Julietta, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, September 2012

Dreams or Reality? For Michel, a bookseller from Paris, there is something addictive about dreams, but in the first two acts the auditorium lights slowly come on at the end, as if he is waking up. When the third act nears its conclusion the lighting shows some promise of doing the same again, but it suddenly goes dark and Michel is trapped for ever. This clever idea is just part of Richard Jones’s excellent new production of Martinů’s opera.

All images ENO/ Richard Hubert Smith

Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů left his homeland for Paris in 1923 and during his many years there he found Georges Neveux’s recent play Juliette, ou La clé des songes (the key of dreams) a fine subject for opera. He wrote the libretto himself, initially in French then in Czech, and it was first performed in Prague in 1938.

Michel and Julietta

The main protagonist Michel yearns to find a girl named Julietta, and he revisits the small coastal town where he once heard her singing at an open window. The inhabitants seem to live only in the present without memory of the past, and when Michel encounters a fortune teller he finds she doesn’t read the future, only the past … and can also read dreams. Nothing however is quite as it seems, and though Michel shoots Julietta it turns out later she is still alive and there is not a drop of blood.

Surreal it certainly is, and the music is intriguing. Severely spare at times, yet suddenly swelling into glorious melody, particularly in Act II, which is nearly as long as the other two half-hour acts combined. We are swayed and seduced by the harmonies, taken away into dreams, memories and hallucinations, and Edward Gardner in the orchestra pit succeeds brilliantly in bringing out the mystery and charm of this music.

Peter Hoare was outstanding as Michel, with Julia Sporsén giving a fine portrayal of Julietta. Andrew Shore was excellent as the man in a helmet, plus two other roles, and the other soloists, such as Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts and Susan Bickley, all did well and took on multiple roles. An abundance of roles helps advance the action by exchanges between a constantly changing sequence of individuals, avoiding the need for extended vocal solos or big arias, despite the lyrical nature of the music.

The Central Bureau of Dreams

Huge designs by Antony McDonald, helped by Matthew Richardson’s excellent lighting, give a sense of irreality to Michel and the strange people he encounters, and the staging and wonderful conducting make this a compelling evening. Edward Gardner and director Richard Jones have scored another great success for the ENO.

Performances continue until October 3 — for details click here.

The Turn of the Screw, Glyndebourne, August 2011

The clarity of this production, and this performance, was exceptional. From the first words of the Prologue to the last words of the drama when the Governess asks the limp body of Miles, “What have we done between us?”, the whole story was laid bare.

Governess and children, all photos by Alastair Muir

The scene with the governess travelling by train to the big house where she will look after the two children was beautifully done, with projections of moving countryside through train windows. You feel for the governess, for her uncertainty, “If things go wrong, what shall I do? Who can I ask, with none of my own kind to talk to?”

Flora and Miss Jessel, Miles and Quint

The central feature of this Jonathan Kent production is a large frame of windows, including a French window, that can revolve, be lifted, and rotated out of their frame. The windows help separate the world of normality from otherworldly forces, and in the scene at the lake they lie horizontally over the body of Miss Jessel, as if she were under water before rising up to spook the governess. The previous death of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint is represented partly by branches of a dead tree where Quint sits when he urges Miles to steal the letter, and the many scenes in this opera are formed by bringing stage props together by rotating various annular regions of the stage, sometimes in opposite directions. These are clever designs by Paul Brown, helped by Mark Henderson’s lighting, and I particularly liked the final scene of Act I where Miles is in the bath and Flora is washing her hair. She puts her head in the basin and remains utterly still while Quint appears to Miles. It’s as if time stands still. It’s as if these ghostly appearances exist in a wrinkle of time, inaccessible to Mrs. Grose the housekeeper, but they are disturbances that reveal themselves to receptive minds.

Governess and Miles

This is a chamber opera, with thirteen instrumentalists from the London Philharmonic playing beautifully under the direction of young Czech conductor, Jakub Hruša, the music director of Glyndebourne on Tour. The cast worked together as a team, all with excellent diction, and it’s impossible to pick out single brilliant performances. Toby Spence gave great clarity to the prologue and was a charismatic Quint; and Giselle Allen was a creepy looking Miss Jessel, with her long, untidy, black hair, and spine-tingling voice. Miah Persson was a wonderful governess, pretty and sure of voice, albeit plagued by anxiety, and Susan Bickley was strong and equally sure as Mrs. Grose. This wonderful team of adults was complemented by Joanna Songi as Flora and Thomas Parfitt as Miles. As a woman in her very early twenties, Ms Songi came over very well as a ten year old girl, and Thomas Parfitt played a boy of his own age (12) with superb clarity and voice control. This was as close to perfect a performance of Britten’s opera as one is ever likely to get, and is not to be missed.

 Performances continue until August 28 — for details click here.

Two Boys, English National Opera, ENO, London Coliseum, June 2011

New music, a new opera, and a thoroughly modern story: a teenage boy is stabbed in the heart, and another boy is arrested for the deed. If this sounds unpromising material, let me reassure you — I was riveted.

All photos by Richard Hubert Smith

The programme notes for new operas usually contain a detailed synopsis, so it’s refreshing to see one in which you’ve no idea what will happen. The complexity grows as the opera progresses, and we seem lost in a labyrinth of internet chat rooms with mysterious, needy and dangerous characters. Then there’s a detective who at the very beginning says, “Even senseless crime makes sense”, yet she too is puzzled. She lives with her elderly mother, who hobbles around on sticks, and tells her she should use more make-up, get her hair done, and lose some weight. In Act 2 the detective rushes home to her mother feeling guilty that she’s been so absent, working on the case, and sings of feeling she will one day die, “unsung, unloved and alone”. Her mother responds, “How do you think anyone gets what they want? They show what other people want”. And that’s it. Suddenly the detective sees how to unravel the whole mess.

A crucial scene in church, with Joseph Beesley and Nicky Spence

This is great theatre. But it’s also more than that. This is a wonderful opera — a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, who put together composer Nico Muhly and librettist Craig Lucas. The combination is inspired, and its realisation on stage by director Bartlett Sher, using projections and animation by Leo Warner, Mark Grimmer and Peter Stenhouse is quite remarkable. Their company did the wonderful projections and animations of pearl divers in the ENO’s new production of Pearl Fishers last year, but these are even better, and well served by Donald Holder’s lighting.

Anyone who has ever written out and delivered a talk or radio broadcast will know it’s essential to write it in spoken English, not written English. With an opera libretto this is far harder because the words will be sung to music, and we all know examples of operas, even by top rate composers where it doesn’t work well, yet Craig Lucas has done an exceptional job, and Nico Muhly’s music suits it perfectly. Internet chat rooms might seem a rather difficult thing to show the audience, particularly people like me who don’t even know what they are, but it’s all brilliantly done.

Heather Shipp, Nicky Spence and Susan Bickley in the foreground

We begin to get used to Brian as [A_Game], wonderfully sung by Nicky Spence, Rebecca and her brother Jake as [mindful16] and [GeekLand], both well portrayed by Mary Bevan and Jonathan McGovern, to say nothing of Aunt Fiona [agent_11e], strongly sung by Heather Shipp. Bass-baritone Robert Gleadow was powerfully threatening as Peter [peetr_69], Joseph Beesley was wonderful as the boy soprano, and above all there was Susan Bickley who gave a beautifully sung and superbly nuanced portrayal of the detective. She was well supported by a large cast of singers and other performers who worked extremely well together as a team. Conducting by Rumon Gamba brought out the details of Muhly’s intriguing music, reminding me of composers such as Britten, Adams and Glass, yet being unlike any of them.

The ENO does not recommend this opera for anyone under 16, but if you’re a parent or grandparent of teenagers, or even younger kids who use Facebook and internet chatrooms, this will make you think. There are some weird people out there, and we need artists of the calibre of Muhly and Lucas to create a theatrical event that not only brings us to think on these things, but entertains us into the bargain. If you compare the creators of this drama to some of the dullards who would allow dangerous nutcases to roam free — I’m thinking of a well known British case involving boys, which recently hit the news again — well … there’s no comparison. Life informs art, but this is a drama in which art can also inform life.

The production must cost an arm and a leg, presumably helped by being a joint project with the Met in New York, and we’re lucky to have the world premiere here in London. Don’t miss it.

Performances at the London Coliseum continue until July 8 — for details click here.

Anna Nicole, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, February 2011

This is an opera for today’s celebrity culture, where parts of the media, eager for salacious details, are happy to pick on anyone available. But Anna Nicole Smith was not just anyone — she worked as a stripper and snagged an 89 year-old billionaire, J. Howard Marshall I, though it’s said they never lived together. He died in 1995, fourteen months after their wedding, and Anna Nicole herself died in 2007, aged 39. The contest over his will, however, is still alive and has now reached the US Supreme Court.

The marriage to Marshall

Act I of this new opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage tells of Anna’s life up to the wedding with Howard Marshall, including her first marriage, but it starts with her as a sex symbol, singing, “I want to blow you all — blow you all —— a kiss”. And those are also her last words before she dies, riddled with drugs, following her son, who died of a drug overdose. Almost at the start the cameras appear, cleverly shown as heads of performers in opaque black body stockings. At first there are two, but by the end there is nothing but cameras, and Anna herself. Then, finally, she too is covered in black and the lights go out.

Anna Nicole, Stern and the new baby, all photos by Bill Cooper

Act I was deliberately tacky, but Eva-Maria Westbroek as Anna Nicole carried it off well, looking gorgeous. Then she had a boob job, which did not improve her appearance, and by the end of Act II she looked bloated, which was of course the intention. Alan Oke was suitably frail as old man Marshall, and Gerald Finley gave a strong performance as Anna’s lawyer and third husband, Stern. He was the one promoting her, and had the garish idea of filming the birth of her new baby — his baby he thought — so that it will be broadcast as ‘pay per view’. But as she tells him later, “The baby’s not yours!” Indeed Anna had many lovers, but that is one thing that didn’t quite come over. She must have been a very sexy lady, yet the sexuality on stage was very stylised and lacked allure. That may have been intentional, showing an entirely materialistic attitude to life, alleviated in her case only at the very end as she shows real emotion. There is, however, one thread of sensible humanity running through the opera in the form of Anna’s mother, superbly sung and portrayed by Susan Bickley. She and Eva-Maria Westbroek formed excellent focal points for Turnage’s music, which was remarkably melodious, with its jazz elements reminiscent of Kurt Weill.

The production itself, by Richard Jones, is nothing if not colourful — even the Royal Opera House curtains were replaced by pink ones with Anna Nicole motifs, and there were photographs of her around the balconies and above the stage. The theme is of course tackiness, and the libretto by Richard Thomas pulls no punches in terms of coarse language. Perhaps there is something thrilling about defiance of conventional decorum, and as old man Marshall says, “Don’t grow old with grace. Grow old with disgrace”. The audience loved it, judging by the enthusiasm of the first night. Whether this success will last when the Royal Opera House is no longer pulling out the stops to promote it, remains to be seen, but Turnage’s music has a strong rhythmic pulse, and is well-served by Antonio Pappano’s conducting.

There are six performances in total, ending on March 4 — for more details click here.

Katya Kabanova, English National Opera, ENO at the London Coliseum, March 2010

photo by Clive Barda

The Russian writer Aleksandr Ostrovsky wrote a play in 1859 called The Storm, set in a small town on the river Volga. It inspired this opera by Janaček, and half a dozen others by Russian composers. Ostrovsky disliked the low business morality and brutality of the merchant class, and the story contains an unpleasant merchant named Dikoj, along with his nephew Boris, a weak man who hopes to inherit, for himself and his sister, money left by his grandmother on condition he obeys his irascible uncle. The Russian operas on this theme are all called The Storm, but Janaček names his after Katya, who unwisely has a very brief affair with Boris. Katya’s husband, Tichon, another weak man, is under the thumb of his mother, a widow and family matriarch called the Kabanicha. She treats Katya with brutal contempt, and when Tichon goes away on business for a few days, the affair starts. When he returns, Katya feels awful and unwisely admits her guilt. This is her undoing, and while she is left with the consequences, Boris leaves to start life anew.

The river Volga is always nearby, a constant reminder of the forces of nature, and the opera starts with the schoolteacher, Kudrjaš taking joy in the natural world. Almost at the end, after the storm, Katya stands by the river and sings, “how peaceful, how lovely” before plunging in to her death. Her awful mother-in-law, the Kabanicha has the last word, maintaining cool propriety, as if the decorum of civilization can defeat the powers of nature.

It’s a three act opera, performed here without an interval in just over 100 minutes. And what a performance! As soon as the overture started I realized this would be musically entrancing, and Mark Wigglesworth as the conductor produced vivid sounds from the orchestra. When I saw this at the Royal Opera in July 2007, Janaček expert Charles Mackerras conducted superbly, but Wigglesworth’s interpretation was no less exciting, hitting the high points with great pathos. Added to that we had a wonderful Katya in Patricia Racette, whom I last saw as Butterfly in the recent production from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Her singing was powerfully emotional and she gave a heart-rending portrayal of this distraught woman, so desperately in need of affection. It was altogether a strong cast with Susan Bickley as a very dominant Kabanicha, singing her speech melodies with a force to intimidate those around her. Stuart Skelton, whom I last saw at the ENO as Peter Grimes sang a very lyrical Boris, showing admirable weakness in his acting, Alfie Boe was also very lyrical as Kudrjaš, and Anna Grevelius was a delightfully flippant Varvara, adopted daughter of the Kabanicha, who draws Katya into the assignation that destroys her. John Graham-Hall performed well in the thankless role of Tichon, and Clive Bayley was excellent as the disagreeable merchant Dikoj. His stage presence was superb, as indeed it was when I last saw him as Bluebeard, and as the chaplain in Lucia, both at the ENO.

This was a new production by David Alden, and its spare sets and clever lighting by Adam Silverman worked very well for me. I particularly liked the use of shadows on the large wall that divides the stage. The only thing I found a little odd was the poster of the devil in Act III headed by the word proklyat’ in Cyrillic script, meaning curse or damnation — it seemed out of place, and the heading was not visible at the front of the Balcony.

But overall this dark and theatrically powerful opera is a must-see, and you would have to go a long way to find better singing or conducting — they were both virtually unbeatable.

The Gambler, Royal Opera, February 2010

Royal Opera photo: Clive Barda

This is a cold story of intrigue, and obsessive gambling at the roulette tables. In the last two productions I’ve seen, in Chicago and St. Petersburg, the stage has been darkly lit, in keeping with the coldness and scheming inherent in the story, but this production by Richard Jones, with set designs by Antony McDonald and costumes by Nicky Gillibrand, is quite different. It is bright and colourful, starting with a scene in a zoo where well-dressed visitors look into the cages, which are presumably metaphors for the fact that the characters are trapped by their determination to acquire money or love that is cruelly taken away from them.

The story is based on a novel by Dostoevsky, and the main character is a young man named Alexey, tutor to the family of an impecunious general, who expects great things from his wealthy aunt Babulenka. Alexey is in love with the general’s ward Paulina, and gambles on her behalf. At first he loses badly but later he wins big-time, yet she has been having an affair with a marquis and coldly leaves him. In the meantime, Babulenka, who is supposed to be near death’s door, turns up unexpectedly at the gambling spa, and gaily gambles away all her money. The general goes crazy, and loses his demimonde lover Blanche.

John Tomlinson was superb as the general, Angela Denoke excellent as Paulina, and Susan Bickley gave a brilliant performance as Babulenka. Roberto Sacca was convincingly impetuous as Alexey, Kurt Streit cool and imposing as the marquis, and Jurgita Adamonyte suitably flashy and vapid as Blanche. The singers — and there is a huge cast — all did well, but the applause was muted. It’s not a popular opera and this production never quite brought it to life — we never really felt sympathy for any of the characters. Perhaps that was the idea, but I find it hard to drum up much enthusiasm for things that are very cold in very bright surroundings. The other two productions I have seen were more effective in their sombre tones and lack of the extraneous devices that we had here.

Antonio Pappano conducted Prokofiev’s music well, and as music director he presumably wanted to take on this project. I support the Royal Opera’s decision to put this on, but there are plenty more Russian operas worth doing that would be more exciting and satisfying — Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa for instance, or a revival of Prokofiev’s Fiery Angel. Let us hope they have plans for such things.

Le Grand Macabre, ENO, English National Opera, September 2009

This musical work by Ligeti (1923–2006) is related to opera in the way a painting by Hieronymus Bosch is related to a landscape. It seems to be about death, of both body and soul, but is a surreal work based on a 1934 drama La balade du Grand Macabre by Belgian author Michel de Ghelderode. The action takes place in a principality called Breughelland, named after the painter Pieter Brueghel, whose Triumph of Death seems to have been an inspiration. Ligeti originally wrote the music in 1975–77, collaborating on the libretto with Michael Meschke. It was written in German but intended to be flexible in its language and translated for performance. There was originally a fair amount of spoken dialogue, but much of this was removed in the revised version of 1996, which is what was performed here. Perhaps more should have gone, because some of the invective was unnecessarily unpleasant, including phrases such as ‘dog f…er’ and ‘arse l…er’. Is this really necessary in a work of art? Are there not other ways of expressing things that can carry the emotions by clever understatement? These particular phrases were uttered by the white minister and the black minister, who looked and performed like stock characters from a pantomime.

To understand this strange work I found it helpful to recall that Ligeti had shocking experiences as a young man. He was drafted into a Jewish labour battalion in 1944, and his close family was all sent to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Only his mother survived. The central character of the opera is Death in the person of Nekrotzar, sung here by Pavlo Hunka. His slave Piet the Pot was sung by Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, and the two lovers Amando and Amanda, who perpetually have sex together, were sung by Frances Bourne and Rebecca Botone. There is a court astronomer named Astradamors and his sadistic wife Mescalina, sung by Frode Olsen and Susan Bickley, and in the second part we meet Prince Go-Go, sung by counter-tenor Andrew Watts, and Gepopo, the chief of the secret police, sung by Susanna Anderson.

The action seems to lack a clear narrative, and I shall not go into a long exposition of the various scenes, but the production by Alex Ollé and Valentina Carrasco showed a variety of things going on, in and around a huge female corpse crouching on stage. The lighting by Peter van Praet was very clever as it threw some strange views on the corpse and even seemed to show its skeleton on occasion. Set designs were by Alfons Flores, and costumes, which I wasn’t wild about, by Lluc Castells. The production is being done jointly with the theatre La Monnaie in Brussels, the Gran Teatro del Liceu Barcelona, and the Teatro dell’ Opera di Roma. Baldur Brönnimann conducted and did a fine job with the orchestra. When I closed my eyes it sounded wonderful, but the grotesque action on stage was a distraction, and lovers of Ligeti might prefer a simple recording.