A post-modern pastiche redeemed by music

Leos Janacek: From the House of the Dead

Leos Janacek's final work was From the House of the Dead, his opera based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel. It wasn't premiered until 1930, two years after his death. Opera companies have had to make do with a version by Janacek's pupils that added a happy ending, but the recent publication of a new edition provides something more closely aligned with what Janacek originally intended. This new score has been responsible for quite a few new productions in the past couple of years, including this one from Munich. Reading reviews of the productions in Wales, London and Paris, it's probably not surprising how different each one is. Opera today often seems to be focussed less on the music, the drama, and even the personality of the singers, and has become primarily a tabula rasa upon which clever (and sometimes genuinely innovative) stage directors overwrite their own aesthetic and political ideas. That's certainly the case with Frank Castorf's intriguing staging involving on-stage videography, complex picture-in-picture sequences, and anachronisms from Trotsky to Adidas. Jean-Luc Godard's 1966 film Masculin Féminin was famously about "The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola". Castorf's vision of this opera is a similar melding: this time of the Czarist Eagle, the rites and symbols of the Orthodox Church, and a big neon Pepsi sign.

This is more or less standard post-modern pastiche, and it's often to the point, tragic and/or funny. But it can also be occasionally too much on the nose, and when it's not deliberately obscure, it is sometimes only banal. The main problem is that the opera is rather short; it runs only 90 minutes, without an intermission. The secondary problem is that neither Dostoevsky nor Janacek bothered with any overarching story, but rather strung together a series of episodes which happen in the Siberian prison location. A confusing jumble of images might be the by-product of this remix; it might even be by Castorf's design. Having the opera on Blu-ray does allow one to re-watch and gain new insights, pausing along the way to do some Wikipedia sleuthing. I admit that the work seemed more coherent the second time around. But there must have been some head-scratching an hour and a half after the curtain rose at the Staatsoper.

What sells me on Janacek's opera, though, is his music. If one can follow the dramatic sense of a scene, it's absolutely staggering what beautiful, poignant, haunting, terrifying sounds Janacek provides, over and over again. What he has done through the music is to wordlessly re-introduce the most important theme of this, and of all Dostoevsky's novels: redemption.

The Munich production shines in this regard. Simone Young's conducting of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and Chorus is outstanding; the music is taut and naturally evolving, even as the stage action gets run through Castorf's blender. The singing, and within Castorf's limits, the acting, of the principals is marvellous. Evgeniya Sotnikova is outstanding as Aljeja in her various guises, while standouts in the otherwise all-male cast include Peter Rose, Ales Briscein and Charles Workman. I believe this production will improve each time I watch it; there's no doubt in my mind, though, that this is one of the greatest operas ever written.

Opulence and spare beauty

New York City Ballet in Paris. George Balanchine: Walpurgisnacht, Sonatine, La Valse, Symphony in C

Terry Teachout quotes Felix Mendelssohn in his marvellous book on Balanchine, All in the Dances: "The thoughts which are expressed to me by music that I love are not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary, too definite." As Teachout says, "So, too, with Balanchine, whose choreographic thoughts are extraordinary precisely because they cannot be translated into mere words." That precision and clarity of thought are especially welcome when it comes to ballets based on French music, and both are evident here in this excellent compilation of four classic dances presented at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in July 2016. This Blu-ray is a perfect example of High Definition: sound and picture in this opulent theatre presented with the highest fidelity, exquisite costumes, gorgeous dancers, and, most importantly, the great Balanchine tradition that goes back to the NYC Ballet premieres of these works in 1948 (Symphony in C), 1951 (La Valse), 1975 (Sonatine) and 1980 (Walpurgisnacht). The dancing here is thrilling on so many levels, and enhanced by the sensitive film direction of Vincent Bataillon (one of the film partners was PBS's Great Performances), and the production by Francois Duplat. I had the strong feeling more than once while watching these dances of losing myself in an art of beautiful lines, masses of colours and complex parabolas, all moving to the music. As Balanchine himself said, "The important thing in ballet is the movement itself. A ballet may contain a story, but the visual spectacle . . . is the essential element."  I'm not a ballet expert by any means, but I'm now officially wild about Balanchine. Teachout's book is like a kind of User's Manual for these ballets. I look forward to learning - and experiencing - more in the future.

Loss and mystery as a source of meaning

Arnold Schonberg: Moses und Aron

Stage Director Romeo Castellucci has turned the fact that Schoenberg's final work Moses und Aron is unfinished into a major source of imagery and narrative drive for the two acts that remain. Mystery becomes a source of meaning, much as it does for other visionary artists like Cocteau and David Lynch. Moses's last words, the final ones in the opera, are "Oh word, thou word, that I lack." "More than a limit", Castellucci says, "it seems to me that the unfinished state of this opera is a clever philosophical strategy meant to overthrow the linear perspective of the path, of the exit." We begin on a gauze-covered stage with Moses (Thomas Johannes Mayer) speaking with the Burning Bush, now a Kubrick-style tape recorder spewing magnetic tape in which he becomes entangled. Soon he begins the opera-long dialectic with his brother Aron (John Graham-Hall). Once the gauze is lifted things really become interesting.

Musically this is an exemplary performance. Mayer's Sprechgesang (speech-song) is contrasted with the lyrical and very musical tenor of Graham-Hall, while the chorus plays a central role in the music and the drama. Philippe Jordan keeps the action flowing, making sure that Schonberg's musical ebbs and flow, and not Castellucci's stage business, moves the entire theatrical experience forward. One must mention the shameless scene-stealer in the cast, however. It's the very large live bull, playing the Golden Calf, who brings immense dignity to his role. A star is born!

This short trailer gives you a good idea of the images Castellucci brings to the stage.

A modern psychological drama with a HIP sound

This new Blu-ray disc reissue of the production of Handel's opera-oratorio Hercules filmed in the Palais Garnier in 2004 is very much welcome. The HD picture and DTS 5.1 sound are both outstanding, and there is an amazing feeling of presence when you sit down in front of your screen. Most important, of course, is the music and the acting and the production: I loved everything about all of it, nearly unreservedly.

The music Handel wrote for Hercules is amazing. Its beauty is obvious, and in the late Luc Bondy's production, with the modernizing translation/adaptation of playwright Martin Crimp, its psychological depth is apparent as well. Naturally, that only happens with great acting by the principals and chorus (who play a very important role), and fine singing as well. William Christie provides impeccable Historically-Informed Performance credentials for the music, and most importantly keeps the nearly unbroken intense mood on stage from swamping the musical sense Handel brings to this project.

But as good as everyone is in the pit and on the stage, this is Joyce DiDonato's show. A great, great performance!

A Grand Tannhäuser

Tannhäuser is precariously balanced on the sacred and profane axis, both in its subject and in the tortured history of its productions in the musical capitals of Europe. The pure musical tradition of German song is contrasted with the decadent Grand Opera of Paris, with its focus on crowd-pleasing effects and Jockey Club-sponsored ballerinas. Wagner's theme may be redemption - his theme is always redemption - but his heart is in the spectacle. That's why I enjoyed this production so much; it turns renunciation and atonement into pageantry.

Musically this is quite outstanding. Daniel Barenboim, conducting of one of Europe's great orchestras, sets the stage for a great evening of theatre. In the overture and the introductions to Acts II and III the way that the camera pans through the orchestra, looking over Barenboim's shoulder, is as dramatic as anything on stage. When he stands to bring out a particularly thrilling phrase it's electric. The singing is really excellent as well, with a dramatically assured Peter Seiffert grounding the opera, between the two poles of slinky mezzo Marina Prudenskaya as Venus, and soprano Ann Petersen, radiant in a Grace Kelly gown, as Elisabeth. Rene Pape as Hermann, and especially Peter Mattei as Wolfram von Eschenbach are superb singers and equally good actors.

Wagner sweated bullets trying to integrate the ballet conventions of the Paris Opera into his story of Minnesingers. This production by Sasha Waltz (is there a better name for a choreographer?) is no where close to being consistently successful, but when one of her many dance or dramatic ideas works, it works big-time. The Venusberg Scene in Act I takes place within a metal tube that looks like an eye. Partially-clad dancers cavort inside, looking like something from the cutting room floor of Woody Allen's Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex, but Were Afraid to Ask. Then the lighting changes, and the scene is reminiscent of a James Bond credit sequence. But at some point things come together, and all of a sudden the scene becomes fabulously sexy and incredibly beautiful. What happened? I was just snickering a minute ago! When Prudenskaya and Seiffert come sliding down the tube, we have a moving presentation of Tannhäuser's long dream of sensuality.

This is such an eclectic production, and it's all the better for it. There's a natural shift from Venusberg to the Minstrel's Hall on the Wartburg, and Waltz sets us up in a brightly lit Art Deco Hollywood set that's full of one per centers looking elegant. Here is where the integration of dance really pays off. The story of the musical competition can come across as a dullish Medieval German episode of Glee, but Waltz turns on her inner Busby Berkley, and everything sparkles. I don't know if this is deliberate, but when groups of singers and dancers stand frozen for a while, I was reminded of Alain Renais's Last Year at Marienbad. Both that film and Wagner's opera ground their drama in deeply ambiguous dream states.

Waltz abruptly shifts the tone from the bright Hollywood/Middle European spectacle of Act II to film noir in Act III, monochromatic and misty on an empty stage, and all of a sudden mystical, with Wagner's soaring choral hymn of atonement and redemption. The dancing is once again sublime. When the stage turns blood-red with the return of the Venusberg music (and the welcome return of Prudenskaya), we have a superb example of the dramatic potential of dance.

I'm so pleased that BelAir Classique makes generous clips of their productions available on YouTube. This will give you a good feel for the style of the production and its high musical standards, if not the final excellence of the Blu-ray disc.

Abundant vision

In 2001 choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and her troupe Rosas had a big hit with her production of Rain, based on Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians from 1976. Ten years later the work made its way into the repertoire of the Ballet of the Paris Opera, and this amazing Blu-ray is the result. The music is a complex, large-scale work that lasts 75 minutes, and de Keersmaeker runs her 10 dancers - 7 women and 3 men - pretty much without a break. It’s like a movie filmed in a single take. The dancing is every bit as complex as the music, with the group breaking down into individual dancers, pairs, triplets, every combination.  Bojana Cvejić termed it “polyphonic excess.” I imagine watching the live ballet from the gorgeous Palais Garnier: the shifting geometries of dancers matching the repeating cycles of the music. There’s some added value in seeing it on the Blu-ray, with the cameras focussing on particular individuals and combinations as they interact. This is impressive film direction. The sum (or rather product) of these combinations takes us from seeing a group of 10 generic dancers to, by the end, 10 individual, recognizable human beings. The 18 (actually more) Musicians play a combination of strings, pianos and percussion instruments, with important parts for the clarinet, bass clarinet and female voices. It’s the quality and span of the human breath that provides structure - pulses and oscillations - to the music, and a more human quality to a machine-like structure. The human addition to these complexities from the dance side helps us better understand both Reich’s and de Keersmaeker’s abundant vision.

High opera, high concept

I never complain about modern dress versions of classic plays or operas, since they’re at least a chance to hold up an old masterpiece in a new light. Occasionally a more substantial remix adds some important insights. Very rarely the new concept takes on a life of its own and provides a satisfying theatrical experience in its own right. It happened for me with Ian McKellen and Richard Loncraine’s 1995 film of Richard III, set in an alternative fascist England. And it’s happened again with this production, in which Director Dmitri Tcherniakov has virtually re-written the story that underlies Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Tsar’s Bride. The court of Ivan the Terrible is now a modern television studio, and the Czar has been replaced by a virtual character seen on big screens, put together with motion capture and green screen. You no longer need to know what a boyar is to appreciate the story, and the board room and television studio have replaced the court. But this isn’t just about changing externals to make things more ‘relevant’ to today’s audience. The new dynamics of multi-nationals and media moguls are so close to the old ones of nations and monarchs. It’s an arresting story in either case, with basic love/hate/jealousy geometry turned up to an operatic white-heat. The affairs of state and corporations, of media empires and real empires, matter less than the passions of individuals. Those passions are expressed in beautiful arias of longing, innocent love, betrayal and regret. In either reality, the music of Rimsky-Korsakov provides an enduring soundtrack that’s always of interest whatever happens in the foreground. Nothing in the concept is especially subtle, but there are beautiful moments in the acting of the principals, sensitive movements of the camera to expose hidden emotions, and gorgeous singing and playing all around. Daniel Barenboim ensures the highest musical standards, and the beauties of the opera come to the fore.

The DVD trailer shows off the concept well: