Rodgers & Hammerstein - The Sound of Music

Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, Wednesday December 30 2009.

Conductor: Kevin Farrell. Production: Emilio Sagi. Sets: Daniel Bianco. Choreography: Sarah Miles. Costumes: Jesús Ruiz. Lighting: Caetano Vilela. Maria Rainer: Sylvia Schwartz. Captain Georg von Trapp: Rod Gilfry. Mother Abbess: Kim Criswell. The Baroness Elsa Schraeder: Christine Arand. Max Detweiler: Laurent Alvaro. Rolf Gruber: James McOran-Campbell. Liesl Von Trapp: Carin Gilfry. Orchestre Pasdeloup. Châtelet Chorus.

There isn't a strong tradition of musicals in Paris (apart from awful "Pop Idol" type ones) so this was the first stage production of The Sound of Music in France and possibly the best performance, here, of any musical I've seen. I was told, last night, that some American visitors have claimed it would have been ten times better on Broadway. Maybe they didn't get the best cast; and maybe it wouldn't have been ten times better (it couldn't be) but just ten times different: this is a wholly European production, dealing with the work as an opera would be dealt with.

Not, however, in any "Eurotrash" way. It might have been set in Afghanistan, but wasn't. When we took our seats we were faced with an impressive painting (in fact, as we would soon see, a gauze) of a magnificent, blue, snow-capped mountain. The nuns became visible through it, and it eventually rose to reveal in full what would be a single basic set: on each side, two baroque portals and cornices painted in the blue-and-white "mountain" motif, serving equally well as convent walls and the Captain's house. Flagstones on the stage apron gave way to grass (so the house, in interior scenes, was carpeted with it) rising to the distant horizon and a blue sky, and Maria's bedroom with its famous curtains or a wall of French doors descended when needed, as did a whole bunch of big chandeliers for the ball, though it took place outside. So did the wedding, the whole lawn covered by Maria's giant, white train. For the festival concert, a grand "opera curtain" gauze was lowered, and it was a chilling moment, in a city that hasn't forgotten it was occupied in the last war, when Nazi guards and officers appeared in spotlights around the auditorium to keep an eye on proceedings. The family hid, in the convent garden, under a Nazi flag as vast as Maria's train that disappeared down a hole as the final chorus rang out. Costumes were all excellent under flattering, peaches-and-cream lighting.

The audience loved it, and rightly so. The cast was very strong indeed, starting with the excellent Sylvia Schwartz, whose voice was rounder and a good deal more interesting than Julie Andrews' and whose look was a good deal more feminine. Rod [sic] Gilfrey scowled at the end as if not satisfied with his performance, but he was fine, and Kim Criswell was unmistakeably Kim Criswell, though now a touch short-winded. I must put in a special word for Laurent Alvaro; if I don't, his friends, some of whom I know, will complain. It was good to have the full orchestra Pasdeloup in the pit and a pity Kevin Farrell didn't push for some less placid tempi: we might have got out for dinner earlier.

Overall a very entertaining evening, much more so than Dialogues des Carmélites would have been, albeit both end with the protagonists getting what they deserve.

Messager - Fortunio

Opéra Comique, Paris, Wednesday December 16 2009

Conductor: Louis Langrée. Production: Denis Podalydès. Sets: Eric Ruf. Costumes: Christian Lacroix. Lighting: Stéphanie Daniel. Fortunio : Joseph Kaiser. Jacqueline : Virginie Pochon. Maître André: Jean-Marie Frémeau. Clavaroche: Jean-Sébastien Bou. Landry: Jean-François Lapointe. Lieutenant d’Azincourt: Philippe Talbot. Lieutenant de Verbois: Jean Teitgen. Madelon: Sarah Jouffroy. Maître Subtil: Jérôme Varnier. Guillaume: Eric Martin-Bonnet. Gertrude: Clémentine Margaine. Les Eléments chorus. Orchestre de Paris.

Whatever it takes to grasp Messager, I haven’t got it. “C’est une musique facile” - easy music – said a man in the row in front as we gathered our coats to leave. Well it might have been easy for him but, on the contrary, I find it very hard indeed to bring into focus and impossible to recall. The first two acts seemed to witter on aimlessly, with distinct Debussy undertones; in acts three and four the music had more definite shape and when the hero got worked up there was a fine aria. But otherwise it did nothing for me (and the off-beat accentuation of the antiquated libretto often got on my wick; so much for the FT critic's praise for "Messager’s extraordinary facility at putting words to music." He must have cloth ears and probably likes Debussy). As with Véronique at the Châtelet, to me it was well-made but unmemorable. Clearly I’m not cut out for what the French might call “un art tout en demi-teintes,” art that’s all half-tints (Messager premiered Pelléas, a bad omen), and a hybrid genre neither comedy nor tragedy - though absolutely French: the usual tale of casual adultery - just light-hearted fluff.

The critics seem to have been very pleased with Denis Podalydès’ production. It reminded me, however, of the one season when, fed up with four-hour Latin-American Marxist plays staged without an interval at the Théâtre National de La Colline, we decided to try the Comédie Française, where Podalydès usually hangs out. Not once, in that season, did we stay after the break, and we didn’t renew our subscriptions. It was like visiting a theatre museum, not a theatre. I’ve been back only once since, for Bob Wilson’s witty staging of Lafontaine’s Fables. This decidedly un-witty Fortunio was the kind of production in which a soldier can’t sing a note without putting a foot on a chair and leaning forward with a wry smile: totally conventional in ideas and gestures. The costumes were by Christian Lacroix but might have been anyone’s (mostly brown) designs for La Bohème and certainly hadn’t been tailored in his haute couture workshops: Jean-Sébastien Bou would have cut a much more dashing military figure in a properly-cut uniform (though in long johns and black-toed crimson socks he looked perfect).

The sets were flimsy and somewhere between plain ordinary and plain ugly. Act one was a misty, snowy courtyard, surrounded by a kind of veranda, with three puzzlingly scraggy trees and the Opéra Comique’s by now famous stage walls visible through gauzes. The bedroom was mainly a pair of narrow beds, a wardrobe, a stove and a smoking chimney. Act three involved some wooden walls and piles of logs, and for act four the bedroom was back, but this time open to the courtyard through net curtains.

The orchestre de Paris, under Langrée, was heavy-handed but the cast was absolutely perfect for this kind of work, not one weak link. If only I found it more interesting. My problem, I know, not Messager’s…

Gluck - Iphigénie en Aulide and Iphigénie en Tauride

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday December 6 2009.

Conductor: Christophe Rousset. Production: Pierre Audi. Dramaturge: Klaus Bertisch. Sets: Michael Simon. Costumes: Anna Eiermann. Lighting: Jean Kalman.

En Aulide: Agamemnon: Andrew Schroeder. Clytemnestre: Charlotte Hellekant. Iphigénie: Véronique Gens. Achille: Avi Klemberg. Patrocle: Henk Neven. Calchas: Gilles Cachemaille. Arcas: Werner Van Mechelen. Diane: Violet Serena Noorduyn.

En Tauride: Iphigénie: Nadja Michael. Oreste: Stéphane Degout. Pylade: Topi Lehtipuu. Thoas: Werner Van Mechelen. Diane: Violet Serena Noorduyn.

Orchestra and chorus of La Monnaie.

Bad Gluck can be very tedious. Two in a row would be a serious trial, so I had misgivings at finding both Iphigénies scheduled together this season. But when the singing and acting are first rate we are reminded what a great composer of musical tragedy Gluck is. Topi Lehtipuu and Stéphane Degout must be today’s ideal pairing as Pylade and Oreste. Lehtipuu is, as anyone familiar with the DVD of Les Paladins knows, one of the best available high French (albeit Finnish) tenors. Degout is one of France’s best middleweight baritones. Together they sang and acted magnificently and movingly, forming a great dramatic trio with Nadja Michael. She was Medea in La Monnaie’s Warlikowski production that I sadly missed. The critics have not been too keen on her Iphigénie (in part on account of her plummy diction: not a single “s” is heard) but I admired her commitment and – when she turned it up – surprising volume for such a slight figure.

The second part of the afternoon was, therefore, gripping. The first half was less so, with a more variable cast. Avi Klemberg made an unheroic Achille, partly because the production had him so and partly because his voice was feeble. Gilles Cachemaille’s voice is now partly over the hill. I was more interested in Charlotte Hellekant’s vehement Clytemnestre, despite her weak French. The critics' choice (the audience’s too, by the sound of the applause) was Véronique Gens; her voice sounded silvery and sweet and her French was of course perfect, but from where I sat at the front of the second balcony, the stage arrangement meant it tended to get lost “downstairs.” I’ll explain…

There’s a certain gentle, reasonable, noble simplicity, or simple nobility, about Gluck that calls, I think, for simple stagings. In any case, when his works are raised to the level of Sunday’s Tauride, they hardly need staging at all. As I mentioned, the acting in Pierre Audi’s production was excellent and committed; the staging was, however, something like taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut (in this case, a very good nut indeed).

Audi went to all the trouble of turning La Monnaie into a theatre in the round – a curious thing to do when, in Brussels, the opera sometimes decamps to the Royal Circus (as last season for Lucia) which is in the round anyway. The square stage, set askew, was where the pit usually is, the orchestra was on stage and there were rows of seats rising up at the rear for the chorus and part of the audience. An elaborate arrangement of scaffolding, at all angles like a game of spillikins, held up steel staircases and platforms leading out from the stage-side boxes and arched over the new stage – for Aulide bearing a “cloud” of silver mesh. In other words, a gigantic structure, swamping the action and pushing the singers well forward into the auditorium, which is why some voices didn’t quite make it up to the second balcony, as mentioned above.

The overall atmosphere was of countries at war, which is legitimate enough. And soldiers in full camouflage battledress, boots and balaclavas, though we’ve seen them often enough, can still work well in the right hands (e.g. Sellars’); but they risk being déjà vu and here were simply irrelevant, adding nothing. (Even Clytemnestre’s trained evening gown was in camouflage print, by the way, an odd touch.) In Tauride, perhaps inspired by the quirky “Turkish” chorus “Les dieux apaisent leur courroux,” the soldiers were got up like extras from a very low-budget spin-off of Mad Max: long hair, big sunglasses and Gautier kilts (Thoas was our old "friend" the corrupt and lubricious police chief). Iphigénie and her fellow pristesses wore Playtex-pink shifts, buttoning on pink housecoats and taking up axes when sacrifice was in the air. Characters climbed up and down the steel stairs, and Diane prowled slowly around whether required to by the score or not – at one stage equipped with another very déjà vu item, a single white wing strapped to her right arm and wielded hieratically.

“Trop compliqué” was something I heard more than once during the interval, and the critics seemed to agree. This was an afternoon of excellently played Gluck, far better heard (under Christophe Rousset, characteristically bouncy and energetic with some very zippy tempi) than seen.