Tosca from the Met at Bolden Cineworld

The Metropolitan Opera relay as I have reported on all my visits provides an all round better experience than elsewhere because oft the ability to watch scenery being dismantled and moved around as well as the excellent live interviews with performers and technicians. On this occasion there was a bonus watching the former great conductor James Levine who had been with the Met for decades in rehearsal for Falstaff after his absence for over two years. He had retired after 50 years as a professional musician because of intense back pain. He was operated successfully to stop the pain but fortunately eh then ha d a much more damaging fall which rendered him into a wheelchair with almost no lower limb control however we physic therapy, hard work and a lot of support from family, friends and members of the public he is able to conduct again and watching the rehearsal we witnessed his intense professionalism and control. I had not planned to watch Falstaff because a comic opera is not my cup of tea despite is great ensemble singing. However I may go because just out of appreciate for his courage and determination and which I am sure will proving a great emotional experience for the audience as well as for him.

I have experienced a performance of Tosca from the Met before viewed on TV via their on line subscription player and was therefore aware of the story and that the opera contains a great Aria two by the male lead and one by Tosca in each of the three acts.

Tosca is played by Patricia Racette a mature substantial figure who although miss cast as the young innocent Madam Butterfly in Puccini’s Opera (which was one of my first experience of the Met relay back in 2009) has the emotional power and intensity in her singing which moved me to tears. As Tosca she had to give a sustained emotional force throughout, first a jealous woman threatened by what appears to be her lover’s attraction to another woman he had seen enter the church where he is suppose to be painting a Madonna and then fuelled by the evil commander of the French forces occupying Rome, who gives the impression that the woman has gone off with the lover to his secretary cottage in the grounds of the church.

There are strong chords between Tosca and the les Vepres Siciliennes, in that opera concerns an occupying power and a resistance movement in this instance led by Angelotti who we see escaping from prison, the Castel, del Angelo in Rome and which I have visited. He is hidden first in the church where he makes use of the meal left for the painter by the Sacriston. It emerges that woman who has come to pray had no interest in the painter but had come to leave clothing in the chapel, a dress and a fan so he could leave the city dressed as a woman with the fan hiding his features.

Unfortunately the alarm is sounded before the escape plan can be effected so the artist painter takes Angelloti to his cottage, mentioning that there is a well with half way down a passage to small cave. In the rush he leaves the fan which belonged to the sister and has the family crest. This is found by the ruthless governor Scarpia played by the Baritone George Gagnidre to brilliant effect. He persuades Tosca to go off in search of her alleged miscreant lover followed by one of his men who sees where the artist is located but when they arrive the escaped prisoner cannot be found so they arrest the painter played by the great tenor Roberto Alagna who I last saw in the Met Carmen and who is playing this role in the Christmas New Year production at the ROH which I will experiencing in person in the New Year and where the tickets arrived last week.

I felt his voice has become stronger and richer than previously although it may be more to do with the nature of the two roles and his two arias brought the house down as they say such was his emotional power. Scarpia then has Tosca also brought to the palace where he is seen being entertained by three women to commercial virtue and where he plots to use the situation of power to possess Tosca. He openly sings that his interest is only one of lust and that once achieved he likes to move on, rather like former President Kennedy who got a headache if he did not have sex with a new woman everyday. In this instance Scarpia preferred situation where he took women against their will and in Tosca is his best challenge to date because of her spiritual strength she sings in the Cathedral choir as well as commitment to one man and intolerance of unfaithfulness. He ensure she is a witness to the torturing of her lover and then offers them freedom if she accepts his lust. He explains to that the lover will be shot but this will be a fake as the guns will fire blanks and he tells his henchman to undertake a similar execution to a previous occasion. What Tosca does not know is that the previous execution was also a fatal one presented as a fake to get his way with someone else.

She yields up the hiding place to the despair of her lover. Angelotti is reported to have committed suicide rather than be captured.

After Scarpia signs the release warrant Tosca chances on a knife and stabs the lecher to death. She visits the jail as requested earlier and explains what is to happen to her lover and that he must pretend to be dead and not move until the soldiers leave. To her horror she finds that he has been killed and this coincides with the discovery of the body of Scarpia. Rather than face capture she throws herself off the battlements to her death. This proved to be one of the great operas an amazingly I then discovered there is to be a performance locally at the Sunderland Empire next April

Verdi Les Vepres Siciliannes

It is time to devote writing to recent cultural experiences of considerable merit and first a great discovery in Grand Opera, Les Vepres Sicilliennes by Verdi from the Royal Opera House London broadcast live at 17,45 on Monday November 4^th at the Cineworld Bolden at a cost of £10,89, In addition to the petrol travel cost, a coffee at McDonalds beforehand £1.19 and a cherry ice cream during one of the intervals £2.20, the overall expenditure if one includes meals cooked at home would at no more come to £25 whereas to have travelled to London with overnight accommodation and cost of a best seat in the house ticket, assuming gaining all the best deals by booking in advance the cost would have been no less than £250 and likely to have been significantly more. So while it would be great to hear my favourite works in all the great Opera Houses of the World once. This is the life as it is claimed.

The opera is rarely performed which I do not understand why given it overwhelming beauty and intensity written for the Paris Opera House with its first performance in 1855. Whereas I have always been disappointed that Carmen is sung in French and not Spanish the land where it is set. This opera is best sung in French instead of the Italian, or Sicilian which is the basis for the story based on a situation in the that country as it was then in 1282 and its capital Palermo.

What the Director of the Royal Opera House performances has done is to set the Opera not in 1285 Palermo but 1855 Paris which makes more poignant the struggle of the Sicillennes against the brutal occupiers of their country who regarded any local woman, whether she was married or not as a prize to be used as they wanted, ironically in this instance the occupying power was France with the opera created within the Age of Revolutions.

　

The first two and final two acts are of 70 minutes with the third performed by a corps des ballet in Paris but in this production there are important ballet sequences throughout the five acts, notable with the overture and introduction in which the ruthless French commander of the Island rapes a young woman, in this instance a member of the ballet and where the ballet master feels driven from his homeland by his experience.

Jean Procida was a young doctor in the original performance and he is played by an outstanding young baritone Erwin Schrott from Uruguay who looks younger than his 41 years and is the life partner of the great Russian soprano Anna Netrebeko with whom they have a son. Procida was already a Patriot and it his leadership return which is eagerly awaited by those who still nurture their home of a Sicily freed from French rule.

One of these is Helene played by a the French Soprano Lianna Haroutoinian, a mature woman of ample size playing a young girl who is devastated by the death of her brother, another patriot at the hands of the Island ruler Guy de Montfort, and intent on revenge with her suitor the young Henry played the similarly mature and amble American tenor Bryn Hymel so this couple is well suited in terms of age and physique which is always desirable these days when portraying an attraction both loving and or sexual.

Unaware that Henry is his son or Monfont his father, the ruler is interested in Henry who is imprisoned for his anti French interests and ruler offers him a role in the country if eh keeps away from Helene In the second Act which follows on quickly from the first Procida return home determined to lea a revolution but finds he majority of people either too frightened or too complacent to support and he relies on a few patriots, including Henry and Helene who he meets upon landing.

The way the story is told is to combine aspect of the original location of Sicily with the Paris Opera House with the tiered side of the Opera house an integral part of the set and used for the chorus of occupying soldiers with the Siciliennes, peasants attired form the chorus on stage there are also reflecting mirrors when the dancers appear.

The trio plan to launch an uprising during a festival celebrating the marriage of young Siciliennes and Henry swears to kill Monfort to avenge the brother of Helene whose skull she holds and in return she gives the love from he seeks.

Just before the festivities and uprising the ruler‘s men arrive bringing an invitation for Henry to attend a ball and after he refuses he arrested and dragged off. Procida arrives too late to intervene and too late to stop some of the soldiers carrying of the Sicilliennes would be brides and some of the wives and mothers for their own pleasure. Procida and Helene determine to gate crash the ball in an effort to save Henry more than the Sicilian women and they berate the menfolk for allowing this to happen without resistance.

It was at this point that the first long interval occurred for 35 mins with after around 20 an interview with the Musical director from the bar restaurant where staff are clearing the tables from those who had booked to take one of their courses at this point.

It is in the act that the rule receives a letter written by the woman he abducted and raped when he first arrived on the island to say that her son Henry was his child. She had now died. Monfort is overjoyed at the news although sad that he had remained unaware of the existence of his son. During the ballet which takes place at the ball, Procida and Helene are horrified when they and their friends are exposed by Henry who is unwilling to be responsible for the death of his father however much he hates the man. His friends are horrified by this betrayal and scene wends in dramatic fashion as it appears the revels are all shot with the exception of Henry. Helene and Procida are in fact imprisoned before execution which is the scene at the commencement of fourth act after a further local interval, During the first I had enjoyed a scoop of cherry ice cream but stayed in place for the second apart from a comfort break. I think it was in the second break that a short film was shown on the creation of the ballet sequences.

Henry obtains a pass to try and explain to Helene the reason for his betrayal and to regain her love and to die with her. He is able to save her and Procida by accepting Monfort as his father who arranges their marriage which will mark a new relationship between the French and the Sicilliennes. Helene is then advised by Procida that he has arranged for an uprising and massacre of the French one she marries Henry and the bells ring out their joy. She rejects Henry at the last moment to avoid the bloodshed but Monfont seeing the unhappiness of the son and sensing that Helene also loves the young man orders the marriage to take place and for the bells to commence to ring. The Opera ends suddenly rather than dramatically without the massacre being shown.

The Sicilian Vespers (Italian: Vespri siciliani Sicilian: Vespiri siciliani) is the name given to the successful rebellion on the island of Sicily that broke out on the Easter of 1282 against the rule of the French/Capetian king Charles I, who had ruled the Kingdom of Sicily since 1266. Within six weeks, three thousand French men and women were slain by the rebels and the government of King Charles lost control of the island. It was the beginning of the War of the Sicilian Vespers. The rebellion commenced with the bells sounding for the vespers as the crown turned on the French after a man had been murdered for attempting to protect his wife from sexual advances.

Les Troyens

I found  experiencing the epic Opera Les Troyens by Berlioz on Saturday evening January 5th 2013 exhausting  although with a five o’clock scheduled start I was prepared for a long session. I was not mistaken. As if the cinema management knew  we were to have a long sitting they kept us standing outside until a few minutes before the scheduled beginning of preliminaries. As on my last visit I had booked an aisle seat to one side knowing that I would not have a stranger next to me in what had been a fairly full cinema theatre. In this instance there was a whole row vacant adjacent so I was able to move to the centre  theatre which added to the enjoyment of the experience.

I had no advance knowledge of the story or the music other than knowing of Berlioz from the Symphony Fantastique, a record of which I thought I possessed but did not find so am listening to a performance on You Tube from August of 2011  Society des Concerto du Conservatoire, André Cluytens conducting at a BBC Promenade Concert, Other known pieces are his Romeo and Juliet and Harold en Italie. I also knew he had created an opera on Benvenuto Cellini and La Damnation de Faust which includes an appearance of Helen of Troy.

In the second interval we learn that the male lead Bryan Hymel as Aeneas, the Trojan military leader had appeared in one of the rare production at Convent Garden in June and July of 2013 and that he was only recruited to this production at the last minute after the house tenor Marcello Girordano pulled out of a role which tenors find difficult because of the sustained singing and range required, a fate which fell the great Placido Domingo previously. Hymel had only a two hour rehearsal of his role before the performance just before the New Year and this made his performance even more remarkable.

This was said to only be the second time the Opera has been performed  at Metropolitan because of requirements with a dozen lead singers, a huge chorus of 120 and a full corps des ballet with lead dancers and other extras such as children who play young Trojans.

After reading the available information I find from photos that the Covent Garden production appears better staged and was available to hear live at the time. Even better I have now discovered the full opera is available on Youtube in a production from Paris and as a consequence I abandoned  the intention to go an watch Quartet this afternoon, decided listen and  watch again parts of the whole opera with Quartet rescheduled for next week as long as there are showings during the day. I had also forgotten that I am going see Les Misérables,, the film on Friday morning.

I was late setting off on Saturday and stopped in Shields to collect a second supply of ink cartridges only to find there was only three blacks left so got the rest of the five (one replacement) in colours. I therefore left myself only a few minutes spare  to get some food and the ticket before the scheduled start. I  went straight to the Asda  sandwich deal counter  parking nearby and found among the few items left a smoked salmon and cheese sandwich marked down from £2 to £1. It was delicious although eaten on the hoof as I walked from the supermarket to the cinema and attempted to obtain the ticket from the automated machine only to be told to go to the ticket counter where I discovered the problem was having booked two events at the same time.

My only knowledge of the Opera was from its title The Trojans a subject which  been covered in our popular and high culture in a variety of ways with Troy and Brad Pitt 2004 and Helen of Troy back in 1966 and who will forget Elizabeth Taylor as Helen in the 1967 production of Dr Faustus with Richard Burton, and which they also performed on stage at the Oxford Playhouse. I went in search of the programme but as I did not find I assume I did not see. I did see Marlowe’s Dr Faustus at Stratford Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986and a production of Faust based on Goethe’s version at the Theatre Royal Newcastle.

The story of the Trojan wars has featured in a number of Operas Troilus and Cressida by William Walton and I have seen the William Shakespeare Play performed by the RSC, Sam Mendes, directed at the Theatre Royal with David Troughton as Hector and Ralph Fiennes as Troilus ( Alfred Burke was Nestor). The Belle Heléne by Offenbach, Dido and Aeneas by Purcell, King Priam by Michael Tippet and Achilles by Gay are other operatic versions. There are various poems and plays created by Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and I am sure I have seen RSC little productions of the  Trojan Women and Electra but this  may be false memory. There were three radio plays in 1998 with Paul Scholfield and a TV mini series in 2003.

There was also the extraordinary Tantalus with nine plays  which I saw over three days at the Theatre Royal and where I then acquired the script. (My search also discovered the programme from the Earls Court performance of AIDA sponsored by the Prince’s Trust and where he attended a performance with his then wife, Diana on 28th  June 1988.  Attended on Saturday 2nd July seats R 23 -27 although we quickly moved  to overlook the stage from the side!)

Now to this extraordinary five act Opera Les Troyens. There is no memorable music such as from Aida, Madam Butterfly or Carmen but I am left with a sense of great emotional and at times passionate intensity, and extraordinary chorus work. The five acts into three sessions with the first two acts some 90 mins forming an opera on its own and where the principal singers take their bows.  The first two acts cover the finding of the Trojan horse left by the departing Athenians after the years of siege and the city’s destruction after they misguidedly take into the City. The star of this two act opera is Deborah Voight as Cassandra who forecasts what happens and commits suicide with other Trojan women after  Aeneas has been persuaded  to lead the male army away to fight another day

I had not heard Deborah sing before but knew the name from the publicity over her firing from Covent Garden because of her excessive weight  and her decision to use  surgery to almost half her size. She gives an outstanding performance which was appropriately recognised at the closure of the second Act She has attempted to persuade her father King Priam and her fiancée Coroebus played by another known name Dwaine Croft who has sung some 25 roles at Met and whose brother Robert is the more well known Internationally, not to bring the horse into the city, Both perish as a consequence. The sequence where she persuades other Trojan women not to yield to the Athenians but die with her is most moving. Prior to this Aeneas the warrior is persuaded by the ghost of Hector to flee the city before the Athenians exit the Horse and to found a new Empire of Trojans in Italy.

I stayed for the first part of the interval where Voight is interviewed and then hastily went over to McDonalds to enjoy a 99p chicken burger and £1 20 or thereabouts  good cup of coffee, returning for an interview with the Met‘s new conductor Fabio Luiso. I would not have survived otherwise.

The third and fourth acts combined are even longer  and the Met production last well over an hour and a half with at last half an hour of dancing which for once impressed me greatly although led one member of the audience to comment about padding during the next interval.
The people of Tyre fled to North Africa and the city of Carthage and seven years late under the leadership of the Queen Dido, (played by Susan Graham), still mourning the murder of her husband. Graham also played Dido at the Théátre du Chátelet  in the performance I am listening to at this moment.

The exiles from Tyre have prospered and now two events in quick succession are to significantly change fortunes. Aeneas, his son and his men have sought sanctuary from the storms at the sea the city’s harbour and bring various gifts of treasure to the Queen to beg her indulgence. These she accepts and offers the hospitality of her city and its people. However the good  times are dramatically broken with the news that the Barbarians,  the Numideans have declared war and are approaching the city having destroyed outposts. The city is short of arms  and Aeneas offers his men to fight alongside placing his son in the care of Dido. The son is traditionally played by a young soprano whose name in this instance I am yet to find but who  performance was impressive.

As a consequence of the alliance the enemy is defeated and the ballet is part of the celebrations as well as the couple falling in love and with great on stage passion as clearly Dido has great personal  admiration for the young tenor Bryan Hymel aged 33.  His voice is ideal for a role which as mentioned defeats many established tenors. L learned that Graham and Hymel have sung together before when he was only 24 and they instantly took to each other and this is clear in the performance and after their Act 4 interview. On stage the problem, of their romance is that Dido neglects her leadership which cause her adviser Narbal, played by Kwangchul Youn justified concern at the commencement of Act 4

In the second and shorter interval I slipped out at quickly for an ice cream, a single scup without toppings and cherry based  which was very good although steep at £2,60 and worth about £1 less.

The final Act 5 lasts one hour and I find Aeneas about to make his way to Italy despite his love for Dido because of the appearance of Hector, Priam, Coroebus and Cassandra demanding and urging him to fulfil his destiny. When Dido finds out she curses him wishes his failure and damnation. When his fleet sets off she is so angry and distraught she orders the creation of a pyre of everything which reminds her of him and the Trojans. She prophesises that her fate will be remembered and that a future general Hannibal will destroy Italy and revenge her in so doing. She stabs herself to death with the sword of Aeneas and in that moment has a vision of the destruction of Carthage by Rome. The curse on Aeneas is echoed by all the Carthaginians witnessing the death of their Queen.

An opera to be considered great has to be more than a great spectacle or giving the audience their money’s worth in terms of length and number of principal artists. This not a  great opera which I suspect means it is the main reason why it is not performed more frequently. However there were some I was there great singing by the principals. The experience  will be memorable although I do not anticipate I will  view again or purchase a recording.

This was not so for the modern opera Satyagraha where I  purchased a CD recording. It was shown last night on Sky Arts and I recorded to view at a later date.