Category: Opera

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Mozart The Magic Flute – Opera North – Live Review

Papagena and Papageno

Friday 15 November 2024

Lowry Theatre, Salford

****

An imaginative production brings out the humanity in Mozart’s last opera

Papagena and Papageno
Pasquale Orchard as Papagena and Emyr Wyn Jones as Papageno. Photo credit: Tristram Kenton

Last Friday the revival of Opera North’s 2019 production of Mozart’s Magic Flute came to a packed Lowry Theatre in Salford. The opera opened with a little girl, dressed in bright yellow pyjamas and dressing gown, getting ready for bed, while a party took place in the next room. In a clever conceit, the girl put on a vinyl record and as the crackles began the orchestra of Opera North started playing the overture. The girl remained on stage for large parts of the opera. Director James Brining had the imaginative idea of framing the opera with the girl’s presence at the beginning and end, as a possible ‘rationalisation’ of The Magic Flute‘,

“is [the opera] merely a figment of the girl’s imagination? Is the story of a young princess [Pamina] who is fought over by Sarastro and the Queen of the Night a symbol or a fantasy for a child caught in the middle of a domestic dispute in a real, alternate universe.”

Director James Brining in rehearsal for the Leeds Playhouse/ Opera North co-production of My Fair Lady, 2024. Photo credit: Pamela Raith

At the end of the opera, the girl took centre stage while Sarastro stood at the side, reinforcing the idea that the opera was a product of her imagination. Brining was inspired by Swedish film and theatre director Ingmar Bergman’s 1975 film of the opera, which shows his daughter Linn’s reaction to the opera she is watching at various points during the film.

Ingmar Bergman’s daughter Linn from The Magic Flute (1975) directed by Ingmar Bergman.  
Produced by Sveriges Radio, TV2, AB Svensk Filmindustri,  Svenska Filminstituet.

On Friday, the opera itself began with Prince Tamino (Russian-Ukrainian tenor Egor Zhuravskii) being attacked by a dragon, wittily inspired by Dr Who monsters such as the Macra, whose crab-like arms poked through the scenery at either side of the stage, provoking laughter from the audience. The Three Ladies, handmaids of The Queen of the Night, appeared with more icons from popular culture – lightsabers! – to attack the dragon and then fought over the handsome Prince, almost tearing him limb from limb. The Ladies were a compelling mix of pantomime characters, Valkyries and women from Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale with white face-obscuring bonnets and ominous-looking blood on their outfits. Charlie Drummond, Katie Sharpe and Hazel Croft sang with gorgeous ensemble and the orchestral pacing beneath them under conductor Oliver Rundell was perfect. Rundell’s conducting was excellent throughout, dynamic, delicate, sensitive, responsive and clear.

The Three Ladies and Tamino
Katie Sharpe as Second Lady, Egor Zhuravskii as Tamino, Charlie Drummond as First Lady, and Hazel Croft as Third Lady. Photo credit: Tristram Kenton

The Magic Flute is an opera of opposites such as day and night and man and woman. Director James Brining said he was profoundly influenced by the dichotomy described in William Blake’s poem ‘The Clod and the Pebble’ from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, published only three years after the opera was written.

‘The Clod and the Pebble’ from Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794)

Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.

So sang a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattles feet:
But a Pebble of the brook,
Warbled out these metres meet.

Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight:
Joys in anothers loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite.

William Blake

The sets were designed to illustrate the stark contrast between the world of nature, represented by The Queen of the Night, and the world of reason represented by Sarastro and his followers. The natural world was in Brining’s words,

“… in a state of ruin, with organic things, like trees being hung in mid-air, with blood… with organic things, like trees, being hung mid-air, with blood dripping off the fruits, birds and animals.”

In contrast, in Sarastro’s world, everything was,

“…. vivid, very clean and clinical. Men and women are segregated, people are divided and ordered.”

Milton by William Blake
Newton by William Blake. Source: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons/Tate Britain

Brining was also influenced by Blake’s print Newton, which shows the scientist Isaac Newton surrounded by nature and ignoring it in favour of rationality. But Brining didn’t want the production to be a simple dichotomy between reason and imagination. The act of saving Pamina showed ‘compassion and sensitivity’ that went beyond binaries.

The contrast was also seen in the costumes. According to designer Colin Richmond, the Queen of the Night’s costume was like ‘an odd mix of queen, scarecrow, plucked bird and 1930s Hollywood glamour gone to seed.’ Sarastro was nobly arrayed in a costume that was a cross between a prince and a priest, with henchmen wearing sunglasses that gave them a slightly seedy air. His followers were dressed in red, like women from The Handmaid’s Tale. Monostatos was dishevelled and superbly played like a creepy uncle by Colin Judson, attracting a hearty ‘boo’ from the audience at the end as a pantomime villain.

The imaginative set and staging were matched by the quality of the singing. Egor Zhuravskii as Tamino had a sweet, ardent light tenor, his arias, as Jessica Fitton wrote, looking forward to the Italian bel canto era. Anna Dennis as the Queen of the Night was superb. In her moving first aria, she brought out the pathos and humanity of losing her daughter Pamina to Sarastro’s clutches. She negotiated the stratospheric top Fs of her later aria ‘Hell’s vengeance…’ [‘Der Hölle Rache…’] with smooth control and apparent ease. Sometimes singing four octaves (!) below her, Msimelelo Mbali as Sarastro had a lovely, dignified deep bass voice and a speaking voice to match. Claire Lees as Pamina sang beautifully, in a lyrical, legato style. She was equalled in vocal quality and interpretation by Pasquale Orchard as Papagena, who also brought humour to her part with a jolly, witty dance with Papageno, bringing an element of subversion as she raised her skirts in apparent contravention of the strict dress code of Sarastro’s followers. The Three Boys, Isla Jones, Isabelle Baglio, Hector Wainman were all excellent.

The Queen of the Night and Tamino
Anna Dennis as the Queen of the Night with Egor Zhuravskii as Tamino. Photo credit: Tristram Kenton

But the star of the show was Emyr Wyn Jones as a very human Papageno. The lovely, warm rich tones of his voice matched the warmth of his personality. Wyn Jones was born in Aberdare, South Wales and his gentle Welsh accent was very attractive in the spoken word sections. Many critics have found these sections problematic, dating right back to the premiere when a German critic wrote that the opera failed, ‘to have the hoped for success, the content and the dialogue of the work were just too terrible.’ But if they are removed – as they have been in some productions – there’s a danger that the opera can lose some of its ability to communicate. And Wyn Jones was a great communicator; some of the other singers were at times a little stilted in the spoken word parts. He brought great humour when he counted to three and asked the women in the audience if any of them would have him – judging by their reaction, there were many potential takers!

Sarastro and his Followers with (far left) Pamina and Papageno
Claire Lees as Pamina (far left), Emyr Wyn Jones as Papageno, Paul Gibson as Second Priest, Msimelelo Mbali as Sarastro and Tom Smith as First Priest with members of The Magic Flute cast and Chorus of Opera North. Photo credit: Tristram Kenton

This was a very attractive, lively performance of Mozart’s great opera. The emphasis was on communication – the opera was sung in English with subtitles, and the sets and costumes clearly delineated the opera’s themes. Some superb singing and orchestral playing helped engage the audience in the strange world of this opera; several teenage school children sitting in the audience were clearly entranced.

Performers

Egor Zhuravskii Tamino
Charlie Drummond First Lady
Katie Sharpe Second Lady
Hazel Croft Third Lady
Emyr Wyn Jones Papageno
Anna Dennis The Queen of the Night
Colin Judson Monostatos, servant of Sarastro
Claire Lees Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night
Three Boys :
Isla Jones
Isabelle Baglio
Hector Wainman
Andri Björn Robertsson The Speaker
Msimelelo Mbali Sarastro
Pasquale Orchard Papagena
Tom Smith First Priest
Paul Gibson Second Priest
Satriya Krisna First Armed Man
Richard Mosley-Evans Second Armed Man
Chorus of Opera North
Children:
Reuben Amedzro, Leroy Ayidana-Ayalingo,
Otis Borlant-Mills, Felicity Lovejoy,
Emilia McLean, Harry Ndawula,
Maria Vasilache, Niamh Walker
Oliver Rundell Conductor
Colin Richmond Set and Costume Designer
Chris Davey Lighting Designer
Douglas O’Connell Video Designer
Tim Claydon Choreographer

Sources
Duncan, Dean, Ingmar Bergman’s Film Version of The Magic Flute in The Cambridge Companion to The Magic Flute (Cambridge University Press 2023)
Bergman, Ingmar, The Magic Flute (1975)
Noor, Shamima, Magical Thinking (Opera North Programme Book)
Fitton, Jessica, The Magic Flute in a Nutshell (Ibid.)

The Magic Flute returns to Lowry, Salford Quays on 13/14 March 2025. Other dates in 2025: Leeds Grand Theatre 12, 13, 15, 22 February; Newcastle Theatre Royal 6, 7 March; Theatre Royal Nottingham 20, 21 March; Hull New Theatre 27, 29 March.

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Martinů The Greek Passion – Opera Review

John Savournin as Priest Fotis (front) and Paul Nilon as Yannakos (back) with the Chorus of Opera North, The Greek Passion © Tristram Kenton
Nicky Spence as Manolios with the Chorus of Opera North, The Greek Passion © Tristram Kenton

Opera North  

The Lowry, Salford Saturday 16 November 2019 

A visually striking production of a topical drama 

**** 

‘The poor are always with us’. So are refugees, and Martinů’s message in his opera the Greek Passion is both topical and timeless. The refugees who are at the centre of the story make a simple request of the villagers from whom they seek help, 

Give us what you have too much of 

One of the most striking moments of the Greek Passion comes at the start of Act IV when the wedding feast of the villagers Lenio and Nikolio is interrupted by the loud cry of the refugees’ priest Fotis looking down from high above. The wedding celebrations had seemed out of place in such an austere production. The rustic wedding feast could have been part of a comic opera but we are brutally reminded of the poverty of the refugees who have been forced to live up on the mountain above the village. 

The Passion of the title is the Passion Play for which parts are handed out to the villagers in the Greek village of Lycovrissi. Martinů again subverts our expectations. There is no ‘play within a play’ in which the villagers enact the story of The Passion of Christ; instead they slowly take on the characteristics of the Biblical characters they have been chosen to play.

The most striking transformation is that of Manolios who becomes increasingly inward-looking as he transforms himself into the character of Jesus, eventually becoming a public preacher and meeting his death at the hands of a baying crowd just as Jesus did. And there’s a powerful visual contrast between those who have been chosen to take the parts of Jesus, his disciples and Mary Magdalene, and the rest of the cast. They wear richly coloured garments that drop down from heaven, and are seen in stylised tableaux that could come from an Italian Renaissance painting. 

Martinů damns Organised Religion in the form of the Grigoris, preist of the villagers. He blames cholera for the death of one of the refugees, rather than starvation so that his flock have a reason to reject the refugees. He and other village elders condemn Manolios for preaching the truth and excommunicate him. The visual contrast between him and the refugees’ priest Fotis is striking. Grigoris wears the traditional costume, echoing Sean Ryder’s lyric in his song The Reverend Black Grape, ‘There’s nothing more sinister/As ministers in dresses’.

Fotis is stripped to the waist for most of the opera; shaven-headed and wearing round glasses he looks like an ascetic, cerebral Buddhist monk. 

The final, and most obvious visual contrast is between the two Choruses. In the original opera, Martinů writes for two separate Choruses – Villagers, and Refugees. In this production the same Opera North Chorus becomes both, but signifies that it’s the chorus of refugees by each singer holding a life-size white effigy of a human being. The refugees become vulnerable, ghostly, fragile figures. 

The Chorus of Opera North © Tristram Kenton

All of this would be for nothing if it the production were simply an abstract essay in morality. It isn’t. It’s populated by passionate human characters, superbly acted and sung to create a compelling and moving drama. 

CAST 

MANOLIOS …….. Nicky Spence (tenor) 
KATERINA ……Magdalena Molendowska (soprano) 
YANNAKOS ……Paul Nilon (tenor) 
PANAIT……Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts (tenor) 
PRIEST GRIGORIS……Stephen Gadd (baritone) 
PRIEST FOTIS……John Savournin (bass-baritone) 
KOSTANDIS……Richard Mosley-Evans (baritone) 
LENIO……Lorna James (soprano) 
CAPTAIN……Steven Page (baritone) 
ARCHON……Jonathan Best (bass-baritone) 
MICHELIS……Alexander Robin Baker (tenor) 
NIKOLIO…….Alex Banfield (tenor) 
SCHOOLMASTER……Ivan Sharpe (tenor) 
FATHER LADAS……Jeremy Peaker (baritone) 

Opera North Chorus 
Opera North Orchestra conducted by Garry Walker 

Available to listen for the next 22 days on BBC Radio 3’s Opera on 3: 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b6pr

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Britten The Turn of the Screw – Opera Review

Opera North

The Lowry, Salford

Wednesday 11 March 2020

A superbly creepy staging of Britten’s masterpiece

*****

Sarah Tynan as the Governess and Nicholas Watts as Peter Quint ©Tristram Kenton

The small scale of the forces involved in Benjamin Britten’s 1954 opera was evident when the whole cast came on stage at the end to take their well-deserved applause; rather than the usual choruses of flower girls, matadors and several principal roles there were just six people. The orchestra was equally small, just 13 players. This creates a peculiar intimacy, ideally suited to this intensely claustrophobic and atmospheric ghost story. Every singer and musician was exposed, and they were all equal to the task.

The set played a vital part in creating the unsettling atmosphere, dominated by a huge bed which cleverly doubled as a puppet-theatre, and a stage coach, perspectives and images distorted and exaggerated like terrifying visions from a child’s nightmare of a fairy tale. Even inanimate objects took on a sinister aspect – the rocking horse in Act I became animated on its own; the gramophone in Act II crouched malevolently.

Image ©Tristram Kenton 02/20

The nightmarish quality of the sets was enhanced by some surreal touches. The opening image of the Governess, seen from behind as she travelled in a stage coach to the country house could have come from a painting by René Magritte. The wallpaper on the vast wall at the back of the set could have been by William Morris but on a surreally large scale. When the wall disappeared to reveal the garden behind, the flowers unnaturally bright colourful as if from a painting by Henri Rousseau. The windows through which Miles stared, looking for Peter Quint, were like the windows of a pagan cathedral. Sometimes the characters cast huge shadows behind them, and even the floor sloped unsettlingly, like images from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

This production worked like the best horror films where the viewer’s imagination weds powerful visual imagery to unsettling music to create a sense of the uncanny. The two apparitions, the dead Miss Jessel and Peter Quint appeared suddenly at the window or at the door; combined with evocative lighting, a little dry ice and sinister music the two human figures take on a menacingly eerie aspect. An analogy from the world of cinema is the 2014 psychological drama and supernatural horror film It Follows, in which the disturbing score by Disasterpeace (Richard Vreeland) inspired by John Cage, John Carpenter and Penderecki, and Goblin (who wrote the score for the original 1977 version of Suspiria) makes the ordinary human form seem extraordinary and terrifying.

All this would have been for nothing if the cast hadn’t made the impressive set their own. Sarah Tynan was on stage for virtually the whole opera, and we saw much of the action through her increasingly anxious eyes. Heather Shipp was a suitably caring Mrs Grose. The children were superb – Tim Gasiorek’s movement as young Miles was outstanding, particularly when he danced to the gramophone in the second Act. Jennifer Clark as Flora had a memorable moment as she climbed on top of the four poster bed and dropped puppets down, an eerie puppeteer. They both moved convincingly like sometimes naughty children; another highlight was when a ghostly hand pulled back the curtain at the back of the bed, and it was revealed as a child’s hand, a delicious jump scare. All the singers were in fine voice, despite very occasionally being slightly overwhelmed by the orchestra. Nicholas Watts as Quint relished his melismatic melodic lines addressed to Miles, and Eleanor Dennis as Miss Jessel was suitably ghostly. Their line (from The Second Coming by WB Yeats) ‘the ceremony of innocence is drowned’ lives long in the memory. And conductor Leo McFall brought out the taut instrumental lines from his skilled ensemble with great clarity.

And so out into the real world, where appropriately, it was a dark and stormy night but without the raw emotional storms we had just witnessed inside the Lowry.

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Poulenc Dialogues des Carmélites – Opera Review

RNCM soloists, chorus and orchestra

RNCM Manchester

Saturday 14 December 2019

A stunning staging of Poulenc’s emotional opera

****

This was the final performance of the RNCM’s staging of Poulenc’s opera, Dialogues des Carmélites, set in a Carmelite monastery during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution. It’s a deeply religious work appearing towards the end of his life in the 1950s, a couple of decades after the sparkling frivolity of his early works was wrenched in a new direction by the violent death of a close friend and a visit to the sanctuary at Rocamadour,

A few days earlier I’d just heard of the tragic death of my colleague … As I meditated on the fragility of our human frame, I was drawn once more to the life of the spirit. Rocamadour had the effect of restoring me to the faith of my childhood.

The staging was superb, beautifully designed and evocatively lit. The main set was split into two levels, both painted a pristine white, the lower level sometimes looking like a Dutch painting drained of all colour by the stark white light. This was desecrated in Act III by the brief incursion of the Revolutionaries who had ripped the religious symbols off the walls, sprayed the lower walls with the slogan “god is dead”, the staircase with the word ‘liars’, and the upper wall with an anarchist symbol.

RNCM’s Dialogues des Carmélites (c) Robert Workman

And in Act III the stark, timeless simplicity of the nuns’ costumes contrasted shockingly with the brutal black leather of the riot police with their plastic shields and the garish colour of the revolutionaries’ costumes. The nuns remained at the still centre of the violently turning world.

But impressive and dramatic as the staging is, the opera is about the inner drama of the characters and the terrible beauty of the decision to nuns sacrifice themselves to the guillotine at the end of the opera. This was effectively staged, each nun throwing her head back and dropping her cloak to the floor to represent her execution, the human soul then leaving the body as each nun slowly left the stage. Poulenc’s music does most of the emotional work, the chorus of nuns becoming smaller and smaller as each nun disappears with the swift metallic sound of the guillotine. There were some tears in the audience.

The Soprano Yuliya Shkvarko was fresh-voiced and impressive as Blanche, youthful and convincing as Blanche de la Force courageously facing her moral dilemmas. A moment of horror was well-expressed when she dropped a figurine of the Christ Child from the upper part of the set and it smashed. Her young companion, the soprano Pasquale Orchard was equally good as Sister Constance. The older women impressed too – Molly Barker was moving as Madame de Croissy, sitting in anguished pain writhing in her wheelchair before she fell to the floor in a bathetic death that was too small for her, like an ill-fitting coat as the libretto says. Georgia Ellis as Mother Marie and Mariya Sevdanska as Madam Lidoine led the Sisters impressively, contrasting well with Blanche and Constance.

There were a couple of minor problems – the surtitles failed to fire up during the first Act, making it a little hard to follow, and there were some early tuning issues in the orchestra which gradually blossomed under Andrew Greenwood.

RNCM’s Dialogues des Carmélites (c) Robert Workman

But the final word belonged to Blanche, joining Constance at the very last minute to be guillotined, with a beatific smile.