Jonathan McGovern / Arvustused

Calling for a large cast coupled with a large orchestra and chorus getting a production of War and Peace off the ground is a mammoth undertaking for any opera company, so well done WNO for achieving such a feat and, indeed, for Sir David Pountney - who’s now preparing a new Ring cycle for Chicago’s Lyric Opera next year - for delivering such a colourful and, indeed, rewarding account of Prokofiev’s masterpiece which duly ended his nine-year tenure with the company. Mounted in association with Theater Magdeburg and first seen at Cardiff’s Millennium Centre in 2018, Pountney’s staging proved a minimalist affair while WNO’s Czech-born music director, Tomáš Hanus, brilliantly conducted the Welsh National Opera Orchestra in a performing version influenced by Katya Ermolaeva and Rita McAllister’s research reconstructing Prokofiev’s original intentions for the opera whilst still including some of the later additions such as the Act I waltz. A well-cast production, the role of Natasha Rostova was admirably sung by Lauren Michelle who made her WNO début in a stunning performance as Jessica in the 2016 production of André Tchaikowsky’s The Merchant of Venice while Jonathan McGovern (making his WNO début) delivered a confident and assured performance as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. WNO regular, Mark Le Brocq - well-loved for his previous roles with the company appearing in Leoš Janáček’s From the House of the Dead, Alban Berg’s Lulu and The Merchant of Venice - put in a salutary performance as Count Pierre Bezukhov, looking the part from head to foot. They were a force to be reckoned with. Malcolm Rippeth’s atmospheric and moody lighting proved spectacular and realistic, too, while Marie-Jeanne Lecca - a long-standing creative partner of Sir David Pountney - came up with a formidable wardrobe that was a feast for the eyes especially the uniform for Jonathan May’s eccentric portrayal of Old Prince Bolkonsky who radiantly sang a lovely and nostalgic song praising his homeland. Really, I don’t think he would have looked out of place as a follower of the Kaiser Chiefs! As a curtain-raiser while the orchestra was tuning up, a character in the guise of Tolstoy dressed all in white sporting a long-white beard was seen working at his desk with a white-quilled pen writing his famous story with his Cyrillic script projected on a screen above him whilst the characters contained within the story - peasants, military, aristocrats and so forth - came together one by one merging on stage into an impressive statuesque formation before leading into the opening chorus that speaks of heroism and Mother Russia. And hats off to Welsh National Opera Chorus, so well-trained by Stephen Harris. But Sir David Pountney has the last word. He really has to: ‘War and Peace is one of the most famously demanding of operatic scores deploying massed choruses and a huge gallery of small roles to give authenticity to the great national drama of war and survival that it depicts. It is a superb showcase for WNO’s justly-famous chorus and for a company which prides itself on collective excellence.

Sung in English War and Peace might have been, but a nice touch was to have the work title in Cyrillic on the spine of the booklet. The surtitles did not always match exactly what was sung, which is slightly disconcerting if we are actually hearing the work in the vernacular. And that is basically getting the criticism out of the way: this was a spectacularly successful evening. Sir David Pountney’s production is vast in the scope of its imagination; aptly, as the chorus (and list of participants) is huge. The ‘Epigraph’ is here the first scene – most usually heard as the introduction to the ‘War’ scenes. The Russian people prepare to defend themselves: fervently patriotically, as one might expect. The sheer fortissimo, dissonant force is overwhelming in this production. The WNO chorus is in fine fettle, repeatedly revealing heft and huge enthusiasm for the dramaturgical thrust, while unleashing its partying side in the Ball. The stage is essentially static, with a semicircular wooden structure containing the on-stage action and projections towards the back. The projections include film excerpts from Sergei Bondarchuk’s 1966 film of the Tolstoy, but also, amongst many others, fabulous invocations of the atmosphere of a Russian Ball and a miraculous invocation of the fire of Moscow burning. It is clearly impossible to go into each and every soloist given the roster of singers. But it would be unfair not to admire David Stout’s fine, rich voice in the part of Dolukov (and Denisov, and Napoleon, and Raevsky). Whichever hat he was wearing, he excelled. He apparently has specialised in the role of Figaro, and also starred in WNO’s Figaro Gets a Divorce by the excellent composer Elena Langer. Simon Bailey’s Kutuzov, too, is astonishing, his soliloquy absolutely gripping vocally, musically and dramatically. Brno-born conductor Tomáš Hanus (who has taken WNO to his hometown, in fact) conducts with drive, yet can give the music space when required. The orchestra is extraordinarily well-trained, and one has to acknowledge, too, the sheer stamina, not least from the brass, sounding as fresh at the close as in that shattering opening chorus. Hanus responds beautifully to Prokofiev’s weaving of the tale, moving easily between spectacle and whispered statement, marshalling the huge choral moments with ease. WNO’s evening was a salutary reminder of the sheer power of Prokofiev’s magnificent score. It has been a good week for opera, what with Opera Holland Park’s L’arlesiana and the Wolf-Ferrari/Tchaikovsky evening. And what a way to crown it.

Minimal cost, minimal cast, but Covent Garden is back in business, presenting four power-punching works online and to a socially distanced audience with themes about ‘who we are and where we are’ at this time of crisis. The short pieces, more usually performed on the concert platform rather than theatrical stage, deal with isolation, loneliness and frustration, albeit in heightened, operatic form. The first is Handel’s Apollo e Dafne, in which Jonathan McGovern’s lustful God, in golden lizard skin and giant crimson codpiece, pursues Alex Lowe’s demure Daphne, reeling her in with invisible strings. The comic seduction turns nasty, but just in time the nagging finger of retribution humbles the mighty. Sadly, things don’t turn out so well for the maiden either. All the artists are UK-based, including the South-Africa born Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, who sang Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, deliciously, as the performer recalls—or imagines—happy, gentle, childhood days on family porches and lawns. Feeling utterly stir crazy? Try the final offering Frankenstein!!, H K Gruber’s surreal, manic horror-show cabaret, performed a little awkwardly by tenor Allan Clayton as a demented rock star. Imagine a Da-Da musical scripted by Ivor Cutler about Marvel comic heroes. Between the last two came the highlight of the evening, mezzo Christine Rice in Britten’s 15-minute cantata Phaedra. The percussive music vibrates constantly on the verge of madness, brilliantly reflected in the phrasing and expressiveness of Rice’s interpretation. The two-hour programme was given before a socially-distanced audience and can still be seen online for £16. The first 30-minutes of the video, in which nothing happens, can be skipped.

The Royal Opera opened its doors to its first post-lockdown live audience for 4/4, a quartet of staged vocal works, none of them originally intended for the theatre, all of them dealing in some way with isolation. Adele Thomas’s production of Handel’s 1710 cantata Apollo e Dafne starts out as an erotic comedy but turns troubling as Jonathan McGovern’s Apollo becomes obsessive in his pursuit of Alexandra Lowe’s Dafne, before divine intervention leaves him crestfallen, self-pitying and alone. Deborah Warner stages Britten’s Phaedra for Christine Rice and does too much with it by bringing on stage not only Hippolytus (Matthew Ball from the Royal Ballet) but also the Minotaur (Andres Presno) as the symbolic embodiment of the irrational nature of desire. Richard Jones’s take on HK Gruber’s Frankenstein!!, meanwhile, re-imagines its protagonist (Allan Clayton) as a self-obsessed rock star locked in a codependent relationship with his silently besotted assistant (Dawn Woolongong). The performances are terrific. Rice’s Phaedra is powerhouse stuff, with Richard Hetherington urgently propelling Britten’s score forward. With Patrick Milne in the pit, Rangwanasha, a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme, sounds simply glorious in Knoxville. Frankenstein!! anarchically embraces everything from mock-baroque to Weimar cabaret and Schoenbergian sprechstimme, and Clayton, wild-eyed, hilarious and utterly brilliant, and conductor Edmund Whitehead seem to be having the time of their lives with it. There’s beautiful playing from the ROH Orchestra under Christian Curnyn in the Handel, and Lowe makes an exquisite, self-assured Dafne opposite McGovern’s funny yet dangerous Apollo, excellent in his grieving final aria.