particular styles of humour and their histrionic strengths. There was much that seemed, reading the libretto, to have been invented, and the accretions were always to the point – however you might see that.

A Frankfurt performance

In Frankfurt two and a half years ago, I happened upon a production of this Rossini rarity, and naturally got myself a ticket. I had not spotted it till a day or so before arriving and so had little chance to find a synopsis, though I did have a rough idea of it. It was in its original Italian with German surtitles which was some help, though my German does not really afford full comprehension at surtitle speed. It was not one of their major productions, conducted by Johannes Debus and directed by Dale Duesing; nor did I know any of the dozen principal singers.

Instead of being stranded in the absence of horses for their onward journey to Rheims for the 1825 coronation of Charles X, the party of travellers found themselves on an island without canoes.

I found it moderately amusing, as the direction seemed not to have sparked any infectious sense of the ridiculous in the cast. It was the kind of comedy that the English, or the French, might be better at. That was convincingly proved by the production at Days Bay.

Background

The opera was the first that Rossini wrote for Paris, and accordingly he set great store by it. He employed the greatest voices of the time, including Giuditta Pasta as Corinna. The story was put together by the Italian librettist Luigi Balochi for the Théâtre Italien in Paris to celebrate the coronation of Charles X in 1825 (one of the lack-lustre French kings who followed the defeat of Napoleon; he survived till the July Revolution of 1830 when he was supplanted by Louis-Philippe).

Balochi was later responsible for the French versions of two earlier Italian works that Rossini adapted for the Opéra in Paris: Le siège de Corinthe and Moïse et Pharaon.

It is based in part on a novel, Corinne, ou L’Italie, by Madame de Staël,  the famous littératrice, thorn in Napoleon’s side, mistress of Benjamin Constant, friend of Byron and August Wilhelm Schlegel.

It was performed four times in Paris and then withdrawn by Rossini because he recognised that the essentially ‘occasional’ character of the piece would militate against its lasting success. It was never again performed till recent decades. Rossini may also have had in mind, from the beginning, to cannibalised much of it in another opera. Thus about half found its way into his next Paris opera, Le comte Ory, (which was produced by Canterbury Opera in 2004) and the rest seemed simply to have disappeared and was presumed lost, till the 1970s when manuscript sources were found in the library of the St Cecilia Academy in Rome, as well as in Paris and Vienna, allowing the entire work to be reconstructed.

First: where are we? At Plombières-les-bains; as the name suggests, a spa town, in eastern France. It’s in the département of Vosges, about 60km west of Colmar and 100km south of Nancy at the southern edge of Lorraine. About 250km south-east of Rheims.

The Southern premiere in Days Bay

See a full synopsis of the opera, with names of this cast members inserted, taken from the website of La Scala, Milan, at the end of this review.

The Days Bay version could hardly have been more different from what I saw in Frankfurt; and almost all of it much more successful and entertaining.

The story gathers together aristocrats of several nationalities who exhibit national stereotypes as seen from Paris, none of them too cruel. The 1825 occasion was seen as some kind of return to a normality desired by conservative monarchical forces, in which Europe would be peacefully ruled by enlightened monarchs: it suggested to the production team a shift to a contemporary Europe united by the EU.

The stranded guests never make it to the coronation because no horses can be found to take them the rest of the way to Rheims. While they wait for something to happen, various amusements are devised; the first, which I do not see in the libretto, is a book-signing of a slim volume of verse entitled EU Poetry by Roman poetess Corinna, Amelia Berry, one of the three prime donne.

These volumes then have attached to them, names of things as if for sale: ‘nuclear power’, ‘relics’, ‘orphans’, ‘mail order brides’, ‘watches and chocolate’, ‘minerals’… I didn’t get it, nor could I find a clue in the libretto.

Excellent use is made of the amenities of the house, the swimming pool, the terrace the various doors from the terrace into the house, while the small piano and winds orchestra fits comfortably in a broader extension of the deck on the right. Though without strings other than double bass, they provided a very apt accompaniment.

In spite of the large number of singers, most had succeeded in engraving a personality before the end of the first act, a tribute to both the singers’ accomplishment and the clear and witty characterisation achieved in the brilliant libretto and it present-day glosses.

Rhona Fraser herself sang the role of the hotel manager, Madama Cortese: while never seeking to ape her aristocratic guests, she is confident, unpretentious, with a natural dignity; she sings the part excellently.

The majority of the cast are or have been students at the New Zealand School of Music, and their training at the hands of Emily Mair (till recently), Flora Edwards, Jenny Wollerman and Margaret Medlyn shows. Rachel Day has the small part of Maddalena yet it becomes a quite conspicuous role, vocally and in presence: bossy, impatient. The same goes for another of the hotel staff, Antonio, sung confidently by Charles Wilson, and the local doctor, Don Prudenzio (Thomas Barker), another promising theatrical singer.

Perhaps the most vivid character, as she was in the New Zealand School of Music’s Semele by Handel in 2009 (where many of these singers also performed in a comparably large cast), was Olga Gryniewicz. She seems to have overcome a tightness in her upper range to deliver a performance of the Contessa di Folleville that was strong, funny, sexy and full of character.

Bianca Andrew could have taken a bigger role than that of Folleville’s maid, Modestina (someone needed to display a touch of modesty in this company, though her ultimate purpose was revealed as something entirely different). Don Luigino, a cousin of Folleville, has taken on the job of organising things, and Jonathan Abernethy carried that off effectively.

Among the bigger roles was that of the German Baron Trombonok, who’s a music lover and is responsible for organising the singing of national songs at the end. Michel Alkhouri’s accent makes him no more suited to his role than any of the others (after all they are all foreigners except the English ‘Lord’; but should foreignness be heard through Italian ears in this piece?); with an attractive baritone voice he was an adornment.

Roger Wilson found himself with the scholarly, antiquarian role of Don Profondo that seemed to suit both his vocal range and style as well as his flair for mimicry and droll posturings. He relished its big patter aria in which he delighted the crowd as he compiled an inventory of the travellers’ baggage, leaping unerringly from one accent to the next – one of his famous talents.

There’s a Spanish grandee, Don Alvaro, sung by Orene Tiai, a promising voice but not yet fully confident in such a role, though the quintet in which he sings with his rival in love, the Russian Count Libenskof (Benjamin Fifita Makisi) and their object, the Polish Marchesa Melibea (Maaike Christie-Beekman), along with Roger Wilson and Rhona Fraser was an early high point.

Makisi’s performance had all the expected confidence and polish, which might well have set him far above most of his colleagues; happily, the brilliant line-up of so many less experienced singers but vocally impressive and theatrical gifted, made for a surprisingly even cast.

A duel between the Russian and the Spaniard over Melibea is narrowly averted by a voice from an upstairs window. It is Amelia Berry as Corinna who arrives in time to calm things, and she soon gains the limelight besporting herself provocatively on the garden wall. Her voice too is as captivating as her legs. She becomes something of an EU symbol with blue gown and the EU circle of stars.

Fresh travellers continue to arrive. Englishman Lord Sidney, sung by baritone Kieran Rayner, is garbed with a Union Jack, caricatured punk-style as an eccentric under-cover agent, delivering cryptic reports into his wrist and manipulating a cellphone. If he’s an ineffective lover and generally insensitive to what’s going on, Rayner’s performance, vocally and histrionically, was one of the best of the evening.

Though formally in one act, this production was divided into two. The second opens with the arrival of the French Chevalier Belfiore (tenor Michael Gray). Sure of his amatory prowess, he makes a protracted and unsuccessful attempt on Corinna’s carefully managed virtue: Gray’s is a most polished performance.

After news that all attempts to find transport have failed and there will be no journey to Rheims, a great ensemble in rollicking rhythm develops, each traveller opining in turn that he/she will die of grief. But there’s still love interest to come with a long duet between the Russian (Makisi) and the Pole (Christie-Beekman), which ends this time, in capitulation. Though it’s modern times – witness Lord Sidney’s electronic paraphernalia – the Russian is still represented by the Soviet flag rather than the Russian tricolor.

A final directoral flourish was the unveiling of Modestina’s role as suicide-bomber (motive not explained), who’d evaded discovery by the vigilant punk Lord Sidney.

Delia, Corinna’s maid, was a small role but one that Rose Blake made an impact in. And the rest of this extraordinary cast comprised hotel staff, all of whom exhibited individual talents of a high order: Clarissa Dunn, Simon Harndenm Peter King, Thomas O’Brien and Imogen Thirlwall.

That Rhona Fraser, Sara Brodie and Michael Vinten have demonstrated so convincingly, now for a second time in nine months, how much talent rests under-exploited in Wellington, should alert the city to this wonderful enterprise. It is shameful that the daily newspaper refused to cover it, where a review would perhaps draw attention to it more effectively than does a website (though we say so ourselves).

It is of course too much to expect Creative New Zealand to support something as singular and spectacularly successful as this.

A Postscript

That so many highly accomplished young singers with such well-developed stage skills are available in Wellington is remarkable; and it makes one lament that there is almost no professional work for them in the city.

And it’s to be noted that only four of the eleven on stage for the March Marriage of Figaro were again to be seen in this production; further evidence of the large number of singers ready (or nearly) for a professional career.

Since the merger of the opera companies of Wellington and Auckland, there has been no company based in Wellington for a decade: NBR New Zealand Opera presents fewer productions than Wellington City Opera used to do on its own. Till 2000, Auckland and Wellington, between them, were seeing five or six different opera productions a year (generally three in Wellington and two in Auckland). So the amount of work for singers is now much less.

Perhaps it’s time for some clear-sighted promoters, backed by the city council and its many enlightened, wealthy arts patrons, to restore Wellington’s own company, which would aim at three or even four economical yet stylish and appropriate productions annually in Wellington, employing New Zealand singers, musicians and production staff.

A synopsis from the La Scala website, with the cast of the Days Bay production inserted

The housekeeper of “Il Giglio d’Oro” hotel, Maddalena (Rachel Day), urges the staff to prepare diligently the visit to Reims which her guests are about to undertake, that same evening, to go to the coronation of Charles X, the new king, which will take place – according to tradition – in that city.

After Don Prudenzio (Thomas Barker), the hotel doctor, has closely examined the meals prepared for the guests, to make sure that they conform to his directions, and Madama Cortese (Rhona Fraser) has once again reminded her servants to maintain the reputation of the inn, the Countess of Folleville (Olga Gryniewicz), a pretty Parisienne who is “mad about fashion”, mistress of the handsome French official, the Chevalier Belfiore (Michael Gray), voices her concern because her clothes for the great celebration have not yet arrived.

Don Luigino (Jonathan Abernethy), the cousin of the Countess of Folleville, who is in charge of the arrangements, announces that the coach carrying the personal effects of the noble lady has overturned, damaging its precious cargo of boxes and cases.

At this news, the Countess faints and all the other guests at the hotel crowd around her and try to revive her.

The arrival of Modestina (mezzo Bianca Andrew), the Countess’s surly maid, with a trunk which has been miraculously salvaged from the ruinous road accident, revives the anguished gentlewoman, who is satisfied at having recovered a precious little hat to wear at the celebration.

In the meantime, the Baron of Trombonok (Michel Alkhouri), a German official and music fanatic, elected treasurer for the voyage by the hotel guests, makes the final arrangements with the “hotel manager” Antonio (Charles Wilson), to take care of the baggage and to the eventual needs of the voyagers.

Don Profondo (Roger Wilson), a learned member of various Academies and fanatical collector of antiques, and Don Alvaro (Orene Tiai), a Spanish Grandee, enter and present the beautiful Polish widow of an Italian general, the Marchesa Melibea (Maaike Christie-Beekman), with whom Don Alvaro has fallen in love, to the Baron of Trombonok. She wants to go to Reims together with the other illustrious members of the company.

The arrival of the Count of Libenskof (Ben Fifita Makisi), a Russian gentleman, also in love with Melibea, makes Don Alvaro jealous, and their rivalry is openly expressed in the presence of Melibea and Madama Cortese until the singing of another guest at the “Giglio d’Oro” hotel, Corinna (Amelia Berry), who comes from Rome (in this version, Greece) and whose art is to improvise songs and poetry, is heard from behind the scenes and calms down the heated exchange of jealous rivalry.

Madama Cortese is worried about the delay of Zefirino, the courier sent in search of horses for the journey. She is also thinking about the reciprocated but undeclared love of the English guest, Lord Sidney (Kieran Rayner), for Corinna.

Lord Sidney arrives, lamenting over his woes as a lover. Corinna, having received a letter by hand from Don Profondo, reads it and reassures Delia (Rose Bake), her Greek orphan friend, about the fate of her country and invites her to join the company on its way to Reims. She finally notices the flowers arranged in her room: Lord Sidney’s daily love token.

The Chevalier Belfiore (Michael Gray), finding the poetess alone, tries to seduce her, convinced of his proven prowess, but Don Profondo interrupts him and makes fun of him. He begins to compile the list of valuable objects belonging to the voyagers which the Baron has asked him for.

After a quick exchange of words between Don Profondo and the Countess of Folleville, who has intuited the courtship between the Chevalier Belfiore and Corinna, many of the guests become impatient to leave but the arrival of the Baron and Zefirino creates an atmosphere of gloom: the voyage cannot be undertaken because, in the whole of Plombières, there is not a single horse to be hired or bought because of the vast number of voyagers who are also going to Reims for the grand ceremony.

Madama Cortese raises the spirits of the company by showing her guests a letter from Paris sent by her husband which announces the great festivities being prepared in the capital in honour of the king and to welcome his return: an extremely pleasurable way to console themselves for the unaccomplished voyage to Reims. The Countess of Folleville offers everyone hospitality at her home in Paris.

The proposal is accepted which enthusiasm and they decide to leave the next day with the daily coach for the capital. With part of the money put aside for the voyage to Reims, they will organise that very evening a feast, open to all, to celebrate, in any case, the coronation of the king, and the rest will be given to charity.

Everything is resolved and the Baron tries to settle the quarrel between the Count of Libenskof and the Polish Marchesa, caused by Don Alvaro.

The two lovers are reconciled ant the next scene opens on the illuminated gardens of the hotel in which a rich table has been laid.

The hotel manager Antonio learns from Maddalena, the governess, that the Baron has engaged a company of roving musicians and dancers, passing through the area, to liven up the feast. They soon appear and, with their songs and dances, they commence the festivities.

The Baron announces, in accordance with the rules already agreed, a series of toasts in the musical styles of the various countries of origin of the guests, in honour of the king and the royal family.

At the end, everyone presents request for a poetic performance from Corinna as a fit ending to the feast. The guests therefore propose various themes for the poetess’s improvisation, mainly deriving from the history of France and out of which Melibea draws by lot that of «Charles X, King of France».
After Corinna’s musical celebration and among general acclaim to the king and to France, the performance ends with the praising of the royal family.

Macbeth triumphant in Wellington

Posted on by Lindis Taylor

Verdi’s Macbeth: NBR New Zealand Opera, conducted by Guido Ajmone-Marsan, directed by Tim Albery. Vector Wellington Orchestra and the Wellington Opera Chorus (original production by Opera North in 2008)

St James Theatre, Wellington

Saturday 9 October, 7.30pm

There is an unwritten convention that critics don’t expose themselves to the professional comments of other critics till they have nailed their own thoughts to the hard-drive. I try to adhere to this but pollution of the pristine impressions are sometimes unavoidable.  I heard the remark that Antonia Cifrone’s voice was not beautiful, and another that it had been described as ‘serviceable’.  These kinds of remarks are usually the refuge of the over-confident or the critic with a limited view of acceptable musical styles.

From her opening lines I was struck by Cifrone’s vigour, and by the very qualities that Verdi had prescribed for the role. He’s on record saying he did NOT want a beautiful voice; he wanted a ‘harsh, strangled, grim’ voice that depicted a domineering and ruthless woman. No one could so describe Ms Cifrone, who had sung the role in Opera North’s original production in 2008, but her vocal attributes allowed gave her performance all the dramatic and musical power called for.

Her acting conveyed the essential features of Lady Macbeth; it was both commanding in gesture and movement, and surprisingly balletic (the ballet, as usual, was dropped) in scenes such as the Banquet, where she produced an impressive coloratura display in the brindisi; in the sleep-walking scene her voice was stretched like a taut wire by the power of her conscience and her subconscious, yet singularly beautiful.

As usual, the stage director employs the prelude to entertain us with the witches, perched on little ledges on a sloping back-drop, suggesting the opening scene of Rheingold; they are soon seen as midwives to Lady Macbeth in labour, delivering a still-born baby, that they neatly drop in the bin. Psychologist Tim Albery lighted on this embellishment, derived from a cryptic line in the play, though not in the libretto, to explain the childless lady’s nasty obsessions. I thought it contributed less than nothing.

The related, near omnipresence, of a bed in almost every scene was a close relative of the obstetric adornment. It came in handy as the bed on which Duncan was murdered, for the royal couple’s copulation scene, for a later multiple birth scene (six this time, tossed about by the attendant witches/nurses), and for Lady Macbeth’s eventual expiry.

I do not mean to suggest that these efflorescences got in the way of the story; they were just a slightly wearying example of the director’s (all directors’) compulsive intrusiveness.

Finally, I have to say how silly, even distasteful, I found the publicity images. It seems to be accepted, in spite of years of criticism, that you can present images purporting to be of opera principals that are actually of models. If they reflect the characters with a little integrity, it’s not quite so bad, but the couple used on posters and on the programme cover are simply ridiculous: nothing could be more at odds with anyone’s notion of what Macbeth and the Lady are like.

Otherwise, the dramatic glosses were unobtrusive, entertaining and usually acceptable.

The second immediate impact was of the splendidly prepared chorus, particularly the women – usually as witches. Their singing was swift, tautly rhythmic, excellently balanced and punchy; and their disposition and movement, as that of the cast as a whole, was conspicuously natural, meaningful with dramatic force, lively or static as appropriate; they sit in rows on either side, knitting – like the Norns in the Prologue of Götterdämmerung? Though Albery was in Auckland for four weeks and staged the performance in Auckland, the programme credits assistant director Maxine Braham as ‘movement director’, and I’m told that Steven Whiting directed the Wellington chorus*.

The first appearance of principals is of Macbeth and Banquo – baritone Michele Kalmandi and bass Jud Arthur – two excellent low voices, of well contrasted timbres, the former exhibiting a little more polish, but the latter with striking vocal colour and personality.

The arrival of Duncan, the king, is always dramatically odd for his role is negligible (acted by Barry Mawer); the ubiquitous bed is already there on stage, beset with screens as the King retires, soon to be killed by Macbeth whose subsequent anguish was well depicted. It all takes place as courtiers lie asleep on the floor in the same hall: no one wakes during the commotion. A propos of which Julian Budden’s great study of the operas quotes a letter from Verdi to the first Macbeth (Varesi) stressing the need to sing sotto voce, and pointing to the careful orchestration that would be very quiet beneath his voice.

Dinner jackets are de rigueur most of the time: everyone rises the morning after, black ties and dinner jackets intact; the assassins hired to kill Banquo, too, are properly dressed. And after that contract has been fulfilled, Banquo returns during the banquet scene, in the proper tenue de ville of any self-respecting ghost.

Macduff gets little exposure till the fourth act when he follows the Scottish exiles’ restrained but moving ‘Patria oppressa’ with his own lamenting, ‘O figli, o figli miei … Ah, la paterna mano’. Russian tenor Roman Shulackoff’s performance attracted the biggest ovation of the evening. But it’s a long way to travel for one aria….

Other comprimario roles were excellently filled. Morag Atchison used her large, attractive voice to excellent effect as Lady-in-waiting; Derek Hill sang Malcolm, whose presence is important in the last act, most convincingly and the Doctor’s part was strongly taken by Matthew Landreth.

Then came the oddest interpolation: we saw another unidentified woman on the bed, giving birth to a succession of six babies which the encircling witches joyfully tossed about like footballs. Who was she? Who was the father? Were they live or still-born? And what was that all about? One speculation was that they were Banquo’s children whom the witches prophesied as kings, as little crowns were held over them.  It’s not really satisfactory for a director to introduce people or events not in the libretto, without explaining himself in the programme book. That it misfired was shown by audience laughter.

Macbeth’s killing by Macduff takes place on stage, as in the 1847 version, and the two bodies laid side by side are conflagrated with petrol in best terrorist style.

The production as a whole however was continuously absorbing. The stage designs by Johan Engels were obviously far from medieval Scotland, vaguely of an east European dictatorship, but consistent and helpful to the singers. The music director, Guido Ajmone-Marsan, managed soloists, chorus (rehearsed by Michael Vinten) and orchestra with great energy, getting precision, dramatic colour and variety from the playing of the Wellington Orchestra.

This is one of the most arresting and brilliantly performed opera productions seen in Wellington; I had not a moment’s inattention and must recommend it unreservedly.

*The details in this sentence contain clarifications provided by the company on Monday 1 October.

Opera Scenes at New Zealand School of Music

Posted on by Rosemary Collier

Opera Scenes: Passionate Choices: Love & Duty from Purcell to Britten via Mozart and Strauss (with a dash of Offenbach)

Fifteen Voice Students

Adam Concert Room, Victoria University

Saturday, 2 October, 7.30pm

While it is a pity that there was no university opera this year, after the brilliant Semele last year, the concert in which 10 opera scenes were performed was quite an ambitious undertaking.  There was considerable variety, but enough of each opera to give more than a taste, and to allow the singers to really get into the characters.  It is good news for music in this country that there are so many singers who are capable of performing these roles.

The audience were placed facing towards the southern end of the Adam Concert Room.  Behind the area used as a stage were two beautiful red and black shot- silk curtains of ample proportions; the performers entered through the space between them.

The evening began with the quintet from Act I of Così fan tutte, by Mozart.  This contains the famous and beautiful trio for Fiordiligi, Dorabella and Don Alfonso ‘Soave sia il vento’.  The singers were very assured and the men, particularly, were excellent – Norman Pati, who had a nice turn of comedy, and Joshua Kidd, who was not quite so confident.  Dorabella (Elitsa Kappatos) produced a more mellow tone than did Angelique MacDonald as Fiordiligi (perhaps to be expected since the former is a mezzo role), but both knew their parts and their movements well, and were able to enter into the story fully.  Indeed, this was true of all the performers throughout the concert.  The placing of Don Alfonso (Thomas Barker) behind the two women for most of the trio was a disadvantage for his projection, and the ensemble between the three singers.  Costumes of 1920s appearance were excellent, and fun.

The sextet from later in Act I followed.   Now Fiordiligi was sung by Bryony Williams, while the other parts were taken by the same singers as in the quintet.  All the singers were powerful, and the parts were well characterised. 

It is wonderful what can be done with minimal sets, minimal props, beautiful costumes and beautiful, well-trained voices.  Bruce Greenfield accompanied.  I did not think he was up to his usual very high standard – perhaps it was the piano?   I found the Mozart over-pedalled, and much of the accompanying too loud.  This is probably largely due to the polished wooden floor and wooden ceiling.  I have seen, both here and at St. Andrew’s on The Terrace, heavy fabric placed under the piano to achieve a quieter tone.

Two scenes from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and two from The Turn of the Screw by Britten, were directed by one of the performers, post-graduate student Laura Dawson.  She appeared first as the Sorceress in ‘Wayward Sisters’, that wonderfully chilling witches’ incantation.  The ensemble singing with her fellow witches (Emily Simcox, Amelia Ryman, Joshua Kidd and Isaac Stone) was superb.  I would have found a deeper voice better for the Sorceress; Dawson sang much better where the music was in the higher register.  Imaginative stage business was a tribute to her invention.

The famous Dido’s Lament scene followed, after Bruce Greenfield had played (as happened elsewhere in the programme) some of the orchestral music between the scenes, which not only gave more of the feeling of the operas, but gave time for the crew (the singers themselves) to change the props, while two cloaked characters walked through with large placards stating the names of the operas and the locations of the scenes.

Laura Dawson sang Dido, Thomas Barker, Aeneas, and Belinda was very well acted and sung by Emily Simcox, who was in fine voice.  The whole scene was very effectively done, including the use of props.  The famous Lament was beautiful, except for the pronunciation of the word ‘earth’, which cut off the sound quite unnecessarily, and overdone ‘t’s – there is no need for this in a small auditorium.

That brings me to another point: it is a pity that the students do not have a ‘proper’ auditorium in which to put on opera, or scenes from opera.  They have all learned to project their voices and their words well (although some singers needed more vocal support), but projecting as if in an opera house in the Adam Concert Room leads to quite unnecessarily loud volume.  It is to be hoped that the planned new School of Music on the Ilott Green will go ahead, and include a theatre.  In the meantime, is the Theatrette at Massey University (the former National Museum Theatrette) not suitable?

The scenes from the Britten opera were, of course, something completely different; Britten was a great admirer of Purcell, and is regarded as the best English opera composer since Purcell.

The spooky mood of the opera came over well, partly due to excellent projection of the words.  The performers made the scenes thoroughly involving.  Bridget Costello as the governess and Laura Dawson as Mrs Grose, the housekeeper, were very believable characters in ‘The Window’ from Act I, and again in Act II’s scene about the ghost of the former governess.  It was very well directed, and Costello was outstanding both vocally and in her acting.

After the interval the mood changed completely, with three excerpts from Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne.  What was innovative here was that the libretto had been devised and written by the cast and director.  Therefore they gained experience in developing characters.  There were two tables at a café in Paris (presumably out-of-doors, since one man was wearing a hat – I’m always puzzled by New Zealand operas having men wearing hats indoors, a no-no in polite society of former times).  At one table sat an English family on holiday; at the other, two extravert young French women.

These were stereotypical characters: the English in tweeds and cardigan, the French in mini-skirts, smoking and chatting volubly and expressively.  Three scenes, ‘Paris c’est l’amour’, ‘Poor Fellow’ and Septet (not Sextet as in the printed programme) ‘And there will be a Lighted Candle’, involved seven singers in funny lyrics to Offenbach’s music, and amusing stage business, to make a thoroughly enjoyable little story. 

Particularly outstanding was Emily Simcox as Gertrude, the mother in the English family.  Her husband George was sung by Simon Harnden.  He opened proceedings speaking – and what a resonant speaking voice he has!   This little piece of theatre was so involving and so well done that it would be hard to isolate any one or two singers as outstanding over the others.  The emphasis was very much on clarity of words and acting, and all passed with flying colours.

The other characters were performed by Angelique MacDonald, Isaac Stone (whose acting was very amusing), Thomas O’Brien, Bridget Costello and Amelia Ryman.  The names of the two French girls were the French forms of the singers’ names – the last two in this list.

The final scene was more problematic.  Surely the final trio and duet from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier are too demanding on the voices of singers as young as these?  Not only is Strauss opera generally a hard sing, this must be one of the most difficult. 

Whether it was done to give the impression of an older woman I do not know, but I thought Bryony Williams as the Marschallin had too much vibrato for a young singer.  Bianca Andrew as Octavian was in great voice, and thoroughly convincing.  Imogen Thirwall was a very competent but somewhat anxious Sophie.  The duet was quite lovely.  Nevertheless, the volume was overpowering in the trio; singers should moderate their dynamics to suit the resonance and size of the venue.  The small role of Faninal was sung by Isaac Stone.

Set changes were very well done, and the whole production was achieved in a professional manner.  Everyone knew their parts thoroughly, and musically, the performances were enjoyable, aside from my reservation about the level of sound in some items.

How fortunate we are to have so many promising singers – and so many experienced, competent teachers at the School of Music!