Die Feen, Chelsea Opera Group, Queen Elizabeth Hall, March 2013

Wagner was 20 when he wrote this opera, and it was never performed in his lifetime. Seeing it in Fulham forty years ago I was amazed at its sophistication, and delighted with the Chelsea Opera Group’s concert performance last night.

The two main characters, Arindal and Ada have the same names as in Wagner’s first but uncompleted opera Die Hochzeit (The Wedding), yet the situation is quite different. The political union in that opera is replaced here by a love that is politically almost impossible since Arindal is a mortal prince, and Ada an immortal from the fairy world. She decides to give up her immortality, though knowing this is fraught with difficulty since the spirit world will strike at Arindal giving him ample reason to curse her. He does, and all seems lost. Yet true love triumphs, and the resulting redemption prefigures the world of Wagner’s later operas, with precognitive echoes of Tannhäuser in the music.

Conducting by Dominic Wheeler produced fine energetic playing from the orchestra, bringing this early Wagner very much to life. At one point in Act I he stopped the music to bring the soloists back into phase with the orchestra, but after that it all began to gel, with Danish tenor David Danholt singing strongly in the role of Arindal and New Zealand soprano Kirstin Sharpin singing beautifully as Ada. At the start of Act II the chorus laments the attacks of the enemy, but Elisabeth Meister as Arindal’s sister Lora chimed in strongly, and her solo expressing the brave hope of seeing her brother again drew spontaneous applause. This suddenly moved the performance to a higher level, and Ada’s big aria Weh’ mir … (Alas, the fearful hour draws nigh) confirmed it.

Excellent singing from the three male courtiers, Andrew Slater (bass), Andrew Rees (tenor) and particularly Mark Stone (baritone). Ben McAteer showed strong diction in the minor baritone role of Harald, Emma Carrington sang a lovely mezzo as one of Ada’s two fairy attendants, and Piotr Lempa was a wonderful bass in Act III as the voice of the magician Groma, and as the Fairy King who eventually bestows immortality on Arindal after he has released Ada from petrifaction.

Wagner never again had such a simple happy ending in his redemptive dramas, and discounted this early effort. But what a treat it was to hear such an excellent performance, and congratulations to Chelsea Opera Group and conductor Dominic Wheeler for putting it on.

The Minotaur, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, January 2013

The opening night of this revival ended with a tribute to John Tomlinson for 35 years of wonderful service to the ROH — highly appropriate since composer Harrison Birtwistle has said Tomlinson was the key to writing this opera, which had been brewing in his mind for many years.

The Innocents arrive, all images ROH/ Bill Cooper

The first scene shows Christine Rice as Ariadne on the beach with a heaving sea projected on the backdrop, and the opera ends with Elisabeth Meister’s bloodcurdling scream as the Ker, seeing the Minotaur dead and her share of future victims vanish. In the meantime Ariadne has revealed that as the daughter of Minos and his wife Pasiphae, whom Theseus calls “whore to the bull of the sea”, she is half-sister to the Minotaur, whom Theseus has come to kill him so as to save future Athenian innocents from further death. She tricks him into letting the present twelve go first, and Act I ends with their massacre. Susana Gaspar as the first innocent was particularly good here, lying in wounded agony before the winged Keres come to pluck out her heart.

In the second act Johan Reuter as Theseus reveals that he may be the son of Poseidon, and if Poseidon was indeed the bull of the sea then he is half-brother to the Minotaur. The important dichotomy between Theseus and Ariadne however, is that while he wants to get into the labyrinth, she wants to get out of Crete. Needing to bring him back from the centre she consults the oracle at Psychro, who gives her the ball of twine despite her lying about her true intentions, and after making Theseus promise to accompany her away from the island the stage is now set for the final denouément.

The Minotaur

Birtwistle’s opera, with this clever production by Stephen Langridge, designs by Alison Chitty and lighting by Paul Pyant, works wonders with the story and with the Minotaur himself, shown to be both man and beast. Presaging his first appearance a wall of sound is followed by two tubas in unison, along with contrabass clarinet and contrabass bassoon. The music is fascinating, its permanent state of melody a metaphor for the labyrinth. And David Harsent’s libretto is a masterpiece of concision and clarity drawing us through the story.

The duality between man and beast is cleverly expressed through lines such as, “When I go to sleep does the man sleep first, when I awake does the beast wake first?” The Minotaur speaks only in his dreams, and when he dreams he sees himself, he sees Ariadne, he even sees Theseus, appearing through a mirror with him. He thinks of his life, his failings, his sorrows, in each case calling them “all too human”. When Theseus arrives he recognises him from the dream, and reflects on his predicament of being both man and beast. “The beast is vile, so the man must go unloved. The beast can’t weep, so the man must go dry-eyed. The beast is wounded, so the man must die”. We begin to understand the man-beast, hidden away in the labyrinth as a child. It’s a great opera, the only surprise being that it has yet to be produced anywhere else since first appearing at the ROH in April 2008.

Tomlinson, Johan Reuter, and Christine Rice repeated their wonderful performances from five years ago, and Elisabeth Meister sang an excellent Ker, with Andrew Watts and Alan Oke taking over the roles of snake priestess and her medium Hiereus. The priestess herself rises to a great height, looking like those famous chthonic deities from Knossos, a nice touch.

The lyrical wonder of Birtwistle’s music, combined with lines of sheer terror, was brilliantly conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth on this occasion, and if you went in 2008, go again, particularly with tickets at such low prices for this thrillingly deep opera.

Performances continue until January 28 — for details click here.

Macbeth, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, May 2011

In 1846, Verdi had to decide between Schiller’s Die Räuber, and Shakespeare’s Macbeth for a new commission in Florence. He produced both in 1847, with the Schiller (titled I masnadieri) going to London, and the Shakespeare to Florence, the choice depending on the singers available. Macbeth needed no leading tenor but it did need a first rate baritone and soprano, and here we had them both in Simon Keenlyside and Liudmyla Monastyrska.

Macbeth and his wife with a witch in the foreground, all photos by Clive Barda

She was a hugely powerful Lady Macbeth, her voice cutting through and soaring above the orchestra and all the other singers, including the chorus. Keenlyside by contrast has a wonderfully warm tone and superb ability to inhabit the roles he sings, but there was a lack of chemistry between the two of them on the first night. He seemed unnecessarily subdued, but after she dies in Act IV, his confessional Pietà, rispetto, amore in the next scene was superbly sung, giving us the Keenlyside I have admired so much in roles such as Rodrigo in Don Carlo.

As Banquo, Raymond Aceto was terrific, reminding me of his superb performance in last October’s Rigoletto as the murderer Sparafucile. In this production he is left lying at the front of the stage after being murdered in Act II, and his little son, Fleance reappears from hiding to go to his father’s body before fleeing the stage. The body remains there for the banquet scene, rising up when Macbeth sees the vision of Banquo’s ghost.

Guards by Duncan's body before Banquo's death

This production by Phyllida Lloyd contains several good ideas, and in the banquet scene both Macbeth and his wife are dressed in gold, reminding us of King Duncan at the start of the opera. The tall sets, and in Act III the appearance at stage rear of multiple golden kings on horses again reminiscent of Duncan, show that Macbeth is caught up in something far larger than he realises, and Keenlyside brought this over very well. The nature of his marriage is intimated by the beds on which he and his wife lie, and her problems are silently illustrated by the children the witches bring onstage to sit on the bed with her. We never quite know what to make of her earlier life and claim to have suckled a child, but this is a point of contact with that aspect of the play.

Macbeth and Macduff towards the end

Among the other performers Dimitri Pittas sang Macduff, a role he also sang in the Metropolitan Opera live relay in January 2008, and I admired Elisabeth Meister as the lady-in-waiting. The chorus was wonderfully strong, and Antonio Pappano conducted this early Verdi opera with a fine sense of energy and sensitivity.

I’ve not seen this production before, but I’m afraid I was somewhat underwhelmed, and not because of the singers. It’s difficult to say why, but for instance if you blinked you missed the murder of Macduff’s children, and the perpetual use of the witches as dark forces involved in the action — hiding Banquo’s son, for example — doesn’t seem to give the dramatic intensity that Verdi’s opera demands. This was his first Shakespeare opera and he was extremely concerned to get the drama right, bullying his librettist Piave to produce exactly the text he wanted, but somehow this production fails to bring out the right intensity of mood. However, it was huge pleasure to hear Liudmyla Monastyrska as Lady Macbeth, with her superb vocal technique, and her breathtaking power.

A live relay to cinemas will be given on June 13, and a BBC Radio 3 broadcast at 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 18. Performances continue until June 18 — for more details click here.

The Cunning Little Vixen, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, March 2010

For anyone who loves magical realism this opera is one of the best, and the production by Bill Bryden makes the most of it, with forest animals on the ground and flying through the air. The dichotomy between the slow moving human world and the swift flow and change of the animal realm is brought out very well, and the springtime of Act III is beautifully portrayed. There’s a famous poem in Czech called May (Mai in Czech) extolling the mysterious powers of nature, and in his libretto, Janaček uses May as a metaphor for springtime. He was powerfully drawn to nature, and this opera, like its predecessor Katya Kabanova — also playing in London at present — pits natural forces against the contrivances of human civilization. Janaček wrote it in 1924 when he was nearly 70, three years after Katya, and both operas, along with his two final ones, deal with death in one way or another. This one in particular juxtaposes the aging of men with the cyclical renewal of nature.

Human civilization is mainly represented by three men, the Forester, the Schoolmaster, and the Priest, and at one point all three sit in a round orb suspended from above, reminding me of that nursery rhyme, Rub-a-dub-dub; three men in a tub. The three of them are, at least emotionally, frustrated, and the schoolmaster’s yearning for a gypsy girl, is like the yearning of man for nature, and parallels the forester’s original entrapment of the vixen, whom he can’t keep. In the event, the gypsy girl, whom we never see, marries the poacher, and the vixen marries the fox and produces a huge family. When the poacher shoots her, a small child in the audience burst into tears, which charmed some people, but this is not an opera for small children. It’s very much an adult work, and I think the Royal Opera have done the right thing to have it sung in English. The libretto by the composer is subtle, and worth understanding. That said, the opera first became known through its German translation by Max Brod, which gave us the English title. In Czech it’s called Vixen Sharp Ears.

The conducting by veteran Charles Mackerras was wonderful. This is the man who introduced British audiences to Janaček, and having him in the orchestra pit was a treat. The singing was very good throughout. Emma Matthews was a thoroughly charming vixen, and Elisabeth Meister gave a good portrayal of the fox, replacing Emma Bell at the last minute. Christopher Maltman was an excellent forester, and Robin Leggate and Jeremy White both did well as the schoolmaster and the priest, with Matthew Rose singing strongly in the bass role of the poacher.

But this is an opera to be seen as well as heard, and William Dudley’s designs, along with the movement directed by Stuart Hopps, have a wonderful charm. Magical realism is probably more widely known from something like One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but the Slavic version is also a joy. Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita comes to mind, and in the opera world Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges, written just three years before Vixen. If you don’t already know the opera, and even if you do, this production by Bill Bryden is a must-see.