Händel - Hercules

Badische Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Tuesday March 1 2022

Conductor: Lars Ulrik Mortensen. Production: Floris Visser. Sets and Costumes: Gideon Davey. Lighting: Malcolm Rippeth. Hercules: Brandon Cedel. Dejanira: Ann Hallenberg. Iole: Lauren Lodge-Campbell. Hyllus: Moritz Kallenberg. Lichas: James Hall. Händel Festival Choir. German Händel Soloists.

Production photos: Falk von Traubenberg

For various reasons to do with the production, acoustics and casting, Hercules at Karlsruhe's 44th International Händel Festival turned out to be a frustrating experience.

 

Not that the production is weak. On the contrary, it's logical and thought-through, detailed and carefully rehearsed - almost as much a directorial tour de force as Jonathan Kent's Fairy Queen. The action starts during the overture with Dejanira in a strait-jacket in her bedroom, grasping at constellations mapped out on the walls, as if searching for her late husband. It alternates between flashbacks and courtroom scenes, where Dejanira is, again, strait-jacketed and in a wheelchair; the 'happy end' (with tap-dancing on tables: a weak moment) is clearly the product of her delirium before she's taken off, screaming chillingly for Hercules (Ann Hallenberg's acting at this point is uncomfortably convincing), by a medical team, evidently to be put to death.

The single set is a rotating white house, on two levels. The main room is a large, ceremonial space. The gallery overlooking it is fronted by a solid-looking, antique marble frieze (of the 'Elgin' marbles kind) of Hercules' labours. At ground level there are doors on either side, wall lights, and centre-rear, an official portrait of Hercules in uniform. This space is sometimes a reception room or, with a long table one reviewer described as 'Putinesque', covered in maps, a war room (I must say that with Putin's criminal madness killing thousands right now in Ukraine, playing Hercules as not so much a hero as a brutal dictator is deeply unsettling). Fitted with a judge's bench (complete with judge in black robes, wielding a deafening gavel), witness stand, jury box and chairs for the public, seated with their backs to us, this becomes a courtroom. When the house rotates, we see a dining room or more often a living room with an art deco sofa and the back of a flickering TV on which - when it isn't turned off in a fit of pique - the news is followed avidly. A white marble staircase curves up to a landing, with doors to a bedroom, with a wardrobe, and the gallery. 

 

 

As in Michieletto's Barbiere in Paris, the action moves from room to room as the set turns, with characters moving through the doors - sometimes slamming them furiously - up the stairs and along the gallery, to observe the trial. Also, around the central platform supporting the house is a ring, also rotating, on which tableaux vivants - of the capture of Iole and her followers, or Hercules' grisly death... - or a Greek orthodox priest and his acolyte, in authentic vestments, glide on and off. This cramps the space, sometimes awkwardly.

Hercules, his officers and soldiers are in khaki uniforms, though in Dejanira's fevered mind, the hero also appears bare-chested, with wings. The rest of the costumes set the action some time in the 50s: Dejanira, when not in her strait jacket, is in New-Look-style dresses, white or black. As the action switches back and forth from Hercules' lifetime to after his death, both Dejanira and Iole change frocks in view - perhaps too often: it risks being an irritating tic.

All of this must have required careful planning and rehearsal, especially as, with Covid lurking, chorus members and extras were expected to be ready to stand in at any time for a sick colleague. I heard the soloists had been in Karlsruhe since the New Year.

Händel

Now, the frustrations - but first, a word of warning. I'm about to trot out my usual obsessions. Anyone who reads this blog regularly (if such a creature exists) would probably be able to write the rest of this post standing on their head and without having been anywhere near Karlsruhe. Press reviews of this production have been positive and, as I say at the top of this blog, mon opinion n'engage que moi...

So...

The production's perpetual motion is relentless: though Floris Visser is a musician and singer himself, it makes no concessions to any particular needs of opera. From low down on row four of the stalls, where I was, the bedroom was only partially visible (reminding me of Mariame Clément's Hänsel und Gretel at Garnier). As she started singing, Ann Hallenberg was lying on the bed, out of sight. Later in the production she would sing to a wall, receding from us as the set turned, or climbing the stairs with her back to us. This was frustrating, as of course it made her harder to focus on. If only, sometimes, the soloists had been allowed to stand near the front and deliver directly to the house. For similar reasons, the chorus, milling around, mingling with extras, sitting with their backs to the audience, or set far apart, high up and out of sight in stage-side spaces to left and right, had trouble staying together, on the beat.

Next, acoustics. The Staatstheater auditorium is wide - rarely a good thing for opera - and as is often the case these days, the central set left the stage unenclosed around it, swallowing up the sound. It seemed especially unkind to the lower range of the lower voices, and unsuited to subtlety.

And finally, casting - and again, I'm repeating myself, I know. Händel's operas and most of his oratorios are virtuoso works. Still, you can legitimately stage them with a balanced cast of promising young singers. And of course you can stage them with a group of seasoned Händel specialists. Where a number of productions I've witnessed, of works by Händel and others of the period, fail is when they mix promising beginners with stars, with unbalanced results.

Ann Hallenberg is a mature, experienced singer - one of today's greatest Händelian mezzos. She has, as my neighbour put it, 'la science du mot': each word has its own colour, shape and meaning, and her phrasing is infinitely varied and subtle, relying on impeccable technique (including exceptional breath control), a wide dynamic range, and committed, convincing acting. She gave us some memorable, melting cadences, and her 'Where shall I fly' would have been a truly extraordinary experience had the production and acoustics allowed it. Frustrating.

At the other extreme, Lauren Lodge-Campbell, a graduate of Le Jardin des Voix's 2019 programme, is surely very young to be singing Iole. She undeniably has great potential (possibly more for religious works than opera), with a slender, silvery voice and all the notes. But to me her singing is still very much work-in-progress, and (perhaps because the director wanted to emphasise her youth and play the princess as a lost waif) was vocally and dramatically expressionless. Iole has to be able to stand up to Dejanira. Here I found the gap simply too wide. Frustrating.

In between, all the men were good: Brandon Cedel a forceful Hercules with handsome presence and committed acting - though, as the local acoustics seem unfavourable to lower voices, his bottom notes were hard to hear; James Hall, a very decent countertenor, new to me; and Moritz Kallenberg, the lucky one, as his bright, forthright tenor voice really could cut through.

Finally, concerning Mortensen's otherwise perfectly sound conducting, I'll repeat myself one last time by quoting from my post on Theodora at the TCE in Paris, under the much younger Emelyanychev: 'I sat there thinking somebody like Gardiner or Christie would have elicited greater variety of colour out of the orchestra' - and helped Iole make more of her text.

So: quite a few frustrations for me with this production, as must by now be obvious. But I do think a video of it would be a great thing to have, in particular because, obviously, miking would eliminate the acoustic failings and we'd have a record of Ann Hallenberg's extraordinary Dejanira, but also because the production (back again next year) has many strengths and would be good to see again in detail. I wonder if that will turn out to be possible?