Iphegénie en Tauride, Metropolitan Opera live cinema relay, February 2011

The Trojan War informed Greek literature, which  then informed a European culture that read the great plays by Sophocles and Euripedes. They in turn inspired opera composers such as Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–87) whose new form of opera used music and drama to support one another in a way hitherto unseen. Gluck inspired Wagner, Berlioz and others, and when Iphégenie en Tauride was produced in a German version two years after its premiere in Paris, Mozart attended almost all the rehearsals.

Graham, Domingo and Groves

This was Gluck’s penultimate opera, and the purity of its music endows the story with enormous clarity. The background is that when Agamemnon was ready to embark with the Greek forces  to Troy he was denied a fair wind, and demands were made that he sacrifice his daughter Iphigeneia. He acceded and the ships set off. When he returned home ten years later his wife Klytemnestra killed him, and their daughter Elektra yearned for her brother Orestes to return and take vengeance on his mother. Orestes eventually made his return, committed the deed and was pursued by the furies. In the meantime, in a second version of the story by Euripedes, the goddess Artemis replaced the sacrificial Iphigeneia with a deer at the last moment, transporting the real one to the land of the Taurians, where it was her duty as a priestess to sacrifice any foreigners who landed on the shores of her new land.

In this excellent production by Stephen Wadsworth we see, just before the overture, Artemis intervene to save the life of the sacrificed Iphigeneia, and during the opera we also see the murder of Agamemnon by Klytemnestra, performed by two actors, appearing in a nightmare to Orestes. He was beautifully portrayed by Placido Domingo, well supported by Paul Groves as his comrade Pylades. With Susan Graham giving a wonderful performance as Iphigeneia, Domingo and Groves were superbly matched, and the stresses they suffer, as the two men vie for the honour of being sacrificed to let the other one go, were gloriously portrayed. All three were ably opposed by Gordon Hawkins as the wicked King Thoas of the Taurians.

Pylades and Orestes, all photos by Ken Howard

Gluck’s glorious opera, with its excellent libretto by Nicolas-François Guillard deserves a superb production, and it got it. The costumes by Martin Pakledinaz were excellent, and the choreography for the Taurian soldiers, by Daniel Pelzig, was forcefully danced. These are Scythians from the central Asian steppe, so the Russian-style dancing was entirely appropriate. Gluck is little performed these days, but what a great opportunity this was to see one of his greatest operas, and with fine conducting by Patrick Summers, along with Domingo, Groves and Graham in the main roles one could hardly do better. Susan Graham gave a convincing portrayal of Iphigeneia’s attempts to sacrifice Orestes, and for a moment it looked as if the curse of Atreus would succeed in having her unwittingly kill her own brother. Fortunately she could not manage it, so Pylades had time to bring in Greek warriors to rescue Orestes, enabling him to return and rule his native Mycenae. In Greek tradition the furies (erinyes) were replaced by the eumenides, and Orestes was redeemed.

Iphigeneia and Orestes

This opera by Gluck gives a peerless representation of the conflicting emotions and tensions in this story, and as Schiller wrote, “Never has music moved me so purely and so beautifully as this music has done, it is a world of harmony that penetrates the very soul and causes it to dissolve in sweet and lofty sadness”.

The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze di Figaro), Opera Australia, Sydney Opera House, July 2010

The revival of this co-production with the Welsh National Opera was very much a team effort, with excellent singing all round. Teddy Tahu Rhodes was particularly good as a strongly voiced yet surprisingly vulnerable Figaro. So often this character comes over as all too knowing, never seriously fearing for the loss of Susanna’s love, but here he showed natural human frailty on this extraordinarily crazy day — indeed an earlier title for this Mozart opera was The Crazy Day. It’s one of his three great collaborations with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, who knowing he could not get away with Figaro’s rant against the aristocracy in the original play by Beaumarchais, replaces it with a rant against the perfidy of women. So it’s only natural that Figaro feels himself vulnerable. And with the Susanna of Taryn Fiebig, who sang with a lovely tone and charming air of spontaneity, the main couple was perfect.

The Countess and Count, photo by Branco Gaica

Peter Coleman-Wright as the Count was excellent, both vocally and in his passionate yet superficial desire for Susanna, while still apparently very attracted to the Countess. This was a Count of some complexity, and Rachelle Durkin portrayed a statuesque Countess, singing strongly, though with a little more vibrato than I care for. Half a head taller than Susanna, she managed to decrease her height admirably when they changed clothes in Act IV, and I only wish the designer Dale Ferguson had given her a decent wig, rather than a modern frizz of cultivated wild abandon. This was probably all part of the deliberately anachronistic touches, such as the flash camera, and one or two other things inserted into an eighteenth century environment, but the hair was frightful.

Kanen Breen’s very camp portrayal of Don Basilio was witty, though almost over the top, but that was evidently intentional, and Warwick Fyfe as Dr. Bartolo, with Jacqueline Dark as Marcelina, were rather touching, though his wig made him look absurd. Clifford Plumpton was wonderful as the gardener, entirely believable and not the irascible drunkard he sometimes appears, and Claire Lyon as his daughter Barbarina was gorgeous. The role of Cherubino is always a difficult one — a young woman pretending to be a young man who at one point dresses as a girl — but Sian Pendry’s movements were too girlish, though the costume, which showed her hips all too clearly, didn’t help. And I did think that exhibiting testosterone by banging the ironing board was over the top, though that was presumably the idea of director Neil Armfield, or associate director Roger Press.

The Count begs forgiveness at the end, photo by Branco Gaica

The main thing is that Patrick Summers did a fine job with the orchestra, keeping in touch with the singers while moving things forward at a good pace and bringing out the light and shade in the music.

Performances continue until 23 October, with cast and conductor changes starting in September — for more details click here.

Madama Butterfly, live relay, Metropolitan Opera, New York, March 2009

This production by the late Anthony Minghella — perhaps the best Butterfly I’ve ever seen — was beautifully directed by his widow Carolyn Choa, who also did the original choreography. It portrayed the child as a puppet, which worked extremely well, allowing Butterfly to act with him rather than with a small boy unable to follow musical cues. Later during the prelude to Act III, Butterfly herself became a puppet, acting with a dancer portraying Pinkerton. The excellent puppetry was by the Blind Summit Theatre, the magnificent costumes by Han Feng, and the clever lighting by Peter Mumford. Altogether, Minghella’s production shows an intimacy that suits this personal tragedy very well, and it came over perfectly in a cinema setting.

The cast did a superb job. Patricia Racette acted the part of Butterfly with sensitivity and emotional conviction, singing with suitably restrained passion. Marcello Giordani was a hedonistic Pinkerton who sang like a god, and Dwayne Croft was outstanding as Sharpless, acting and singing with enormous sensitivity. Maria Zifchak as Suzuki expressed sympathy with Butterfly, while showing she understood the transient nature of Pinkerton’s affections. Back this up with conducting by Patrick Summers that allowed the singers room to express themselves, and this became a great performance of Butterfly.

Salome, in a live cinema screening from the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Oct 2008

Karita Mattila gave an excellent performance of the title role, and Juha Uusitalo was superb as John the Baptist, drawing deep power from mysterious sources. Kim Begley was a fine Herod, urbane yet discomforted and lustful, and Ildiko Komlosi was a strong Herodias, proud and scornful. Joseph Kaiser sang Narraboth, but the cinematic techniques, particularly at the start of the performance, failed to show the full stage, and made it impossible to see him in context. It also made it difficult to judge Jürgen Flimm’s production. Certainly it was far better than the absurd staging I saw at Covent Garden in February, where the party guests stood around uselessly as Salome went to her excesses near the end; in this production by contrast they evidently turned and left, but we couldn’t see this happen because of the obsession with close-ups of Salome, Herod and Herodias. It was as if one looked at the whole thing through opera glasses, missing the bigger picture, and while the costumes by Santo Loquasto were excellent, we could not fully see the sets that he also designed. Choreography by Doug Varone worked well and Karita Mattila did a good job of the dance and striptease. The conducting by Patrick Summers was powerful, and the accompaniment to John the Baptist, after he is brought up from the cistern, was riveting. One could only wish that one were in the opera house to see and hear this in its full glory.