Tchaikovsky : Iolanta
Bartók : Duke Bluebeard's Castle
Metropolitan Opera Chorus
Orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, New York
Valery Gergiev
This was quite a choice for Valentine's Day! Two fairy-tale operas, one happy, one tragic, back-to-back, with a vague suggestion that Polish director Mariusz Trelinski was treating them a little like Sondheim's Into the Woods - Part 1 has the traditional happy ending, but Part 2 shows what happened after. It wasn't quite that explicit, but there were visual links between the two productions, and the Bartók was very much a cautionary tale in this instance.
However, we began in lighter territory with Tchaikovsky's last opera, Iolanta. Nothing to do with Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe (which I had wondered the first time I heard of this piece), but a fairly faithful adaptation of a well-known Danish play from 1845, about a beautiful, blind princess brought up in isolation and in complete ignorance of her disability. Her father brings a celebrated Moorish doctor to see her as a last resort, and the doctor declares she needs to be made aware of her condition before he can effect a cure, but the King refuses. Then a handsome knight wanders by, falls head-over-heels and, unknowing of the ban, effects the revelation. After some hesitations, Iolanta is duly healed, and marries her knight. The basic concept is a bit odd, but it's a fairy story, and there have been odder ones.
Trelinski began his career as a cinema director, and there was a lot of video imagery used in both productions, usually very effectively. It allowed him to create the woods in which Iolanta lives, secluded, and some magical evocations of starry skies, as well as much more complex ideas in the Bartók. Iolanta's home was a cube with three open sides, the fourth wall either being a log cabin, seen from the outside, or an interior wall somewhat gruesomely decorated with stags' head trophies. Costume was roughly mid-20th Century.
For a short opera (around 90 minutes), Iolanta takes a while to get going. Considering it was premiered alongside Nutcracker, there's a big difference between the almost hesitant opera, and the easy and inspired flow of melody of the ballet. However, we started to get an idea that things might get interesting with Elchin Azizov, as the doctor Ibn-Hakia, and his monologue "Two worlds", and then Alexei Markov showed up as Robert, Duke of Burgundy. Robert has been betrothed to Iolanta since childhood (without ever meeting her), but has fallen in love with another woman in the interim, and he has a barnstorming aria in praise of his beloved, which Markov delivered with a magnificent, full-toned baritone and absolute conviction. Impassioned singing of that calibre duly set fire to the proceedings, and the remainder of the opera could be called a triumph. The love duet for Iolanta and Vaudémont is sort of recycled from The Queen of Spades, but it still sounded superb in the assured hands (voices) of Anna Netrebko and Piotr Beczala, and Gergiev was providing the kind of full-throttle support that he manages so well on his good days, with a great sweep of sound from the Met orchestra.
However, although the Tchaikovsky was ultimately very well sung and played, and most enjoyable, it is not the composer at his most inspired, and it cannot hold a candle, either musically or theatrically, to the bleak and powerful masterpiece that is Duke Bluebeard's Castle. This is part fairy-tale, part psychodrama, and in many productions, there's little suggestion that Bluebeard has actually killed anyone, rather that each wife in turn has crossed some line with him, and that he has simply put them out of his life. Trelinski, however, has gone flat out for the serial-killer version; by the time Judith opens the last door, she is, in fact, already dead, drowned, and as Bluebeard sings his final threnody, he's digging her grave in the forest.
There were a few things in his concept I didn't understand, but there were also some very strong images, in a highly imaginative staging. As mentioned earlier, there were visual links back to Iolanta - the wall of trophies, the bowl of flowers, the cube, and the gloved hand - but I wasn't adhering to these characters being Iolanta and Vaudémont (or anyone else, really, from the Tchaikovsky) at a later stage. It was quite possible to just accept it on its own, without trying to forge links. The bloodstained figure rising from the bath-tub, for the third door, was a bit over-the-top, but the glass wall looking out onto an uprooted forest was a breath-taking image that well matched the crushing chords of the fifth door.
Well played, Duke Bluebeard's Castle will always leave you steamrollered, and this performance lived up to that. The vocal lines are often very sparse, with only brief moments of intense lyricism, while the orchestral part alternates between profound austerity and lush impressionism. Again, Gergiev and the Met orchestra were outstanding, compelling from first to last bar. Nadja Michael brought a very dark-toned soprano to her part, sometimes a little variable in pitch right at the lower end of her range, but she nailed the top C on the opening of the 5th door, a thrilling sound. Michael Petrenko was excellent as Bluebeard, his timbre sombre, yet clear, the sound fluid, his presence menacing and commanding. A genuinely impressive performance of a tour de force of dramatic music theatre.
[Next : 19th February]
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