Wędrówki operowe/Operatic Journeys

I arrived in Longborough for the last of the four June performances of Das Rheingold in 2019 from the scorching heat of Warsaw straight into pouring rain and bitter cold. I joked later that I expected a snowstorm before Act I of Die Walküre, planned for the following season, and that I preferred not to scare anyone by trying to guess what weather anomalies would accompany the performances of Götterdämmerung. What I did not foresee, however, was the pandemic, which slammed the United Kingdom shut in lockdown and put a question mark over the production of the second complete Ring des Nibelungen at LFO. The situation began to improve a bit in 2021, but I was unable to see Die Walküre. Foreign observers decided not to take the risk of getting stuck in either self-isolation or quarantine, especially as most B and Bs and hotels were closed. In any case, the production was semi-staged and featured an orchestra of just thirty-strong. Fortunately, the delayed premieres of Siegfried and Götterdämmerung took place as planned, in 2022 and 2023, respectively, and this season, after five years of preparation, the complete Ring, directed by Amy Lane and conducted by Anthony Negus, was presented in Longborough three times.

I can’t remember ever waiting more eagerly for accreditation. The tickets were not on open sale at all: they sold out in a flash among donors and patrons six months before the beginning of the festival. The small theatre in the Cotswolds, affectionately referred to, albeit with a degree of irony, as the “English Bayreuth”, finally provided a legitimate basis for comparisons with the festival house on the Green Hill. It is not and probably never will be a match for it. It is certainly already a counterbalance – a pilgrimage destination for Wagnerites from all over the world, for lovers and connoisseurs who do not feel the need to deconstruct or “rediscover” Wagner’s oeuvre, sufficiently aware as they are of the cultural determinants and interpretive traditions to believe in its immanent potential.

Das Rheingold. Mark Le Brocq (Loge). Photo: Matthew Williams-Ellis

Longborough productions have never been at odds with the work, but did not always dazzle with richness of imagination. Amy Lane’s concept, which I have been following in stages since 2019, rarely refers the spectator to the sphere of the symbolic (lighting: Charlie Morgan Jones; set and props: Rhiannon Newman Brown; costume designer: Emma Ryott). The director focuses more on storytelling, at times resorting to solutions that are too literal and exaggerated, reaching for superfluous and unnecessarily “familiar” props, not taking full advantage, on the other hand, of the possibilities offered by projections and stage lights. I have already written about this when reviewing the previous, individually staged parts of the cycle, and I feel even more sorry that Lane lacked the time or energy to correct the shortcomings pointed out earlier. This is because this year’s Die Walküre turned out to be unquestionably the best part of the cycle in theatrical terms. Set on a gloomy looking stage, amidst flashes of moonlight emerging from graphite blackness, amidst the blue of the night sky, toned down with a brown hue, and the cool green of a spectral forest, it perfectly matched the intention of Wagner himself, who emphasised in his stage directions – which were ahead of his time –  to leave the rest to the imagination. This painting-like purity – bringing to mind the symbolic meaning of Friedrich’s works and the poetry of Lessing’s forest landscapes – was lacking especially in the overloaded staging of Siegfried. I must admit, however, that it was only after watching the entire Ring within a short period of time that I became aware of the homogeneity of the concept developed by the director, who decided to link all the parts of the tetralogy with a clear compositional idea, like in a true epic. Lane introduces individual characters and motifs with unrelenting consistency, making them more and more easily recognisable and closer to the spectators as the stage action progresses. In the background of all the productions run loose thoughts, reminiscences and forward-looking visions, presented in an old-fashioned picture frame. The key to interpreting the whole thing is a mysterious leather-bound notebook – perhaps Wotan’s diary – passed from one person to another, and helping the participants in the drama return to previously suspended threads and slowly close the tale, the finale of which Wagner had suggested already in Das Rheingold.

The sense of consistency and stage truth was also reinforced by Negus’ decision to entrust the roles of characters returning in the successive parts of the tetralogy to the same singers – an idea that had proved impossible to fully implement in previous seasons and that is rarely reflected in casts of Der Ring des Nibelungen at other theatres. The artist who deserves a special mention is the tireless Bradley Daley, whose technically assured, yet rough sounding and a bit “rough-hewn” tenor perfectly suits the character of Siegfried – a kind of anti-hero of this tragedy, a thoughtless and sometimes cruel boy, whom fate has not allowed to mature, except perhaps in the last flash of his agony. One of the brightest points of the cast was Paul Carey Jones (Wotan/Wanderer), who has a sonorous and very focused bass-baritone with a distinctive honeyed tone. He gave a memorable performance especially in Die Walküre, poignantly torn between a desperately kept up semblance of authority and voice of the heart. I found him slightly less convincing in Das Rheingold and Siegfried, where an unquestionable display of vocal skill sometimes took the better of the subtlety of interpretation. Of the two Nibelungs I was definitely more impressed by Adrian Dwyer, a singer with a meaty and flexible tenor, in the role of Mime. Mark Stone did not repeat his success of five years previously: his portrayal of Alberich, blinded by hatred and lust for power, brilliant in terms of acting, did not find sufficient support this time in his vocal performance, given in a voice that was loud, but dull and no longer seducing with a wide colour palette. On the other hand, Madeleine Shaw’s rounded, luscious soprano took on even greater clarity in the role of the intransigent Fricka, haughty to the point of caricature.

Die Walküre. Foreground: Paul Carey Jones (Wotan). Photo: Matthew Williams-Ellis

Two singers took on dual roles, which deserves particular mention especially in the case of Mark Le Brocq, a versatile artist with a resonant, clear, well-trained tenor. Opera regulars associate him primarily with Mozart and Britten (he has recently received excellent reviews for his portrayal of Aschenbach in WNO’s new staging of Death in Venice), although Le Brocq does not shy away from lighter and supporting roles in Wagner’s operas (last year I could not praise him enough after Tristan at Grange Park Opera, where the director cast him in a role that merges the characters of Melot and the Young Sailor into one). In Longborough he accomplished what seemed impossible: sang Loge and Siegmund three times on consecutive days. In his showpiece part from Das Rheingold he played with phrasing and caressed every word with the same flexibility and ease with which he schemed against the Nibelungs. He approached Siegmund in Die Walküre quite differently, with a darker, more focused voice, coloured alternately by shades of misery and love ecstasy. Although Le Brocq’s singing lacked a denser, truly heroic tone, the artist made up for this shortcoming with his ability to “narrate” his role, to build it as nineteenth-century theatre actors did. In the first two acts of Die Walküre he was accompanied on stage by one of the best Hundings I have ever encountered live. I found Julian Close’s bass – cavernous and black as night – combined with a chilling interpretation of the character more memorable than his take on Hagen in Götterdämmerung, less convincing, at times even overdone, in comparison with last year.

I delayed my assessment of Lee Bisset, who once again portrayed Brünnhilde, until the last moment. The Scottish singer has a beautiful, rich, golden-coloured soprano, a splendid stage presence that seems perfect for the role, and outstanding acting skills. Unfortunately, there is an increasingly intrusive vibrato in her voice, over which the artist completely loses control in dynamics above mezzo forte. Perhaps this is due to fatigue, perhaps to insufficient breath support, which is also suggested by forcibly attacked notes at the top of the scale. But what can I say, I would have followed her Brünnhilde into the fire that consumed Walhalla anyway – there is so much wisdom in her singing, such a fusion with the character portrayed, so much truth derived straight from the pages of the score. I find it hard to extricate myself from this paradox, especially since in every part of the Ring sparks were literally flying across the LFO stage, kindled by the characters present on it. They included the phenomenal Sieglinde of Emma Bell, whose warm, luscious soprano brought to my mind irresistible associations with the voice of young Régine Crespin; the magnificent, slightly baritonal Froh portrayed by Charne Rochford; the velvety-voiced Fasolt (Pauls Putnins); the exquisitely matched Gibichung siblings (Laure Meloy and Benedict Nelson) and the fiery Waltraute (Claire Barnett-Jones). Not to mention the twenty-two-strong male chorus in Götterdämmerung, which would outclass many larger ensembles with its power and clarity of sound.

Siegfried. Bradley Daley in the title role. Photo: Matthew Williams-Ellis

There would have been no such marvels, if it had not been for Anthony Negus – an absolutely uncompromising man, a conductor who came to the fore only when he knew far more about Wagner’s music and its contexts than most of his colleagues making their debuts on the Green Hill today. I have written many times that he is a master at deciphering and exploiting the dramatic potential of the music to the full. Just as often I have compared his interpretations to living beings – undulating to the rhythm of their collective breathing, teeming in the depths of the orchestra pit, wailing like sea birds and rustling like leaves. Negus is a natural-born narrator, who can attract and focus the listener’s attention for hours without missing a single detail of the musical tale.

Yet it is not enough to come up with an apt interpretation. It still needs to be exacted from the musicians. Or in other words: the conductor needs to win them over to his vision, to make them recognise it as their own and speak with one voice in rapture. I spent my childhood and early youth behind the Iron Curtain, briefly raised in the 1970s, which enabled me to experience my first live tetralogy – in Warsaw, in a production featuring Berit Lidholm and Helge Brilioth, among others. I had to wait nearly half a century for a Ring that would be as coherent and equally thrilling – albeit immersed in an earlier tradition, closer to the original contexts – until my visit to Longborough. And I fear that the world of Wagnerian mythology will never again emerge as vividly from nothingness as in the prelude to Das Rheingold under Negus. That I will not live to see a future Siegfried reforge his father’s sword at the pace indicated by the composer, “Kräftig, doch nicht zu schnell”. That in no finale of Götterdämmerung will the Rhine flow so widely, having returned to its former bed.

Götterdämmerung. Lee Bisset (Brünnhilde) and Bradley Daley (Siegfried disguised as Gunther). Photo: Matthew Williams-Ellis

Whatever happens, I will certainly not forget the introduction to Act I of Die Walküre, conducted and played in such a way: with the violins’ and violas’ tremolando persistently and yet powerfully contrasted dynamically – sometimes within a single bar – with references to the Wotan’s spear motif in the cellos and double basses tearing into it as if into living flesh, with later flashes of Donner’s thunderbolts in the brass. And when the storm began to subside, all you had to do was “nudge the branch with your hand to still be able to smell the phosphorus of the lightning”, as in Nowak’s poetry. And it is still possible to smell this phosphorus. May it smell as long as possible.

Translated by: Anna Kijak

It is hard to believe that it has been over half a century. This may be because the Academy Ancient Music, established in 1973, has had only three music directors to date: its founder Christopher Hogwood, who spent thirty-three years with it; Richard Egarr, who headed it for fifteen seasons; and Laurence Cummings, who took the helm in 2021, after ten years as the artistic director of the Internationale Händel-Festspiele Göttingen. The name of the ensemble is an allusion to the elite group of musicians operating from 1726 at London’s Crown and Anchor Tavern near Strand and then the Freemasons Hall in Covent Garden. Although in the eighteenth century time flew more slowly than it does today, the term “ancient music” was used to refer not only to pre-Reformation works, but also to rarely heard old works by English and foreign composers. This included the music of George Frederick Handel, who has been one of the pillars of the “new” Academy.

The most important events in the celebrations of the AAM’s fiftieth anniversary included the launch of Richard Bratby’s book Refiner’s Fire – in which the author tells the story of the ensemble against the background of the twentieth-century revolution in period performance of early music – as well as the first-ever complete recording of Mozart’s keyboard pieces. In the flurry of other engagements I had to miss most of the orchestra’s ambitious ventures in the concert halls of London and Cambridge. I could not, however, resist the temptation to hear Orlando at the finale of the anniversary celebrations at the Barbican Centre, especially given the fact that I encountered Handel’s last opera written for Senesino and staged at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, in my youth in the AAM’s 1990 recording, conducted by Hogwood and featuring James Bowman in the title role. Another “magic” opera by Handel and, at the same time, the first based on Ariosto’s Orlando furioso – and compared later by musicologists with Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte – is ostensibly an opera seria, but with fantastic elements, full of unexpected twists and turns, watched as if from a distance and sometimes clearly with tongue in cheek. The anonymous libretto (perhaps by the composer himself) draws on an earlier text by Carlo Sigismondo Capece, the court poet of the queen consort of Poland Marie Casimire Sobieska. In Ariosto’s work the mad Orlando flies across the world and travels to the moon; among the multitude of characters we find Saracens, brave knights and sorcerers; and there is also room for a sea monster and a winged hippogriff. Handel’s version is slightly simpler, which does not change the fact that the brave knight falls in love with a Cathayan princess, who in turn has given her heart to an African prince, of whom a simple shepherdess is enamoured. The figure pulling the strings is the magician Zoroastro, who makes sure that the protagonists guide the plot towards a relatively happy ending.

Iestyn Davies (Orlando) and Laurence Cummings. Photo: Mark Allan

The opera is full of peculiarities, from the sinfonia in the disquieting key of F sharp minor, used by Handel probably once before (in the harpsichord suite HWV 431), Zoroastro’s first elaborate showpiece – a magnificent bass aria, Italian in style, at a point where listeners of the day would have expected instead a bravura aria of the main protagonist, all the way to one of the most famous mad scenes in the history of the form, with Orlando’s supposed descent into the underworld, in which Handel changes the soloist’s tempo seven times and metre five times, resorting, for example, to the “indecent” measure of 5/8, and, in addition, giving Senesino a tempo di gavotta aria, interrupted in the middle by a despairing larghetto, where pathos competes with the grotesque. What is also peculiar are the relationships between the protagonists – with the shepherdess Dorinda being unexpectedly put on a par with Orlando, able to draw far wiser conclusions from her unrequited love for Medoro than the King of the Franks’ paladin in love with the unattainable Angelica. If we add to this Orlando’s sleep scene from Act III – accompanied by two longing violette marine and cello pizzicato – we will see a masterpiece that broke with the convention of the period enough for the composer to fall out with the first performer of the title role, and for the opera to disappear from the stage after only eleven performances, only to return nearly two hundred years after its 1733 London premiere.

During its final concert of the season the AAM – led by Cummings standing at the harpsichord – also confirmed its dramatic qualities, thanks especially to the extraordinarily lucid and disciplined playing of the twenty-strong orchestra. Particularly worthy of note in it were Bojan Čičić (who together with William Thorpe put aside his violin to lull Orlando to sleep in “Già l’ebro mia ciglio” with the soft sound of two violas d’amore, in lieu of the mysterious violette marine); the remarkable oboists Leo Duarte and Robert de Bree, who also played the recorders; as well as Ursula Paludan Monberg and David Bentley, who complemented the colour of Act I with the pure and full sound of two natural horns, held high with the bells facing upwards. The strings were magnificent with their luscious sound and masterfully nuanced narrative, while Alastair Ross (harpsichord) and William Carter (theorbo) impressed with their stylish ornamentation in the continuo.

Iestyn Davies and Anna Dennis (Angelica). Photo: Mark Allan

The Academy of Ancient Music’s line-up was twice as small as that of the ensemble which accompanied the first performers of the opera and which was described – admiringly, it must be said – by the Scottish politician and composer Sir John Clerk as so powerful that it occasionally drowned out the singers. The voices of the five soloists reached the Barbican Hall auditorium with no problems whatsoever, although the supple and colourful bass of Matthew Brook (Zoroastro) carried over the orchestra much better in dazzling coloraturas than in the sometimes dull notes in the lower register. In the title role Iestyn Davies was certainly no much for the legendary Senesino in terms of volume, but he made up for his lack of powerful sound with the nobility of his countertenor voice, immaculate technique and exceptional musicality (excellent “Fammi combattere” from Act I). The role of Medoro – entrusted to a female singer as the composer intended – was sung well by Sophie Rennert, a singer endowed with an agile mezzo-soprano, spot-on intonation-wise, but perhaps just a bit too bright for this en travesti alto part. It would be hard, however, to direct any criticism at Rachel Redmond, whose clear, “dancing” soprano was perfect for Dorinda, while her fiery temperament and exceptional sense of comedy would surely have won praise from Celeste Gismondi, who played the beautiful shepherdess during the premiere of the work. Yet the highlight of the entire cast was Anna Dennis (Angelica), who, as she had done two months earlier in Göttingen, was impressive in her freedom of phrasing, her wonderfully open top register and her ability to paint a mood with an appropriate voice colour – in her “Verdi piante” the grass really swayed and the leaves were reflected in the river as if in a mirror.

Thus, there is no need for sumptuous sets and elaborate gestures to learn from Handel’s perverse sentimental education, to reflect on Orlando’s madness, Angelica and Medoro’s happiness, and Dorinda’s surprisingly mature wisdom. All that is needed is a belief in the magic power of one the greatest masterpieces of Baroque opera – a belief fuelled by Laurence Cummings’ infectious enthusiasm. The Academy of Ancient Music will have more jubilees to celebrate: since its very beginning it has been looked after by some genuine wizards.

Translated by: Anna Kijak

The beginning of June marked precisely seventy years since the first attempt to perform L’Orfeo on period instruments: at the Wiener Festwochen, under the baton of Paul Hindemith, officially with the Wiener Symphoniker, in fact – with musicians recruited from that orchestra, who were part of the still “nameless” ensemble, Concentus Musicus Wien, founded a year earlier by the Harnoncourts. In the long journey of Monteverdi’s masterpiece to operatic stages, Swiss tropes were already present: the performers used material prepared by Hindemith, who took up a professorship at the University of Zürich after the war. The modest staging on the Konzerthaus stage was by Leopold Lindtberg, who had left Vienna in 1933, fleeing the brownshirt revolution, and reached Switzerland by a circuitous route through Paris, Warsaw and Tel Aviv.

The sound recording of the 1954 event was released just over a decade ago, too late for L’Orfeo aficionados – even the oldest ones, who grew up with the famous recordings featuring Layos Kozma or Nigel Rogers – to treat it as something else than a mere period curiosity. What did go down in history, however, was the Opernhaus Zürich’s venture, initiated shortly after the composer’s four-hundredth birthday and launched with a staging of La favola d’Orfeo that proved to be a real breakthrough in the history of the work. Firstly, because of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s theatrical concept, which defined the canon of staging Baroque operas for many years to come. Secondly, by commemorating this production in a television film, later released on DVD, thanks to which we gained access to the chronologically oldest video recording of L’Orfeo. Thirdly and most importantly, because of the musical direction of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who decided to create a separate ensemble at the Zürich company for the Monteverdian cycle and to assemble the cast primarily from among local artists (the eponymous Thracian singer was portrayed by Philippe Huttenlocher, perhaps the first baritone performer of the role in the history of period instrument performance).

José Maria Lo Monaco (La Musica) and Krystian Adam (Orfeo). Photo: Monika Rittershaus

Thus it would not be an exaggeration to say that L’Orfeo began its modern stage life in Zürich. And however we judge Ponnelle’s stagings today – long outdated according to malcontents, still treated as an important point of reference by no less numerous enthusiasts – it is impossible to avoid comparisons between the memorable initiative of the 1970s and the new productions of Monteverdi operas, which have appeared regularly on the local stage since Andreas Homoki took over as director of Opernhaus Zürich. After Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria directed by Willy Decker and L’incoronazione di Poppea by Calixto Bieito it was time for Orfeo.  The latest premiere was prepared by Evgeny Titov, a relatively young graduate of the St. Petersburg Theatre Arts Academy, who, after a brief acting career in Russia, went on to study at the Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna and has since directed mostly drama. His experience in opera is limited to just a handful of productions, of which last year’s Poppea at the Opéra national du Rhin was unanimously criticised for being incompatible with Raphaël Pichon’s musical concept.

The Zürich Orfeo fared even worse in that it diverged from the concept of Monteverdi himself. Titov places the whole thing in a uniformly dark setting (set design by Chloe Lamford and Naomi Daboczi, costumes by Annemarie Woods), only occasionally illuminated by the cold flash of steel, the pallid light of fluorescent tubes and the bluish glow of slow-motion projections, bringing to mind irresistible associations with ectoplasm floating in the dark. Orpheus digs a grave already in the Prologue, Eurydice will rise from a coffin before the wedding, and will return to it often enough to make the spectators doubt whether they are really dealing with a flesh-and-blood being. The phrenetic energy of the first act and the beginning of the second act – until the words “dopo il mal vie più felice”, after which the Messenger arrives and Orpheus sees for himself in the cruelest possible manner that the sleeping dogs should be left lying – is not reflected at all on stage. The joyful dances of the shepherds take the form of grotesque pre-nuptial rituals – in the barren blackness of basalt rocks, with faded flowers in men’s boutonnieres and large artificial fruits in place of the lushness of Thracian meadows. It gets brighter – paradoxically – only after the descent into Tartarus. Death, however, lurks everywhere. Having lost Eurydice again – though she may have been dead from the very beginning – Orpheus finds himself back in the same setting with a white coffin and a dug up grave. Summoned by Apollo to heaven, he lingers a bit too long. A loud shot is heard in the darkness of the stage.

Krystian Adam. Photo: Monika Rittershaus

There was some discussion in the lobby about whether the director wanted to turn Monteverdi’s tale of Orpheus into a suicide’s nightmarish dream, an equally nightmarish journey into the depths of emotions that accompany loss, or a universal parable about the disastrous consequences of an excess of feelings. I dare to formulate yet another hypothesis: that Titov made an unsuccessful, though at times visually appealing, attempt to tell the story of Orpheus through Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. Hence the strange resemblance of scenes in the first act to the grand ball at Satan’s. Hence the ubiquitous darkness of the staging, for the Master does not deserve light, only peace and quiet. Hence the suspiciously Mephistophelean appearance of Apollo in the finale. Hence the suggestion that both Orpheus and Eurydice must die in order to depart for another world. That’s all very well, but there is no connection to Striggio’s libretto and sometimes there is blatant contradiction with the music.

The music, which resounded in Zürich with sufficient brilliance to make up for any shortcomings of Titov’s staging. The artists who stood out in particular among the carefully selected cast were the male singers: the bass Mirco Palazzi with his noble and perfectly supported voice in the dual roles of Caronte and Plutone; the experienced British tenor Mark Milhofer as Apollo, singing with a voice that was clear and even across registers; and Massimo Altieri as 1. Pastore, captivating with his flexibility and freedom of phrasing. Particularly striking among the female voices was Simone McIntosh, whose rounded and rich mezzo-soprano was just as convincing in the role of La Speranza as in the expressively extremely different role of Proserpina. Miriam Kutrowatz was slightly disappointing, singing Euridice as if from a distance, as a result of which she failed to fully show the qualities of her silvery soprano. José Maria Lo Monaco (La Musica/Messagera/Eco) sometimes had trouble restraining her excessive vibrato, but otherwise her interpretations stood out by virtue of their considerable musicality and sense of style.

Miriam Kutrowatz (Euridice), Simone McIntosh (Proserpina), and Mirco Palazzi (Plutone). Photo: Monika Rittershaus

The revelation of the Zürich production, however, was Krystian Adam as Orfeo. His ardent tenor is getting an increasingly beautiful baritonal tinge at the lower end of the scale with each passing season, without losing the purity of the high notes or the ability to make smooth transitions between registers. Most importantly, the singer impresses with his superb Italian diction, understanding of the text and technical ease, thanks to which the immeasurable wealth of the Monteverdian ornamenti and abbellimenti loses all marks of empty showmanship and serves only what it is supposed to serve, that is to highlight the affects contained in the music. The absence of L’Orfeo from the repertoires of Polish opera companies is a growing mystery to me: surely we can no longer make excuses, saying we lack a worthy performer of the title role.

The beautiful overall picture was made complete by the superbly prepared chorus of the Zürcher Sing-Akademie and La Scintilla orchestra, which has continued the tradition started at Opernhaus Zürich by Harnoncourt for more than two decades. The whole thing was conducted by Ottavio Dantone, who for the second time used a new edition by Bernardo Ticci, prepared for an earlier production in Lausanne, which premiered in 2016. This time it got more sensitive and competent performers, which was apparent already in the famous Toccata, enriched by the bright, soft sound of Baroque cornettos. It’s a pity that the director did not let himself be inspired by this musical energy. However, I do not lose hope that one day the words of Bulgakov’s Margarita will come true and everything will be as it should be.

Translated by: Anna Kijak

Agatha Christie once said that the books we read would return to us in an extraordinary manner. Sometimes music does too. Last year I arrived in Göttingen straight from Venice, after a performance of Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno at Teatro Malibran – and I did not expect that arias from this oratorio would come back to me not only at the Handel Festival, but also several months later at Bayreuth Baroque. This season I planned to arrive for the finale of the Göttingen festival, but I had to change my plans and came for the first three days of the event – which was launched by a performance of Il trionfo by the soloists and the FestspielOrchester conducted by George Petrou. “Lascia la spina” returned to me again the following day. And not just once. In a manner as extraordinary as it was unexpected.

This year’s inauguration took place in the newly restored Stadthalle on the outskirts of the Old Town. Until recently, the future of the huge building, erected in the early 1960s on the basis of Rainer Schell’s design, hung in the balance. The building was in a poor technical condition. Some residents still have not got used to its modernist aesthetics: primarily its unusual facade made of iridescent ceramic slabs, to which the Stadthalle owes its derisive nickname “tiled stove”. Doubts were raised as to whether the structural elements made of asbestos and exposed during the renovation might not pose a health risk to the public. The renovation works were prolonged due to the pandemic and in the end cost more than double the planned amount. Critics did not go silent even after the grand opening of the Stadthalle in January 2024. Specialists complained about, for example, the concert hall’s acoustic defects, which, despite costly treatments, could not be eliminated in a space restored in accordance with the original architectural design.

There is no denying it, it is no Musikverein, and lovers of nineteenth-century symphonic music certainly have a right to feel disappointed. However, Handel’s oratorio, featuring a small orchestra and four soloists, sounded sufficiently selective and transparent in the Stadthalle for listeners to be able to fully appreciate the pulse, emotion and drama of this youthful masterpiece. The production was discreetly directed by Ilka Seifert, Sasha Waltz’s assistant for the Warsaw production of Hosokawa’s Matsukaze, supported by other collaborators of the German choreographer: Folkert Uhde, author of symbolic, non-distracting video projections, and Jörg Bittner, responsible for the lighting. However, their efforts would have been of no use, if it had not been for the thoughtful interpretation of Petrou, who opted for a highly difficult – and masterfully implemented by the musicians – idea of gradually, almost imperceptibly slowing down the narrative until finally “stopping the time”. The FestspielOrchester Göttingen, founded in 2006 by Nicholas McGegan, who added instrumentalists with long-standing ties to the festival to its line-up, is on a par with Europe’s best baroque ensembles. Petrou knows not only how to make it sound as a unified organism, but also how to give showcase the individual virtuosos (led by the phenomenal oboist Susanne Regel; Fernando Aguado, an organist with an exceptional sense of style; and the concertmistress, about whom more in a moment). He also works brilliantly with singers, who created a convincing quartet of “living” allegories – despite an unexpected cast change in the role of Bellezza.

Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. Anna Dennis (Bellezza) and Elizabeth Blumenstock (violin). Photo: Alciro Theodoro da Silva

Or maybe it was because of this change, as the indisposed Louise Kemény was replaced by the phenomenal singer actress Anna Dennis, an artist with an expressive soprano, whose colour she can shade, as if she were mixing pigments on a palette. I was very impressed by Emöke Barath as Piacere. Hers is a rich, dark soprano with superb support, which she demonstrated in the aria “Lascia la spina”, sung in an exceptionally slow, “languid” tempo. Xavier Sabata did a surprisingly fine job as Disinganno, making up for some shortcomings of his now fading countertenor with a wise interpretation. The young Emanuel Tomljenović, an artist endowed with a full, handsome and perfectly placed tenor, effortlessly overcame all the difficulties of the role of Tempo, although in his case I did miss a deeper reflection on the text.

Regardless of the musical qualities of the performance, the audience was certainly impressed by the director’s beautiful yet simple decision to have Bellezza take the first violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock by the hand in the finale, bring her out of the orchestra, seat her in a chair at the front of the stage and sing “Tu del Ciel ministro eletto” in such an intimate duet with the concertmistress that the audience became oblivious to the whole world. Who knows, perhaps what moved me more than the singing was the stylish playing of the veteran of the historically informed performance practice moving the bow across the strings of an instrument that was already “grown up” when Handel was born.

The day after the dazzling inauguration we moved to the Deutsches Theater, where a new staging of one of the festival patron’s operas is premiered each year. This time the organisers surprised some regulars by joining the growing campaign to resurrect the pasticcio genre. I have written about it many times, especially in the context of Rivoluzione e Nostalgia at La Monnaie, so I don’t need to convince anybody how fervently I am supporting it. Nor do I need to say that it takes a great deal of knowledge, and not just musicological knowledge, to create a good pasticcio; that it takes painstaking work and angelic patience; and, above all, that it requires a true belief in the durability and power of the operatic form.

Krystian Lada demonstrated that it was possible to assemble a coherent story about the 1968 revolt and its far-reaching consequences from fragments of Verdi’s operas. George Petrou and Laurence Dale – a fine British tenor who took up directing and conducting after a triumphant career – opted for a seemingly more conservative approach, creating a Handelian pasticcio on the basis of Balzac’s short story “Sarrasine”. Few people remember, however, that the second life of this 1830 literary miniature began precisely in 1968, with a seminar devoted to it by Roland Barthes, who published the transcript of his lectures at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris in his famous book S/Z. In it he carried out a brilliant deconstruction of the “logic of the plot”, the axis of which is the story of a young, rebellious sculptor and his obsessive love for the beautiful singer Zambinella – unwilling to make a closer acquaintance with the artist, who has no idea that the object of his yearning is, in fact, a beautiful castrato.

The weakness of Barthes’ new theory of meanings was pointed out by, among others, Ewa Bieńkowska, who wrote that when reading S/Z she got the impression she was dealing with a man for whom “reading is a delight and who would like to share this subtle pleasure with us”. However, the book caused quite a stir across the world and attracted a wave of interest in Balzac’s forgotten piece, for obvious reasons also among musicians and theatre people. The story of Sarrasine and Zambinella was told by, for example, Neil Bartlett in a once famous operatic vaudeville with music by Nicolas Bloomfield.

Sarrasine. Myrsini Margariti (Madame de Rochefide) and Sreten Manojlović (Balzac). Photo: Alciro Theodoro da Silva

Petrou and Dale approached Sarrasine the way Bieńkowska once imagined Barthes engrossed in Balzac, “savouring every word, summoning to his aid … all his learning, all the knowledge and associations provided by a solid and wide-ranging education”. Petrou compiled the musical material of the two-act pasticcio exclusively from works by Handel – fragments from operas, cantatas and oratorios (often in alternative versions or those rejected by the composer), as well as excerpts from his concerti grossi – with a recurring sarabande motif, which manifests itself in various forms, from the instrumental fragment from Almira, the aria “Lascia la spina” from Il trionfo, to the sarabande from Suite in D minor HWV 437, so memorably used in Barry Lyndon. Dale added French and Italian dialogues to the libretto.

The artists remained faithful to Balzac’s “story within a story”, highlighting the two parallel love plots – the courtship of the Narrator, identified here with Balzac, of Madame de Rochefide, and Sarrasine’s infatuation with the castrato Zambinella – as well as the clash of opposites present in the literary original: darkness and glamour, youth and old age, beauty and ugliness. This was facilitated by Giorgina Germanou’s sparse sets, well lit by John Bishop, against backdrop of which the set designer was all the more effective in building a multifaceted narrative structure using evocative costumes. She did that in very good collaboration with the director, who directed the soloists – as well three Deutsches Theater actors accompanying them in minor roles – with truly British precision.

The main burden rested with the four singers, the most memorable among whom was Samuel Mariño as Zambinella. It is a role as if made for him: the Venezuelan soprano is distinguished not only by his unusual voice, but also by his intriguing androgynous looks, which, in combination with very decent acting skills, enabled him to create a convincing portrayal of an unhappy castrato. However, I do not share most of my colleagues’ admiration for the vocal side of his performance. Mariño is endowed with a soprano that is undoubtedly lovely, but not backed by solid technique – although he can certainly “cheat” by means of spectacular trills, often unconnected to the logic of phrasing, as well as other, not always stylish embellishments. His volume is slight and he does not even know how to hide this: in fact, he exhausted all his potential in the aria “L’armi implora” from the first act. Musically, he was definitely outshone by Juan Sancho in the title role. I first encountered this singer live last year in Madrid, during the premiere of Corselli’s Achille in Sciro. Some over-expression in his luscious tenor – jarring in the role of Nearco at the time – worked perfectly this time as a vehicle for Sarrasine’s amorous sufferings. The beautiful and subtle Madame de Rochefide was portrayed by the Greek soprano Myrsini Margariti, an artist endowed with a voice that is luminous and wide-open in the upper register, but has too much vibrato at times. The soft, sparkling basso cantante of Sreten Manojlović (Balzac) caught my attention already in 2019, in the Viennese Halka conducted by Łukasz Borowicz, in which Manojlović was given the episodic role of the Piper. At that time I also appreciated his acting talent, although Mariusz Treliński handled the character he portrayed rather unceremoniously. The way Manojlović built the character of Lotario in the production of Flavio at last year’s Bayreuth Baroque became the subject of an in-depth analysis by several of my students at Warsaw’s Academy of Dramatic Arts. His Balzac in Sarrasine demonstrates his consistent development as an artist, both in his singing (a wonderfully passionate, “whispered” duet with Madame de Rochefide in Act One) and in his acting. Laurence Dale entrusted him with the extremely difficult task of playing the role of a participant in the events, while at the same time observing things from a distance, as a “storyteller”. And it was he, not the cardinal’s envoys, who was made Sarrasine’s killer by Dale – in the finale of the opera Balzac saves Zambinella by dealing a coup de grâce to the unhappy, pain-crazed creature he himself created as the narrator.

Musical Playmobil Performance at Sheddachhalle. Maren Ries (violin) and Jan de Winne (flute). Photo: Alciro Theodoro da Silva

I left Göttingen two days after the premiere of Sarrasine, having become convinced that Petrou was successfully continuing the mission of his predecessors. I laughed at a less than hour-long performance by the NeoBarock ensemble, which, with the help of LEGO blocks and projections by Michael Sommer, explained to kids what Rameau’s Les Indes galantes was all about. I appreciated a concert by the saxophonist Lutz Koppetsch and the Bayerisches Kammerorchester Bad Brückenau, conducted by Johannes Moesus, at the Stadthalle Northeim, which was diligently prepared, though mainly with older listeners, still unaccustomed to the sound of early instruments, in mind. I was saddened to hear that Ernst Puschmann, the “Bell-ringer of St. Jacobi” who for years had expanded the church’s chimes by adding more bells and last year had created a “real” two-octave carillon – died less than a month before the opening of the Händel-Festspiele. Fortunately, he managed to inaugurate the instrument before that – and Martin Begemann was presumably proud to take over his mantle as performer of the festival morning concerts from the tower of St. James’ Church.

Next year I will try to hear and see more. May it return later. There is never enough surprises.

Translated by: Anna Kijak

In mid-May 1968, two days after the occupation of the Sorbonne and the general strike in France began, Jean-Louis Barrault opened the doors of the Odéon to a crowd of several thousand demonstrators. He did not suspect that the events of the 1830 July Revolution, when the theatre became one of the main centres of activity for the rebellious youth of the day, would be repeated in a distorted form and get out of hand. The first barricades made of cars, fallen trees and furniture hauled from the university were already standing in the Latin Quarter. The red banners of the socialists and the black flags of the anarchists flew in the streets, tear gas fumes were in the air. The protesting students ripped the lids off the city’s rubbish bins to use them as shields in clashes with the police. They were joined by artists, intellectuals and a growing number of agitators. On the night of 16-17 May Barrault noted in his diary: “We feel betrayed and have no desire to take sides. We are moved only by genuine students. It seems to me that they have been betrayed as much as we have”.

The revolt in Italy began much earlier and lasted much longer, from 1966 until the autumn of 1969. It swept through universities all over the country, from Milan and Turin, Naples and Padua, to Genoa and Salerno. Unlike in France, in Italy the student movement merged from the very beginning with the workers’ movement. The students helped the strikers edit leaflets, and held joint meetings to analyse the course of events and plan strategies for the future. The government focused primarily on torpedoing the activities of the extreme left. It ignored extremists on the other side, including the radical, neo-fascist faction of the Ordine Nuovo. In December 1969 two members of the organisation carried out a bomb attack in Milan’s Piazza Fontana. Seventeen people were killed. The “creeping May” ended and the “years of lead” began.

One hundred and twenty years earlier, in 1848, when the riots later referred to as “Cinque giornate” broke out in Milan, Verdi happened to be in Paris. Hearing about the uprising, he set out for Lombardy and arrived there on 5 April, two weeks after the end of the uprising. In a letter to Francesco Piave he announced that he was drunk with happiness after the rebels’ victory and did not intend to waste paper on composing, when it would be better to use it to make casings for bullets. It was a Pyrrhic victory. The losses suffered by Milanese were twice as big as those of the Austrians they chased away; and the Austrians returned to the city in July. The Risorgimento lasted until 1871 and did not end with the unification of all the lands inhabited by Italians. The year 1968 changed the face of the world, but it is still only one of the many milestones on the path to a united Europe that is yet to be travelled.

Rivoluzione. Enea Scala (Carlo). Photo: Karl Forster

Jacques Mallet du Pan was a royalist, but he rightly compared a revolution to Saturn devouring his own children. Krystian Lada followed this clue in his latest project, commissioned by Brussels’ La Monnaie and its boss Peter de Caluwe. This was the second attempt by the company – after the well-received Bastarda based on a concept by Olivier Fredj – to revive the Baroque pasticcio convention. However, while the idea behind the Bastarda was to extract the Queen Elizabeth thread from Donizetti’s four operas and glue their fragments together into a new, though still “Tudor”, whole, Lada went much further, creating a true pasticcio: an entirely new story based on musical material from Verdi’s sixteen operas, written during the initial stage of the struggle for the unification of Italy. The first part of the diptych, Rivoluzione, is set during the tumultuous 1968 riots, the second, Nostalgia – forty years later, when memories of the revolution are revived at a vernissage, under the impact of a sculptural installation drawing on those events.

A crazy idea, requiring painstaking dramaturgical work and a meticulous selection of fragments to match the concept (fragments taken from Oberto, Ernani, Stiffelio, I Lombardi alla prima crociata, Attila, I due Foscari, Giovanna d’Arco and Un giorno di regno, as well as from Nabucco and Macbeth, among others), and yet it turned out to be successful and, paradoxically, in many ways truly “Verdian” in spirit. If purists missed anything, it was a musical binder composed specifically for the occasion, which would have given both parts the semblance of a “genuine” nineteenth-century opera. Lada, however, opted for a different approach, stitching the various elements together with film inserts featuring the singers in spoken interactions and monologues, and thus avoided a “contamination” of Verdi’s music with any foreign musical body. And he probably did the right thing: the mosaic nature of the theatrical means used fitted much better with the narrative he devised, divided as it was by a distance of forty years, but still set in a not-so-distant past.

In Rivoluzione the action rushes forward like a crowd of enraged demonstrators. Lada plays out the crowd scenes brilliantly, weaves into the action excerpts from documentary films from the period, and enhances the message of the arias, cabalettas and ensembles thanks to the participation of street dancers (excellent choreography by Michiel Vandevelde). In the as usual clean stage space (the author of the entire concept was Lada, assisted in the making of the sets and video material by Łukasz Misztal and Jérémy Adonis, respectively; the costumes were designed by Adrian Stapf), superbly lit by Aleksander Prowaliński, a thread of truly Verdian intrigue is spun. The crucial character is the shipbuilder Carlo, a friend of Giuseppe, an engineering student and son of an influential police officer. Their “class inappropriate” relationship arises from their shared love of boxing. Giuseppe is dating Cristina, a film school student who still finds it impossible to recover from her old love for Carlo. Laura, Giuseppe’s sister, a violin student in a relationship with the pianist Lorenzo, who is head over heels in love with her, succumbs to a growing fascination with the devilishly handsome Carlo and abandons bourgeois ideals for the slogans of the revolt. Everything is heading for a dramatic finale on the barricades: Laura commits suicide and by the decision of the crowd joins the Pantheon of the great martyrs of the revolution.

Rivoluzione. Nino Machaidze (Laura) and Vittorio Prato (Giuseppe). Photo: Karl Forster

The story could have taken place anywhere in Europe at the time: in Paris, Milan, tank-wrecked Prague or Warsaw during the March 1968 events. Lada’s sources of inspiration might perhaps be found in Bertolucci’s The Dreamers or films by the French New Wave directors. Yet they can be more easily discovered in Verdi’s early operas, in which the “music of guns and cannons” is heard constantly, while youthful ideals clash with outbursts of equally youthful feelings in complicated amorous polygons. Lada used the potential of the Verdian convention to the full. He entrusted Laura with parts intended for a soprano with dramatic overtones, and Cristina – with parts suitable for a singer faithful to the tradition of the Italian bel canto of the likes of Donizetti and Bellini. The charismatic Carlo is a typical Verdi tenor, Giuseppe, an ambiguous character, is, appropriately, a baritone. Lorenzo’s anger and unrequited feelings are conveyed by a bass voice.

Lada “breaks” this convention with extraordinary sensitivity in Nostalgia, which takes place forty years later. Cristina is gone. Her daughter Virginia has inherited her late mother’s love of film art, subtle beauty and no less subtle voice (Lada cast the same singer in the role). The protagonists have aged. Carlo is a baritone, Giuseppe a bass and Lorenzo stops singing altogether (the bass is replaced with the actor Denis Rudge). Icilio, a politically engaged artist, sings with a tenor in which we can hear a distant echo of young Carlo’s voice. Enter Donatella, an art gallery owner, who organises a double vernissage of Virginia’s film and her boyfriend Icilio’s sculpture, entitled “Barricade 1968”. This archetypal Verdi prima donna will provoke a catharsis on the scale of an ancient tragedy in the finale: she will accidentally make Virginia realise who her father really is, summon the spirit of Laura from the beyond, unleash dormant energy in three old men, order them to destroy Icilio’s work and chase away the demons of the revolution that devoured everything they once loved.

There are several very memorable images in this diptych: a girl’s naïve delight at the sight of an atomic mushroom cloud, a delight stifled a moment later by the immense sadness of the “Patria opressa” chorus from Macbeth; the finale of the third act of Rivoluzione, binging to mind ghastly associations with Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa and several paintings by Delacroix; and the symbolic ending of Nostalgia, in which Lorenzo tries to rescue a plaster bust of Verdi from an orgy of destruction. This was another encounter for me with ultra-modern opera theatre, precisely directed, intricately put together from a myriad of perfectly fitting pieces, but, at the same time, drawing on the composer’s legacy with a fidelity bordering on homage.

Huge credit for this goes to all the musicians involved in the project, above all to the conductor Carlo Goldstein, who combines an admirable knowledge of the Verdian idiom with a sensual fervour of interpretation. Laura was finely portrayed by Nino Machaidze, singing with an impeccably produced soprano that was powerful and perfectly developed in the upper range, although not very resonant in the middle. Endowed with a luscious and tireless tenor, perfect for the role of Carlo in Rivoluzione, Enea Scala could have varied the dynamics a bit more, but I will put this minor shortcoming down to his enthusiasm, which enabled him to build a more convincing character of the young rebel. Scott Hendricks, his older incarnation in Nostalgia, has a fairly small and rather gravelly baritone, which in the second part of the diptych should, paradoxically, be regarded as an asset. The two performers of the role of Giuseppe, the baritone Vittorio Prato and the bass Giovanni Battista Parodi, did a great job. I admire the expressive power of Justin Hopkins’ interpretation (of Lorenzo), although his dark, velvety bass would definitely have benefitted in terms of beauty of tone, had the artist not been prone to singing with a low larynx. Paride Cataldo, an artist with a resonant and richly coloured lyric tenor, did well in the small role of Icilio.

Nostalgia. Gabriela Legun (Virginia), Giovanni Battista Parodi (Giuseppe), and Helena Dix (Donatella). Photo: Karl Forster

As usual, I have saved the best for last. The sensation of the diptych was Gabriela Legun in the dual role of Cristina and Virginia. Legun is a phenomenally gifted Polish soprano, winner of the 2019 Ada Sari Competition, who I think will have a beautiful international career. Legun’s golden, soft voice already impresses with its impeccable technique, and if her interpretations are still “transparent” at times, they will certainly become more expressive as she accumulates more stage experience. The other jewel in the vocal crown of Rivoluzione e Nostalgia was undoubtedly Helena Dix (Donatella), a singer endowed with a supple, sensuous, truly Verdian soprano, which she wields with enough awareness to turn Lady Macbeth’s great madness scene into both a dazzling display of bel canto and a perverse parody of the convention associated with the role. In today’s opera houses it is rare to find such an great combination of superb singing and outstanding acting with an unparalleled sense of humour.

Jean-Louis Barrault wrote shortly after the events of May 1968 that the streets of Paris were seized by hatred, that people would not be able to realise the momentousness and consequences of those events for a long time. I think the time has come. Krystian Lada and the co-authors of the success of his Brussels diptych began to dig out from under that hatred the first crumbs of love – the one that died, the one that was revived years later and the one that will last forever. As in Verdi’s music, which turned out to be a perfect vehicle for a story about quite different times.

Translated by: Anna Kijak