{"id":8558,"date":"2025-01-04T13:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-04T12:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=8558"},"modified":"2025-01-04T13:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-04T12:48:10","slug":"when-the-king-returned-from-troy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/?p=8558","title":{"rendered":"When the King Returned From Troy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Idomeneus, one of the suitors of the beautiful Helen, made to pledge by the King of Sparta to rush to the aid of her chosen bridegroom if necessary, commanded a fleet of eighty black Cretan ships at Troy. Fearless and fierce in battle, he returned home happily after the end of the Trojan War. As we read in the Odyssey<\/em>, all his companions survived as well: \u201cnone of his men was devoured by the waves\u201d. It was only in the Aeneid<\/em> that that we find a reference to Idomeneus being later banished from Crete; Virgil, however, does not specify the circumstances of the hero\u2019s banishment. Over four hundred years later the information provided by the Roman poet was complemented by his commentator Servius, according to whom the Cretan fleet came up against a storm on its way back: in exchange for abating the storm, Idomeneus promised Neptune that he would sacrifice to him the first living thing he saw after coming ashore. As cruel fate would have it, the first living thing he saw was his son. Yet Servius does not say whether the sacrifice was duly performed, and if so, whether this cruel deed resulted in the king\u2019s expulsion from his homeland. Servius even presents another variant of the myth, in which Idomeneus is banished from Crete by an usurper put on the throne after the king has left for the war.<\/p>\n

The theme of the \u201cwild” king who made a hasty promise to a deity and just as hastily kept it was used in the late seventeenth century by Fran\u00e7ois F\u00e9nelon, tutor to Louis XIV\u2019s grandson and author of the didactic novel The Adventures of Telemachus<\/em>, in which Idomeneus became an example of a ruler unworthy of imitation, a ruler who fails to act in accordance with law and reason. A side version of the myth, it became a warning to enlightened monarchs and the basis for many subsequent adaptations. The first opera about Idomeneus, with a libretto by Antoine Danchet, based on a tragedy by Prosper Jolyot de Cr\u00e9billon, was written in 1712 by Andr\u00e9 Campra. An avalanche of more operas, by composers like Baldasare Galuppi and Giovanni Paisiello, among others, was launched by archaeological works around Pompeii and Herculaneum.<\/p>\n

In 1778, when Charles Theodore, the new Elector of Bavaria, was transferring the court from Mannheim to Munich, taking with him the Kapellmeister<\/em> Christian Cannabich and most of his fine orchestra, the twenty-two-year-old Mozart was staying in Paris. He soon returned to Salzburg, but was not particularly surprised when in 1780, on the initiative of his friend Cannabich, he received a commission for a work to open the next opera season in Munich. He decided to entrust the libretto for a new Idomeneus opera to the Salzburg priest Giambattista Varesco, who adapted Danchet\u2019s text, abandoning the tragic finale in favour of a lieto fine<\/em>, a move that not only weakened the opera\u2019s message, but also disrupted its dramatic logic.<\/p>\n

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Vasyl Solodkyy (Idomeneo). Photo: Andreas Etter<\/p>\n

This, however, did not prevent Mozart from writing a score that sparkles with invention, brilliantly combines Italian, French and German influences, and, at the same time, is extremely demanding for the performers \u2013 from the soloists, the chorus singers to the orchestra musicians. The premiere at Munich\u2019s Cuvilli\u00e9s-Theater, in January 1781, was a huge success, despite the fact that the opera was presented only three times and the announcements did not even include the composer\u2019s name. In any case, Idomeneo, re di Creta <\/em>has never matched the popularity of Mozart\u2019s later works \u2013 its discography is not very impressive, it gets staged sporadically and usually fails to meet the expectations of the critics and the audiences. That is why I decided to see the new staging at the Staatstheater Mainz, expecting a lot of good things from Nadja Stefanoff as Elettra, whose love for Idomeneus\u2019 son is unrequited; and Krystian Adam, who after the September premiere replaced the Ukrainian tenor Vasyl Solodkyy in the title role in several performances.<\/p>\n

In fact, there were many more good things, largely thanks to Hermann B\u00e4umer, the music director of the Mainz company since 2011. B\u00e4umer conducted the performance with a great sense of style, in finely chosen tempos, beautifully weighing the proportions between the stage and the orchestra pit. The strings played with a clear, transparent sound, the expanded wind group worked well both in the piled-up dialogues of orchestral colours, contrasted in terms of dynamics and articulation, and in the concertante passages. The singers were provided with a very attentive and supportive accompaniment in the recitatives by Fiona Macleod on the pianoforte. The Staatsheater Mainz chorus \u2013 featuring eight coryphaei \u2013 was excellent in its fiendishly difficult parts, richly ornamented and full of non-obvious harmonies and spatial effects.<\/p>\n

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Nadja Stefanoff (Elettra). Photo: Andreas Etter<\/p>\n

I was not disappointed by Stefanoff, whose supple and sparkling soprano \u2013 combined with impeccable articulation and masterful phrasing \u2013 lent not only intensity but also psychological depth to the figure of Elettra (especially in the final aria, \u201cD\u2019Oreste, d\u2019Ajace ho in seno i tormenti\u201d, where the distraught protagonist is on the verge of madness). My expectations were more than met by Krystian Adam, an Idomeneo who was inwardly torn, vacillating between anger and anguish, not losing his royal dignity even in deepest despair. Adam managed to convey this whole range of states and emotions by purely musical means: subtly shaded dynamics, skilfully modulated timbre and great mastery of the coloratura technique, which he showed off in the famous aria \u201cFuor del mar\u201d from Act II. A fine performance was given by Alexandra Uchlin as Idamante, Idomeneo\u2019s son. Her intonation was spot-on, although her fresh mezzo-soprano proved insufficiently resonant at times. I was much less impressed by Yulietta Alexanyan in the role of Ilia, Idamante\u2019s beloved \u2013 a singer endowed with a soprano of great beauty, but produced rather mechanically and often flat. Myungin Lee was rather bland in the tenor role of Arbace. The Oracle of Neptune was voiced by the bass Tim-Lukas Reuter, while the High Priest was sung by the tenor David Jakob Schl\u00e4ger, whom the director additionally gave another highly demanding and substantial role, not included in the original cast.<\/p>\n

And here we come to the directorial concept devised by Alexander Nerlich, who decided to show the story of Idomeneus through his war trauma and the hallucinations tormenting him. Not leaving the king for a moment throughout the performance, Schl\u00e4ger is both the dark side of his personality, Neptune controlling his actions, and a sea monster sent by the god. This ghastly shadow, in royal attire but faceless \u2013 or, rather, with a face covered in black makeup, which eats into the body like a frayed mask \u2013 is, in any case, not the only demon on the Mainz stage. The dramatis personae interact with other faceless figures as well, but these are less aggressive, at times even sympathetic. They bring to mind the Japanese noppera-b\u014d<\/em> spirits, whose relentless presence torments the living with an illusory resemblance to their beloved dead (the costumes were designed by Zana Bosnjak). The associations with Japanese culture are by no means coincidental. When it comes to the visual layer of the production, Nerlich built his vision on references to the 2011 Fukushima I nuclear power plant disaster caused by an earthquake off the coast of Honshu, an earthquake that was followed by a tsunami. The starting point for Thea Hoffmann-Axthelm\u2019s light and dynamic set design was press material from the destroyed gym at the Ukedo Elementary School, where members of Japanese rescue teams camped out for months in scandalous conditions. In the background we see vivid images of fires, blue skies and the raging sea. Moving walls shape the space of, alternately, the royal residence, palace gardens and the temple of Neptune; in episodes off the coast of Crete, the enclosed scenery gives way to rolling wooden platforms.<\/p>\n

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Yulietta Alexanyan (Ilia). Photo: Andreas Etter<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that Nerlich has extended the chain of the myth\u2019s evolution by adding more links, interpreting Idomeneus\u2019 dilemma through modern threats and disputes over the model of power. However, he has put his vision into practice so discreetly and consistently that the spectators do not feel overwhelmed by the abundance of codes contained in it. The conventional decorations can just as well bring to mind nightmarish memories of the siege of Troy, the storm causes similar terror on the shores of Crete and Honshu, the stylised costumes combine elements of very diverse cultures. Most importantly, Mozart\u2019s Idomeneo<\/em> returns home happily \u2013 welcomed with open arms on successive European stages, listened to carefully, and prompting quite fresh reflection on the experience of war, violence and long separation.<\/p>\n

Translated by: Anna Kijak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Idomeneus, one of the suitors of the beautiful Helen, made to pledge by the King of Sparta to rush to the aid of her chosen bridegroom if necessary, commanded a fleet of eighty black Cretan ships at Troy. Fearless and fierce in battle, he returned home happily after the end of the Trojan War. As … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-mangusta","post-8558","format-standard","category-posts-in-english","category-wedrowki-operowe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8558"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8564,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558\/revisions\/8564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atorod.pl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}