Roussel - Padmâvatî

Châtelet, Paris, Monday March 24 2008

Conductor: Lawrence Foster. Production: Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Padmâvatî: Sylvie Brunet. Ratan-Sen: Finnur Bjarnason. Alaouddin: Alain Fondary. Le Brahmane: Yann Beuron. Badal: François Piolino. Nakamti: Blandine Folio Peres. Gora: Laurent Alvaro. La Sentinelle: Alain Gabriel. Sets: Omung Kumar Bhandula. Choreography: Tanusree Shankar. Costumes: Rajesh Pratap Singh. Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Châtelet Chorus.

La Juive, L'Etoile, Véronique, Zampa, now Padmâvatî: the Paris houses suddenly seem determined to give us more of the rare French repertoire than we were used to, and there's more to come in next season's schedules.

Handing over opera productions to novices from the cinema is (as the FT critic pointed out) always a risky business. Sanjay Leela Bhansali is the director of the famous Bollywood blockbuster-tearjerker Devdas, which we all have the DVD of, of course, and admits quite candidly that he knows nothing about opera and never expects to direct another. The result, in this case, got mixed reviews. There was a horse, an elephant and a young tiger tugging at its leash; there would have been a python as well, only it seems the latter got too excitable during rehearsals, and was dropped to play safe. None of these animals was present for long and none added anything other than anecdotal curiosity value (reminding me, once more, of the Met's unforgettably ridiculous Aïda).

The production, while apparently authentic as to rituals and symbols (as it should be), was not as spectacular as we might have expected. It wasn't quite Bollywood's glossy, OTT glamour brought to life on stage. It was much as if Disney (or, for that matter, the Met) had decided to do something Indian: the sets were traditional, painted ones: as a backdrop, clusters of oriental domes against a stormy sky; an Indian palace, its complicated baroque columns decorated with mirror mosaics and its arches picked out in lights; Ganesh on the curtain, Shiva, with a trident, on stage... Best of all were the lavish costumes, straight out of Indo-Persian miniatures: kings in giant turbans with jewelled egrets and long pleated skirts, laden with strings of pearls and glittering with coloured gems; the ladies of the chorus in pastel saris, bearing candles in lotus flowers; the dancers in vividly-coloured, Rajasthan gear: cyclamen and tangerine bordered with gold, black bodices with silver motifs and trims, elegant ankle bracelets for all. The ballets, though the dancers danced with great charm and the men with a degree of acrobatics, didn't quite have Bollywood's coordination; nor - no doubt because Roussel's score didn't allow it - were they quite such fun.

Overall, the sense I had was of a décalage, as the French say, a mis-match between the good- natured pictureque-ness of the staging and the more serious music and plot. Roussel is mostly not for me: his dense, clustery harmonies and rich scoring are too near to Debussy for my taste; the exoticism is at times a touch closer to trashiness than his ardent supporters would have it. But it's mostly highly competent stuff and does have its moments of drama, and this is where the mis-match was felt.

Also, I hesitate to say it but although Sylvie Brunet really throws herself into the acting with evident commitment, it doesn't work. She makes, unfortunately, an ungainly, matronly queen (but in at least three sumptuous costumes), more like one of the aunts in Devdas than the gorgeous heroine. A shame because she really does try, but the director gave her little help, leaving her to mime anguish, with one arm in the air, for a good quarter-hour at the end of the piece as she "burned up" while reclining on a rather unconvincing pyre (dry ice and red lights). Vocally, to me, she was fine: her voice is dark and grainy and complex with a fair amount of edge to it and, as I remarked when she sang (an equally matronly) Carmen, has an old-fashioned fast vibrato; some people don't like it at all.

Her Ratan-Sen was a pale (but elegant) presence beside her, even if the rumours of subtle miking (supposedly for him alone) were true. The singing star was really the ever-excellent Yann Beuron (here with his head shaved), though even he stumbled ever-so-slightly over some top notes. Alain Fondary sang remarkably well for a man of his age (wouldn't he be in his 70s now? Michel Sénéchal was, while we're on that subject, in the audience a few seats to my left and apparently enjoying it). Little François Piolino, barely recognisable and nearly comical in a huge curling moustache and vast turban, sounded exactly the same as usual, cf the DVD of Les Paladins.

The evening was enjoyable enough. I don't mind the odd traditional production from time to time, especially with costumes like these and no pretentions, and it was interesting to hear the piece. I don't have the old CDs, but, as I find Debussy positively grim listening (he always makes me think of wet Sundays in the suburbs), I don't think it's something I would personally want to listen to often at home.

Wagner - Parsifal

ONP Bastille, Thursday March 20 2008

Conductor: Hartmut Haenchen. Production: Krzysztof Warlikowski. Sets and costumes: Malgorzata Szczesniak. Lighting: Felice Ross. Amfortas: Alexander Marco-Buhrmester. Titurel: Victor von Halem. Gurnemanz: Franz Josef Selig. Klingsor: Evgeny Nikitin. Kundry: Waltraud Meier. Parsifal: Stig Andersen. Zwei Gralsritter: Gunnar Gudbjörnsson, Scott Wilde. Vier Knappen: Hye-Youn Lee, Louise Callinan, Jason Bridges, Bartlomiej Misiuda. Klingsors Zaubermädchen: Adriana Kucerova, Valérie Condoluci, Cornelia Oncioiu, Yun-Jung Choi, Marie-Adeline Henry, Louise Callinan. Eine Altstimme aus der Höhe: Cornelia Oncioiu.

As I've mentioned before, probably several times, it's much harder to do justice to a great opera production than to slate a stinker. Krzysztof Warlikowski's Parsifal is a magnificent achievement, better still than his (already fascinating) Makropoulos Affair last season, intellectually challenging and visually stunning, enigmatic and genuinely thought-provoking. A critic friend and I agreed: you may not understand everything in such a multi-stranded staging, yet even so it is somehow (intuitively?) totally satisfying. And in any case, it's the very fact that things aren't so very clear-cut that gets you chewing the work and the questions it raises over for days afterwards; surely that's what a really good production should do - rather than being something merely decorative you have perhaps enjoyed, but forgotten by the time you reach the dinner table afterwards.

Warlikowski doesn't mind at all mixing metaphors, as it were: juxtaposing references. Nor does he mind at all leaving you guessing. Nor does he require the staging to be somehow literally consistent. And he uses a variety of techniques, projecting film, drawings, words and using reflected as well as direct lighting. All of this I like.

The multiple references are often to films (which makes things harder for someone like myself who has never taken much interest in the cinema). In some cases these are explicit, with the projection of extracts. Parsifal opens with a scene from the end of Kubrick's 2001, with the ageing hero in his eerie bedroom, brightly lit through the floor; the same hero, in velvet coat and polo neck, discreetly guides Parsifal through parts of the action. That the director should choose such an enigmatic film for one of his themes itself, of course, just adds to the overall tissue of intrigue and ambiguity. Act 3 opens in silence with a sequence from Rossellini's Germany, Year Zero, in which the child Edmund looks out over Berlin in ruins and jumps to his death (this was what had the booers booing; goodness knows why). From it we finally understand that Acts 1 and 2 took place before the war, Act 3 after: fanaticism of the kind shown by the knights leads to destruction. Other film references come in the staging itself: The Damned and even, perhaps Cabaret in Act 2.

And the boy? The child actor on stage in every act, whose drawings are projected to illustrate the tale told by Gurnemanz; who puts his hands over his ears to block out the heavenly choir, who tends the garden on the stage apron in Act 3... Is he Rossellini's Edmund, Tadzio, Warlikowski himself? Probably a bit of all three.

The stagecraft is stunning. The main piece of kit is an amphitheatre with wooden benches and writing desks. The ends facing us are of frosted glass with washbasins. It can move back and forth and turn silently and majestically, when the rounded rear, lit blue from within, becomes transparent and reveals the innner structure. At the start of the opera, it is an operating theatre, with doctors and nurses in red; Gurnemanz and followers sit anxiously outside on perspex chairs. Later it seats the knights for mass. The washbasins are used for both medical and ritual purposes, and in Act 3 to fill the boy's watering can.

In Act 2 (in which Klingsor is a devilish figure in a red-lined black cape over a smart red suit), very cleverly it becomes a grand art-deco backdrop, trimmed with neon behind a gauze, for the great coup de théâtre: the arrival of the flower maidens, 40 bored and impatient Hollywood starlets (or whores) in glamorous 30s dresses, fur stoles and extravagant wigs, sitting at 40 square bistro tables - 10 geometrically-aligned rows of 4 - each with a red-shaded lamp, on a giant platform that glides in from the left in a cloud of dry-ice smoke.

In Act 3, among the ruins, it stands alone: the side walls present in the first two acts have gone, and the chromium floor of the stage apron (used spectacularly to reflect patterns of light on the house ceiling whenever heavenly choirs sang from the upper floors; the lighting in general was superb) is replaced by the garden, a narrow plot with rows of cabbages and leeks. At the very end it slides away into the distance with Parsifal and the David Bowman figure, perhaps like a giant spacecraft, while Kundry, Gurnemanz and the child (now Lohengrin?) settle down to a quiet dinner on the right.

The acting throughout was excellent: committed and convincing, thoroughly gripping. Never before have I sat through Parsifal without feeling time drag (the themes of purity and impurity, guilt, pardon, redemption and all the rest, taken at face value, are so much sado-masochistic religious claptrap to me; they constantly remind me of the Taleban and, were it not for the wine, it might be interesting to do a production with the knights in islamic dress). And for once the musical standard was (fairly) consistently high. There's nothing much to say about Waltraud Meier's Kundry after 25 years' practice: we easily forgive the difficulties at the very top. Stig Andersen, standing in for Christopher Ventris, acted as though he'd been at all the rehearsals, gamely stripped down to his underwear for the flower maidens to tie him to his chair, fell with a soft thud... and actually managed to sing the part.

In fact, this was a Lieder-like performance all round, with more emphasis on musicality and phrasing than on loudness (Alexander Marco-Buhrmester, for example, staggering painfully on his crutches, was a relatively quiet Amfortas; Franz Josef Selig's cavernous Gurnemanz was more resounding). The orchestra was on good form. Hartmut Haenchen's tempi were measured and the playing was (deliberately) "chamber"-like, more Paris than Berlin, more reverent mystic intensity than deliberate pushing for drama.

I don't think I can say much more. I only hope we will get this magnificent production on DVD, and that Warlikowski will be invited back often for other works.

Hérold - Zampa

Opéra Comique, Paris, Wednesday March 12 2008

Conductor: William Christie. Production: Jérôme Deschamps and Macha Makeïeff. Sets and costumes: Macha Makeïeff. Zampa: Richard Troxell. Alphonse: Bernard Richter. Camille: Patricia Petibon. Daniel: Léonard Pezzino. Ritta: Doris Lamprecht. Dandolo: Vincent Ordonneau. Les Arts Florissants.

Presumably the chance to see a staged production of Zampa is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Has it ever been recorded in full? The presence of William Christie and Les Arts Florissants on the cast list implied this would be an attempt at a respectful reconstruction of the work. That wasn’t exactly what we got…

The production team was the same as for the baleful staging of Chabrier’s L’Etoile earlier this season, which was so stupidly slapstick that we left at half time. Here they chose to camp the whole thing up, presenting Zampa as a parody of romantic opera, rather than a real one. The result was the same as when directors choose (as they often do) to overplay the comedy in Händel instead of respecting the delicate balance between comic and tragic: the goofing around detracts seriously from the power the dramatic parts have to move. Here, I found it surprising and annoying at first, but in the end, as it’s hardly a “world heritage” masterwork, entertaining enough.

Visually we had the same gaudily-painted, trembling flats and furnishing-fabric costumes as for the Chabrier (for all I know some of them may have been the same). The result was, to put it in a nutshell, Shrek invaded by Pirates of the Caribbean.

Musically it was fairly tough going. Hardly anyone, these days, can sing this kind of stuff, halfway between Rossini and Meyerbeer. It would be interesting to grab a score – though for Zampa that must be hard to do– and see just what the leading singers' ranges are. Patricia Petitbon, though seriously stretched by her role's dramatic requirements, just about pulled through. So, too, did the Swiss tenor Bernard Richter, with a light yet ringing, "small-scale-Rossini" sound, except at the very top, where it fell apart with a gulp. Richard Troxell did not, though he did roll his eyes and twirl his moustache well. Doris Lamprecht confirmed what she demonstrated in Véronique not so many weeks back: that she's a very good comedienne. The comic antics made up for the fact that the part often demanded more agility than she could supply.

William Christie’s fondness for whipping tempi up to a frenzy made it no easier for anyone, the chorus especially. His band sounded ill-at-ease with Hérold's score. Stage and pit were occasionally not together, but above all Christie went so fast at times that the "period" instruments had no time to sound, string detail became a scurry and the singers couldn’t develop a proper note… There were some dodgy moments with cross-rhythms too.

Still, I was glad to get a chance to hear a work so much admired (though not, it seems, by Berlioz) in its day - unlike some of the sourer sort of critics, who doubt it was worth reviving. What surprised me most was how odd Hérold's text-setting was, full of misplaced accents, just like French pop music today.

Bizet – Carmen

Opera Australia – Sydney, Thursday March 6 2008

Conductor: Stephen Mould. Director: Francesca Zambello. Moralès: Andrew Moran. Micaëla: Tiffany Speight. Don José: Rosario La Spina. Zuniga: Shane Lowrencov. Carmen: Catherine Carby. Frasquita: Amy Wilkinson. Mercédès: Sian Pendry. Lillas Pastia: Danielle Antaki. Escamillo: Joshua Bloom.

Being in Sydney for the first time, I thought I’d better go, even if the only choice was between Carmen and La Bohème. I plumped for Carmen, preferring Bizet to Puccini, and, knowing that Zambello’s productions can be very good or very bad, hoping it might be one of the former.

It was a grand, audacious gesture to build the Sydney Opera House as and where it is. As I remember, at the time it led to a great deal of blood, sweat and tears, but the result must be one of the most interesting opera houses in the world – and probably the most spectacularly-located of all. The building is certainly more interesting close up than in photos: less bland in colour and texture, more brutal – though a bit gloomy – inside. The views across the bay from the bar are – helped by the gloom inside, I guess - marvellous. Focal point of the bustling harbour with its matter-of-fact little green-and-cream ferries plying to and fro and the massive, dark bridge arching across the water, it is a real, modern landmark and I suppose, today, as much the symbol of Sydney as the Eiffel Tower has become for Paris.

A world-class building, then, with world-class seat prices, but, on Thursday evening at any rate, far from world-class singing. I suppose I came late in the run, so some of the cast were tired and some were stand-ins, but I don’t think I’ve ever come across such a vocal rag-bag on a professional operatic stage (i.e. discounting such hors-jeu items as Le chanteur de Mexico at the Châtelet).

Micaëla was probably the best, a light, silvery voice but audible. Carmen came a close second; but Catherine Carby lacked both the top and bottom the role sometimes calls for and was overall underpowered. Though a good-looking woman, like most of the rest of the corn-fed Australian girls on stage, she was more the good-natured Irish Catholic girl than the Andalusian Gypsy.

Rosario La Spina seemed worn out as Don José. His voice was pinched and painful, never open-throated, though the notes were the right ones and never actually cracked. He made a placid, ungainly José: young, unshaven, greasy-haired, and in a costume that highlighted his vast behind. The more handsome Joshua Bloom, entering on a magnificent chestnut horse (no wonder Carmen soon ditched her tubby José), looked a lot better than he sang. His timbre varied from hoot to hot-potato to hoarse, and when he wasn’t sharp he was flat.

The pit, in Sydney, is recessed under the stage. If that is, as I’ve been told, a successful arrangement at Bayreuth, in Sydney it isn’t. The orchestra is annoyingly muffled. Whether that, or the conductor, was responsible for the total lack of drama in the playing (and, to me at any rate, Bizet’s score, however familiar, continues to have real hair-raising potential) is not easy to say, but I suspect it’s the conductor’s fault.

Zambello’s staging, in a modular set of curving, red-ochre walls that moved around for each act, with a variety of props including an orange tree, a donkey, some hens, an awning and an Andalusian Holy-Week virgin, crowned and surrounded with candles, on far-too-brisk casters (the thing should have been carried in, swaying precariously, not wheeled in smoothly like a dessert trolley), was surprisingly conventional. There were some good details off to the sides, as it were; but as I mentioned above, Australians: tanned, fair-haired and freckled, their limbs toned by years of tennis, swimming and surf, make unconvincing gypsies – especially in all that skirt-raising, hip-gyrating stuff and sitting lasciviously astride their menfolk - and the action was often too baldly contrived: the way cigarette-girls “composed” rapidly into a picturesque,seated group at the stage apron for the chorus, or how Frasquita and Mercedes bustled in with a fur rug and packs of cards and settled quickly, centre-stage, for their ensemble with Carmen. They could have been more naturally in place before their time to sing came.

And there were some oddities. Lillas Pastia was, here, a young woman. Carmen and Don J., before the kill, scrabbled comically and inexplicably on the floor, he (like a beached whale) grasping at her ankles as she tried to “swim away”. She was, by the way, completely embourgeoisée at this stage in the plot, in a stiff gold-and black, bustled dress and black mantilla. The stabbing was remarkably un-dramatic and antic-climactic, as Micaëla looked on unmoved over the top of the bullring wall.

The Sydney audience, however, are game for anything, laughing at any potentially funny lines or action and clapping enthusiastically at the end. Not a great evening, but this is an easy-going town and I was in an easy-going mood, even more so after the good dinner (and local wine) I had afterwards, al fresco at the water’s edge. I might though, be less easy-going if I lived here and this was the usual operatic standard…