PETER GRIMES, English National Opera, 1 February 2014

Benjamin Britten; PETER GRIMES

English National Opera, 1 February 2014

PETER GRIMES                                           Stuart Skelton

ELLEN ORFORD                                          Elza van den Heever

CAPTAIN BALSTRODE                              Iain Paterson

AUNTIE                                                           Rebecca de Pont Davies

FIRST NIECE                                                 Rhian Lois

SECOND NIECE                                           Mary Bevan

BOB BOLES, Methodist                             Michael Colvin

SWALLOW, Lawyer                                     Matthew Best

MRS SEDLEY                                               Felicity Palmer

Rev HORACE ADAMS                               Timothy Robinson

NED KEENE, Apothecary                         Leigh Melrose

HOBSON, carter                                          Matthew Trevino

JOHN, the apprentice                                TImothy Kirrage

DOCTOR CRABBE                                     Ben Craze

Chorus of townspeople and fishermen

CONDUCTOR                                               Edward Gardner

DIRECTOR                                                    David Alden

A stunning performance of great intensity, with orchestra, conductor and singers working so seamlessly together, the chorus as vital a character as the soloists. Indeed, Britten saw it as the individual against the collective - which is not quite how George Crabbe saw it; Britten does make Grimes into a more ambiguous character, rather than an out-and-out villain. (There is thus more room for character development, and at one some point - which I shall come to - Grimes appears as much victim as villain).

But let me start at the beginning, with a few words about the staging, which  is quite minimalist; an almost bare stage for the investigation into the death of Grimes' apprentice, with the Chorus - suspicious, hostile villagers - at the back of the stage as spectators.   Grimes (Stuart Skelton) climbs on the table to make his point to the hostile witnesses and spectators.

The second scene also is set indoors, the set later becomes the Boar - 
complete with an Auntie (Rebecca du Pont Davies)  straight out of Berlin cabaret. Nothing to do with PETER GRIMES, but a wonderful characterisation!! (The  characterisation seems to be based on a specific painting by Otto Dix)

Photo by Roy Tan,  West End Theatre

I like the little details of staging and characterisation, such as the fact that Hobson the carter is drunk under the table, but not so drunk that he can't get up and say 'Cart's full, Sir', when he realises what the job is, and the characterisation of Ned Keene as a 'bit of a wide boy'.  The scene shows Grimes at odds with the village even before his new apprentice arrives, and he does nothing to set things right, rushing off with the boy at once, provoking the cry of contempt from the villagers - 'Home!! You call that home?'

 The minimalist staging continues throughout - perhaps the emptiness reflects the emptiness of the souls of many of the characters, (with the exception of Ellen and Balstrode). There are  few scene changes, although the sea is indicated in the first scene of Act II, with Ellen and the boy on the beach. There's a poignant moment when Ellen (Elza van den Heever) takes her hat off and dances around in sheer exuberance - but it doesn't last, as she notices how quiet the boy is.

Stuart Skelton is unsurpassable as Grimes; the role takes the tenor through a whole  range of vocal colouring, from sullenness and anger in the first Act, to beauty of tone in the sad, lyrical 'in dreams I've built myself some kindlier home'...because that's all it is, dreams. This is a side of Grimes' nature that the villagers never see, and he is never able to let it flourish....

In dreams I've built myself some kindlier home

Warm in my heart and in a golden calm 

Where there’ll be no more fear and no more storm. 

And she will soon forget her schoolhouse ways 

Forget the labour of those weary days 

Wrapped round in kindness like September haze. 

The learned at their books have no more store 

Of wisdom than we’d close behind our door. 

Compared with us the rich man would be poor. 

I’ve seen in stars the life that we might share: 

Fruit in the garden, children by the shore, 

A fair white doorstep, and a woman’s care.  

Fine sentiments, and beautifully expressed, although Grimes has been seen not only terrorising the apprentice but striking Ellen.....but Britten gives the tenor  and the orchestra such beautiful music to express this impossible dream. 

He is well matched by the mellow, warm tones of Elza van den Heever as Ellen. Ellen too is a complex character, and Elza van den Heever gave a subtle, nuanced performance. The quartet with Auntie and the nieces was very moving.

  Praise also for Iain Paterson as the old sea-dog Balstrode, who stands aside from the rest of the villagers and is not entirely unsympathetic to Grimes.

All the cast displayed a very high level of musicianship and acting. Felicity Palmer deserves special mention for her presentation of the awful Mrs. Sedley. (Her malice is such that even Ned Keene, (Leigh Melrose) no friend of Grimes, feel compelled to find a reasonable explanation for his absence and the disappearance of the boy.

(Picture by Tristram Kenton)

 And now I come to the Chorus, the group of bigoted villagers with whom Grimes is at odds. The level of hostility is palpable, right from the beginning, building up to the scene in which they repeatedly shout his name - they become a howling mob, a many-headed hydra - er - waving Union Jacks? Another directorial innovation, which does make them more menacing (think BNP, for instance).  This is the point at which Grimes seems to be as much victim as villain - if you look at the actual words they sing, it seems as if it is not really about the apprentice at all, it goes deeper than that.

Chorus 

Who holds himself apart 

Lets his pride rise. 

Him who despises us 

We’ll destroy. 

And cruelty becomes 

His enterprise. 

Him who despises us 

We’ll destroy.

I refer again to the superb musicianship of the entire ensemble, the Storm Sea Interlude especially was very intense and frightening.

I love this opera, and I loved this performance.

Wagner, THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, Coliseum, 28 April 2012

Richard Wagner, THE FLYING DUTCHMAN.

English National Opera, London Coliseum, 28 April 2012

Cast:
Daland, a Norwegian Sailor                      CLIVE BAYLEY

Senta, his daughter                                    ORLA BOYLAN

Erik, in love with Senta                              STUART SKELTON

Mary, works supervisor                             SUSANNA TUDOR-THOMAS

The Steersman                                         ROBERT MURRAY

The Dutchman                                         JAMES CRESSWELL

The child Senta                                       AOIFE CHECKLAND


Chorus and orchestra of English National Opera

Conductor                                                                             EDWARD GARDNER
Director                                                                                 JONATHAN KENT


The performance opened with a very thrilling account of the overture, conveying a vivid sense of the storm battering the ships on the sea (except the Dutchman's, of course!) and waves crashing on the shore...moving on to the poignancy of Senta's motif. The ENO under Edward Gardner (this is his first time conducting Wagner) gave of their best.


When the curtain rises,  about a third of the way through the overture, we see the child Senta in her bedroom - typical little girl's bedroom, decorated in pink!! (I would imagine the designer, Paul Brown, has daughters....) She tries on her father's sea-boots...then when he comes to say goodnight to her before going to sea, he gives her a portrait of the Dutchman.

I liked this way of depicting the 'back-story' of the drama, but wasn't sure at first  whether it was appropriate to depict the entire first Scene (it was performed without an interval) as the child Senta's dream.  As the image illustrates, the violence of the storm was depicted almost realistically on the stage, while the child sits up in bed brooding over the image of the Dutchman. It all takes place in her dream, then - the Dutchman is a projection of her needs, just  .as she is a projection of his.




Clive Bayley as Daland perhaps slightly overdid the characterisation of the bluff, hearty sailor, but this worked well in contrast with the figure of the Dutchman - James Cresswell as a Byronic hero with brooding, saturnine good looks!

Because this is Senta's dream, the Dutchman first appears curled up on her bed, and then rises to deliver his monologue.

 Creswell's voice is well-suited to the role of the mysterious outsider - perhaps he looks more like a 'romantic' hero than one might expect of the Flying Dutchman, but it fits with the overall concept, and he sounded beautifully lyrical in the scene with Daland.....who is often criticised for being willing to 'sell his daughter for money', but one could turn this on its head and argue that he wants to make an advantageous match for her, as any prudent father would (like Giorgio Germont, for instance!!) 
Wagner gives Daland an abrupt, jerky melody (Wie? Hoert' ich recht? Meine Tochter sein Weib?), while the Dutchman's lament for his fate (Ach, ohne Weib, ohne Kind bin ich...) soars lyrically over this.

At the end of the scene, the child finally disappears and the adult Senta (Orla Boylan) replaces her on the bed. She gets up and gets dressed, then she goes to join the other girls in the factory, where they are making ships in bottles. Why not? The Spinning Chorus is only a device to set the scene and prepare for Senta's Ballad. I loved the idea of Mary (Susanna Tudor-Thomas) as a brassy works supervisor! Senta doesn't get on with the other girls, they mock her obsession with the picture of the mysterious stranger, and even while she sings the ballad they are making faces behind her back or just ignoring her. She sings it with fierce commitment, I think Wagner needs the soprano sound to be piercing here, and then more mellow in the scene with the Dutchman.

Meanwhile, Stuart Skelton succeeded admirably in the thankless task of trying to make Erik interesting. In this production he's a security guard, referred to disparagingly by the girls as an 'office boy'.

He sings with heartfelt sincerity and beautiful phrasing -  but who is going to listen to the office boy she's known all her life when she can dream about a mysterious stranger, who has suffered and whom she can perhaps save!!

And then - her dream comes true! She hardly notices her father, she and the Dutchman are mesmerised, staring at each other - and Daland finally notices and takes himself off. The scene between them is the heart of the matter, of course.....each sees in the other the fulfilment they have been dreaming of. The emphasis has been on the Dutchman as a figment of Senta's imagination - but, as I indicated above, it could equally well be that she is a projection of his needs. What they are expressing is  his need for redemption and her need to redeem him.

When Daland returns, he does a little dance of triumph while bright, cheerful, jolly (er, trivial?!) music breaks in on the brooding solemnity of the duet - they have been in another, 'inner' world and now they are - or at least Senta is - brought back to everyday life again. (I don't suppose the Dutchman has much recollection of what everyday life is!) A wedding ceremony takes place and then the scene changes to a drunken party...during which the sailors (most of them in fancy dress) bully Senta and almost come to the point of raping her. The girls do nothing to help her. (The Dutchman has disappeared by this time).

Why would they do this? Why would they bully their captain's daughter, as they seem to have quite a good relationship with him? It doesn't make much sense dramatically in the light of what has gone before - but when the Dutchman's crew start their spine-chilling song (we never see them, just hear the ghostly chorus), Daland's sailors run away and Senta is left alone on the stage, doing an ecstatic dance - so it seems as though she regards her marriage to the mysterious stranger as HER redemption as well.


The staging of the ending was rather disappointing - the Dutchman disappears through a trapdoor and Senta  breaks a bottle and stabs herself with a shard of glass and - that's it!  But the music contradicts this and tells us that both Senta and the Dutchman have achieved the redemption they sought.

English National Opera TOSCA, Saturday 22 May 2010

Giacomo Puccini: TOSCA

Libretto by Giuseppe Giacoso and Luigi Illica after Victorien Sardou's play LA TOSCA

Cast

Floria Tosca                                                     Amanda Echalaz

Mario Cavaradossi                                          Julian Gavin

Scarpia, Chief of Police                                 Anthony Michaels-Moore

Cesare Angelotti                                               Pauls Putnins

Sacristan                                                             Jonathan Veira

                                                                               William Robert Allenby 3, 7 July

Spoletta, a police agent                                    Christopher Turner

Sciarrone                                                             James Gower

Gaoler                                                                   Christopher Ross

Shepherd-boy                                                 Harry Stanton

                                                                            Joseph Spencer-Fry

                                                                            20, 27 May, 2, 11, 24 June, 3, 10 July

Sacristan's apprentice                               James Rich

                                                                        Teddy Favre-Gilly

                                                                        20 May 11 June

Chorus and orchestra of English National Opera

Conductor                                                             Edward Gardner

                       This is a much-heralded new production by Catherine Malfitano, herself once a notable exponent of the role.

The staging is quite conventional, not particularly spectacular except in the final moments of Act 1, in which the Cardinal's robe has an exaggeratedly long train....during the interval some of us discussed whether this was intended in a spirit of dramatic irony.

Perhaps it wasn't a particular original staging, but Malfitano's experience as a performer has evidently given her an insight into the characterisation required, for both Tosca (Amanda Echalaz) and Cavaradossi (Julian Gavin). Anthony Michaels-Moore was a little less satisfactory, for reasons I shall come to in due course.

Julian Gavin also looked the part, the audience could really believe in Cavaradossi as a young, idealistic artist; his rendition of 'Recondita armonia' was sung in an almost lightweight, carefree tone, as Cavaradossi at this stage is completely wrapped up in his art and his love, unaware of the turns events are about to take.

(In the image, you see the Sacristan with his apprentice; in the original libretto by Giacoso and Illico, the Sacristan of course doesn't have an apprentice, he just mutters to himself, but as the addition of the boy didn't detract from the drama, we can let it pass).

Gradually, as the drama unfolds, Gavin's voice becomes darker, more passionate, in his defiance of Scarpia, and the ringing tones of 'Vittoria, Vittoria!' as he manages to stagger upright - but obviously this exhausts Cavaradossi's last reserves of strength, and the henchmen drag him off.

'E lucevan le stelle' was delivered with heart-rending passion, and the orchestra, under Edward Gardner, imbued the aria with further passion, especially in the woodwinds, so that I felt tears pricking my eyelids......I love singers who are able to perform these set-pieces so that they are not just showcases for their vocal abilities (though Gavin's abilities are considerable!) but as if they really meant it, so that the audience feels Cavaradossi's suffering and despair.

 The same applies to Amanda Echalaz as Tosca. Even in the first Act, her voice has a darker quality than that of the tenor, but then she is a more passionate character....this is what Scarpia works on, of course.

Before turning to discussion of Act II, I have to say that, in comparison with the other two principals, Anthony Michaels-Moore as Scarpia was rather disappointing. His first entrance was impressive enough, but he allowed 'Tosca, tu mi fai dimenticare Iddio' to be almost swallowed up by the orchestra. We knew he was saying this, as the surtitles indicated, but - I have seen Scarpias who looked as if they were going to have an orgasm of hate, right there in the church, and in comparison Michaels-Moore seemed somewhat benign. I think the problem was that he allowed himself to fall into the trap of playing Scarpia as an unsubtle "Victoria melodrama" type villian (well, to be fair, Sardou's play IS more or less a Victorian melodrama).

However, the swaggering and posturing was more effective in the second Act, and also more convincing in the context. He sang well, but with perhaps not quite as much depth of feeling as the other two. 

 

I was very impressed by Echalaz's performance of "Vissi d'arte" (translated as "Love and music, these I have lived for"). As I indicated in discussion of "E lucevan le stelle", it could just be performed as a set-piece directed towards the audience, but she made more of it than this, imbuing it with great depth of feeling,and really as if it were an internal monologue....how can things have ended up like this, when all I lived for was my art.....and really despairing as she realises that Scarpia is not going to allow her a way out.

Interestingly, at the end of the scene, the usual stage business of her lighting the candles for the dead Scarpia is omitted. She sets the crucifix straight on Scarpia's death, and as the last few chords sound in the orchestra, she huddles on the chair, shuddering with horror at what she has done.

The supporting roles were all well and competently sung, and the orchestral playing could hardly have been surpassed, with such taut construction and attention to detail.
This is an image of the final act, on the gloomy battlements of the Castel sant'Angelo.