Tosca with Opolais, Lee and Volle, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, 20 March 2013

In this new cast, Kristine Opolais and Yonghoon Lee complemented Michael Volle, who has sung Scarpia all this month at Covent Garden. From my previous experience of him in other bass-baritone roles (from Salome to Aida) he more than lived up to expectations, but it was Yonghoon Lee as Cavaradossi who was the new find of the evening.

The Act I set, all images ©ROH/ Tristram Kenton

From his Recondita armonia in Act I to his final moments in Act III this man was a revelation. His passion for Tosca was palpable, and after his glorious E lucevan le stelle in Act III, which he started very quietly and gently, he grasped at her when she appears with the safe conduct. Unlike the usual plump tenors, Yonghoon Lee is admirably slim, and he used his body to great effect. His Vittoria in Act II was the outburst of a committed young artist, his whole body showing passionate commitment, and emphasising the brutal mendacity of a police chief in the dying days of a lost regime. Then in the late moments of Act III standing with his back to the audience while the soldiers fire, he crumpled, his life blown away like the flame of a candle.

Scarpia in Act II

As Scarpia the police chief, Michael Volle’s characterisation and voice came over with huge power. From the dramatic sweep of his entrance in Act I to his grasp of a prize that eludes him and suddenly kills him in Act II, this was a great performance. Standing on the lower level near the Attavanti chapel in Act I you can see him thinking, and as the act closes his determination against the forces of the orchestra below, and of God on the upper level, came through with a certainty of success. Then in Act II as he moves into Ha più forte, expressing his relish for a violent conquest rather than soft surrender, we witness the dark forces impelling this man to destroy the individual liberty. When Kristine Opolais as Tosca kills him she does so with despatch, and her anxiety for the safe conduct and placing of the candles was beautifully done. She acted the entire role with great conviction, but vocally seemed not yet ideally suited to the heady drama of Tosca.

Among smaller roles, Jeremy White made a fine Sacristan, and among small matters of production, the slow steps of the firing squad in perfect time to the music, and Spoletta’s putting an arm out to stop the captain of the guard delivering a finishing shot, show great care for detail by revival director Andrew Sinclair.

This whole performance was a treat, but what really raised its level, apart from the singers, was Maurizio Benini in the orchestra pit. His conducting of Puccini’s wonderful score generated huge emotion, with gloriously powerful sounds from the orchestra at moments such as the point in Act I just before Tosca’s exit, and in Act II when Tosca finally realises what is going on in the other room, and in the crescendo as Scarpia presses her and she screams for the torture to stop.

This was a knock-out, and the vocal characterisations by Yonghoon Lee and Michael Volle are not to be missed. Unfortunately performances with this cast are sold out, but further ones with Serafin, Antonenko and Hendricks under the baton of Daniel Oren take place in July — for details click here.

Aida, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, March 2011

Exiles and refugees in the modern world can take their gods with them, but it was not always so. This production places the action in a very distant past, and when Roberto Alagna as Radames sings in Act III that Aida is demanding he abandon his homeland, and therefore his gods too (Abbandonar la patria, l’are de’ nostri dei!), it was a riveting moment.

Radames being smeared with blood, all images Bill Cooper

In my review last year when David McVicar’s new production was first performed, I was very positive about the fact that it was set in an ancient civilization having nothing particularly Egyptian about it. I appreciated its raw energy, with the stylized masculine combat, human sacrifice, and female sexuality, and this was all very welcome. On a second viewing I found things to criticise that may or may not have been present a year ago. When Aida enters along with other slave women beholden to the princess Amneris, all except Aida hang their heads and droop their bodies in a way that would be more likely to irritate than please a princess, and if Amneris likes to see around her women who are cowed into abject submission, then why does she tolerate Aida being so vastly different? The poses of the ballet dancers as warriors seemed a bit overdone, and the lesbian choreography for the women was dull. When the Ethiopian prisoners are brought on stage, the guards’ over-aggressive poses seemed to indicate a lack of confidence on their part. But these complaints are mostly to do with the movement on stage, and are not necessarily intrinsic to the production.

Michael Volle as Amonasro

The singing and conducting are the main things, of course, and Olga Borodina as Amneris showed enormous gravitas, singing with huge lyrical power. For me she was the star of the show, though I also found Michael Volle terrific both vocally and in terms of his stage presence as Amonasro, king of the Ethiopians and father of Aida. At the dress rehearsal, Roberto Alagna gained ground as the opera progressed, eventually carrying off the role of Radames with utter conviction. Brindley Sherratt gave a powerful presence to the King of Egypt, and I rather like the fact that this production portrays him as blind, or at any rate partially sighted, led round by a slave boy. Vitalij Kowaljov sang strongly as Ramfis the high priest, and in the dress rehearsal that I attended, Micaela Carosi reprised her role of Aida from one year ago, but despite some lovely quiet passages I felt she was too exposed on the high notes, with pitch problems in the loud passages. I gather she was replaced on the first night by Ukrainian soprano, Liudmyla Monastyrska, who is due to sing Lady Macbeth in May, opposite Simon Keenlyside.

Conducting by Fabio Luisi was effective, and I loved the off-stage trumpets in the balcony. They played with such power and clarity it was a thrill to hear them.

Kowaljow as High Priest, and Borodina as Amneris

Performances, albeit with various cast changes, continue until April 15. For example, Alagna is replaced by Carlo Ventre after the first three performances, and there are extensive changes in the last three performances, with Brindley Sherratt switching from King of Egypt to Ramfis the high priest — for more details click here.

Tristan und Isolde, Royal Opera, October 2009

This was the second night of Christof Loy’s new production for the Royal Opera, and I found it worked very well. The orchestra performed with distinction under Antonio Pappano, and the Opera House had put together a superb cast, led by Nina Stemme as Isolde. She was terrific throughout, and in the Liebestod she rose effortlessly above the orchestra — it was a wonderful performance. Tristan was Ben Heppner, whom I once saw give a marvellous rendering of the same role at the Lyric Opera in Chicago, but here unfortunately he had trouble with his voice at some moments in Acts II and III. But he sang strongly, and his interaction with Michael Volle as Kurwenal in Act III was very powerful. Volle was superb, and as good a Kurwenal as I’ve ever seen. This was hardly surprising, given his excellent portrayal of Dr. Schön in Lulu this past summer, and his wonderful performance of John the Baptist in Salome in February 2008. Sophie Koch as Brangäne sang beautifully, and John Tomlinson’s King Marke was a peerless example of how well this part can be performed — his stage presence was riveting, as always, and we are lucky he was able to take over from Matti Salminen who will now appear only in the last three performances.

The fairly minimal designs by Johannes Leiacker, and lighting by Olaf Winter, featured dining tables and chairs at the rear of the stage, occasionally occupied by King Marke’s men in their black dinner jackets — Marke himself wore a white one. A dark heavy curtain in front of the tables was sometimes open, sometimes closed, and sometimes moved to reveal the diners in a freeze, and then to reveal empty tables. None of this got in the way of the singing though, and I found Loy’s direction very good, particularly in the interactions between Isolde and Brangäne, and between Tristan and Kurwenal. There was no comparison to the frightful Bayreuth production I saw this summer, and the singers here were far better too, particularly Nina Stemme who completely outclassed Iréne Theorin at Bayreuth.

On this second night of the production, the Opera House management had clearly realised that almost all the action was invisible from the left hand edge of the auditorium. The Balcony boxes and side seats were entirely empty at the start, though they later filled with people from similar positions higher up in the Amphi. The inattention to sight-lines is a failing of Christof Loy, who did a similar thing with some extreme stage-right action in Lulu, and the House management should have been on the case far earlier. First-night critics who couldn’t understand the booing should take note. From their fine seats it behoves them not to be rude, as one or two were, about the intelligence of audience members in less exalted seats who simply couldn’t see most of the action.

Review — Lulu, Royal Opera, June 2009

This extraordinary opera by Alban Berg is about a femme fatale named Lulu, whose actions cause the death of three husbands, and two other lovers. The opera starts with a short prologue in which a circus animal-tamer presents his charges, including Lulu representing a snake. The rest of the opera is in three acts only two of which were complete at Berg’s death in 1935. The third act was only orchestrated in 1979, by Friedrich Cerha, because Berg’s widow refused to allow anyone to complete her husband’s work on Act III after one or two famous composers originally declined. It was a pity it took so long, because the opera is a dramatic whole, as one can see from a summary of the main action.

The three husbands are: a professor of medicine named Dr. Goll, an unnamed painter, and Dr. Schön, in that order. Other lovers include Schön’s son, Alwa, and the Countess Geschwitz. At the end Lulu works as a casual prostitute in London, and all three husbands reappear as clients, one being Jack the Ripper, who kills her. Alwa and the Countess are also killed in random violence

Here are more details of the action. While married to Goll, Schön is Lulu’s lover, and he and Alwa visit Lulu who is having her picture painted. After they leave, Lulu has sex with the painter, and when Goll returns the shock kills him. Lulu then marries the painter, continuing her affair with Schön, who buys all the painter’s work to sustain them. When the poor fellow realises he’s a cuckold living on the money of his wife’s lover he kills himself. Lulu then ensnares Schön, breaking his engagement to someone else, and marrying him. Like Goll, he returns home to find her with lovers: his son Alwa, an athlete named Rodrigo (a bodybuilder, sung by the same man as the animal-tamer), a schoolboy, and the Countess Geschwitz. He hands Lulu a gun to kill herself but she kills him instead, and goes to prison for murder. The Countess helps her escape, and she goes off with Alwa. Lulu and Alwa live a high life in Paris, but she’s on the run from Germany and the athlete reappears, with a Marquis who is a pimp, wanting to blackmail her and sell her to a brothel in Cairo. Lulu then escapes to London where she lives as a casual prostitute, along with Alwa and an old man named Schigolch from her past life. In the final scene Lulu meets three clients, played by her three dead husbands, and the Countess Geschwitz reappears. The second client kills Alwa in an argument over payment, and the third one turns out to be Jack the Ripper, who kills Lulu, and on the way out kills the Countess.

This new production by Christof Loy was roundly booed at the end, and quite rightly. It looked more like a concert performance than anything else, with all performers in black suits or black dresses, and an almost bare stage. Apparently there was some mess going on at the extreme stage right, but it was not visible to half the audience, including me. That is a serious fault, of course, but there were plenty more. For example, you’d think the designer could manage to put Lulu in a dress on the occasion when one of her admirers sings of her lovely ankle and calf, but no — she was in a trouser suit with no shoes, and her trousers reached down to her heels. If that is merely a costume glitch, how about the fact that the painter dies by his own hand, and the surtitles confirm it, yet Alwa swung an axe at him, and he fell down dead.

As to the performers, Lulu was sung by Agneta Eichenholz, who showed no sexuality whatsoever. It was impossible to understand what anyone saw in her, whereas Jennifer Larmore as the Countess Geschwitz seemed most desirable, and mysteriously sexy. The best performer of all was Michael Volle as Dr. Schön; he was simply terrific both in his voice and stage presence. Schön’s son Alwa was well performed by Klaus Florian Vogt, and Schigolch by Gwynne Howell. Dr. Goll was Jeremy White, the painter was Will Hartman, the athlete/animal-trainer was Peter Rose, and the schoolboy was Heather Shipp. The marquis was very well sung by Philip Langridge, and the orchestra was beautifully conducted by Antonio Pappano, though some may feel the music was too rounded at the edges, lacking astringency, but this is a matter of taste. Musically it worked very well, except that Agneta Eichenholz seemed out of her depth as Lulu, but what ruined the evening was the production. The spoken dialogue was miked-up, while the singing was not, which created a strange atmosphere as performers switched from one to the other. I shall not go back for a second visit, and I only hope the same producer does a far better job with Tristan und Isolde in the autumn.