Götterdämmerung, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, September 2012

Under Antonio Pappano’s direction the orchestra gave us a lyrical and multi-layered interpretation of Wagner’s score, ranging from soft moments to huge power.

Norns, all images ROH/ Clive Barda

After the prologue with the Norns, followed by Brünnhilde and Siegfried, things really opened out in Act I with John Tomlinson as Hagen in the hall of the Gibichungs. He was riveting as he explains to his half brother and sister, Gunther and Gutrune, how they might win fabulous partners. Too fabulous of course, but they are easily fooled by this son of Alberich, who then gave a superb monologue as he sits to keep watch, ending deeply and darkly with des Niebelungen Sohn (the Niebelung’s son). Dimly lit, he remains sitting for the rest of the act as Brünnhilde is first visited by Waltraute and then by Siegfried’s transformation as Gunther.

Mihoko Fujimura as Waltraute showed wonderful stage presence and diction along with huge strength and purity of tone, outshining the uncertain stage presence and excessive vibrato of Susan Bullock’s Brünnhilde. She rose effortlessly over the orchestra, ending with a wonderfully defiant Walhalls Göttern weh! (Woe to the gods of Valhalla).

Brünnhilde with the Gibichungs

In Act II, Tomlinson as Hagen steals the show, quietly of course at first when he is addressed by his father Alberich, very assertively sung by Wolfgang Koch in a little boat in the air, like a one-eyed, heavy-set version of the Mekon. As the Gibichung scenes follow, with Stefan Vinke as a boldly ingenuous Siegfried, Peter Coleman-Wright as a grandiosely weak Gunther, and Rachel Willis-Sørensen as a very strongly sung Gutrune, Tomlinson once again became the focus with a powerful call to the vassals. After Brünnhilde arrives his gaze follows her, and when he persuades her and Gunther that the only solution is Siegfried’s death, his voice took on extraordinary colour.

In Act III Stefan Vinke as Siegfried has just the right tone and bolshy attitude when meeting the Rheinmaidens, and when the hunters arrive he gives a fine account of his earlier life, urged on by Hagen. Hagen’s murder of Siegfried and subsequent attempt to grab the ring from him was very effective, and the orchestra then swept us forward with a superb funeral march. Weakness only occurs later at the hall of the Gibichungs where instead of Brünnhilde dominating Gutrune, Rachel Willis-Sørensen had the more powerful stage presence, though after feebly raising an arm just before Starke Scheite, Susan Bullock as Brünnhilde sang strongly at the end.

The final scene of Keith Warner’s production has Hagen taking the ring from Brünnhilde only to be overwhelmed by the Rheinmaidens. Images of the gods are suspended over fires, and young people come onto stage as if representing a new world order, but I would prefer the music without too much imagery. All in all, however, a memorable Ring cycle under Pappano’s musical direction, and a nice touch at the end was the entire orchestra appearing on stage for the curtain calls.

There are three further Ring cycles, the final Götterdämmerung being on November 2 — for details click here. There will also be a live broadcast on Radio 3 on Wednesday, October 24 at 3:45 pm, and Christmas broadcasts of Acts I, II and III on January 2, 3 and 4 at 4:30 pm.

Caligula, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, May 2012

Caligula ruled for just under four years (AD 37–41) before being assassinated at the age of 28. He was the emperor who threatened to make his horse a consul, simply to mock the subservience of the aristocracy, and when one sycophant proffered his own life should the emperor recover from illness, Caligula took it from him as soon as he was well. That incident appears in this opera, towards the end, and is one of several deaths, including Caligula’s own, stabbed by numerous hands. Yet afterwards he stands up and cries out, “I am still alive”. A minute later the opera ends, more or less as it starts, with a scream.

I am still alive! All images Johan Persson

At the beginning there is silence. A hand appears … then a man, and finally the curtain opens. A naked woman shrouded in white falls dead; the man screams. This is the death of Caligula’s lover and sister, Drusilla. Her death unhinges him, and he demands the moon.

The mirror as moon

When the moon is mentioned, as it is many times, the music has a sultry quality reminiscent of the humid moonlit night in Richard Strauss’s Salome, and there are other similarities, as when four nobles all sing contrasting things together.

The music by Detlev Glanert kept my attention throughout, though Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s libretto, well translated by Amanda Holden and based on a play by Camus, was slightly lacking in dramatic tension. The play, written during the Second World War, was a response to the dictatorships of Hitler and Stalin, but Glanert’s opera, written in 2006, had more recent material to work with, and Benedict Andrews’ production reminded me of North Korea. All those flowers, the little yellow flags being waved by everyone in the stadium on stage, and the army with machine guns at the ready.

Caligula’s slave

Yet the characters were those of Rome, and Peter Coleman-Wright gave a superb performance of Caligula, with Yvonne Howard singing beautifully as his wife, Caesonia. Caligula’s slave, Helicon, who may well have been a eunuch, is a counter-tenor role, well performed by Christopher Ainslie, and Ryan Wigglesworth in the orchestra pit made huge sense of Glanert’s music.

Dress was modern, but with bizarre costumes for clowns, cartoon characters and women in various cabaret outfits thrown in. The naked Drusilla, shrouded in white at the start, becomes a naked woman in gold paint, and in Act III Caligula appears as Venus, wearing a dress and marrying the moon.

He is having an affair with Mucius’s wife and drags her out from dinner to have sex with her, despite the fact that she’s on her period, and after it’s over she returns to the table and throws up. You wonder why they don’t just kill the man, but then when they conspire to do it and he reappears everyone fawns on him. Brutal dictatorship is not a pretty sight, and this is not a pretty opera, but the music carries it forward, giving us an insight into the insanity of narcissistic paranoia.

Performances continue until June 14 — for details click here.

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, December 2011

This was Antonio Pappano’s first Meistersinger for the Royal Opera, and from the start of the overture to the final chords of Act III, more than five hours later, his peerless conducting drove Wagner’s comedy forward with huge effect. The chorus too was excellent, from the first four-part harmony in the church to their final embrace of Sachs and Walther on the meadows by the river Pegnitz.

Wolfgang Koch as Sachs, Emma Bell as Eva, Simon O'Neill as Walther, all images Clive Barda

Among the principal singers, some could hardly have been better. John Tomlinson was the best Pogner I ever remember seeing. This man, who is happy to give up his daughter as bride to the winner of a song contest, can sometimes appear a bit pompous, but Tomlinson’s delivery of Pogner’s Act I monologue was hugely powerful. This is where he extols the art-loving German burgher, frequently misrepresented abroad as caring for nought but money. It’s a key moment and so often comes over too weakly. Tomlinson’s characterisation of the role was so strong that the revival director even had him pushing Sachs around towards the end of Act III, urging him to embrace Eva and Walther. Add to that the excellent portrayal of Kothner, the head of the guild, by the ever reliable Donald Maxwell, and you only wish everyone on stage fitted their roles this well.

Toby Spence as David with the apprentices

Some did, and Toby Spence was an enormously likeable David, whose Act I explanation to Walther of what makes a mastersinger, along with the extraordinary list of tones he delivers, was riveting. Here is surely a future Walther. His fiancée Magdalena was very well portrayed by Heather Shipp, who seems to make a speciality of these awkward supporting roles, and Eva was well sung by Emma Bell, who showed angst and joy in equal measure. Her adored Walther, with whom she is willing to elope and defy her beloved father, was Simon O’Neill, whose voice I found too heldentenorish for the role, though he certainly delivered Walther’s various songs with great power. I only wish the costume department could have provided him with a better white outfit for Act III — cloaked for his delivery of the prize song it was better, but those shoulder wings … I know it’s Christmas, but this is not pantomime. Beckmesser’s black costume was much better, and his role was finely sung by Peter Coleman-Wright, though several comic moments were noticeable by their absence, perhaps due to a lack of stage direction. However the fight scene after he has attempted to serenade Eva at her window is cleverly staged, as is the appearance of the Nightwatchman, strongly sung by Robert Lloyd.

Emma Bell as Eva with John Tomlinson as her father Pogner

And then there is the main character, Hans Sachs, sung by Wolfgang Koch, who has performed the same role in Frankfurt (2006) and Vienna (2008). In Act I he came over less strongly than either Pogner or Kothner, and I found the Flieder monologue of Act II disappointing. Of course it’s a huge role and he must reserve himself for Act III, where his response to the crowd in the final scene and his final speech, Verachtet mir die Meister nicht (Don’t despise the masters) to Walther and the assembled company, came over well. But earlier in Act III, the Wahn monologue in the first scene and the later response to Walther’s question on what makes the difference between a beautiful song and a master song, were delivered in a matter-of-fact way as if they were academic lectures. With the Wahn monologue I felt I was listening to a defence of the Euro by a male version of Angela Merkel. Koch has a lovely tone to his voice, but I missed the repressed emotion of these important soliloquys, and the unrestrained emotion when he threw a chair across the room, just before Eva sings O Sachs! Mein Freund! was by contrast quite over top, though that would be due to revival director Elaine Kidd.

This production by Graham Vick is immensely colourful and I loved the lighting design by Wolfgang Göbbel. The blue light shining on the front curtain for the prelude to Act III, the light coming into Sachs’s study through the windows, casting shadows as people moved in front of them — it was all very carefully thought out. With a raked stage in Act III the view from the Amphitheatre was as if one were looking down on the proceedings, which was good, but I would have preferred some images of the river and meadow, rather than plain sides and a wooden floor.

But this was a musical triumph brought to fruition by Pappano, the orchestra, the chorus, and some superb singing.

The New Year’s Day performance of this opera will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 from 14:45, and performances at the Royal Opera House continue until January 8 — for details click here.

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.