Berg - Lulu

BNP Bastille - Monday October 24 2011

Conductor: Michael Schonwandt. Production: Willy Decker. Sets & costumes: Wolfgang Gussman. Lighting: Hans Toelsede. Lulu: Laura Aikin. Gräfin Geschwitz: Jennifer Larmore. Eine Theatergarderobiere, Ein Gymnasiast, Ein Groom: Andrea Hill. Der Maler, Der Neger: Marlin Miller. Dr Schön, Jack: Wolfgang Schöne. Alwa: Kurt Streit. Der Tierbändiger, Ein Athlet: Scott Wilde. Schigolch: Franz Grundheber. Der Prinz, Der Kammerdiener, Der Marquis: Robert Wörle. Der Theaterdirektor, Der Bankier: Victor Von Halem. Eine Fünfzehnjährige: Julie Mathevet. Ihre Mutter: Marie-Thérèse Keller. Die Kunstgewerblerin: Marianne Crebassa. Der Journalist: Damien Pass. Ein Diener: Ugo Rabec. Orchestra and chorus of the Opéra National de Paris.

Willy Decker’s production of Lulu, now over ten years old, has established itself as something of a modern classic in the Bastille repertoire. It is all that Martinoty’s recent Faust, in stark contrast, is not. It is intelligent, relatively simple (and presumably relatively cheap), coherent and legible, there are a few good ideas properly worked through, there are some striking images, and the acting is detailed, well-drilled to the last gesture, committed and convincing. It is less relentlessly sordid than Lulu might be in other hands - though Lulu’s treatment of the countess is explicitly harsh - and exploits the plot’s comic potential as well as the tragic.

The set is the same throughout: a high-walled arena, circus or amphitheatre, in exaggerated perspective, so the wall curving from the rear rises rapidly to the front, to the full height of the stage. Wall and floor are streaked in shades of pale straw. Behind and above the arena rise tiers of seats or terraces, black. There are multiple doors, open or shut depending on the action, and one or more ladders, as well as the props needed (often red or with a touch of red) to set the scene. There are also two key “presences”: menacing men in black coats and trilby hats, either observing from the tiers or joining in the action (there’s a touch of the “dirty old man” here in this essentially sexist work); and Lulu’s nude portrait, whole or in parts, on loose canvas, stretched or framed, in every scene, whether mentioned in the text or not (1).

The curtain rises before the music starts. Lulu, with orange, bobbed hair, is sitting on display with her back to the audience on a red stepladder, under a spotlight: the first striking image. She is dressed in the flesh-coloured slip, her breasts and pubic hair highlighted to recall her portrait, that she will wear throughout under whatever else she may slip on or off. One by one, the men in black file in on the black tiers above and sit with their hands on their knees to watch the prologue.

In act 1 scene 1, the stage is filled with blank canvases of various sizes and Goll is dramatically handed down, in a violet suit, into the arena from above by the men in black – no ladder. In scene 2 we discover the Mae West sofa (in the form of red lips) that has, over time, become the symbol of this production and Shigolch makes the first of his entrances and exits by ladder. In scene 3, the props are dressmaker’s dummies, a whole crowd of them, wearing Lulu’s many 20s stage costumes in shades of red, pink, purple and plum. The African prince, in yellow tiger stripes and a leopard-skin hat, and the dresser are comic figures – she, for example, takes a desperate swig herself before handing the glass to Lulu to recover from her faint.

Act two opens with grey leather club chairs in a circle and a grand piano to the left. The first scene is treated almost as bedroom farce, with people dashing in and out through the many doors and hiding behind furniture and in the piano, Lulu sitting atop to keep the lid down. It ends with another of the striking images: Lulu in an “art deco” pose under a stark spotlight as she’s arrested by the men in black. After the film music (no film), the furniture is under dust covers and all is grey.

Lulu’s act 3 party takes place around a brightly-lit, circular bar. Gaily-dressed, tipsy guests (the women in extravagant wigs) wear conical party hats and carouse under showers of streamers and confetti – as do the men in black, up on the tiers. For the final, gloomy scene, all the doors are open and as well as multiple black ladders there are empty black frames strewn around. The terraces above are the dark street where Lulu works and the men in black are the punters. As Jack carries Lulu off, the men in black slip into the arena, crowd round and slowly raise their knives, then disperse rapidly after the kill.

The acting throughout this production is excellent and dominated, as is the singing, by Laura Aikin’s initially playful and innocent, later manipulative, and finally neurotic Lulu, leading the dance. “What a mover!” as a friend e-mailed to me later. (2)

Lulu must be one of the most magnificent scores in the operatic repertoire and one of the biggest challenges to singers brave enough to take it on. In the vast barn of the Bastille, with the great maw of the orchestra pit gaping at their feet, it makes even tougher demands on them all. It makes little sense, with such as strong cast as this year’s, to make comparisons. On Monday night, Laura Aikin, as I said, dominated, but she was well supported by Kurt Streit at the absolute peak (and no doubt limit!) of his current form, a great Schön (marvellous confrontations with Lulu), a great athlete… and Jennifer Larmore, unexpected in the role and unrecognisably slimmed down, who emitted some truly beautiful sounds in the final scene. Even the banker and high school boy were excellent. I mgiht have like a bit more Viennese Schmaltz from the pit (sustained string playing à la Bruckner isn't a French forte), but that's splitting hairs.

I wondered, writing up Faust, if after Mireille and Francesca de Rimini, Nicolas Joël was trying to prove a point. The contrast between that Faust and this Lulu seems to make another…

(1) An omniscient mussel in the US writes: "Whether it's mentioned in the sung text or not, the portrait is mentioned in the stage directions for every scene, and the set of chords that act as the portrait's leitmotif  appear whenever the portrait is referred to in the dialogue or the stage directions."

(2) For a more intelligently analytical review, rather than this flat description, see Opera Cake.

Gounod - Faust

ONP Bastille, Wednesday October 19, 2011

Conductor: Alain Altinoglu. Production: Jean-Louis Martinoty. Sets: Johan Engels. Costumes: Yan Tax. Lighting: Fabrice Kebour. Faust: Roberto Alagna. Méphistophélès: Paul Gay. Valentin: Tassis Christoyannis. Wagner: Alexandre Duhamel. Marguerite: Inva Mula. Siebel: Angélique Noldus. Dame Marthe: Marie-Ange Todorovitch. “Faust II”: Rémy Corazza.  Orchestra and chorus of the Opéra National de Paris.

“Mr. Martinoty's solution is wretched excess: an immense library-cum-mad-science lab with a giant crucifix looming above, an older actor lip-synching Mr. Alagna's aged Faust, Mr. Alagna popping out of a space-age sphere in a gold T-shirt after the devilish deal, a huge chorus in a costume mashup that includes Enlightenment academics, Foreign Legionnaires, Second Empire soldiers, beauty contestants in bathing suits, peasant girls in Dutch bonnets, a humongous skeleton in a flurry of rainbow streamers, and carnival maskers part African-part Ensor. In the end, shedding her straightjacket, Marguerite shrugs two chains over her shoulders, tugs in a guillotine platform, runs onto it and ducks as the blade falls and a fake head shoots out.” (Wall Street Journal)

He forgot the Polytechniciens, the Daumier lawyers, the dancing couples with numbers on their backs and Mephisto’s sparkling red “Fellini Roma” bishop’s outfit during the church scene.

At the opening the set was actually very impressive: the library was a high, white, circular affair with galleries reached by two cast-iron spiral staircases; on the left, a massive bronze rhinoceros topped with a crystal obelisk containing Marguerite’s statue and, on the right, the large crystal globe from which Alagna would emerge, Rocky-Horror-like, in his golden tee-shirt. But that lip-synching idea was dreadful, causing Alagna’s voice to emerge with a nasal, hollow sound from inside the set.

The library could, as we saw later, split apart to allow crowds in and out. In the middle of the work, lit green, it housed Marguerite’s garden, which rose shakily out of the floor to reveal her iron bedstead, covered in ivy, under what looked like giant broccoli. After the birth of the baby (a doll swathed in white which she cradled ridiculously almost to the bitter end) the bookshelves were in ruins and the broccoli were blighted.

“I doubt this production will last 28 years unless, like the notoriously bad Ferrero Rocher ad, its nonsense goes on to acquire cult status. Highlights include rejuvenated Faust’s gold lamé T-shirt, a beauty pageant in the Kermesse, the ghoulish violinist who suddenly emerges from under the bed to accompany “Salut! Demeure chaste et pure” and the grand finale that sees deranged Marguerite sprinting suicidally towards a guillotine. Her severed head jumps five yards (more audience mirth) and is promptly turned into a religious relic.” (Financial Times)

By Wednesday evening, the bouncing head had gone: Marguerite knelt symbolically behind the guillotine but no head shot out.

“Car cette production est indigne. Elle est à la fois d'un conventionnel crétin, d'une impudeur choquante et d'un manque total de poésie. Rien ne nous est épargné, des draps tachés du dépucelage de Marguerite, du meurtre du bâtard poignardé dans l'église, de la tête de la malheureuse roulant sous le couperet - puis portée en triomphe comme une relique dans une châsse.” (Le Monde)

"La mise en scène de Jean-Louis Martinoty n’aurait jamais dû être présentée à Bastille s’il y avait eu un directeur digne de ce nom." (Le Canard Enchaîné)

You get the idea. When the production wasn’t simply boring (in the middle) it was just silly. The acting was as conventional as could be – in other words, hardly acting at all. In the circumstances it’s hard to pass judgment on the singers’ performance. If it was in some ways lacklustre, mightn’t it be because, knowing they were participating in a monumental flop (monumental here being the operative word: as one reviewer said, the costs must have been "pharaonic" but the ideas were "mummified") and would face booing anyway, they basically just threw in the towel? Alagna started out fairly valiantly but was very discreet by the end and may, judging by a few hoarse sounds, have been nursing a cold. Inva Mula has, as a friend insisted, a very good voice; but she isn’t a natural actress (there were chuckles when she swanned around the stage swathed in her bedspread – her swanning is awkward); and she has an introverted stage personality that only works in tragic moments; no way does she radiate any joy in “Ah, je ris…”

Paul Gay made a young, tall, seductive Mephisto and sang with more enthusiasm. But he’s a bright baritone, not a bass, so the bottom notes were inaudible, while the very top had me thinking he’d do well to avoid singing the role often in large houses. Nicolas Joël is supposed to be good at choosing singers; why he couldn’t find a better Siebel for the Paris Opera is a mystery. Thank goodness we had Marie-Ange Todorovitch as Dame Marthe; and best of all, really (with the loudest, longest applause) Tassis Christoyannis, who, despite the production’s best efforts to make him look ridiculous in his foreign legion leather apron, simply sang, and with superb diction.

The orchestra was reasonably well behaved, unlike the chorus, ragged and often out of synch with the pit until they finally pulled their socks up towards the end.

First Mireille (“Putain, Mireille!” as a French friend kept repeating), then Francesca de Rimini, now Faust. Is Joël trying to prove something?.