Henrik HELLSTENIUS (b.1963)
Ophelias: Death by Water Singing (words: Cecilie Løveid)) (2005)
Elisabeth Holmertz - Ophelia; Tora Augestad - Gertrude, Ivan Ludlow - Hamlet; Silje Aker Johnsen, Janna Vestergren, Ebba Rydh - Woodmaidens
Cikada Ensemble/Christian Eggen
rec. Norwegian Opera and Ballet, Oslo, Norway, 3-10 May 2014
LAWO LWC1098 [77:33]
As I first learnt through a BIS CD of the second of his violin
concertos (review)
Norwegian composer Hellstenius is a pretty tough listen. He studied in Oslo
with Lasse Thoresen, at IRCAM and in Paris with Gérard Grisey.
This piece, the second of his two operas, feels like an experimental work
from the 1960s - not quite Cornelius Cardew but close. Hellstenius and Løveid
are the co-creators of this flyaway avant-garde stage-piece around Ophelia.
To my conventional ears this does not communicate as an opera. Its active
chattering and shifting collage of a soundworld feels more like Peter Maxwell
Davies' Songs for a Mad King. The individual panels - shards
and motes - are small: some smoothly polished, others with jagged surfaces.
There are certainly some eerily beautiful sounds and the vocal spectrum runs
from chatter, to whisper, to grunt, to shriek. The sung text is in English
but the words are pulled about and wrenched - listen to the slurs, moans and
ululation around the word 'zigzag' in tr. 5 where taped voices
are juxtaposed with 'natural' voices. The orchestral ensemble
Cikada comprises seven musicians: flute, clarinet, violin, viola, double bass,
percussion and piano. They are in evidence throughout. Tr. 7 opens as an instrumental
movement with a flurry of woodwind and also a close-quarters cannonade of
percussion. There is an undeniable witchery about this music and it is most
gloriously recorded - a clean sound that accommodates the ratcheting and the
strangulation of voices. An equal balance is struck between voices and instruments
and all within an open-spaced acoustic.
The oddly titled Ophelias: Death by Water Singing must be a lapidary
score but it is not without melodic vocal interest; try tr. 4, 4.03; tr. 10,
5:04. Its harum-scarum progress is a springboard for an open-minded imagination
ready to accommodate flare-ups, collisions and shattering impacts. In this
14-episode piece the figures of Hamlet, Gertrude and Ophelia move and are
swept along. Some appreciation of your tolerance and tastes may be grasped
from the descriptive text for the last scene: "Ophelia, pregnant, in
Wellington boots, is climbing a willow tree over the river. She is hanging
gifts for Hamlet from the branches." It ends with instrumental flurries.
Løveid points out that the libretto brims with elements from The Myth
of Amled by Saxo Grammaticus, from Shakespeare's Hamlet
and Millais' picture Ophelia, as well as modern Ophelias from
photographs and paintings.
This is something rich and strange indeed where the ideas are bounced and
echoed back by Hellstenius's convention-unshackled score. It's
a wild listen so be warned and the instrumental sounds vie in supernatural
allusion with Løveid's words. There are virtuoso performances all round
from singers and instrumentalists.
The single disc comes in a digipack with the extended liner-booklet fitted
into the sleeve. It's probably me but I could not find an indication
of the total playing time. Add to this that in an otherwise exemplary and
even princely utilitarian booklet timings and track titles are unfeasibly
printed in dark blue on black.
Rob Barnett
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