Wędrówki operowe/Operatic Journeys

‘I will be a friend to you, and you shall take care of my linen’ – those words, uttered by Mr B. to the beautiful and innocent maid at the beginning of Samuel Richardson’s famous work have been igniting readers’ imagination for almost three hundred years. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded was published in 1740. Richardson, writing his debut epistolary novel, considered today to be the first mature novel in English literature, also proved to be the precursor of eighteenth-century ‘conduct books’ – guides to the intricacies of binding social norms. Yet the exceptional nature of Pamela lies not just in the masterful penmanship, but also in the bravura play of contrasts: virtue clashes with lasciviousness, ideal with reality, piety with primitive instinct. Richardson’s book became the first bestseller, in the present-day sense of the word, read with flushed cheeks by maids and gentlefolk alike, in equal measure praised from the pulpit and accused of veiled pornography. Not without reason, judging from the excerpt quoted above. A few dozen pages later, Pamela, hearing suspicious noises coming from Mrs. Jervis’ closet, first undresses before opening the door, through which falls her employer, dressed in nothing but a silk dressing gown. Yet she maintains her chastity until the day of her marriage to Mr B., which for some was proof of her remarkable attributes and for others of her exceptional manipulative skills in seeking the desired goal, namely, social advancement through marriage to a partner of incomparably higher status.

The popularity of Pamela surpassed all conception. The novel sold in hundreds of copies across the whole of Europe, and in 1742 it reached America, where it was published by Benjamin Franklin, one of the future founding fathers of the United States. It inspired artists and launched a fashion for the outfits described in the novel and their attendant ‘gadgets’. It was the object of numerous imitations and adaptations, including the comedy La Pamela, o sia La virtù premiata, from 1750, in which Carlo Goldoni transferred the action to Venice and turned the titular heroine into the unrecognised daughter of a Scottish aristocrat. Later, under the pseudonym Polisseno Fegejo, he turned his play into the libretto La Cecchina, o sia la buona figliuola, in which the maid becomes the gardener Cecchina, the lost offspring of a colonel with the Prussian cuirassiers. Among the composers to turn to Goldoni’s libretto were Egidio Duni and Salvatore Perillo, but their operas met with a rather cool reception in Italy.

The text only found a composer of commensurate talent in the person of Niccolò Piccinni, a Bari-born thirty-two-year-old subject of the Kingdom of Naples. La Cecchina, staged in 1760 at the Teatro delle Dame in Rome, was Piccinni’s fifteenth opera and proved a turning point in his career. First it opened to him the doors of all the major theatres in Italy, and then it set off to conquer Europe. In 1765 it came to Warsaw, where, just twenty years later, it enjoyed spectacular success in Wojciech Bogusławski’s Polish adaptation (Czekina, albo cnotliwa panienka). During the 1770s it apparently reached Beijing, staged at the imperial court by a company of Italian Jesuits.

Francesca Aspromonte (Cecchina). Photo: Clarissa Lapolla

A hundred years later, Verdi, who was already setting about Falstaff, called La Cecchina ‘the first true comic opera’, without which the masterworks of Mozart and Rossini would never have been written. Yet among most present-day music lovers, Piccinni’s name fails to trigger any musical associations. If anything, historical circumstances are evoked, linked to his journey to Paris in 1776, when the composer was drawn into one of the first episodes in the ‘war’ of the Gluckists and Piccinnists – a conflict between advocates of reformed French opera and supporters of Italian opera. The Parisians, who loved a good quarrel, paying no heed to the mutual respect between the two composers, who had no wish to compete with one another, triggered an aesthetic war lasting several years, which occasionally spilled over into fisticuffs. They clashed wherever the opportunity arose: on the streets, in cafes, in private homes, theatres and schools. The dispute rumbled on even after Gluck returned to Vienna in 1780. During its final phase, it assumed the quite grotesque form of a war between the Piccinnists and devotees of Antonio Sacchini, newly arrived from Italy, who with time went from being another representative of the Neapolitan school into a moderate imitator of Gluck.

And then it all fell quiet. La Cecchina disappeared from stages shortly after Piccinni’s death in 1800 – along with more than a hundred other operas of his. Over the next two centuries, it was staged sporadically, mostly in Italy. In 1928 a production was put on in Bari, to mark the bicentenary of the composer’s birth. And it returned to the composer’s home town almost a hundred years later, in January 2026, as part of the preparations for the next jubilee.

I could not pass up such a chance. I travelled to the Apulian capital not just on account of the work, but also for the carefully selected soloists and the conductor, Stefano Montanari, who has been music director of the Teatro Petruzzelli for almost three years. I was curious to see how this collector’s piece would fare in the hands of the Italian actor, screenwriter and film director Daniele Luchetti, familiar to Polish film buffs thanks partly to the drama Lacci, shown at the opening of the Venice Film Festival in 2020.

Paola Gardina (Paoluccia), Krystian Adam (Marquis della Conchiglia), Francesca Aspromonte, Christian Senn (Mengotto), and Michela Antenucci (Sandrina). Photo: Clarissa Lapolla

Well, it fared quite splendidly. Luchetti forged an irresistibly funny spectacle which at the same time takes up an intelligent dialogue with both the convention of the epoch and the output of the most outstanding specialists in the staging of pre-Romantic operas, to mention but Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and his assistant Jean-Louis Martinoty. At first glance, he remained faithful to all of the stage directions contained in the libretto. In reality, he wittily ‘translated’ them for the sensibilities of a contemporary audience, adding anachronistic props to the settings or arranging them in a way that triggered utterly unexpected associations. The band of servants tasked with tending to the physical fitness of the Chevalier Armidoro resembles a company of circus strongmen lifted straight out of Fellini’s La Strada; the Marquis della Conchiglia sets off in pursuit of Cecchina on a comical scooter adorned with rococo tassels; the bravura finale of Act I, amidst bedsheets strung up across the stage, reminds one of the Neapolitan lineage of Piccinni’s opera; every so often, elements from the most famous productions of Britten’s Death in Venice burst into the Venetian landscape of Goldoni’s adaptation. Yet in spite of all these ‘diversions’, Luchetti’s production remains a moving tribute to eighteenth-century theatre: with a subtle play of lights and shadows, intricately painted vedute and proscenium borders (stage design by Alessandro Camera, beautifully illuminated by Marco Filibeck) and remarkably beautiful costumes (Massimo Cantini Parrini) of captivating lightness and finesse and a palette of colours worthy of the greatest Italian masters of the Italian Settecento.

Equally convincing was the musical side of the show, prepared by Montanari with genuine expertise in mature buffo style and a characteristic blend of comical and sentimental elements with the totally ‘serious’, the latter bringing deeper reflection on human nature. There are soubrettes in this opera, as well as the figure of the soldier Tagliaferro, derived from the commedia dell’arte tradition. There are lovers wracked by doubt and also a typical mezzo carattere, in the person of the Marquis, in love with the titular heroine. It is also worth mentioning that the Roman premiere of La Cecchina was performed solely by men – in connection with the still binding edict issued by Pope Sixtus that banned women from performing in theatres in the Papal States. In subsequent performances given during Piccinni’s lifetime, the singers appeared in a great variety of configurations, from mixed casts, in which the soprano and mezzo-soprano parts were sung by castrati arm-in-arm with women, to ‘natural’ casts with a single travesti role (Armidoro).

That only enhances my admiration for the choice of soloists for the Bari show – in a cast consisting entirely of artists experienced in such repertoire and fully aware of the historical context of the first performances of La Cecchina. The titular figure of the buona figliuola was successfully embodied by Francesca Aspromonte, endowed with a warm, soft soprano, highly expressive, though a little dull in the middle range. Taking nothing away from the young Italian singer’s abilities, I must admit that the show was stolen from her by the phenomenal Ana Maria Labin in the part of Lucinda, boasting a soprano voice with an exquisite, silvery timbre, perfectly set and balanced across the registers, which, despite its charming delicacy, carries remarkably well (including in the ethereal pianos of the aria ‘So che fedel m’adora’ from Act III). Contrasting marvellously with the parts of the two female protagonists was the energetic and fruity-sounding soprano of Francesca Benitez in the trousered role of Armidoro. Michela Antenucci and Paola Gardina formed a bravura pair of the malicious maids Sandrina and Paoluccia, investing their parts with so much vis comica that at times I was doubled up with laughter.

Act III, Finale. Photo: Clarissa Lapolla

Just as much joy was conveyed by Krystian Adam in the tenor role of the Marquis della Conciglia, demanding candid lyricism and vocal buffoonery in alternation. In both aspects, he came across splendidly, thanks not just to the beauty of his voice and his exquisite technique, but also to the well-judged ideas of Luchetti, who led this protagonist all the way from being a sweet scallywag, through a gallant disorientated by his nascent feelings, to a man ready for true love. In the casting of the two baritone parts – the poor Mengotto, wooing Cecchina in vain, and the hilarious cuirassier Tagliaferro, who brings news of her real family origins – the contrast between the two characters was judiciously brought out. The mature beauty of Pietro Spagnoli’s voice was ideally suited to the character of the battle-hardened Tagliaferro, while the less seasoned, though equally suggestive, baritone of Christian Senn excellently conveyed the quandary of the miserable Mengotto.

Montanari led the whole performance – with an ensemble of musicians from the local orchestra – with verve, a flair for the idiom and a hint of delicious insouciance. All the more worthy of underlining is that he conducted from the instrument on which he also accompanied the soloists in the elaborate secco recitatives. I feel it my duty as a reviewer to note that it was an eighteenth-century Italian fortepiano (or a copy thereof), ideally suited to the circumstances – an instrument to which it would have been worth devoting at least a few words in the programme book, which was otherwise impeccably prepared.

There are still two years to go until the tercentenary of Piccinni’s birth. The Bari theatre has given us a wonderful foretaste of the approaching jubilee of its native son. It is high time we took an interest in his unjustly forgotten work and perhaps reassessed it against the background of the output of the epoch. Verdi did so a long time ago and, as usual, he was right.

Translated by: John Comber

Ellen T. Harris, author of a recently reissued monograph of Dido and Aeneas and co-author of one of the critical editions of Purcell’s opera, once lamented on the pages of The New York Times that the more we learn about this work, the less we know about it. And it’s hard to disagree: the information reiterated for years in textbooks and opera guides according to which Purcell composed Dido for the purposes of an elite school for girls run by Josias Priest in Chelsea has been refuted, but no prospects have opened up for any new findings. Thematic and structural similarities between Dido and John Blow’s three-act opera with prologue Venus and Adonis point to direct inspiration from the work by Purcell’s teacher. We know for sure that Blow wrote that opera to a commission from King Charles II. There is much to suggest that Venus and Adonis was premiered in the year 1683, possibly in one of the chambers of the White Tower at Windsor Castle, which the king ordered to be turned into a theatre shortly before this date. We also know that in 1684 Blow’s opera was staged again at Priest’s school. Could it be that Dido was also written with Charles’s court in mind, before subsequently appearing on the stage of the school in Chelsea? If so, then the premiere must have occurred before the king’s death in 1685. It has also not been ruled out that Charles II’s premature death could have thwarted the plans of Purcell, who – nolens volens – left the work on a shelf and only staged it later, at the boarding school for girls in Chelsea. Or perhaps he composed Dido for James II? If so, we still don’t know whether he managed to stage it at the court of the last Catholic king of England.

One puzzle follows another. Some scholars draw attention to the expression ‘turning times’ in the spoken epilogue from the first edition of the libretto, which they claim refers to the Glorious Revolution, during the last months of 1688, when the English parliament dethroned James II and thereby definitively brought an end to the Stuart dynasty. We are familiar with Purcell’s opera from three much later copies, none of which gives a cohesive picture of the original shape of the score. The oldest among them was dated roughly to the mid-eighteenth century – until, that is, the recent discovery that the paper used by the copyist only entered production in 1777. The manuscript is lacking not just the prologue, but also several dances and – most importantly – the ending of Act II. Dido has come down to us in the form in which it was used in an adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy Measure for Measure written in 1699 by Charles Gildon and staged the following year at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre under the title Beauty the Best Advocate.

Markéta Cukrová (Dido), and Ekaterina Krovateva (on the left) as Belinda. Photo: Serghei Gherciu

Purcell’s masterpiece – or rather what remains of it – was plucked from oblivion in 1895, on the bicentenary of the composer’s death. Since the middle of the last century, Dido has enjoyed unwaning popularity: it has been performed on early and modern instruments, paired with other works to keep the audience in the theatre for more than an hour, and supplemented in various ways, largely with music by Purcell himself.

The creative minds behind the new production of Dido and Aeneas at the National Theatre in Prague, on the stage of the Stavovské divadlo, took the rather peculiar decision to make several cuts to the already depleted score (removing the ‘Echo Dance’, the beginning of the scene in the grove and the ‘Witches Dance’), give the parts of the Spirit and the Sailor to the Witches, and bolster the first act, quite substantially, with extracts from The Indian Queen, Purcell’s last, unfinished, semi-opera. The sung commentaries of the allegories of Fame and Envy on the doings of the rivals for the heart of the Incan princess Orazia, and also the invocation of the Aztec conjuror Ismeron to the God of Dreams, together with the later response from the deity, were added to the Prague production in the character of a court masque, watched by Dido and Aeneas a moment after the Trojan prince makes an ardent declaration of love to the queen of Carthage.

In terms of dramaturgy, all of these ideas failed. The lengthy insertion from The Indian Queen, although musically interesting, seriously disturbed the proportions and the continuity to the narrative in the first two acts of the opera – particularly since, after the masque, Dido sang Orazia’s love song to Montezuma, at odds with the work as a whole in terms of both content and poetical language. That is what happens when those responsible for a production – in this case director Alice Nellis and dramaturge Ondřej Hučín – focus entirely on their own interpretation of a work while disrespecting the conventions of the original. Nellis decided to turn Dido into the tale of a woman scared of falling in love, who allows herself to become possessed by her inner demons and urges the man to leave, descending into ever deeper lethargy and depression. Such a take leaves no room for a drama of duty: it is not the Spirit with the face of Mercury that bids Aeneas sail off to Italy, only the negative thoughts swirling around in Dido’s head, appearing on the stage in the guise of the Witches. Truth be told, there is no Aeneas here, or his companions. The queen’s tragedy would have been played out even without their participation. The brief amorous episode only hastened her death.

Aco Bišćević as the Fame of The Indian Queen. Photo: Serghei Gherciu

Nellis’s conception certainly did not facilitate the task of the soloists, among whom only Markéta Cukrová, in the titular role, was able to display her truly impressive experience in the domain of Baroque singing. Unfortunately, her once luminous mezzo-soprano has lost not just its sparkle, but also precise intonation; problems have also arisen with her control of vibrato. Yet she gave an interpretation that was quite immaculate in terms of style, so perhaps that evening she was simply off-colour. I was disappointed by Lukáš Bařák in the role of Aeneas, a singer endowed with a fine, but rather inflexible baritone voice, gravitating towards the bass, wholly unsuited to this baritenore part. Ekaterina Krovateva came across quite well, and her robust coloratura soprano would match the emotional figure of Belinda even better if the singer were better able to master its expansive volume. A very good impression was made by the two soprano Witches, Lenka Pavlovič and Marie Šimůnková, and I cannot fault Magdaléna Hebousse in the part of the Second Woman. I find it more difficult to accept the performance by the Slovenian tenor Aco Bišćević in the dual role of the Sorceress and the allegory of Fame – in both cases smacking of caricature, which inclines one to suspect that this singer has problems with his vocal technique. The other performers of the ‘masque’ in Act I – bass Tomáš Šelc (Envy, Ismeron) and the aforementioned Krovateva as the God of Dreams – performed far better, not for a moment transgressing the bounds of good taste.

Separate doubts were aroused by the overall musical concept of the show, and more precisely by the decision to piece together an instrumental ensemble from members of the local orchestra and musicians from Collegium 1704. The practice of combining early and modern instruments is nothing new in performances of Baroque operas, but this time the sound proved too much of a ‘hybrid’, with the conductor perhaps partly to blame. Michael Hofstetter directed the music in an accomplished and assured manner, but at times the tempi were too brisk and there was a lack of attention to detail. All the greater, therefore, is the praise merited by Collegium Vocale 1704, in a twelve-strong line-up from which at least half the solo parts in Dido and Aeneas could easily have been filled.

Dance scene choreographed by Klára Lidova. Photo: Serghei Gherciu

So was it a catastrophe? Not in the least. In defiance of the muddied thinking behind the production and despite the flaws in the musical rendition, we were presented with a beautiful piece of theatre. It was both modern and at the same time intelligently played with the spatial deception of a scenery à l’italienne, the magnificence of Baroque machinery and flies, and the illusion captured in semi-transparent fabrics. Everything that was lost in the flimsy dramaturgy was found in the skilfully lit sets by Matěj Cibulka, the discreet designs by Michal Mocňák, the suggestive costumes by Kateřina Štefkova and the spectacular choreography by Klára Lidova, performed by dancers and acrobats. What a wonderful show it would be if all of the creators and performers allowed themselves to be swept away by the magic of theatre: ‘Aurora now had left her saffron bed, and beams of early light the heavens o’erspread’. Just like in the fourth book of The Aeneid, in which Virgil depicted not just the death, but also the love of Dido.

Translated by: John Comber

It sometimes happens that a future opera critic becomes acquainted with a work from a wholly unexpected angle. That is precisely what occurred with me – a sickly child who killed time spent at home by listening to records from her parents’ collection. No one selected this music for me. My attention was drawn to the 7 inch vinyl with orchestral excerpts from Aida primarily by the intriguing cover and no less intriguing description, in a completely incomprehensible language. Many years passed before I realised that recorded on that disc was a 1959 performance by the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Miklós Erdélyi, who was then associated with the Hungarian State Opera. Thus my acquaintance with Verdi’s Aida began with the overture and three ballet extracts from the second act – in a surprisingly subtle interpretation, shimmering with the softness of the quasi-oriental orchestral textures.

Soon after, I encountered my first Aida at the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw. Again in unusual circumstances – from the wings. Jan Marcin Szancer’s huge sets could not be housed in any of the store rooms, so they were kept in the side-stages. The statue of the pharaoh, several storeys high, was passed by participants in all the Warsaw productions, from Bizet’s Carmen to Wagner’s Tannhäuser. The children of the chorus were dumbstruck with awe. The soloists, meanwhile, experienced growing irritation at the fact that the stage designers were producing creations which, instead of helping the singers, only hindered them in their struggles with the unfriendly acoustics of what was one of the biggest theatres in the world.

Since the time of that production, which was premiered exactly sixty years ago, the Warsaw Opera has tackled Aida just twice. Each time without success. Progressive elements tore their hair out, while the conservative Józef Kański summed up Marek Grzesiński’s 1986 production with the quip ‘And what? And nothing!’ and furnished Robert Lagana Manoli’s concept, from nineteen years later, with the telling title ‘The trumpets sounded beautiful…’

As the years passed, I too became discouraged about Aida, particularly since the greatest titans of music theatre had sought a key to interpreting this masterwork – compared to Verdi’s earlier experiments, an opera almost classical in form, composed to a conventional and exceptionally clear libretto based on a drama of duty – in vain. Some fruitlessly tried to settle scores with nineteenth-century colonialism, some set the narrative in the realities of contemporary conflicts, while others removed Aida from all context, producing incohesive spectacles in motley costumes.

Photo: Marek Olbrzymek

Hence I decided to reignite my old love for Verdi’s Egyptian opera at the Janáčkovo divadlo, which for several seasons now has been for me a haven of good theatre: pared back, clean of form, employing metaphorical signs, allusions and mental shortcuts. And at the same time meeting the expectations of the local audience – as a tool for building a community and a space for reflection and dialogue. And only now has it dawned on me that the vision of operatic theatre realised in the building on Rooseveltova Street is so close to my heart because it is a modernist vision, perfectly at one with the atmosphere of Brno.

I think we still don’t really appreciate the modernistic potential of the Moravian capital – a city whose history was entangled for almost half a century with the fortunes of Bohuslav Fuchs, an urban planner, designer and architecture theorist who raised several generations of Czech architects. His legendary buildings – including the Avion Hotel, squeezed into a narrow, eight-metre-wide plot between two houses on Česka Street – proved to be the perfect example of a modernist game with resistant matter and space. Fuchs brought to Brno a host of visionaries from Czechoslovakia and designers from abroad, among them Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who created the plans for the functionalist Villa Tugendhat. It was thanks to Fuchs that Brno became one of the most important centres for modernism in Europe; also because, unlike other cities, it did not have to rise from the ruins after the war. It etched its name in the history books not just as a herald, but also as a continuator of the ‘new tradition’: unsullied, unbroken, distinctly reflected in architectural thought, design, literature, everyday life and, last but not least, opera.

The new production of Aida, premiered in September last year, is not perhaps an outstanding spectacle, but it was certainly conceived in such a way as to hold its place in the repertoire of the Janáčkovo divadlo for many seasons. Marek Cpil, a graduate of the JAMU in Brno, associated for a while with the Divadlo Na zábradlí in Prague, designed sets which – in my opinion – would have been greeted just as favourably in Moravia a hundred years ago as they were received at the end of the first quarter-century of the new millennium: minimalistic, highly geometricised, in a palette of gold, red, black and blue, referring to the Egypt from the common preconceptions of audiences and perfectly highlighted by the lighting designer Přemysl Janda. Aptly corresponding to Cpil’s vision were the costumes designed by Linda Boráros, distinctly emphasising the contrast between the colourful presence of the Nubians and the hieratical convention in the way the Egyptians are depicted, reflecting the ancient power structures and social divisions (taken to the brink of caricature in the costume of the Pharaoh, the only truly monumental element of the staging – in the form of a towering construction, rolled onto the stage, sparkling with golden scales, out of which emerges only the head of the singer). Director Magdalena Švecová coupled that scenery with quite static action, inspired by symbolic gestures, poses and patterns of robes from Egyptian painting. More energy was breathed into the production by choreographer Marek Svobodnik, who enlivened the temple frescos and bas-reliefs in the ballet scenes with the participation of dancers from the NdB2 junior ballet company.

Photo: Marek Olbrzymek

I caught the last December performances, in which the titular role of Aida – as in the premiere – was incarnated by a former resident of the Janáčkovo divadlo, the Hungarian Csilla Boross. As usual, her voice took a long time to warm up: her supple, rich soprano, at first not open enough in the top part of the scale, only showed its full quality in Act III, in a remarkably subtle rendering of the aria ‘O patria mia’, the warm lyricism of which was ideally counterbalanced later by the final duet of the protagonists. This time, the role of Radames was taken by Eduard Martyniuk, a Ukrainian tenor endowed with a voice of exceptional beauty, backed by fine bel canto technique – unfortunately, too light for this part, and consequently more and more forced as the narrative unfolded. Happily, I could at least relish his gentle cantilena, led in ‘old-fashioned’ style, in ‘Celeste Aida’.

Anastasia Martyniuk fared much better as Amneris. Her rich mezzo-soprano, a riot of colours, is ideally suited to this part: beautifully open at the top, balanced across the registers, thanks to her intelligence and musicality, convincingly split between anger and despair, which the young Ukrainian underscored with very good acting. Paling in comparison was the Slovakian baritone Aleš Jenis (Amonasro), blessed with a voice of interesting timbre, but not particularly sonorous and essentially devoid of expression. The role of the Pharaoh was successfully filled by Jan Šťáva, one of the pillars of the Brno theatre, boasting a typically ‘Czech’ bass with a wonderful bottom range and beautifully nurtured middle. The remaining parts were well within the capabilities of Daniela Straková (High Priestess), Jan Hnyk (Ramfis) and Petr Levíček (Messenger). The choruses – children’s and mixed – also came across quite well, under the direction of Martin Buchta, though at times they lacked energy and fullness of sound.

Photo: Marek Olbrzymek

Quite phenomenal, meanwhile, was the sound of the orchestra, under the baton of Jakub Klecker, who once again demonstrated how much a choirmaster’s experience can bring to the role of an opera conductor. He directed throughout with a sensitive hand, meticulously differentiating the shades of the instruments (especially the strings), taking care to ensure a lyrical quality to the cantilenas, beautiful harmonic details and the specific exoticism of Verdi’s score. He forged an interpretation that was surprisingly intimate, far from the monumentalism and pathos that have effectively turned many a music lover away from Aida.

In Brno, even the trumpets sounded beautiful. And contrary to the review of my former master, there is not a hint of irony in that assertion. For the needs of this production, the Janáčkovo divadlo brought in a set of ‘trombe egiziane’, designed by Verdi specially to perform the triumphal march in the second act. The trumpets were displayed to the audience before the premiere, on the square in front of the theatre. They will certainly serve for many a year. I anticipate that the new Brno Aida – modest, imperfect, quite simply human – will not depart the scene any time soon. It is through such shows that children acquire a love of opera. To such shows they return when they’re old. That is how a theatre community is built.

Translated by: John Comber

Around the same time that Peter Sellars was working on his staging of the Matthew Passion at the Berlin Philharmonic – that is, in early 2010 – Romeo Castellucci, l’enfant terrible of Italian theatre, created one of the most provocative works of his entire career. The production Sul concetto di volto nel figlio di Dio, featuring a fragment of Antonello da Messina’s painting dominating the stage, an image of the Saviour of the World silently watching the agony of the ailing Father, went out into the world after its premiere at the Romaeuropa Festival labelled as the director’s profession of faith. It was admired in Rome, and provoked violent riots in Paris and Avignon. Less than six years later, when Sellars was already coming up with the first sketches for La clemenza di Tito at the Salzburger Festspiele, Castellucci decided on Matthäus-Passion for the opening of the Musikfest Hamburg. Had he been able to implement his original concept, this might have resulted in a production straight from the spirit of Sul concetto di volto. There were some technical obstacles, however: the production was planned in the vast Deichtorhallen, a former market hall without theatrical facilities that has been transformed into a museum of contemporary art. The idea of illustrating Bach’s work with a series of live images reminiscent of Italian Renaissance paintings was, therefore, replaced by Castellucci with a series of installations and performances bringing to mind loose, often disturbing associations with the passion of Jesus and forcing the spectators to engage in difficult reflections on the meaning of human suffering.

In 2016 the staging was received favourably, but without much enthusiasm. Castellucci all too soon came up against the legend of Sellars’ production, prompting comparisons all the more so given that Simon Rattle, who conducted the Berlin Passion, and Kent Nagano, who conducted the work in Hamburg – both well known to German audiences – represented radically different musical worlds. Sellar’s pared-down and yet emotionally charged concept was a perfect match for Rattle’s temperament and thus proved to be more accessible. Castellucci’s abstract theatre, using symbol and metaphor, worked perfectly with Nagano’s clear, slightly distanced interpretative style, requiring much more attention and concentration from the listener.

For nearly a decade the Hamburg Passion – although, in retrospect, it proved to be a landmark work in the Italian director’s oeuvre – was preserved only in the memories of audiences present at the three performances at Deichtorhallen and in a video recording that does not convey its many nuances. Over two years after the failed attempt to revive it in Rome, it finally arrived at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence with the same conductor and the same Evangelist (Ian Bostridge) – for two of the three scheduled performances, as the premiere coincided with a strike of the local trade unions.

Photo: Michele Monasta

Fortunately, I made it to the second and last performance to find out once against that Castellucci was, indeed, a provocateur, but by no means a scandalist. If he is, it is, as he himself repeatedly emphasised, in the New Testament sense of the word σκάνδαλον, the Greek equivalent of michshol, or “stumbling block” from the Book of Leviticus, an obstacle “you shall not put before the blind”. In the New Testament it is above all a “stone of offence”, a metaphor for going astray, inciting evil. Castellucci throws this stumbling block at our feet as if before the blind, transforms it into a silent cry to the deaf. He throws us off balance with a succession of seemingly inappropriate, iconoclastic associations the meaning of which either eludes us or reaches us when we least expect it.

The director leads the audience down the wrong path already at the very beginning of the performance, when white-clad Nagano steps onto the snow-white stage and washes his hands in a bowl brought in by two actors dressed in white. This is not a gesture of Pilate; this is a gesture of purity of heart, made by a priest who will soon descend into the orchestra pit to begin a ritual involving musicians in white costumes. Blinding white is a feature in many of Castellucci’s stagings, but in the Passion it is omnipresent and ambiguous: as a symbol of holiness and truth, but also of emptiness, loneliness and mourning. The director will stage nineteen memorable episodes in this white setting, in which every object, every substance, every tree, every person, and even their absence, will be treated conscientiously and with extraordinary tenderness by the athletes, police officers, doctors, lab technicians, cleaners and “ordinary” Florentines participating in the performance, and silently telling their own and other people’s stories. In the Judas’ betrayal episode they will use the real skull of a thief caught red-handed and killed by a shot to the head. They will take the last supper of a recently deceased patient out of a fridge, they will put sheets stained by the umbilical cord blood of a real newborn in a washing machine. In the Crucifixion scene a group of volunteers – children, young and old people – will attempt to hold the position of Jesus nailed to the cross by clinging with their hands to a suspended bar. No one will last more than a minute. The director will turn water into blood and vice versa, by alternately colouring and neutralising a solution of phenolphthalein in transparent tubes.

All these actions are meticulously described by Castellucci in a separate booklet accompanying the programme book. We stumble over them as if stumbling over stones even without his explanations. All aspects of the last days of Christ acquire a completely different dimension when linked to the ordinary experience of the beginning and end, pain and comfort, hope and despair. I will remember that “my” newborn baby (the director linked a different baby to each performance) is a girl called Anna, who has just turned one month. I will not forget that the fir tree cut down before my performance and stripped of its branches before my eyes was thirty-nine years old. I will remember the story of the illness of the Florentine goldsmith Maurizio, who came on stage on prostheses and left it on stumps of legs that would not have had to be amputated, if it had not been for the chaos in the pandemic-stricken hospitals.

Photo: Michele Monasta

Some episodes proved less, some even more vivid. Many factors influence the degree to which they are perceived as consistent with doctrine and with Bach’s text, factors ranging from personal sensitivity to the experiences of a particular community. The Italians read these codes as intended by the director, as was evidenced not only by the thunderous ovation after the performance, but also – and perhaps above all – by the reaction at the beginning of that mystery play, when no one burst into applause after Nagano’s entrance, recognising that theatre was already happening. However, in comparison with the Hamburg performances, the distance between the musicians and performers on stage has grown. At Deichtorhallen all the action took place in the space between the audience and the performers: yes, it could throw the musicians off balance at times, but at the same time it encouraged them to empathise.

Another thing was that the soloists and members of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino ensembles, safely hidden in the cocoon of the orchestra pit, focused entirely on their tasks. With a truly youthful passion, which is not surprising because, as Castellucci meticulously points out, the orchestra features a violinist who has just turned twenty-one and the oldest singer in the chorus is in his sixties. This is exactly how Bach should sound when performed by artists normally associated with opera: light, airy, with no attempts to ape Baroque articulation on modern instruments, but with respect for Bach’s musical rhetoric – which is especially true of the chorus members, prepared by Lorenzo Fratini and Sara Matteucci, who impressed with their excellent diction, understanding of the text and full commitment to their collective characters.

Particularly worthy of praise among the soloists were Edwin Crossley-Mercer as Jesus – captivating with his phrasing and the melancholic tone of his beautiful bass, perhaps a little too “smoky” in the middle; the excellent Anna El-Khashem, with her crystal-clear, subtle soprano voice and excellent breath control; the ever reliable Krystian Adam, who possesses a rare ability among tenors to combine a stylish interpretation with a great deal of emotion; and Iurii Iushkevich, singing with a surprisingly colourful, calm, almost girlish-sounding countertenor. Decent though not particularly spectacular performances came from the soprano Suji Kwon, and basses Thomas Tatzi and Gonzalo Godoy Sepúlveda. Ian Bostridge was, unfortunately, disappointing as the Evangelist: his interpretation was too expressive, at times even hysterical already in Hamburg. A decade later the technical shortcomings became apparent: Bostridge was not the only one to struggle in this performance with the 442 Hz pitch, awkward for the “early musickers”, but he was the only one to be defeated in this struggle, shifting between registers with visible effort and losing control of his larynx on several occasions. All the more praise for the highly efficient and singer-friendly continuo group (the organist Cristiano Gaudio, the theorbo player Elisa La Marca and the gambist Mario Filippini).

Photo: Michele Monasta

I was not disappointed by Kent Nagano, a conductor for whom I have had a weak spot for years: for his versatility, for his eminently intellectual and, at the same time, very human approach to the musical matter, for his attention to textural detail and for his innate aversion to flamboyance. In today’s world of extremes Nagano represents the commendable attitude of a tireless seeker of the golden mean – an artist with whom not only a musician, but also an ordinary listener can simply feel safe.

Which is important in the case of a work that grips our imagination so powerfully. Castellucci put a stone before me. Nagano got me on the right path. I think that both got to the crux of Bach’s message. This is exactly what the Matthew Passion is all about.

Translated by: Anna Kijak

It is not a new staging, but in many respect it is memorable. Don Giovanni, directed by John Fulljames, with sets by Dick Bird, costumes by Annemarie Woods and lighting by Fabiana Piccioli, was to be the Greek National Opera’s first new production at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre in the 2020/21 season – announced with great hype, along with a revival of Madama Butterfly and the ballet premiere of Don Quixote, already in August 2020, when everything seemed to suggest that Greece had overcome the pandemic. Fate had other plans. The pandemic struck again, the restrictions were reinstated, but the company was not about to give up. The production, which was scheduled to open in December, was premiered without an audience, was filmed by means of eight cameras, and state-of-the-art video and audio broadcasting technology, and soon proved to be one of the hits of the GNO TV streaming service, which was launched at that difficult time. What contributed to the success of the venture was not only the excellent cast, led by Tassis Christoyannis in the title role, but also the professional editing with lots of close-ups, quick cuts and beautifully framed shots. When the production finally hit the stage – first in Athens, then in Gothenburg and Copenhagen – it was received much more coldly by the critics.

Primarily because it is not very innovative. Many artists before Fulljames, including Sven-Erich Bechtolf and Keith Warner, had come with the idea of setting the action of Don Giovanni in a hotel – a clever idea, it has to be said, as the “democratised” space of contemporary hotel chains helps to resolve the dilemma of the sharp social divisions outlined in the work. However, it reduces the eponymous character to the one-dimensional role of a sexual predator, someone like Harvey Weinstein or Jeffrey Epstein – types found in many new stagings of operas, not just those of Mozart. It strips Don Giovanni of the aura of mystery, the “unsolvable enigma” that even some of the greatest theatre directors were afraid to tackle. On the other hand, Fulljames plays with this convention quite skilfully, with a good dose of uniquely British humour. He introduces into the staging a dozen or so extras, brilliantly directed by the choreographer Maxina Braham. They are members of the hotel staff who, with grotesque indifference, ignore the excesses of the guests, remove the traces of lewd orgies and meticulously restore the rooms to sterile order. Fulljames winks at the audience, showing them, instead of the statue of the Commendatore, his frozen corpse in a cold store full of butchered carcasses of pigs (another borrowing, this time from Warlikowski). In the sadomasochistic party scene he plays with drag, dressing Don Ottavio, Donna Anna and Donna Elvira in identical ball gowns.

Photo: Martynas Aleksa

He is less successful in characterising the various protagonists, especially Donna Elvira, who resembles a stalker possessed by unrequited love rather than a proud, betrayed woman. The duel scene in Act I resembles a chaotic skirmish in which Don Giovanni kills the Commendatore by accident. Equally unconvincing is the changing of clothes with Leporello, in which the main role is played by a particularly hideous red wig. Fulljames’ staging, however, undeniably has rhythm and pace, as well as some really strong points, primarily an overwhelming sense of the fleeting nature of all of Don Giovanni’s vile deeds: even their victims do not have time to realise what has actually happened: the door slams shut in front of them, the lift disappears, the light comes on in another room, the staff quickly change the sheets, wipe the table and fluff the cushions.

I came to Vilnius, wondering how this production would fare in the extraordinary building of the Lithuanian National Opera, itself an “unsolvable enigma” of Soviet architecture. The design competition for the building, launched in 1960, was won by Elena Nijolė Bučiūtė, a very young Lithuanian architect, who presented a model of the theatre that anticipated the ideas of many German post-war modernists. Fourteen years passed between the design and the construction, many of Bučiūtė’s novel ideas were lost, but some were kept – they included the bright foyer space, the spectacular decor details of red brick, yellow glass and brass, and the magnificent auditorium with nearly a thousand seats, still the largest stage in Lithuania. The largest, yet still giving a sense of intimacy in experiencing the work – not least thanks to the very good acoustics, in which the singers do not have to try to outshout the orchestra and the conductor can easily balance the sound between the stage and the pit.

Photo: Martynas Aleksa

Fulljames’ Don Giovanni was premiered here in March. I managed to see one of the performances after the autumn revival, conducted by Vilmantas Kaliūnas, a Lithuanian oboist who has been working in Germany for more than thirty years and who has recently taken up conducting as well. And the result is not bad: he conducted the whole thing at reasonable, singer-friendly tempi, the orchestra’s sound, a little thin at first, gradually gained depth, the musicians reacted attentively to his instructions, generally playing with a clean, nicely rounded sound.

The cast was dominated by Lithuanians, led by Modestas Sedlevičius in the title role, a singer with a not very large but exceptionally handsome baritone, beautifully balanced across the registers and phrasing in an old-fashioned, truly Lieder-like style. Leporello was sung by the experienced Tadas Girininkas, whose a bass has an expansive but well-controlled volume, is sonorous, if sometimes a little dull in the middle. Liudas Norvaišas did well in the short role of the Commendatore, while the young baritone Mindaugas Tomas Miškinis fared slightly worse, not quite managing to control his emotions as Masetto, which is by no means an easy role. The only foreigner among the soloists, the Polish tenor Krystian Adam, as usual infused his character with a lot of passion, a feat that is all the more noteworthy given that few singers know how to create a memorable Don Ottavio. Adam managed to do just that: with a voice that is lyrical, but at the same manly in its sound, beautifully developed in the lower register and open at the top, supported by excellent diction and a feel for the idiom. Of the ladies, the one I found the most convincing was Ona Kolobovaitė as Donna Anna. Despite her young age, she is a very mature singer with a wonderfully soft and supple soprano as well as extraordinary acting skills. I was less taken by Gabrielė Bukinė, whose voice is denser, almost like a mezzo-soprano, at times too heavy for the role of Donna Elvira and, above all, rather hysterical, for which – unfortunately – the misguided directorial concept was largely responsible. Lina Dambrauskaitė was more impressive, with her graceful and light soprano, combined with a great sense of comedy, perfect for the role of Zerlina.

Photo: Martynas Aleksa

I don’t know if I would like to see this staging again. I know that in the Lithuanian National Opera building, radiating light and warmth from within, it revealed all its strengths and made it possible to turn a critical eye away from its undeniable flaws. It did not solve the enigma of Don Giovanni. But it certainly did not discourage further efforts to unravel it.

Translated by: Anna Kijak