Salome in Opera National de Paris ...

During my last stay in Paris I went to Opera National de Paris at Bastille to watch the performance of Richard Strauss „Salome”. It was very interesting experience for many reasons.

Richard's Strauss music is that specific kind of music to which one could attach a label „German” — however, unlike for some other composers of the late romantic period and the tragic first half of XX century, Strauss's Germanic style is not frightening... Maybe it is reflection of his attitude do Nazism....

The another reason was in, let me express it so, „lingual” aspect of the performance. It was played in the heart of France by mostly French singers ... in German !!!

As I humbly admit to know not both these beautiful languages :-) I decided to focus completely on the music, dance and specific body language of the Opera. The result was astonishing!
First and foremost, is was very easy for me to follow the action and the turns of the plot (I did not read the libretto before). Second, the interpretation of the Opera without clear perception of its libretto is surprising!

Contrary to almost all typical interpretations — I did not find Salome (beautifully played by beautiful German Angela Denoke) as an epitome of a kind of „femme fatale”! Of course, she was depicted as strange and almost perverse women, but what Denoke tried, and to me, succeeded in, was to show that her perverseness was somehow provoked by her step-father, Herod, who driven by his lust and desire to her body, somehow accepts her demands, when is satisfied by her sensual dance (and, needless to say, the Dance of Seven Veils was danced fantastic by Denoke). Herod was depicted as a cowardly, perverse old man, who, on the surface tries to dissuade her daughter from the crime, but in fact does what she wants — just because he first got what he wanted ...

So in some sense, not understanding the words, I found this performance of Salome quite different in its meaning. Less focused on the proverbial fatality of a woman, more on false meekness and cowardliness and lust of a man... When I read libretto of the Opera the day after - I was surprised by the text painting a bit different picture of the story ...

Written in Zurich, Sunday, September 25, 2011

A Midsummer Night's Dream in modern setting

Benjamin Britten fascinates me since my reading of "The Rest is Noise". Couple of weeks ago I listened/watched to Peter Grimes (still deserves a review), and today to his amazing opera of hundreds years old Shakespearean Midsummer Night's Dream . Performed by Symphony Orchestra of Gran Teatre del Liceu - Barcelone, realized by François Roussillon, the performance is full of modern symbolism.

As some interpreters say, Shakespeare expressed a lot of sexual connotations and hidden references to human love in this play. This aspect is intensified by the omnipresent double beds: All Act 1 is played on gigantic double bed with green coverlet and huge pillows. Act 2 stages multiple double beds, Act 3 starts with three beds hanging in the air. The opera ends by all the beds going up to heaven, leaving a place for the theatre of strange characters ....

Is our love always coming only from us? Or from our own will? Or our desires control it?
Are there sometimes forces (like the fairies, Oberon & Titania in the play) that takes us somewhere we would go ourselves?
Well, we all have experiences confirming that there is some truth in that Shakespeare/Britten message ....

The play ends with optimistic:
“Jack shall have Jill;Naught shall go ill;The man shall have his mare again,And all shall be well.”

... but there are undertones in the poetry: read the strophe sung repeatedly by happy lovers in the end: "mine own and not mine own" ....

As for music, as always with Britten, it is amazing. Act 1 features portamentos (glissandos) that create a special atmosphere of something unrealistic and mysterious.

However, my favourite was the music in the beginning of Act 3 - played with the entry of Oberon to the scene - sound almost minimalistic like that of much later Glass or Górecki....

Worth spending time with it !

Moses und Aron

After posting reviews of the radio programmes.... writing about an opera is not so unusuall - is it?

Well, "Moses und Aron" by Arnold Schönberg is something worth writing about and worth to recommend to everybody interested in modern music. First of all, libretto and music is by one of the giants of XX century music - the man who laid the ground to atonal, or rather, twelve-tonal music. "Moses und Aron" is partially tonal, but the atonality is also very important there and forms a large part of the score.

Second, the libretto is, of course based on biblical theme, literally on the story of Aaron being involved in Golden Calf blasphemy, while Moses was on Mount Sinai with G-d.

The Opera, particularly in the realization I saw - by Vienna State Opera, uses this theme to present the unending dillema of theory versus practice, idea versus reality, True G-d versus politheism. Aaron is after practicality, reality while Moses after ideas, theory and virtues.

The incredible images on screens of TV sets palying the central role in Act II of the Opera, show what the authors of this staging, take as "modern day" politheism. Later, in the interview, Reto Nickler, the stage director, explains this explicitly: the modern politheism is a focus on appearances, on the unrealism of media, particulary of TV, it is in the bigotry, in the egoism, in the acts of those who kill people in the name of god....

Moses und Aron is a great opera, and I do advice to everybody, like me, who did not like opera so far - to watch, to listen, to experience it....

See: the images from the opera.