Rusalka, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, February 2012

Can a force of nature acquire a soul? This is what Rusalka wants, to become human. As she says to the water spirit Vodník, humans have souls and go to heaven when they die. But souls are full of sin, says Vodník, …  and of love she responds. She has seen her prince and wants him to love her.

Dvořak’s opera Rusalka pits the powers of nature, particularly water, against human feelings and emotions. Like Ashton’s ballet Ondine it is loosely based on Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s fairy tale Undine that tells of a water nymph who falls in love with a prince. After acquiring human form, she loses her ability to speak, and at their wedding spurns his advances, feeling unable to compete with the fatal attraction of the articulate foreign princess. She abandons her prince, and though he searches for her and they are briefly reunited, his fate is sealed by his own unfaithfulness, and he dies in her arms.

Camilla Nylund made a lovely Rusalka, and Alan Held a very powerful Vodník. Both these performers sang the same roles in the original version of this production at Salzburg in 2008, and here at Covent Garden they enjoyed huge support from the other cast members. Bryan Hymel’s gloriously melodious voice was perfect for the Prince, and Petra Lang was superb as the foreign princess. Her body language is wonderfully expressive, and this singer who has made such a marvellous Ortrud in Lohengrin at both Covent Garden and Bayreuth, is perfectly suited to the role of a princess who feels not love but anger, determined that if she can’t have the prince then he shall be denied happiness. Compared to the princess he’s a weak man and instead of happiness he finds death as he begs Rusalka to kiss him at the end.

The power that allows this water nymph to turn into a human is the witch Ježibaba, strongly sung by Agnes Zwierko, and the singing of the three wood nymphs was beautiful, Madeleine Pierard in particular. Underlying it all was the conducting of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who imbued the music with huge emotional intensity at just the right moments. This was a terrific performance, and the singers were loudly cheered at the end, though the production team was roundly booed.

A bizarre production, photo Clive Barda

The production itself was brightly kitsch in parts, and like many other productions imported from the Germanic world, it presumably had a Konzept — in this case perhaps a brothel with Ježibaba as the madame, carefully checking the banknotes at one moment — but what’s the point? The ethereal nature of Rusalka and the watery forces of nature are better viewed without such a concrete representation. They inhabit a dark and mysterious world, yet the lighting at some points in Act III was extremely bright in a way that might work in Cosi fan tutte, but not in Rusalka.

This is a Czech opera — the very word of the title means water nymph in Czech — and does not fit easily with this Germanic-Italian production by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito. The theme of nature here is very much a Slavic one, and the term rus has an ancient Indo-European origin, meaning dew or humidity.

Do look beyond the superficialities of the production to the deeper meaning of the opera and don’t leave at the interval as several people did, because the performance is superb.

Performances continue until March 14 — for details click here.

Faust, Metropolitan Opera live relay, December 2011

The huge power of this performance was the work of the devil.

René Pape as Faust, all images Met Opera Ken Howard

And as Mephistopheles, René Pape was not just vocally superb, but had a stage presence oozing power and devilment. An immensely smooth operator of huge gravitas who could nevertheless move across the stage while lifting a leg as if in a grand jeté, in this well choreographed production by Des McAnuff, which even included some pirouettes in Act II as the chorus sings Et Satan conduit le bal!

After the interval, as Act III starts, Siébel’s soliloquy was beautifully sung by Michèle Losier, both she and Pape repeating their wonderful performances from a different production of Faust this past September in London at the Royal Opera House. Here at the Met they were joined by the incomparable Jonas Kaufmann as Faust, his high notes and diminuendos superbly sung, and his Quel trouble inconnu … in early Act III strongly emotional.

Marguerite and Faust

In Act IV Marina Poplavskaya finally came into her own as Marguerite. In the first interval when interviewed by Joyce Di Donato — an excellent host — she gave the impression that she too had suffered loss. Perhaps this is why she came over so emotionally in Acts IV and V, though I found her less convincing as a simple young girl fascinated by the jewels appearing in Act III. Her singing was beautiful but it was in the later part of the opera that she really convinced me, and her performance was riveting.

Marguerite with the dying Valentin as Siébel looks on

As Act IV came to its conclusion, Russell Braun came through with great effect as Valentin, fighting and losing against Faust, and cursing his sister Marguerite. He sang so strongly, while looking so seriously wounded, you wondered how he did it. Moving into Act V as the chorus sings S’allume et passé un feu qui luit! we see an atomic explosion projected on the backdrop, all part of the production idea that Faust works in a mid-twentieth century laboratory where the nuclear bomb was being designed.

It’s the same production I saw at the English National Opera in September 2010, but with a few tweaks. Care had been given to details and I liked the way a young woman ran across the stage at the start of the big scene in Act III, somehow managing to move in time to the music. Then as the male chorus roared into action it felt as if we were suddenly in a powerful French rendering of the Marseillaise.

Conducting by Yannick Nézet-Séguin was terrific. He brought out the drama in music that can sometimes sound too beautiful and melodramatic, and with an all-star cast this was a glorious performance.

Filming by Barbara Willis Sweete, by the way, was excellent, incorporating occasional full views of the stage with the right amount of detail of the singers.

Performances at the Met continue until January 19 — for details click here.

Don Carlo, Metropolitan Opera live relay, December 2010

When it was over the man sitting next to me said, “It doesn’t get any better than this”, and indeed it was a superb performance of what is arguably Verdi’s greatest opera. The story is based on historical characters, though as Verdi himself said, “Nothing in the drama is historical, but it contains a Shakespearean truth and profundity of characterization”.

All photos by Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

It’s a human drama of huge proportions, and Ferruccio Furlanetto in the central role of Philip II of Spain showed to perfection the king’s isolated uncertainty and emotional distress. His soliloquy at the start of Act IV was brilliantly expressive. Here is the most powerful ruler in the world, yet he bows to the power of the Church, embodied in the Grand Inquisitor, a blind priest who exudes furious certainty that the deaths of ‘heretics’ and potential rebels fulfils God’s glorious purpose. Eric Halfvarson sang that role very strongly, approving Philip’s hesitant plan to kill his own son Don Carlo, but then demanding the king yield him his trusted advisor, Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa. He was brilliantly sung by Simon Keenlyside whose portrayal of the role is unsurpassable in its sincerity and nobility. The king refuses but has Rodrigo killed later, yet regrets it immediately after. At this point, as Furlanetto sang, “Chi rende a me quell’uom?” (Who will restore to me this man?), I thought immediately of England’s medieval king Henry II and his reaction to the murder of Thomas à Becket. This is powerful stuff by Verdi, and of course Schiller on whose play this opera is based.

Rodrigo and the King

Fortunately this was the five-act version, giving us in Act I the initial encounter between Elisabeth de Valois and Don Carlo in the forest of Fontainebleau. Marina Poplavskaya sang Elisabeth most beautifully, with wonderfully soft high notes, amply showing her vulnerability and strength. She is perfect for this role, which she sang on both the last occasions I’ve seen the opera, at Covent Garden in 2008 and 2009. Roberto Alagna gave an intense and spirited portrayal of Don Carlo, singing with great power and conviction. One feels enormous sympathy for these two young people who are betrothed to one another, yet whose love is proscribed immediately after their first meeting. Philip II decides to take Elisabeth as his wife, rather than let her marry his son, Don Carlo, and though the intensity of their love may be dramatic licence, it’s a historical fact that Carlos died young, as did Elisabeth, who was so distraught at his death that she cried for two days. The myth of their undying love is only aided by their graves in the Escurial lying side by side.

Elisabeth and Don Carlo

This opera has major roles for six principals, the sixth being Princess Eboli who was strongly sung by Anna Smirnova. The machinations of this mendaciously jealous woman are a key to the plot, but why do directors always make her look so unattractive? Her dresses with their lace sleeves were extremely unflattering, yet in real life she was a beautiful woman — and in the opera she’s having an affair with the king for goodness sake. Apart from this one quibble I love Nicholas Hytner’s production with set and costume designs by Bob Crowley — the same production as at Covent Garden. It gives a fine sense of the stateliness of the Spanish throne as well as leaving ample space for the human drama, and the burning of the heretics in the auto da fé scene is a dramatic sight.

The chorus sang powerfully, and among the minor roles, Layla Claire was excellent as the page Tebaldo. The orchestra gave a wonderful rendering of the score under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin whose conducting was simply superb.

Carmen, Metropolitan Opera live relay, January 2010

Prosper Mérimée’s novella, on which this story is based, was partly inspired by his encounter with a condemned prisoner in Spain, about to be executed for murdering a gypsy. At the end of this opera, Roberto Alagna as Don Jose made me think that here is the man who killed the gypsy, which says something about the success of this new production by Richard Eyre. At the end of Act I, Alagna showed himself to be weak in giving in to Elina Garanča’s wonderfully strong Carmen, but at the end of Act IV he finds the inner strength to destroy her, sealing his own fate. Carmen herself is fatalistic, but has the ability to attract or reject men as she sees fit, and Ms. Garanča gave a glorious portrayal of this hedonistic gypsy. It was a strong cast, in which all the performers showed the driving determination of their characters: Barbara Frittoli was an intrepid Michaëla, singing beautifully, and Teddy Tahu Rhodes — replacing Mariusz Kwiecien at three hours notice — a stunningly handsome Escamillo who held the stage with his excellent presence. In his Act II appearance singing the toreador’s song, there was a loss of volume at a couple of points, though this may have been the microphone pick-up or the reproduction.

This Richard Eyre production was excellent — better I thought than the Covent Garden one, which I saw last October with Alagna and Garanča again in the main roles — and I very much liked the set and costume designs by Rob Howell, particularly the plain robes, with attractive slips underneath, for the cigarette girls. The dancing was excellent, Carmen keeping pace with the professional dancers in Act II, and giving a fine performance with her friends Frasquita and Mercedes in Act III. Choreography was by Christopher Wheeldon, who also inserted two pas-de-deux during the musical preludes for Acts I and III, well performed by Martin Harvey and Maria Kowroski. At the end of Act IV, after Don Jose kills his beloved, yet hated, Carmen, the stage spins round to show the bull-ring with Escamillo standing over a dead bull. This alludes to a strength and determination in Don Jose, which is rather different from the weaker character we find in other productions, giving an interesting take on the story.

The conducting by Yannick Nézet-Séguin was very well attuned to the singers, fully bringing out the excitement of the music. Altogether this was a wonderful Carmen, and I only wish I were in the audience rather than watching it on a cinema screen.