Past Production Reviews
8Ninguna versión de concierto con tenor y barítono detrás de un atril y en medio de una orquesta puede satisfacer del todo el significado de este momento. Aquí se necesita una escena como la propuesta por Kramer: semi vacía, cubierta de nieve con una tumba abierta y un coro tímidamente intrusivo a los costados, y dos hombres mirándose primero con asombro y angustia, después con tierna admiración y finalmente tomados de la mano. Hasta este momento, el barítono y el tenor se habían movido no solo como enemigos el uno de otro, sino con una perplejidad que traicionaba la enemistad interna, la que cada uno tenía consigo mismo.
ENO’s excellence with technology, demonstrated on multiple occasions, is once more on display here. Massive screens display anti-war propaganda, an appeal from Srebrenica (fleshed out by an essay, ‘Kada Hotić – Seamstress of Srebrenica’ in the exceptionally lavish programme booklet) alongside scenes of the utmost violence mirrored by the blind violence of today’s football hooligans. Nature also plays a huge part in the visual display, as do Tilmans’s photos of Coventry Cathedral (for whose re-consecration the War Requiem was written; as was, of course, Bliss’s Beatitudes).
Nicky Spence rings out like a heroic peal of bells as Siegmund. Emma Bell’s Sieglinde, in jeans and a tee-shirt, was the abused wife from The 39 Steps, welcoming a stranger (here with an industrial-sized jerry of water). Like Brünnhilde, a decent woman surrounded by vile men. The siblings work well together, despite schematic direction which initially has them moving like the figures in a German weather house.
Ruders’s detailed orchestral colours are never dull, swerving from the sweet tonality of Amazing Grace (quoted in the score) to aggressive dissonance, enhanced by a battery or instruments from harpsichord and piano to xylophone, bells, gongs, woodblocks, unidentifiable grindings and sizzlings and the insistent ambush of a large bass drum. Every aspect of the singing and production is impressive, fluently staged with a backdrop of drapes and a few mobile set pieces such as The Wall. The women of English National Opera’s chorus have many opportunities to shine, and do. The hardworking ENO orchestra excels.
Ruders and his librettist, Paul Bentley, have succeeded magnificently in transferring a book, much of whose action is in memories and internal monologue, to the stage. Flashbacks to Offred’s Life Before with her mother, husband, and daughter are back-projected black-and-white film. Act One ends with a birth — to the Handmaid Ofwarren, a moment of communal rejoicing — Act Two with a death, the whole framed by an academic symposium in which a historian in 2065 — Call My Agent!’s Camille Cottin — plays us Offred’s clandestine tapes, making it clear from the start that Gilead, like Nazi Germany, is a historical aberration.
Sophie Koch was an astonishing Venus, making her Royal Opera role debut triumphantly. Rich and refulgent of tone, her voice was fully open; this, coupled with her sheer stage presence made her hypnotic. Perhaps Peter Seiffert was not quite her equal, and the opening scenes revealed a trait that was disconcertingly present throughout the evening: a sort of zooming in and out of focus for his voice and, indeed, his rapport with the role itself. Initially, he sounded disconnected and strained; then for a while all would be fine, as if everything was congruent once more, before strain once more crept in. He is an experienced Tannhäuser, for sure (San Francisco, Berlin State, Deutsche Oper and Zurich are amongst the opera houses that have featured him in this role), but this was not his night; the beam was not consistently on full, shall we say. Far more consistent was the clear star of the evening, Christian Gerhaher in the role of Wolfram. He brought a Lieder singer’s art to Wagner’s long lines, triumphantly: here was a strong interpretation moulded into human shape by infinite gradations of tone and flexibilities of phrasing. Lyrical and beautiful, his “O du, mein lieber Anendstern” brought the hushed intimacy of a fine liederabend at the Wigmore Hall to the far more spacious Covent Garden – yet the sound projected over the vast space perfectly. The role furnished Gerhaher’s Covent Garden debut in 2010. Emma Bell’s Elisabeth, another singer making a role debut, was magnificent. Set amongst ruins, “Dich teure Halle” needed all the magic she could inject, and her gleaming voice brought it through. Here was an intensely human Elisabeth, and we the audience felt her hopes and fears with her in the song contest.other small roles were well taken, including Michael Kraus’s Biterolf and Stephen Milling’s confident Hermann. Yet it is difficult to ignore the fact that the imperfect masterpiece that is Tannhäuser still makes its blazing mark. If Haenchen’s tempi alternated between injecting intensity and just staying the right side of feeling rushed, he remained within boundaries; and Gerhaher’s Wolfram made the evening worthwhile.
