Les Troyens, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, June 2012

As the Euro crisis deepens, it is salutary to see Cassandra on stage — her foresight ever accurate but never believed.

The City of Troy, all images ROH/ Bill Cooper

In the first part of this grand opera, Cassandra is the main character, superbly sung and acted by Anna Caterina Antonacci. It all starts with the chorus happily expressing their joy that the Greeks have been routed, but then Cassandra appears and the music abruptly changes mood. Les Grecs ont disparu! … but what dread plan lies behind their departure she asks. The first part leads up to the destruction of Troy, and is the perfect start to this great tale — pity Berlioz never lived to see it performed! A complete five-act production was first seen in Karlsruhe in 1890, 21 years after his death, but even then it was spread over two nights. Yet the whole thing takes a mere five and a half hours, including two half-hour intervals. Productions are rare, but it’s not the length alone — we’re used to that with Wagner — the trouble is you need a quiver full of first rate singers, including two brilliant performers in the mezzo roles of Cassandra and Dido, a Trojan horse, a ship, two walled cities, open countryside … oh, and two dance interludes.

The horse enters Troy to Cassandra’s consternation

Fortunately, David McVicar has overcome all difficulties in this new co-production with the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, and San Francisco Opera. He places the action in an undetermined time that could easily be seventeenth/ eighteenth century, which is not a problem. After all, scholarly opinion and tradition places the Trojan War about 1200 BC, Dido in the late ninth century, the founding of Rome in the mid-eighth century BC, and Troy had not yet been discovered when Berlioz wrote his opera. Costumes by Moritz Junge are wonderful, sets by Es Devlin (who is also designing the Olympic closing ceremony) are super, and lighting by Wolfgang Göbbel is magical. For instance in Act IV when Dido and Aeneas fully express their love, the model city that was on the ground turns upside down and suffused with a violet glow, its buildings twinkle with light as if it were the starry sky. The model city was a clever idea, and at the start of the second half when the Carthaginians sing with happy grace to their queen Dido, I almost expected her to respond Euch macht ihr’s leicht (Hans Sachs) … just kidding, but Moritz Junge’s costumes for this act reminded me of the final scene in Meistersinger, where Covent Garden’s staging includes model houses. Here, Dido tells us it is just seven years since she left Tyre to escape the murderer of her husband, and with the myth and history so well explained in Berlioz’s own libretto, this opera is Wagnerian in conception.

The happy people of Carthage surrounding Dido

The singing was terrific. Eva-Maria Westbroek was a gentle yet powerful Dido, Bryan Hymel gave a remarkable performance as Aeneas, and their rapturous duet in Act IV came over beautifully, enhanced by lovely changes of lighting. Hanna Hipp sang with great feeling as Dido’s sister Anna, and Brindley Sherratt was a striking vocal presence as her chief minister Narbal. Fabio Capitanucci came over strongly as Cassandra’s fiancé Coroebus, and Barbara Senator was entirely convincing as Aeneas’ son Ascanius. Excellent performances in all the solo roles, not just vocally but in terms of movement and stage presence. For example, Pamela Helen Stephen had huge presence as queen Hecuba of Troy, and Jihoon Kim was very effective as the ghost of Hector.

This massive team effort, with its magnificent chorus, was held together with consummate skill by Antonio Pappano in the orchestra pit, and as he said in a recent interview, this is just the sort of project the Royal Opera House should be undertaking. Quite right, and though there were some boos for the production team at the end, I didn’t understand why — it was a remarkable achievement. The Trojan horse’s head from the end of the first part was matched by a similar human torso and head at the end, which I took to indicate future battles between Carthage and Rome, brought on by Dido’s ritual curse of Aeneas and his descendents, and her foreknowledge of the mighty Hannibal.

A minstrel sings for Dido and Aeneas

McVicar’s production somehow manages to make sense of a world we have lost, where ghosts urge people on to great deeds, and gods issue commands. Perhaps some of our political leaders today would love to justify their actions as heeding urges of ghosts or gods, but in this remarkable story that’s what happens, and the production brings it to life. The Royal Opera have needed to score a goal, and they’ve got one here — it’s a beauty.

The performance on 5^th July will be streamed live on The Space, available at thespace.org, or by viewing on TV (Freeview HD channel 117). It will also be broadcast live on French television — information at www.mezzo.tv .

Performances at the Royal Opera House continue until July 11 — for details click here.

Madam Butterfly, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, May 2012

Anthony Minghella died four years ago, but his wonderful English National Opera production of Madam Butterfly lives on. Created in 2005 it attracted huge acclaim and won the Olivier Award for best new opera production.

Death at the end, all images Clive Barda

Those who attend live relays from the Metropolitan Opera in New York may have seen it in the cinema in 2009, but it’s better in the theatre so if you live anywhere near London go to the Coliseum. If theatre is anything to do with visual imagery, and it surely is, then the clever set designs by Michael Levine, the glorious costumes by Han Feng, and the fabulous lighting by Peter Mumford are a treat not to be missed. Excellent choreography by Minghella’s wife Carolyn Choa, along with the very clever use of puppetry, make this an unbeatable Butterfly production. Not only is Butterfly’s little son a puppet, but she looks on in Act III as a puppet of herself is manipulated by forces she can’t control.

Act I wedding

Mary Plazas gave a beautiful portrayal of Butterfly, with Gwyn Hughes Jones singing strongly in the thankless role of US Navy Lieutenant Pinkerton, particularly in Act III. Though his full name is Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, she refers to him as F.B.Pinkerton, and in my view he’s more of an FB than a BF. The US consul Sharpless has explained several times that she is taking this marriage in deadly earnest, but the hedonistic young naval man couldn’t give a monkey’s. Only in Act III is he finally sorry, singing with conviction, “I’m a coward, I am weak”, but it’s too late.

John Fanning sang with real feeling as Sharpless, and Pamela Helen Stephen came over very sympathetically as Butterfly’s maid Suzuki, both of them joining the main characters from the cast of 2005. This was excellent team-work under revival director Sarah Tipple, with musical direction by Oleg Caetani in the orchestra pit. His light touch yielded emphasis at the right moments, though I missed some of the emotional swell to this music.

The Butterfly puppet

Puppetry by the Blind Summit Theatre was excellent, and the whole cast, including those black-clad figures personifying the forces of Japanese tradition, moved beautifully in time with the music. And if you need some background to Puccini’s extraordinary take on Japanese culture, see the interesting article by Adrian Mourby in the programme.

Performances continue until June 2 — for details click here.

The Return of Ulysses, English National Opera, ENO, at the Young Vic, March 2011

The return of Odysseus to Ithaca and his faithful wife, Penelope forms the end of the Odyssey, that magnificent epic by Homer. The Latinised version of Odysseus is Ulysses, and this opera by Monteverdi tells of Penelope’s anguish, the shenanigans of her suitors, and the unruly behaviour of some servants. Ulysses returns after twenty years away, looking like a beggar — a trick of the goddess — and his son Telemachus returns after a short sojourn abroad. Father and son recognise one another, and the rest of the story involves various incidents such as the fight with the local beggar, the contest of the bow, the killing of the suitors, and Penelope’s eventual recognition that this really is her long lost husband.

Pamela Helen Stephen as Penelope, all photos by Johan Persson

Hefty stuff for a two-act opera lasting under three hours, including an interval. But this music has muscularity coming up well from the bass, and was beautifully played by the thirteen musicians, under the direction of Jonathan Cohen. The singing was all good, and some of it was glorious, but what didn’t work so well for me was the production. The central glass cage, complete with living room, bedroom and bathroom for Penelope, was fine, but other things were a bit too fussy, and the two large screens showing close-ups were a bit much. Why not use them to show surtitles? That would have been very useful because the diction was variable, and it was hard to catch some of the words.

Some singers, however, had superb diction. Thomas Hobbes as Telemachus, making his ENO debut, was outstanding in this respect, but others were good too. Nigel Robson was excellent as Eumaeus the shepherd, Diana Montague was very clear as Ulysses’ old nurse Eurycleia, and Tom Randle was very good as Ulysses himself. The main character, Penelope was elegantly portrayed by Pamela Helen Stephen, singing beautifully, showing Penelope’s anguish and her charm with the suitors — it was a fine performance.

Tom Randle as Ulysses

The production was by Benedict Andrews, one of several directors new to opera that the ENO has brought in. I approve of bringing in new ideas, but people who have made their names in theatre and film have done so for a reason, and do not always seem to see the sheer power of the music. They sometimes fill the staging with too many good ideas that distract from the main issue. Andrews is a well-known Australian theatre director who also works in Berlin, but I found this to be something of a Konzept production. For example, the goddess — well sung by Ruby Hughes — was dressed identically to Penelope, suggesting an abstract idea that they are different representations of the same soul. On the other hand there’s nothing abstract about having the maid Melanto pull her knickers off, showing stockings and suspenders, then lifting her skirt so that her lover can go down on her, but that was just one incident out of many. There were lots of ideas, food and drink being thrown to show the sorry state of the household, the nasty local beggar urinating on Ulysses — and there really was liquid splashing on him — and Ulysses meeting the goddess in the form of a small bald-headed puppet, which stayed around for the rest of the opera. Then towards the end, Ulysses took a shower in the bathroom, cleaning off the blood. Lots to see, and ponder over, but perhaps so much that it reduced the impact of the music and the singing.

Interesting, however, that the ENO are ready to do productions in smaller venues. The Royal Opera has the Linbury Studio, but there’s more atmosphere at the Young Vic.

Performances at 7:00 pm continue until April 9 — for more details click here. Note that tickets are only available from the Young Vic box office: 020 7922 2922, http://www.youngvic.org