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SEEN AND HEARD UK OPERA REVIEW
L'Humana Fragilità, Pisandro - Iestyn Morris
Il Tempo, Antinoo - Francisco Javier Borda
La Fortuna, Minerva - Ruby Hughes
Amore, Melanto - Katherine Manley
Penelope - Pamela Helen Stephen
Ericlea - Diana Montague
Eurimaco - Thomas Walker
Ulisse - Tom Randle
Minerva - Ruby Hughes
Eumete - Nigel Robson
Iro - Brian Galliford
Telemaco - Thomas Hobbs
Benedict Andrews (director)
Börkur Jónsson (set designs)
Alice Babidge (costumes)
Jon Clark (lighting)
Sean Bacon (video)
Production Picture Courtesy of English National
Opera
ENO has hit form again, offering my best operatic experience since
Elektra last summer in Salzburg. And with Monteverdi: I
should hardly have expected it, not least since my prejudices lie
very much against contemporary performance practice and translation
of his libretti from Italian. The intimate, verging upon
claustrophobic, space of the Young Vic was doubtless crucial: a
proper rather than merely fashionable experience of theatre 'in the
round', which could never have worked in the Coliseum.
Though in a literal sense it would be quite true to say that I had
travelled over the course of two evenings from musical drama of the
present day (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's new opera, Kommilitonen!)
towards the early days of opera, the statement might be found
misleading, for this was a thoroughly modern Monteverdi we
encountered. Kommilitonen! proved enjoyable but also a
little dated. Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, as one of the
two surviving late operas by Monteverdi, already stands quite
distinct from his first, L'Orfeo, let alone from slightly
earlier works by other composers. The dramatic orbit of Ulisse
and L'incoronazione di Poppea almost inevitably puts one in
mind of Monteverdi's contemporary, Shakespeare; both dramatists
remain strikingly modern, not least when contrasted with many of
their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century successors. Purcell
notwithstanding, one must look to Gluck and then to Mozart to find a
musical dramatist fully worthy of the honour of heir, if unwittingly
so, to Monteverdi. Yet, if Poppea still shocks to the core,
its devastating psychological realism placed in the service of a
truly amoral, (quasi-)historical tale, its Homeric predecessor has
struggled somewhat to escape its shadows. ENO's decision to devote
its now-annual excursion to the Young Vic to Il ritorno d'Ulisse
in patria, or The Return of Ulysses (to his
Homeland), was therefore welcome indeed - and must surely have
convinced any doubters that this is a work fully worthy to be ranked
with its more celebrated sibling. As ever, there remained the
problem of translation into English, but this translation,
Christopher Cowell's, was much better than most of those recently
foisted upon us: it respected Giacomo Bodoaro's libretto after
Homer, for which many thanks.
The Prologue makes it quite clear that this is a contemporary drama.
Human Frailty is abused, Abu Ghraib style, by Time, Fortune, and
Cupid, the evidence gloatingly captured on camera. I was reminded of
Barrie Kosky's Iphigénie en Tauride for Berlin's
Komische Oper; perhaps the resemblance is not entirely coincidental,
for director, Benedict Andrews, also Australian, divides his time
between Sydney and Berlin, and works at the Schaubühne Theatre.
During this abuse, we see Penelope's parallel agonies on screen,
Sean Bacon's excellent video footage permitting us still-closer-up
attention to detail, often but not always that of Penelope. As the
Prologue comes to an end, Ithaca's palace comes into our view - and
will never leave it. A stylish, modern apartment (or hotel room?),
encased by glass that is smeared by a series of depredations, it is
Penelope's prison: the ever-visible space for the 'life' of a
ruler's wife. Börkur Jónsson's set designs are first-rate, drawing
us in and yet repelling us at the same time. Maids fuss and conspire
- whom can she trust? - whilst sharply-suited dressed political
suitors roam. The tie pins give them away, though: we know that none
would be able to string the bow of Ulysses. These cowards, brutal if
ultimately ineffectual, pleasure themselves with no thought of
Penelope as a woman. In what seemed to me a rare miscalculation, she
appears to respond briefly to them physically as they offered their
gifts. Perhaps her acts are intended as a trap, but they jar with
her constancy and do not seem to lead anywhere.
Some scenes are missing, of course: one cannot help wondering what
the sea-music for nereids and sirens was like, likewise the ballet
of the Moors. To augment the ravages of time, the director
introduced large cuts, the remaining score running - according to
the programme, though I did not check - for two-and-a-quarter hours,
three acts compressed into two parts. Neptune, Jupiter, and Juno
disappear completely. As so often, we seem uncomfortable allotting
the gods their role. Minerva remains, though, adopting Penelope's
form and availing herself of the suitors, she perhaps seems more the
trickster than Ulysses; is she a goddess at all? Apart from the
musico-dramatic loss in itself, there are dramatic consequences, for
we miss out on Neptune's crucial emphasis upon 'ritorno' ('return').
Andrews's emphasis, however, seems quite different: this is less the
story of Ulysses's return, or rather still less than is often the
case, and more Penelope's tale. However, it works: there is no claim
that this was a definitive Ulisse, but it was a powerful
musico-dramatic experience.
Moreover, at the end, the balance shifts once again. Reminding us of
the images of war that have permeated the drama throughout, not
least on the apartment television screen (war in the Mediterranean?
surely not…), we suffer Ulysses's pain upon return: the lack of a
role, the rejection, and of course, the bloody revenge he inflicts
upon those who have defiled his home, captured on film, just like
the initial abuse of the Prologue. After that, his extended shower
scene attempts to cleanse, but the only hope, and it may prove vain,
lies with Penelope; whatever the beauties of the final duet, the
future is uncertain. Cuts may have reshaped the drama but ultimately
they did not distort it.
Jonathan Cohen led members of the ENO Orchestra with great dramatic
flair. I might hanker after Raymond Leppard, or, better still, Hans
Werner Henze's extraordinary Mediterranean realisation, but this was
not hair-shirt Monteverdi, puritanism that would be quite at odds
with his Renaissance/Early Baroque world. The musicians may have
been relatively few in number, but a large band was not necessary in
the Young Vic; again, the Coliseum would have been another matter.
The continuo group was varied. Rebecca Miles's recorder added
variety to the one-to-a-part strings during certain ritornelli,
whilst the introduction of Daniel Jamison's bassoon brought just a
hint of Henze's earthy pagan reimagining.
If ever a role were made for Dame Janet Baker, it was that of
Penelope, though it is hard to imagine Pamela Helen Stephen's great
predecessor in this particular production. It is to Stephen's credit
that she very much made the role her own; I only mention Baker since
she would have been an inevitable reference point for many. What
Stephen lacked in refulgence and sheer nobility of tone, she made up
in dignity - and misery - of stage presence. We felt her pain in
anything but the modern, debased, sentimental way. Tom Randle is
such an intelligent musical actor that it would be easy to take him
for granted, but one hardly could on this occasion. The
complexities, some of them dark indeed, of Ulysses's character were
searingly portrayed, without the slightest hint of melodrama. Thomas
Hobbs made an interesting Telemachus, vulnerable - including
memories of the accursed Helen - and scarred by his experience, not
least that of 'rescue' by Ruby Hughes's ambiguous Minerva, another
fine portrayal. Katherine Manley and Thomas Walker played dangerous,
erotic - and utterly convincing - games as Penelope's maid, Melanto,
and her lover, Eurymachus; their lust, for power and for pretty much
everything else, was an ongoing reminder of the real (godlike?)
forces at play. My only regret concerning Diana Montague's Ericlea
was that she did not have more to sing: what a pleasure it was to
hear Montague again, and to share in so faithful - in every sense -
a performance. It was an equal pleasure to welcome back
long-standing Monteverdian Nigel Robson, who provided a moving
portrayal of the honest shepherd, Eumaeus. Brain Galliford's
childish, yet nevertheless sinister, parasite, Irus offered splendid
contrast, though the strange scene of his demise, in which
Monteverdi's speech-rhythms seem (at least) to presage Mussorgsky
and Janáček, offered pathos too. A ghastly trio of suitors completed
the cast, Francisco Javier Borda, Iestyn Morris, and Samuel Boden,
all throwing themselves wholeheartedly into Andrews's - and
Monteverdi's - vision. I was especially taken by the finely shaped
tenor of Boden and the icy clarity of Morris's counter-tenor.
This, then, strikes me as essential theatre for anyone who can still
acquire a ticket. Three cheers to all concerned!
Mark Berry