Selected international opera and concert reviews 2005-2008

Seen and Heard International Opera Review Giacomo Meyerbeer, Les Huguenots: soloists, chorus and orchestra of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, Liège, Belgium, Jacques Lacombe (conductor), Robert Fortune (director), Christophe Vallaux (scenery), Rosalie Varda (costumes), Jean Michel Bauer (lighting), Edouard Rasquin (chorus director), 21 June 2005 (ED)

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2005/Jan-Jun05/meyerbeer2106.htm Marguerite de Valois: Annick Massis Valentine: Barbara Ducret Urbain: Marie-Belle Sandis Raoul de Nangis: Gilles Ragon Le comte de St Bris: Philippe Rouillon Le comte de Nevers: Patrice Berger Marcel: Branislav Jatic Cossé: Guy Gabelle

The Opéra Royal de Wallonie certainly has ambitions above its station. Their home, the Théâtre Royal in Liège, is a perfectly charming medium sized provincial theatre whose worn appearance is strangely endearing. It survives largely due to funding from Regional government and staunch local support. As reward, an ambitious programme is mounted annually: this production of Les Huguenots closes the current season, and proves an appropriate foil to two complete cycles of Richard Wagner’s tetralogy that opens next season. The Wagner music-dramas have been staged separately since 2003, as preparation for the complete cycles.

Not that size is everything when it comes to staging opera. There are works that are frequently staged in theatres too large to be appropriate for them: witness Massenet’s Werther, essentially an intimate domestic drama, staged in the cavernous Covent Garden earlier this season. Indeed, it is works such as the Massenet that the Liège theatre is ideally suited to, and it is so understandable why the Meyerbeer was chosen to open Covent Garden in 1858. Taking arguably the grandest of all French grand operas in Les Huguenots and presenting it in the Liège house could give it an intimacy and added immediacy too, if handled correctly.

True, the action did have a degree of intimacy appropriate to the scale of the stage; though intimacy in no way reflects upon the scale of the production. In this respect it was truly grand opera with

seemingly no expense spared. The staging showed large effects often through minimal means – a strikingly coloured backdrop, or a moodily lit battle scene – showing that acute eyes were at work, giving a production of which any house could be proud.

Musically, it was a slightly different matter. The playing, though not front rank or overt weight, was at least musical and characterful where Meyerbeer allowed for it. Jacques Lacombe, a conductor with experience of big houses such as the Met in New York, tried to move things along, though inevitably pressed the big moments of crowd scenes and choruses hard. In this, by comparison, he missed some dramatic big moments that internally affect individual characters, which should have (and could have) made a stronger impression in an intimate house. Amazingly, some unevenness in Meyerbeer’s writing also became apparent, something that had not really struck me before, in his use of different effects and musical groupings to try and give overall cohesion. Bare recitative accompaniments brought to mind stretches of Boito’s Mefistofele, though are countered elsewhere by passages of inventiveness. Perhaps this unevenness, along with the length – around three and three-quarter hours (the ballets were cut in this production!) – and the demands made on singers to deliver a style that has long since fallen from fashion cumulatively account for the work’s all but total disappearance from the staged repertoire.

In the lead roles, and really there are seven, Meyerbeer is taxing with his vocal writing. Solo lines are sometimes written against chorus or chamber scaled accompaniments, requiring a variety of qualities, not least stamina. The ladies coped better on the whole, with Annick Massis most at ease with the idiom. However, sometimes she lacked the requisite power to bring out the full range of emotion in her characterization. Barbara Ducret’s Valentine was vividly acted both internally and in larger scenes, though sometimes she sounded a shade lackluster, which could not be said of MarieBelle Sandis in the trouser role of Urbain.

Patrice Berger’s Comte de St Bris was robustly sung in a bass of real vitality and thoroughly moving in the final scene when he mistakenly shoots his daughter Valentine. Branislav Jatic’s Marcel was victim to poor acting and a voice that faded in the lower register, making his protests against Raoul’s allegiances and actions appear all the more futile.

Gilles Ragon’s tenor as Raoul proved an all or nothing experience. In certain Meyerbeer circles there had been politely stated surprise that he was to assume the role, and I can understand why. In piano passages he often appeared to mark down somewhat, obviously husbanding resources for his big moments, which are many and extended. When the voice came it was not particularly individual and often tended towards roughness. Appearing faintly comical throughout, indeed his ‘other’ career is as a comedian, acting was largely limited to stock facial expressions and gestures. Only in the final two acts did he, and indeed the production, gain much immediacy and dramatic inevitability that should have driven it from the start.

This production showed achievement largely out-vaulted by ambition, and Meyerbeer’s greatest triumph wanting for stronger advocacy. Wagner would have delighted in this, but there, too, perhaps might be some warnings for the coming Ring.

Evan Dickerson

Brahms and Schumann: Julia Fischer (violin) / Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra / Yakov Kreizberg (conductor). Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. 03.12.2006. (ED)

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2006/Jul-Dec06/npo0312.htm Brahms Violin concerto in D, op. 77 Schumann Symphony no 2 in C, op. 61 This Sunday matinee concert at the Concertgebouw presented two works in highly involving performances.

The opening movement of the Brahms concerto began in stately fashion with contributions of certainty from the cellos and basses. Texturally alert winds and subtly graded string dynamics were also evident from early on. If Kreizberg’s favoured tempo was a touch on the slow side, it was not over-lingering at least. Julia Fischer, the artist in residence with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, brought cleanness of line and assurance to her playing of the solo part, which showed awareness of the wider musical context. In repeated passages the phrasing was carefully shaded to show some difference from the initial appearance of the same material. In fortissimo phrases her tone was steely and dominant, but this was largely balanced elsewhere by more introvert contributions: the lovely sotto voce playing in the cadenza, for example.

The second movement had a feeling of organic growth about it, from which Fischer’s violin part seemed to emerge naturally. In this respect, she was no doubt aided by the famously warm and generous acoustic of the Concertgebouw’s large hall. Unforced answering phrases darted back and forth between soloist and orchestra. If momentarily it risked becoming an understated performance, this was curtailed when the music shifted to the minor key, injecting it with a different dramatic impetus, even though Fischer largely maintained the lingering spell in her playing. A pity perhaps, that more of the interplay between the orchestral strings was not exploited as the violins were not divided stage left and right.

The closing movement was deliciously upbeat and unhackneyed. Fischer threw out the solo part with disconcerting ease and a total lack of affectation. The orchestral tuttis were full and uncloying, as can so easily become the case. Kreizberg encouraged a guttural growl of real menace from the basses and if the solo became momentarily reflective, so much greater was the ebullient gallop towards the end in the closing pages of the score. Bravura playing all round, but in the best sense of the term.

Schumann’s Second symphony was from the outset full of portent-laden statements in the strings, with long paragraphs punctuated by emphatic bass-line intrusions. Perhaps the transition into the movement was a touch over-laboured by Kreizberg, but once past this moment, the various elements of depression and ecstasy that one finds in this music were energetically opposed.

Kreizberg pressed his players hard to keep a brisk tempo at the end, yet he found variety within the overall dynamic. The second movement continued much in the same vein, but was noticeably more rustic in its overall sound-world. Use of vibrato differentiated the instrumental tones on offer. With the closing accelerando daringly tackled, Kreizberg showed he is a conductor that urges spirit in the orchestral playing, whilst securing exactitude also.

The Adagio was immediately more sombre: clarinets sounded soulful, but bassoons contrasted with some piquancy. The movement overall was lent character most effectively through observance of the structural blend of psychological pressure against lighter moments. The final movement was urgently played and was expressive of the deeper emotions brewing under the surface of the work as a whole. Blazing chords at full strength gave the reading a showstopping element, but alongside that, the lower strings – as so often in this concert – proved to be decisive in shaping the structure and phrasing with apt grandeur.

Seen and Heard International Concert Review

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2006/Jul-Dec06/adlib0212.htm Reger, Beethoven, Stravinsky and Ravel: Ad Libitum Quartet.

Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. 02.12.2006. (ED) Adrian Berescu – first violin Serban Mereuta – second violin Bogdan Bisoc – viola Filip Papa – cello Reger String quartet no 2 in A, op. 54 Beethoven Grosse fugue in B-flat, op. 133 Stravinsky Three pieces for string quartet Ravel String quartet in F This programme by the Ad Libitum Quartet, from Iasi in Romania, held in the intimate small hall of Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw juxtaposed four complex and intriguing works.

Reger’s three-movement Second String Quartet clearly shows the desire to break free from Viennese influences, but in the end a question remains: does Reger remain simply non-committal or does he turn against what he sets out to achieve? The opening movement set the overall tenor for the concert with playing of insight and emotional depth. Tenderness of phrasing from the two violins sat alongside sardonic tone from the alto and in the movement’s later stages its finely gathered urgency did indeed seem to incline to the classical vein. The second movement found the quartet's unison playing immaculately voiced, throughout which the passion of the playing grew through careful overlaying of instrumental lines to form a finely woven texture. The final movement was taken playfully at first, thus contrasting with the more insular second subject to useful effect. Usefulness, however, seemed to dissipate throughout the movement as it progressed, leaving a rather matter of fact unison three note conclusion, where one might have expected a definite statement from Reger. Bringing off the mood in such music can often be difficult but the Ad Libitum quartet identified and captured an almost indefinable sense of nostalgia mixed with non-committal statement.

Beethoven’s mighty Grosse Fugue was certainly possessed of purpose from the start, making the strongest contrast possible with Reger’s preceding work. Adrian Berescu launched into the work with energy and tonal awareness, two qualities his colleagues were to pick up upon and amplify. This was a performance in which the quartet pushed Beethoven for answers to the compositional complexities laid out in the work, and the approach was only successful because Beethoven's music pushed the quartet to do so.

Strongly figured bass-lines came through in Filip Papa’s cello playing to propel the work forward, gathering unity of purpose whilst showing sensitivity to details within the whole.

Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet is a trio of miniatures, but not ones that show much in the way of delicate construction. The first, a rough and rustic affair with a tentative ending, benefited from the more instinctive side of string playing that many Eastern European instrumentalists can bring off. The second piece was more furious in its phrasing with suitably harsh and insistent tone from all four players. The third, and longest, of the pieces presented a stifling oppressive atmosphere. The successful performance relied as much on giving prominence to what was hinted at but not written down or played. With the third movement being marked “Cantique”, the insular passages and silences that broke up the natural line illustrated more the thoughts behind the act of singing, rather than a giving an approximation of the act itself.

Ravel’s String Quartet in F - a work the Ad Libitum quartet have recorded on the Naxos label - provided the final contrast in this concert, with its surging lyricism and Gallic lateromantic feel. Much was made of the tonal differences possible between the first and second violins as well as a wider sense of group interaction. The playing was alive to the possibilities of Ravel’s scoring, showing cleanness of phrasing in combination with skilfully employed vibrato to enliven the tonal palette. Pizzicato playing opened the second movement and interpolated broad phrases before giving way to a soulful episode of luminous virtuosity. The subtle swagger of the cello line contrasted pleasingly with the cultured yet unassuming tone of the violins. The third movement was given with an almost nocturnal mellowness that moved towards nostalgia at times – providing the only obvious similarity to Reger’s second quartet. This was to soon disappear, however, in the face of the closing movement’s biting attack which possessed playing of the most direct honesty. The impression left by this fearless quartet in this concert was more than could be achieved merely by the sum of its parts.

Evan Dickerson

Seen and Heard International Concert Review

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2006/Jul-Dec06/enescu0312.htm Enescu, Beethoven and Rachmaninov: Radu Lupu (piano) George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra Bucharest/ Cristian Mandeal (conductor) Concertgebouw, Amsterdam 03.12.2006 (ED) Enescu First orchestral suite in C, op. 9 Beethoven Fifth piano concerto, op. 73 'Emperor' Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances, op. 45 This concert in the large hall of Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw was mounted as part of “Romania close to you” project organized by the Romanian Cultural Institute to mark the anticipated accession of the country to the European Union on 1 January 2007. Even without that reason the concert would still have been worthy of attention, given that Radu Lupu’s concert appearances grow ever rarer and he has stopped recording altogether.

First, however, came the far from insignificant First orchestral suite by George Enescu, played by the Bucharest orchestra that has carried his name since 1955. Cristian Mandeal, their expert chief conductor, has made the performance of Enescu’s music a central part of his career. Cast in four movements, the opening Prelude à l’unisson could only be inspired by the instinctive playing of folk-fiddlers, but Enescu unifies the entire string body effectively to make them sound a single player. With a dramatic sense of pacing, Mandeal imbued this enlarged body with passion, which grew still further with entry of rolling timpani. The string playing was up front and honest rather than over-polished, but then this is music that benefits most when not divorced from the spirit of its native land. The following Menuet lent mixes discernable French elements with others drawn from Romania in delicate fashion. Mandeal promoted this delicacy in the playing, securing soaring lines from flutes and horns, before closing with a confidently executed gradual crescendo over a regular ‘heartbeat’ from the timpani.

The Intermède strode boldly in the strings and winds before being brought to an intended sudden break, after which a reflective mood change was registered subtly. The closing Final is a rumbustuous and extrovert gallop, with cellos, basses and percussion taking a leading role. With Mandeal intent on driving the pace forward to make the most of the movement’s surging energy a grand and imposing ending was achieved.

Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto was given the most individual reading I can recall hearing for ages. Lupu (who looks ever more like Brahms!) matched the orchestra’s grand opening tutti in his opening finesse. The work progressed in the first movement at a moderate pace, allowing much colour to come out in the orchestration. Lupu’s playing of the solo part reminded us of a style of Beethoven interpretation from another age – by turns involved and committed, but mixed with passages that were almost against the big-boned Beethoven many would recognize today. Whilst impetuous and sensitive in equal measure, his playing related well to the orchestral contex; indeed he maintained close eye contact with individual orchestra members as well as with Mandeal throughout.

The middle movement was notable for the broad legato lines in the orchestra and Lupu’s discrete, evenly fingered contribution. If the link to the final movement was thought by some to be over-tentative, then there was much contrast to be had once when finale got fully into its stride. Lupu and Mandeal relished the nuances of interplay to be found among the grander gestures to produce a thrilling conclusion to the work.

Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances can be a real orchestral showpiece in the right hands, and Cristian Mandeal certainly has full grasp of the work. Utilising the piece to show off the quality of his orchestra, he shaped a reading that was not just highly dramatic in its

massive fortissimi but was also responsive to the colouring of orchestral lines. The first dance saw the darker hues mixed with skill at an increasingly upbeat tempo, an effect further heightened by resplendent brass playing. The gradual diminuendo ending was superbly judged by Mandeal. From the start, the second dance was imposing in the cello part, across which the flutes later floated freely. Orchestra leader Anda Petrovici handled the violin solo with aplomb before Mandeal navigated the movement’s tricky tempo changes with a deft sureness of touch. After an intentionally uneasy foray into the minor, the major key was regained with confidence. Mandeal made the mood of the third dance seem rather morose, though some contrast was present by bullish percussion playing.

Essentially an outsized tango, the dance was carried along under its own impetus, growing ever larger with each poste and riposte amongst the orchestral sections, repeatedly calling to mind the image of a toreador caught up in the fight with elements of pursuit and attack inside a massive onslaught. With all this passion, this was a performance that could hardly be bettered.

As an encore, the George Enescu Philharmonic under Mandeal left us a cultured reading of Enescu’s First Romanian Rhapsody. Within the essentially well-mannered framework, individual orchestral sections – especially the woodwinds - played with enthusiasm to lend the piece much character.

Evan Dickerson

SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL CONCERT REVIEW

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2007/Jul-Dec07/mandeal3009.htm Enescu, Ibert and Franck: Mario Caroli (flute) / Belgian National Orchestra / Cristian Mandeal (conductor). Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels. 30. 9.2007. (ED) Georges Enescu Orchestral Suite no. 3, op. 27, "Villageoise" Jacques Ibert Concerto for flute and orchestra César Franck Symphony in d minor This concert was billed as having “a thoroughly French programme”, which is true but only to a point. Each of the featured composers owes a significant debt to French influences and inferences in their music-making, yet not one stuck dogmatically to the accepted rules of the Conservatoire.

Even during his lifetime, Enescu was thought of as a French composer. His third orchestral suite makes the point most clearly that this is not the case. All too rarely performed, this, his last work for full orchestral forces showcases a personal style, refined through years of meticulous work. If the suite is considered at all, many interpret it as being a kind of orchestral equivalent of Impressions de L'Enfance, which Enescu wrote for violin and piano duet. Like Impressions the suite is more than a fond reminiscence of a far-off childhood and is the most personal of statements about who Enescu was at his core: a Romanian.

Cristian Mandeal led a performance that emphasised the personal qualities of Enescu’s orchestration, fusing its inflections of dance with atmospherically rustic countryside scenes and nostalgia for his youthful home. The National Orchestra of Belgium, obviously well rehearsed by Mandeal, coped well with the demands placed upon it. The first movement, Renvouneau champêtre, began its pastoral mood in a low-key manner, but built up its gradual path with surety. The second movement, Gamins en plain air, carried a heady blend of accents and rhythms that said much about the rich Romanian landscape Enescu knew and loved so much. The lengthy third movement, a loving portrait of the family home at dusk, conjured its image through the interweaving of violin lines against contrasting bassoon and horn parts. The image of fond remembrance was completed with the contributions from off-stage clarinet and a trombone trio mixing with on stage piano tubular bells, piano and bass drum. The fourth movement, Rivière sous la lune, moved the scene to night-time. Its subtle scoring of harp, cymbal, celeste and muted trombones was carefully yet unobtrusively controlled by Cristian Mandeal, who showed particular sensitivity towards the diminuendo dynamic upon which the movement depends so much. The last movement, sees Enescu kick aside nostalgic thoughts with a quick-fire sequence of uproarious Danses rustiques. Far from producing a pastiche of folk tunes, Enescu employed his knowledge of local idioms and colours to flavour his own tuneful inventions in this piece. As ever in Enescu’s music, attention to detail and tempo can make or break the intention but Mandeal’s choice of tempi throughout all made excellent sense, not only within themselves, but also in relation to each other.

Almost as rarely performed as Enescu’s suite, Ibert’s flute concerto nevertheless holds a special place in the affections of soloists. The qualities that endear it to them are easy to identify: its lyricism, elegance and charm come high on the list, as do its opportunities for technical display and musical bravura. The briefest orchestral tutti launches the first movement, and here Mandeal encouraging a lively pace which soloist the young Italian soloist Mario Caroli proved keen to follow. Throughout, the accompaniment was energetically propelled to underline the soloist’s drama. The second movement was wholly refined, yet never dragged at its slower tempo. It started with an impression being made by the clarity of texture its reduced forces could produce under Mandeal’s

guidance and the tempo and grandeur of the music grew as it progressed. Caroli’s playing shared the same ambitions, but he showed his true spirit in the finale: jocular and lively whilst steering clear of an over-blown solo line. The brief cadenza injected a moment of sadness - its minor key recalling moments in the first movement - before the concerto reached its rousing end.

Expounding the structural framework was central to Mandeal’s reading of Franck’s symphony. The first movement found the emphasis given to the great arches of sound formed by the repeated crescendo lines which unify strings and brass to thrilling effect. This made the point that Franck’s symphony owes as much to German composers as French ones and at times the forte climaxes sounded nearly Brucknerian in scale, though with a softer edge to their tone. The Allegretto second movement was carefully shaped as Mandeal’s precise use of tempo changes created a pliant range of timbres in the violas and woodwinds particularly. The notable cor anglais solo was elegantly played by Bram Nolf. The crux of the work however, is found in the third movement. Here, structure is formed using material found in the previous movements, yet seeks to act simultaneously as a summation and antithesis. Inexorably the passion of the music grew, more effective for being held back by Mandeal at first until Franck’s climactic statements burst forth at last ,bristling with energy. A fine conclusion to a most involving concert.

Evan Dickerson

Brahms, Prokofiev and R. Strauss: Ekaterina Gubanova (mezzo) / Orfeón Pamplonés (choir) / Basque National Orchestra / Cristian Mandeal (conductor) Palacio Euskalduna, Bilbao, Spain 30.1.2008. (ED) http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jan-Jun08/mandeal3101.htm The three works in this programme all conjour up their own distinct moods and worlds. Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody is the composer’s intimate testament to a voice that he adored and is also his own private wedding song for a doomed love. The Rhapsody's tone fuses the ethereal and the reverential with beguiling ease. Cristian Mandeal led a performance by the Basque National Orchestra that captured and displayed all of the required emotions. Ekaterina Gubanova’s tonal strength played its part too, and this was provided with a suitable counter-balance by the singing of the Orfeón Pamplonés.

Even without Eisenstein’s film, the stark realism of Prokofiev’s music for Alexander Nevsky provides a seemingly endless supply of raw power and emotion for an orchestra to get its teeth sunk into. Nor did Cristian Mandeal seek to avoid any of the challenges of the work as he plunged headlong into its rhythmic complexities, sometimes adopting tempi which, if faced with a less able orchestra, would be foolish. Thus, the spirit of death and decay was admirably set. A distinctive addition to the orchestral and choral war-torn surroundings was Ekaterina Gubanova’s solo contribution in “The field of death”.

Walking with slow purpose and dressed in black she appeared almost spectre-like, her voice though was urgent and emotional, reflecting the searing pain of human suffering and loss all too clearly.

Strauss’s quip that he never found anyone else as interesting as himself might not be taken so seriously if he had not backed it up in the self-lauding Ein Heldenleben. Preferring to take the music more as straightforward musical argument and less as the composer's self-portrait has always seemed to justify the piece - and its reputation - better in my view, not to mention Strauss’ personal taste. But, inescapably, there is something genuinely heroic about the piece, whether one likes it or not. At times this performance showed a sense of that, though perhaps it was Mandeal himself who proved the most heroic by keeping the orchestra's playing and a sense of interweaving argument closely linked together.

Like any true hero, he relished the opportunities afforded for grand gesture and countered them with discrete contributions of coordination and great care over precise orchestral dynamics. As an aside, it is worth noting the contributions of Anda Petrovici, the guest leader, whose portraits of Strauss’s wife were tasteful and took the work closer to the spirit of Sinfonia Domestica than the composer might have originally intended.

SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL OPERA REVIEW

http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2008/Jul-Dec08/enescu1010.htm Enescu, Oedipe: Soloists, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse; Capitole Toulouse and Bordeaux choruses. Conductor: Pinchas Steinberg. Théatre du Capitole de Toulouse.

10.10.2008 (ED)

Sylvie Brunet as Jocasta

Enescu’s only opera takes the Oedipus life story quite literally from the cradle to the grave, even if with a little artistic licence on the part of the librettist Edmond Fleg.

The work has had a patchy performance history to say the least. From its world premiere in 1936 at the Palais Garnier in Paris, which the composer described as being “like a dream” because no sooner had the work been presented then it disappeared almost from view, concert performances initially filled the void, including those in Belgium in 1955, and more recently in Barcelona during 2003. The British premiere of was given in concert at the 2002 Edinburgh International Festival. Staged performances of the work have long been a mainstay in Bucharest, understandably, but internationally only a few provincial German houses mounted the work, albeit with significant cuts to the score, until the Götz Friedrich co-production between the Vienna State Opera and the Deutsche Oper Berlin appeared in 1996. The Teatro Lirico di Cagliari mounted a modern dress production by Graham Vick in 2005 as the Italian premiere. This new co-production by Nicolas Joel between Toulouse and the International Enescu Festival is further evidence that Enescu’s mature compositions continue to gain serious attention before the public. There are unconfirmed rumours that the production might be seen at the Palais Garnier in Paris during the 2010-11 season, as Joel assumes control of Opéra de Paris in September 2009.

Oedipe Blinded There is little doubt that Nicolas Joel’s enthusiasm for the opera has been a driving force behind the new production. It was therefore, a great concern to learn of his serious health problems in the run-up to the premiere, knowing that such a complex work to stage might suffer as a result. On the evidence of the opening night it seems perhaps that things were pared back to make the production reach the stage on schedule, and perhaps before it transfers to Bucharest next September further elaboration of the basic concept might take place. The direction of Act I (Oedipe’s birth and the prophecy of his downfall) had stuttering moments and Act II (the killing of Laios and the answering of the Sphinx’ riddle) had more of them as the transfer between scenes seemed a bit hesitant. Acts III and IV (respectively, Oedipe learns that he fulfilled the prophecies and blinds himself before taking refugein old age within a sacred grove with his daughter Antigone), being both single scene acts had a greater degree of cohesion about them. The use of a single set, with slight variations, simplified things rather on stage as well. The massed crowd scenes of Acts I and III worked well, but the setting of Act II, scene 2 where Oedipe kills his father at a crossroads was ill at ease with the raked amphitheatre setting in which it found itself. The shepherd’s horrific observation that the King and his two companions were killed also failed to correspond with the action, with only Laios lying dead on stage. Some might also have wished for greater colour contrast between the grey-taupe set and the costumes, which tended to instil a sense of dry dustiness to the legend.

Any slightly negative points though were amply balanced by other factors in the production.

Effective lighting, though sparingly applied, added emphasis at key moments: the Sphinx rising from her hell-red pit to have infinitely more menace than in the Cagliari production; or the brilliant blue present almost throughout the final Act. The crowd scenes were handled well: the sense of decay and desolation that pervades Act III and its contrast with the transformation of Oedipe in Act IV as he fearlessly follows the calling of Eumenides to the afterlife were effectively communicated.

The Sphinx The real beneficiary of the production though was the music, and no doubt as a conductor himself, Joel realised that this is where the emphasis should be. There is after all enough musical detail in Enescu’s score which deserves its chance to be heard, and not become swamped by stage action. A huge orchestra including additional piano, harmonium, celesta, glockenspiel, alto saxophone - and for purely dramatic effect also including a musical saw, wind machine, whip on drum, pistol shot and a nightingale’s song - is employed, but all are used with a great deal of restraint. This is further augmented by mixed adult and children’s choruses to add specific textural nuances to the narrative. If extravagance was ever a good thing in opera, and surely it is here, then this and the consequent demands made must account of the lack of productions. Pinchas Steinberg marshalled the forces effectively, rarely letting the tension drop, though I felt there were aspects of transition that had yet to be effectively realised: from the sense of gloaming before the riddle of the Sphinx, through the interrogation itself, to the euphoric Theban celebrations afterwards. Cristian Mandeal (conductor of the Edinburgh, Cagliari and Berlin productions) brought greater instrumental drama and weight to Oedipe’s blinding in Act III, and certainly a greater understanding of the Romanian folk elements that pepper the score.

Oedipe is on stage more or less throughout Acts II, III and IV, and it is a demanding yet beautiful role to sing for an artist who has the necessary vocal resources for the task, which by and large Franck Ferrari does. There was a slight tendency towards inaccuracy, particularly in Act III when quarter and three-quarter tones are used to heighten the sense of anguish and self-torment that Oedipe feels. Ferrari's acting was purposeful throughout, if occasionally lacking somewhat in impetus. Much of the rest of the cast benefitted by being native French speakers. Vincent Le Texier portrayed Creon somewhat as an opportunist and Emiliano Gonzalez Toro was an effective shepherd, the one character who pieces together the action from birth predictions to witnessing their fulfilment.

Arutjun Kotchinian provided a rich and menacing Tiresias, dominating as much by his stage presence as vocally. Amongst the female cast, Sylvie Brunet provided a strongly acted and vocally robust yet heart-moving Jocaste, charting a path from serenity at her new birth to inner-most terror before her suicide. Amel Brahim-Djelloul’s Antigone was a plaintive foil to Oedipe in the final Act. Marie-Nicole Lemieux would have stolen the evening for many though, in her single scene as the Sphinx. Although restricted in movement by her deathlyblack costume she used the full extent of her supple contralto to bring both haughtiness and harrowed agony in the moments of her death, as Oedipe confidently declares that Man in stronger than Destiny.

It is this message that makes the opera a truly universal one, its point highly necessary now in today’s troubled world, and thus making Enescu’s music more relevant to audiences than ever before.

Evan Dickerson