Opera on Screen in Ireland, 2011-2012

Very little information has been forthcoming about screenings of opera simulcasts in Ireland (NI & ROI) for the coming year.  Part of this is due to the fact that the last function of the late, lamented Opera Ireland was to act as distribution agent for the Met in HD, and with it gone I can imagine there has been a bit of scrambling behind the scenes.  Anyway, out of this uncertainty has emerged a new programming/promotional non-profit enterprise called Classical Arts Ireland which, among other worthy aims, including promoting classical music, ballet and opera in Ireland, will be the job of managing the distribution of not one but two simulcast programmes – the Met (Opera) in HD and Bolshoi (Ballet) in HD. They have 12 venues (listed here) across the island of Ireland – one in Belfast (Dundonald Omniplex) and the rest in the Republic, covering Athlone, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Letterkenny, Limerick, Portlaoise and Sligo.

One thing that has begun to be noticed — though not, as yet, widely commented on — is that the NY Met actively discourages its cinema venues from showing opera simulcasts from other networks, which, in terms of building audiences for opera in cinema, seems unfortunate (some would use stronger words!) for those of us on this side of the Atlantic.  It means that if you want to see productions from closer-to-home European houses also doing simulcasts — such as the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala Milan and Glyndebourne — you have seek them in other venues.  As a result screens are divided between those (given above) exclusively offering the Met productions, and venues showing a small selection of everything else, which in Ireland is limited to two in Greater Dublin (Dundrum and Swords) and two further south (Gorey and Dungarvan) — please drop me a note if there are any others.  Queen’s Film Theatre in Belfast presented the three Glyndebourne on Screen simulcasts over the summer (including a wonderful production of Wagner’s Meistersinger), but don’t seem to have plans for any more opera in the meantime.

So what’s on the menu? The Met listing is as follows (all screenings on Saturdays; times local in UK/Ireland):

• Anna Bolena (Donizetti): Oct 15 (6pm) — Director: David McVicar; Conductor: Marco Armiliato; Cast includes: Anna Netrebko, Ekaterina Gubanova, Ildar Abdrazakov
• Don Giovanni (Mozart): Oct 29 (6pm) — Director: Michael Grandage; Conductor: James Levine; Cast includes: Mariusz Kwiecien, Barbara Frittoli, Ramón Vargas
• Siegfried (Wagner): Nov 5 (4pm) — Director: Robert Lepage; Conductor: James Levine; Cast includes: Gary Lehman, Deborah Voigt, Bryn Terfel
• Satyagraha (Philip Glass): Nov 19 (6pm) — Director: Phelim McDermott; Conductor: Dante Anzolini; Cast includes: Richard Croft, Rachelle Durkin, Kim Josephson
• Rodelinda (Handel): Dec 3 (5.30pm) — Director: Stephen Wadsworth; Conductor: Harry Bicket; Cast includes: Renee Fleming, Andreas Scholl, Iestyn Davies
• Faust (Gounod): Dec 10 (6pm) — Director: Des McAnuff; Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin; Cast includes: Jonas Kaufmann, René Pape, Marina Poplavskaya
• The Enchanted Island (Vivaldi, Rameau, Handel…): Jan 21 (6pm) — Director: Phelim McDermott; Conductor: William Christie; Cast includes: Danielle De Niese, Joyce DiDonato, David Daniels, Plácido Domingo   — NB: This is a pasticcio made up of excerpts from different operas assembled and adapted specially by William Christie
• Götterdämmerung (Wagner): Feb 11 (5pm) — Director: Robert Lepage; Conductor: James Levine; Cast includes: Waltraud Meier, Deborah Voigt, Hans-Peter König
• Ernani (Verdi): Feb 25 (6pm) — Director: Pier Luigi Samaritani; Conductor: Marco Armiliato; Cast includes: Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Angela Meade
• Manon (Massenet): April 7 (5pm) — Director: Laurent Pelly; Conductor: Fabio Luisi; Cast includes: Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala
• La Traviata (Verdi): April 14 (6pm) — Director: Willy Decker; Conductor: Fabio Luisi; Cast includes: Natalie Dessay, Dmitri Hvorostovsky

The “non-Met” listing, on the other hand, is looking like this:

• Faust (Gounod) from Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Weds Sept 28 (7pm) — Director: David McVicar; Conductor: Evelino Pidò; Cast includes: Angela Gheorghiu, René Pape, Vittorio Grigolo, Dmitri Hvorostovsky
• The Mikado (Sullivan) from Opera Australia; Thurs Oct 13 (8.30pm) — Director: Stewart Maunder; Conductor: Brian Castles-Onion; Cast includes: Richard Alexander, Mitchell Butel, Samuel Dundas
• Don Giovanni (Mozart) from Teatro alla Scala, Milano; Weds Dec 7 (6pm) — Director: Robert Carsen; Conductor: Daniel Barenboim; Cast includes: Peter Mattei, Anna Netrebko, Bryn Terfel, Ildebrando D’Arcangelo
• Rigoletto (Verdi) from Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Tues April 17 (time TBA) — Director: David McVicar; Conductor: John Eliot Gardiner; Cast includes: Dimitri Platanias, Ekaterina Siurina, Vittorio Grigolo, Christine Rice

Note that any of the cast or conductors listed are subject to change…

Happy viewing!

European Opera Centre/UCH Limerick: Dardanus (Rameau)

Dardanus, music by Jean Philippe Rameau; livret by Charles-Antoine Le Clerc de La Bruère; edition (based on 1744 version) by Gilles Rico

University Concert Hall, Limerick – July 22, 2011; presented by European Opera Centre and University Concert Hall

Cast: Svetli Chaumien (Dardanus), Myrto Boccolini (Iphise), Romanas Kudriasovas (Anténor), Dionisios Tsantinis (Ismenor), Joanna Freszel (Vénus), Ilektra Platinopoulou (L’Amour), Ryszard Kalus (Teucer)

Orchestra (on period instruments) conducted by Nicolas André; production directed by Bernard Rozet. Sung in French with English surtitles.

Last week saw the first performances – as far as I know – of a Rameau opera in Ireland, when the Liverpool-based European Opera Centre, in association with the University Concert Hall, presented Dardanus on July 20 and 22.  It was a strangely under-promoted event, and slipped well under the radar for most people, with the only mention in the national press being a brief reference in The Irish Times ‘Ticket’ supplement on the previous Friday.  Perhaps they only had a limited promotional budget, or else the producers viewed these as ‘rehearsals with audience’ (i.e., previews), but really they had nothing to be ashamed of.  As a student production, it stood up well against professional presentations of other early operas I’ve seen in Ireland.

The biggest problem was posed by the venue itself: as the concert hall does not have an orchestra pit, the stage was split into two levels, with the orchestra on the lower level, nearest the audience, while the singers performed behind the players on the upper level, and surtitles were projected on the back wall.  Inevitably, this meant that attention was split between the orchestra and the performers – a situation not helped by the fact that this was one of the largest, and best, period orchestras I’d heard in Ireland.  After the minimal accompaniment usual in recent Opera Theatre Company Handel productions, this was certainly a welcome change.  It meant, however, that the action on stage felt inevitably distanced, though the projection and good singing from the ensemble (Myrto Boccolini’s Iphise especially standing out) meant that this was less of a problem than it could have been.

The plot: Dardanus loves Iphise, the daughter of his enemy Teucer, and she loves him; Teucer, however has promised Iphise to Anténor. Dardanus enlists the help of magician, Ismenor, and (after a lot of trouble) things eventually come round in his favour, and the lovers live happily ever after.  Rameau radically revised Dardanus in 1744 and again in 1760 from its original form in 1739, and interestingly it was an account (truncated?) of the 1744 version that we heard.  This dropped the intervention of Neptune (and his sea-monster) from the original version, preferring instead a more naturalistic series of twists by having Dardanus languish in a prison cell, adding the beautiful aria ‘Lieux funestes’ for this scene.

It was in this latter version of the opera that it finally achieved the fame it deserved with audiences in 1760, so it was good to see it being used here in preference to the first version.  Possibly taking a cue from the ‘naturalism’ of this version, the director’s concept fell back on a theme that has become depressingly familiar in recent years, namely ‘the rehearsal’.  Cue non-costumes, newspapers, singers slouching in chairs and pretending to be scruffy actors.  It was dire when they used it in Opera Ireland’s Handel Imeneo back in 2005, and perhaps a bit less annoying here, but it screams lack of imagination like nothing else…  Transforming the prologue to a ‘framing-narrative’, the two allegorical figures Vénus and L’Amour were depicted as a pair of stage directors who amuse themselves by getting their actors to re-enact this story of Dardanus, and occasionally wandering back on stage for the sake of extra stage business, laying out candles, lighting them, gathering them up again, and so on.

Presenting any kind of early opera to a modern audience isn’t easy and always involves compromises to be worked around.  While early French opera allows you to avoid the whole castrato issue, there is instead the problem of recreating the rich stagecraft of designs and effects (known in the trade as merveilleux) and all the dancing.  Opera in France evolved from courtly dance theatre and for this reason dancing retained a special role in French opera that you never find in Italy – it is very much part of the way the story is told.  In modern productions there are three choices in dealing with the passages of dance music that inevitably interrupt the singing: recreate the early choreographies (reasonably possible, as records exist, and early dances have been recreated); create entirely new dances for the music; or let the music play on and leave a yawning gap on stage, for which stage directors either try to compensate by inventing stage business or else darken the stage and treat the music like an entr’acte.  Unsurprisingly perhaps, given EOC’s focus on giving opportunities to young singers, they went with the latter options, with much moving about for the various tambourins, menuets and riguadons, while for the wonderful final chaconne – when dancers would have celebrated the marriage of Dardanus and Iphise – instead down came the lights, as if it was the end of a film or something, credits rolling etc.  This isn’t unique, of course, and speaks volumes about the variable nature of ‘authentic performance practice’ nowadays – expected for music, but still optional in every other department??

Hopefully when another one of Rameau’s pieces returns to Ireland (and no, I’m not holding my breath), we might see something more of the ambition that his wonderful and quirky operas deserve. For a tentative dip in the water, though, this deserved a lot better notice – and bigger audiences – than it received.

Handel ‘Orlando’ at Lille, Paris & Dijon

David McVicar added to his repertoire of Handel operas this season with his production of Handel’s Orlando (1733), which has been co-produced by three French opera companies who are each showing it in quick succession: Opera de Lille last month, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris last week, and Opera de Dijon on 20, 23 & 25 November – so in theory you could still see it if you moved quickly… And certainly, if you were going to get obsessed with any Handel opera, Orlando would be the one, with its Ariosto-inspired story of the knight Orlando driven completely bonkers by his misplaced love for the ever-so-slightly narcissistic Queen Angelica (who prefers Medoro), while the shepherdess Dorinda looks on, making witty yet poignant asides.  In the course of his breakdown Orlando has a mad scene, which stands out as one of the more extraordinary moments in music drama from this period.  This is an opera that is slowly catching on, with an excellent production shown recently at the Royal Opera House in London, as well as ones by Zürich Opera (available on DVD) and Opera Theatre Company in Ireland.  After the symbolic/emblematic approach taken in London, and the World War I settings chosen by both Zurich and OTC (a curious coincidence), McVicar does the classic thing and sets it in Handel’s time, with Orlando looking like some disaffected redcoat.  It’s gets an interesting review from Opera Cake (a blogger well worth following), including pictures, and here’s a short preview video:

Opera Cake suggests that McVicar and his team are beginning to get a bit formulaic in their approach to material from this period – a fair complaint, but also curiously ironic given the usual attitude to baroque opera as being, well, formulaic.  That’s a myth that is slowly being undone, but the dramaturgical and box-office problem remains: how to connect an early opera with a modern audience? There’s only so much postmodern gloss one can take, after all….

New recording of Vivaldi’s Armida

Rinaldo Alessandrini discusses Naïve Classique’s new release, a complete recording of Vivaldi’s Armida al campo d’Egitto (Armida at the camp of the Egyptians) [1718], which includes a reconstruction of the missing second act.  Sure this is a plug, but it’s an interesting plug – and an interesting work, one I’m hoping to get to know better.

2010-11 Season announcements begin: Metropolitan Opera

Details of the New York Metropolitan Opera’s 2010-11 season were announced this week.  It’s an impressive lineup, as ever.

The Met Live in HD simulcast programme was announced at the same time, and is as follows:

Das Rheingold / Wagner (October 9, 2010) – conductor James Levine, director Robert Lepage, singers include Bryn Terfel (Wotan), Stephanie Blythe (Fricka)

Boris Godunov / Mussorgsky (October 23, 2010) – conductor Valery Gergiev, director Peter Stein, singers include René Pape (Boris)

Don Pasquale / Donizetti (November 13, 2010) – conductor James Levine, director Otto Schenk, singers include Anna Netrebko (Norina)

Don Carlo / Verdi (December 11, 2010) – conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, director Nicholas Hytner, singers include Roberto Alagna (Don Carlo), Marina Poplavskaya (Elisabeth de Valois), Simon Keenlyside (Rodrigo), Ferruccio Furlanetto (King Philip)

La Fanciulla del West / Puccini (January 8, 2011) – singers include Deborah Voigt (Minnie) and Marcello Giordani (Dick Johnson)

Iphigénie en Tauride / Gluck (February 26, 2011) – singers include Susan Graham (Iphigénie) and Plácido Domingo (Oreste)

Lucia di Lammermoor / Donizetti (March 19, 2011) – singers include Natalie Dessay (Lucia)

Le Comte Ory / Rossini (April 9, 2011) – conductor James Levine(?), director Bartlett Sher, singers include Juan Diego Flórez (Ory), Diana Damrau (Adèle), Joyce DiDonato (Isolier)

Capriccio / Richard Strauss (April 23, 2011) – singers include Renée Fleming (Countess)

Il Trovatore / Verdi (April 30, 2011) – singers include Marcelo Álvarez (Manrico)

Die Walküre / Wagner (May 14, 2011) – conductor James Levine, director Robert Lepage, singers include Jonas Kaufmann (Siegmund), Eva-Maria Westbroek (Sieglinde), Deborah Voigt (Brünnhilde), Bryn Terfel (Wotan), Stephanie Blythe (Fricka)

Understandably, they’re making a big deal out of it being the 40th anniversary of musical director James Levine’s company debut, and he will be conducting the first two parts of a new Ring Cycle (Wagner), produced by the innovative Canadian director Robert Lepage, who also directed the Met’s Damnation de Faust (Berlioz) a couple of years ago.  Directors making their first productions for the Met will be Peter Stein (Boris Godunov/Mussorgsky), Nicholas Hytner (Don Carlo/Verdi), Willy Decker (La traviata/Verdi) and Peter Sellars (Nixon in China/Adams).  Two operas will receive their Met premieres: Nixon in China (1987) by John Adams and Le Comte Ory (1828) by Rossini.

Conducting debuts will include Sir Simon Rattle (Pelléas et Mélisande/Debussy – Rattle conducting his partner, Magdalena Kozena, in the title role) and William Christie (Così fan tutte/Mozart).  More details for all of the above will follow, no doubt.