Don Carlos from Paris

Conductor: Philippe Jordan
Regie:  Krzysztof Warlikowski

Jonas Kaufmann (Don Carlos)
Elina Garanča (Die Prinzessin Eboli)
Sonya Yoncheva (Élisabeth de Valois)
Ludovic Tézier (Rodrigue)
Dmitry Belosselskiy (Der Großinquisitor)
Ildar Abdrazakov (Philippe II)
Eve-Maud Hubeaux (Thibault)

The most recent operatic excitement on the international scene is the French version of Verdi's Don Carlos presented at the Opera Bastille with the above cited participants.  It claims to be the original French version of the opera, though there is no ballet.  Certain features of the production can be seen above.  Pictures are projected on a scrim in black and white that look like old silent movie films in very much deteriorated condition.  When Don Carlos loses Elisabeth, he points a gun at his head but does not shoot.  He does this again at the end.

The costumes suggest the Spanish Civil War.  My French is not good enough for this.  I would need English subtitles.

I am here for Elina Garanča as Eboli.  She is by far the most lively inhabiter of this role that I have seen.  She seems to have a clause in her contract that says she will smoke and kiss girls in every production.  Just kidding.  It makes you wonder if she actually smokes.  She is very sexy and flirtatious as Eboli.

In general the production explains nothing.  Elisabeth appears at a treeless Forest of Fontainebleau dressed in her bridal gown and prepared to wed.  When the groom changes from Carlos to Philippe, she immediately marries the new bridegroom, apparently by proxy since the man she appears to marry is not Philippe.  The scenes never look like anything they are supposed to be, but names of where we are appear on my screen for every scene.

Philip II of Spain was a real person who lived in the time of Elizabeth I of England and was in fact married to Elizabeth's sister Mary just before his marriage to Élisabeth de Valois.  Here he is shown at his coronation which would have occurred years before.  Oh well.  It replaces the martyrs burning at the stake which we do not miss.

The music is enjoyable and somehow less Italian.

There is a giant film of an ugly face and hands with a small naked body hanging out of it's mouth.  I don't know what this is for.  When Philippe sings that his wife does not love him, Eboli is with him.  She leaves when the Grand Inquisitor arrives.  She returns to do her big aria which is intense and beautiful.

Ludovic Tézier sings his death scene in the prison very beautifully and brings me to tears.  We don't see who has shot him.  Carlos gets out of his cell and does not return to it.  Philippe, the queen and Eboli enter after Posa has died.  When the crowd enters, Carlos escapes.  Eboli sings a few lines, kisses the king in front of everyone, including the queen and the grand inquisitor, and follows after Carlos.  The queen's presence suggests that perhaps she has assisted in Carlos's escape.

The ending is unspeakably awesome.  There are not words for something so beautiful.  The queen poisons herself.  It ends with the picture above.  The performance ends well, but it isn't just the singing.  The mysteriously romantic playing of the orchestra can also be credited.  This is the first I have liked Yoncheva.  Jonas was magnificent.

The Damnation of Faust from the Paris Opera

 Bryn, Dominique, Sophie, Jonas

Conductor Philippe Jordan
Director Alvis Hermanis

Marguerite: Sophie Koch (mezzo-soprano)
Faust: Jonas Kaufmann (tenor)
Méphistophélès: Bryn Terfel  (baritone)
Stephen Hawking (mute): Dominique Mercy

The basic premise of the Eurotrash movement seems to be that any music and set of words can be fitted to any set of pictures and movements.  Any actual relationship is unnecessary.  Faust is supposed to be a scholar, so we will make him a scientist working on the space program.  Why not?  This is at least a tenuous relationship.  This staging of La Damnation de Faust from the Paris Opera is more a comedy than a serious drama.  No one cares about souls any more.

Of the above characters the one who spends the most time on stage is Stephen Hawking.  For most of the opera he sits in his chair.  At the beginning he speaks in his mechanical voice.  He is immediately recognizable without use of a program.

Act I

The intention to establish a colony on Mars in 2025 is announced.  The colonists are announced.  In any opera there are people who look one of two different ways:  they are uniformly young and thin or they are representative of all mankind.  The former group is, of course, the ballet, and the latter is the chorus.  People identified as going to Mars are all from the ballet.  They remove parts of their dress and appear in various stages of dress and undress until the last scene.

Jonas Kaufmann as Faust appears, except for the addition of horn rimmed glasses, as himself throughout.  He doesn't suddenly become young, as is traditional with Faust.

Act II

Faust, Hawking and Méphistophélès appear.  Potential colonists are tested like lab rats.  Méphistophélès chloroforms Faust who falls on the floor and dreams of Marguerite.  We see films of the Mars rover, and a copy appears on stage.  An orientation confusion device is brought on stage and Faust refuses to go into it.  So they choose Hawking instead who while still in his chair, rotates in all directions for a while.

Then Hawking is back in his chair, nude (body stockings?) women dancers appear, Jonas and Sophie interact.

Act III

Marguerite sings.  Almost nude ballet couples become intimate.  Perhaps on Mars they will have to pair up.  Then duet with Faust and Marguerite.  Then a trio with Bryn.  The male dancers have abandoned the females who now look injured.

Act IV

This is the best part of the staging.  Marguerite is Hawking's nurse.  She sings the most famous aria so far.  There was much discussion in reviews of snails mating, but for us this is not seen and we have closeups of Sophie instead.  She takes off her lab coat and strokes Hawking's cheeks.  So you see the love she sings about is for Hawking.  She lays her cheek against his.  The Mars rover goes by.  And finally she kisses him.

Jonas comes out and sings "Nature immense" with an erupting volcano behind.  Very nice.

Bryn comes out with 3D goggles and tempts Faust into putting them on.  The colonists, including Marguerite, put on their space uniforms and we see a rocket blasting off.  Perhaps it's time to depart.

Faust finds Marguerite's dress in the pile of clothes and searches for her among the colonists.

Ending:  We are supposedly sending Marguerite off to heaven, but instead Hawking gets out of his chair and does an extended ballet.  Sort of.  Faust gets in the abandoned chair and drives it off the stage.

So is this The Salvation of Stephen Hawking instead of The Damnation of Faust?  The music was lovely.  We heard no booing.

Arabella

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Conductor:  Philippe Jordan
Production:  Andreas Dresen

Graf Waldner:  Kurt Rydl
Adelaide:  Doris Soffel
Arabella:  Anja Harteros
Zdenka:  Hanna-Elisabeth Müller
Mandryka:  Thomas J. Mayer
Matteo:  Joseph Kaiser

I'm not sure Strauss' Arabella, streamed live today from the Bayerische Staatsoper, is a great opera.  I'm not sure it matters.  The plot is a bit dicey.  Broke family has two daughters.  To prevent the expense of marrying two daughters, the younger daughter pretends to be a boy.  Complications ensue.

I am truly astounded by the contrast between the Arabella of Renée Fleming, reviewed here, and the Arabella of Anja Harteros.  With Renée it's all in the details, and it can be awkward when the other singers don't follow her lead.

With Harteros it's all in the big picture.  She is in the midst of her colleagues and is always stylistically with them.  It is the sheer scope of her musical vision that separates her from the crowd.  The emotions are large, extending out into the universe.  In general this was Strauss as Wagner.  Big tone.  Excessively big in my opinion.  They brag about how many microphones they have, so balance the orchestra a bit smaller, please.

Thomas J. Mayer was pleasingly rough without becoming violent.  His voice is showing some wear.  The one I would worry about is Zdenka.  Matteo could go postal.

Europeans are accustomed to architectural stage settings by now.  Giant staircases are a common theme.  For me the ending with the giant staircase completely worked.  Arabella and Mandryka in this vision are a bomb waiting to explode.  I'm not sure Mandryka deserves her, but she will bring him an exciting life.  She walks slowly down the long staircase holding her drink and then throws it in his face.  I enjoy Harteros for the power of her phrasing and the power of her acting.

The best opera makes you care about the characters.  Their lives become your life.  There are many paths leading to this conclusion.  For me this was one.

Pelléas et Mélisande

Medici.tv allows me to see from the stage of the Paris Opera Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. It is one of those AHA! moments.

Philippe Jordan, Conductor
Robert Wilson, Stage director and sets

Stéphane Degout, Pelléas
Vincent Le Texier, Golaud
Franz Josef Selig, Arkel 

Jérôme Varnier, Un Médecin, Le Berger 

Elena Tsallagova, Mélisande 

Anne Sofie Von Otter, Geneviève

I read that this is a revival, one that cannot be put aside.

It is a work like other operas because it is about love.  Perhaps it could be compared to Tristan und Isolde.  An older man marries a much younger woman and wrecks havoc when she falls in love with someone more her own age.  Perhaps it could also be compared to L'Amour de Loin for its focus on the individuals in a static landscape.

The subject is the inner reality of love rather than the outer reality of action.  The entire story takes place in a single extended location.  They go into the woods to hunt; they go inside the castle; they walk out to the fountain; Mélisande looks out the window of her tower bedroom; they go down into the dungeons of the castle.  It is like a Poe story--all atmosphere and emotion.  Whatever it is, it is it to the ultimate degree.

This is the ultimate extreme of the opera as tone poem.  There is a musical landscape like a forest enveloped in fog--no melodies, no leitmotivs can be extracted from the enormous soundscape.  There are no arias or vocal climaxes.  It seems to aspire only to existence.

For some this is the most boring opera ever written.  I found in my researches that Camille Saint-Saëns loathed Debussy and traveled to Paris to see the opera so he could ridicule it.

In this production the musical landscape is represented by a vision of the open sky; the sun is about to rise but remains hovering just below the horizon.  Sometimes it fades to almost black.  The color palate ranges only from blue to purple.

The characters do not move so much as pose, create pictures, silhouettes against the sky.

My sense is that once you have seen it this way, you will never manage to unsee it.  The opera has become this vision of it and will never separate back out again.

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Eugene Onegin

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I know I’ve seen Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin before, in fact, I know I’ve seen it with Mirela Freni as Tatiana, but I felt last night that this was the first time. Perhaps it was sitting in the “stalls circle,” the raised area that surrounds the floor of the Royal Opera House, which creates an unusual feeling of intimacy with the players and orchestra.

Perhaps it was the beautiful conducting of Philippe Jordan, the most romantic and gorgeous playing of this piece that I’ve heard. This is the first time I have thought that an opera by Tchaikovsky was truly by the same composer as his other works.

Perhaps it was the simple, architectural stage setting that clarified the action so well.

Perhaps it was our guys, Rolando and Dmitri. I must confess I can’t resist either one of them. Rolando Villazon is the reason this opera is sold out, as is just about everything he does these days. I understand that he was ill on Monday, but my luck held. My earlier conclusion that he is a lyric tenor, even a somewhat light lyric tenor, held here. One loves him for his dark tone, passionate intensity and musicality. He’s really quite wonderful to see, and died fabulously. Let’s hope he doesn’t hurt anything falling down like that.

I would call Dmitri Hvorostovsky a lyric baritone, with a beautiful tone and complete comfort in Russian repertoire. He began stiffly. Was this intentional? Onegin tells Lensky that he finds Tatiana beautiful, but when she falls wildly for him we are somewhat puzzled. He hasn’t exactly made that much of an impression on us. Perhaps the moment was just right for her.

Perhaps it was the staging which worked particularly well. Perhaps it was the charming couplet in honor of Tatiana’s name day, sung by Ryland Davies.

It wasn’t Amanda Roocroft, who looked good but wasn’t up to Tatiana. She was dramatically but not vocally effective.