The Tempest, Metropolitan Opera live cinema relay, November 2012

This remarkable opera by Thomas Adès, to a libretto by Meredith Oakes, dares turn Shakespeare’s play into an opera, and succeeds.

All images MetOpera/ Ken Howard

First performed in 2004 at Covent Garden in an intriguing production by Tom Cairns, it was originally co-produced with the Copenhagen Opera House and the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg. This production at the Met by Robert Lepage, co-produced with the Quebec Opera and the Vienna State Opera, shows Prospero’s body tattooed with knowledge from the vast library he owned in Milan before his exile, whereas in Cairns’ production he used a laptop. That single difference is emblematic of the distinction between these productions, the first ethereal, the second set on the stage of an early nineteenth century La Scala with costumes to match. Rather appropriate since the play shows how Prospero’s stage magic wins him back the Dukedom of Milan plus a marital alliance with the Kingdom of Naples.

Prospero and Miranda

The forging of that alliance, between his daughter Miranda and Prince Ferdinand of Naples, is rather different from Shakespeare, where one might suppose that Prospero intended it all along. Here the libretto makes clear that he greatly detests the intrusion of Ferdinand, and in this production he strings him up.

Prospero and Ariel

The Met did well to cast Simon Keenlyside as Prospero, which he sang in the original production and performed here with huge vocal strength and commanding stage presence. Isabel Leonard as his daughter Miranda was a study in perfection, and she and Alek Shrader as Ferdinand made a lovely couple. As Prospero’s monstrous servant Caliban, Alan Oke made a terrific impression from his very first entrance, and in this production he appeared almost as a dark alter-ego to his master. He, Prospero and Miranda, inhabitants of the island before the storm that brings Prospero’s enemies to judgement, carried the opera between them, but other roles were notably well performed. Toby Spence, who sang Ferdinand in London, came over very well as Antonio, the usurper who took the Dukedom of Milan from his brother, and Christopher Feigum sang strongly as brother to the King of Naples, nobly represented by William Burden.

The production starts with a gymnastic Ariel cavorting on a chandelier with shipwrecked passengers bobbing around in a stormy sea. Soon after, Audrey Luna as the singing Ariel showed she was no mean gymnast herself as she flitted about, barely ever touching the ground. Carried by invisible hands at times she seemed to float, and finally became a twelve legged insect hovering above the stage, a remarkable physical performance.

Caliban

Congratulations to the Met for putting on a modern British opera, conducted by the composer himself, who provides a beautiful musical tapestry, from the devilishly magical to a gentle love duet for Ferdinand and Miranda. Such is the stuff that dreams are made on, and at the end Caliban is alone, all others being melted into air, into thin air.

Götterdämmerung, Metropolitan Opera live cinema relay, February 2012

Rossini is said to have commented that Wagner had some beautiful moments, but terrible quarters of an hour. Whether this is genuine, I don’t know, but Rossini never heard Götterdämmerung, which is riveting, from the Norns with their rope of fate at the start to Brünnhilde’s immolation at the end. In the right hands with the right singers Götterdämmerung is magnificent, and the Met gave us a whole string of superlatives.

The final scene, all images MetOpera/ Ken Howard

Robert Lepage’s production with its set of long planks on pivots, along with Etienne Boucher’s lighting, allows transformations that in the final scene show Brünnhilde riding her horse onto the funeral pyre and disappearing into a mass of flames washed away by the Rhein. The set allows the Rheinmaidens to swim up and slide down those planks as they tease Siegfried about the ring, and after Gunther has got blood on his hands by cradling the dying Siegfried in his arms, he washes it away and we see the river run red. Glorious effects, but I only wish the translated sub-titles were more accurate. Hagen’s final words are Zurück vom Ring! (Get back from the ring), not ‘Give me the ring!’ And if that was a choice made in the context of the production the same excuse does not apply in some other cases. My point is that we heard such fine diction and it jars when the words are mangled in translation.

Brünnhilde and Siegfried

This is a minor quibble of course because the singing and character portrayals were unbeatable. Jay Hunter Morris is the most convincing Siegfried we are ever likely to encounter. He imbues the role with a joy and vivacity I have never seen equalled. Such a sweet smile he gives the Rheinmaidens when they ask for the ring, and his retelling of past deeds during the hunt was enchanting. Lepage’s production even brought the shadows of those ravens onto the stage before Hagen struck the fatal blow. And what a Hagen we had here in Hans-Peter König. His soliloquy Hier sitz’ ich zur Wacht at the end of Act I scene 2 was hugely powerful, with the production providing added value by seating him between two pillars, in a great chair that finally disappeared through the floor. His call to the vassals in Act II was terrific, and this extraordinary singer portrayed his character as a cunningly smug operator who, despite the dark make-up, reminded me of that Scottish politician attempting to pull Scotland out of the United Kingdom.

Hagen and Siegfried

The Alberich of Eric Owens looked so shrivelled as he appears to Hagen at night, a clever transformation because Owens is a large man. And that other dialogue between Brünnhilde and her sister Waltraute was full of angst. Waltraud Meier showed fearful determination as she visited her sister, yet gradually exhibited a sense that she was out of her depth with Brünnhilde’s newly found passion. Such a tragedy that Brünnhilde is then accosted by an unknown stranger who has walked through the fire, and this was cleverly done with Siegfried’s head covered by the net of the Tarnhelm, which he helpfully removed at one point so the audience could be sure of who he was.

His blood brother Gunther was superbly sung and portrayed by Iain Paterson, who looked very much the part, far slimmer than his recent Don Giovanni at the English National Opera. With Wendy Bryn Harmer as his sister Gutrune, the pair of them were attractively eligible, exhibiting determination and weakness at the same time.

Gunther, Brünnhilde, Hagen

Finally there was Deborah Voigt as Brünnhilde, who opens things up immediately after the Norn scene, and brings it all to a close at the end. She was magnificent and one can see her as the wife of the man who will now rule the world after Wotan’s will has been broken. But like Siegfried she is cleverly deceived by Hagen, giving him the secret of how to kill her hero,and only when the scales have fallen from her eyes can she find the right course of action. Her immolation scene brings all to a close, and the lighting does the rest, as the flames recede into the distance carrying the gods away, and the Rhein purifies the world of Alberich’s transgressions and Wotan’s plans and deceits.

Wonderfully sensitive conducting by Fabio Luisi throughout, ranging from pellucid chamber opera to a full-throated roar of polyphony. I eagerly await broadcasts of the full Ring cycle in 2013.

This broadcast in 2012 is rather well-timed in terms of the Euro crisis — see my Eurodämmerung essay comparing the Ring with the Euro.

Siegfried, Metropolitan Opera, Met live cinema relay, November 2011

In the final part of the intermission feature from the second interval, as Renee Fleming went to meet Bryn Terfel in his dressing room, he said he was wondering when she would get round to him. Was he feeling left out? Perhaps so, but never mind because in the third act he was superb as the Wanderer. When Siegfried asks, who are you then, who wants to restrain me? Terfel’s lengthy response came over superbly, with a strong focus on Wotan’s psychological angst, ‘wer sie erweckt, wer sie gewänne, machtlos macht’ er mich ewig!‘ (whoever wakes her, whoever wins her, would render me powerless forever!).

Mime and Siegfried, all images Ken Howard

This production by Robert Lepage, brilliantly conducted by Fabio Luisi, brings nuances in the score and the libretto that had previously passed me by, and in Act I, Gerhard Siegel gives one of the finest portrayals of Mime that I have ever seen. After his encounter with the Wanderer, and his failure to ask the one question he really needs answering, he muses on what he has just learned: that only one who knows no fear can kill the dragon. He has already forfeit his head to the Wanderer and knows that Siegfried will lop it off unless he learns fear from the Dragon Fafner. But how can he kill the dragon if he learns fear? “Verfluchte Klemme!” (Damned dilemma!) he sings, and you feel for the poor fellow who has devoted eighteen years to bringing up the boy who will kill the dragon, but will also finish his own ill-fated existence. Gerhard Siegel acts everyone else off the stage, making me think of him as an Asperger’s victim embroiled in teenage fantasies that he can never fulfil.

Siegfried and the Sword

As for the real teenager, Siegfried, Jay Hunter Morris sang the role with huge conviction. There are not many people in the world who can do this well, but their number has just increased by one with this great new Heldentenor, and the intermission features showed he was utterly dedicated and loved what he was doing. He looked the part too, as a Christ-like figure full of spirit, rather than the rambunctious oaf he sometimes appears.

Alberich and the Wanderer

Eric Owens reprised his wonderful Alberich from Rheingold, and Patricia Bardon looked and sang a beautiful Erda, with Deborah Voigt bringing back her Brünnhilde from Walküre. After a mythical eighteen year sleep, and a real absence of over four hours while the other singers have warmed up, or even died, she has to come in with Heil dir, Sonne! Heil dir, Licht! and it’s a tough call. As she began expressing her love for Siegfried, the voice took on more confidence and she was terrific.

Brünnhilde and Siegfried

One of the odd moments in the last scene is when Siegfried loosens the breastplate of the sleeping hero, and cries, Das is kein Mann! This sometimes sounds foolishly naive but the way Jay Hunter Morris tackled it, facing the audience with this revelation, it all made sense. Making sense is a vital feature of this production, and Terfel helped bring out the subtleties of Wotan’s dilemmas. Technically I regret that the shards of the sword looked fake, unlike the eventual sword itself — an important point when you have close-ups on the cinema screen — but the Woodbird flitted around like a well-rehearsed pet animal, and we shall doubtless see more of these clever 3D-projections in other productions.

Das Rheingold, Metropolitan Opera live relay, October 2010

Building a glorious monument with borrowed money is a dangerous business, as many of our politicians have now realised. It’s a lesson they could have learned from Wagner’s Rheingold whose consequences lead to three more operas in the Ring cycle. When the two brothers get their payment for the elaborate folly of Valhalla one kills the other to take the powerful ring, reminding me of recent events in British politics. The brother giants get their payment in treasure stolen from Alberich by Wotan, but Alberich in turn stole it from the Rheinmaidens who were guarding it in the river Rhein. There’s word play in German between Rhein and rein (pure), and although one might regard the Rheinmaidens as pure they are not unsullied by very human failings, and it’s their teasing rejection of Alberich that causes him to forswear love, a necessary precondition for creating the ring from the gold.

 

Giants and Gods, all photos by Ken Howard

 

One cannot help feeling sympathy with Alberich as he cries out, “O Schmerz!” (What pain!), and Eric Owens sang and acted the role brilliantly. His dark, rich voice expressed his anguish and determination, and my only quibble — a really minor one — is that he looked such a nice guy! Truly he was the star of the show, along with Bryn Terfel as Wotan, who managed to look ruthless and show fierce determination to retain the ring after stealing it, until Patricia Bardon as Erda warned him off such nonsense. She was terrific in that small role, looking and singing like a goddess.

 

In Niebelheim, Alberich transformed as a dragon

 

As that other goddess, Wotan’s wife Fricka, Stephanie Blythe sang strongly and gave a warmly human portrayal. Loge, whose schemes let Wotan off the hook he’s made for himself, was well sung by Richard Croft, and I liked the costume and the lighting for him. In fact the whole production, by Robert Lepage, was very well lit by Etienne Boucher with good costume designs by Francois St-Aubin, including those for the giants who were made to look large without using stilts or artificial heads. Franz-Josef Selig and Hans-Peter König as Fasolt and Fafner both gave fine portrayals of these giants, and I loved the way Fasolt turned his head sympathetically as Fricka sang of a woman’s value, Weibes Wonne und Wert.  Fafner was thoroughly menacing, and we shall presumably hear him again in his transformation as the dragon in Siegfried.  Carl Fillion’s set design, with multiple strips of wood that could tilt at various angles was certainly clever, and I liked the placing of the giants at a higher level, and loved the rainbow bridge at the end. This high-tech production sets a standard that will be hard for other opera houses to beat, and I look forward to the broadcast of Walküre next May.

 

Gods ascend the rainbow bridge

 

As to the conducting, it was wonderful to have James Levine back in the pit, and the orchestra played beautifully under his direction.