Glyndebourne 2013



Jean-Philippe Rameau: .Hippolyte et Aricie; Richard Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos; Gaetano Donizetti: Don Pasquale. 18 May -25 April 2013.

The Glyndebourne season in 2013 was the customary mixture of revivals and new productions. The revivals were Falstaff (2009), Billy Budd (2011), Le Nozze di Figaro (2012); Don Pasquale was first produced for Glyndebourne on Tour in 2011. The two new productions were a very interesting juxtaposition of Richard Srauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos and Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie, based on Racine’s take on Euripides’ Hippolytus, Phédre.They deal respectively with the daughters Ariadne and Phaedra of King Minos and Pasiphae following their flight to Naxos after the slaying by Theseus of their half- brother the Minotaur.

Much of classical mythology is dominated by the struggle between Aphrodite (Venus) and Artemis (Diana) for the hearts and souls of men and women between sexual freedom and controlled desire and abstinence, if not celibacy. Thus the idealistic rebellious teenager Ariadne is forced to flee after aiding Theseus kill the Minotaur while fun-loving Phaedra flees to escape the boredom of court life. By the time they reach Naxos, Theseus has tired of Ariadne’s chaste love (or, as some say, of her constant chattering) dumps her and sails off with Phaedra. In The Opera, the second half of Strauss’ Entertainment, Ariadne is won over to Aphrodite in the guise of Zerbinetta and falls in a big way for Dionysus (Bacchus) against the resistance of the Artemis figure of the Prima Donna of The Prologue who is playing her. Meanwhile Phaedra has developed an all-devouring incestuous passion for Hippolytus. Hippolytus is the son of Theseus from a previous relationship. Phaedra is driven to suicide when rejected either because Hippolytus is gay, as implied by Euripides, or because he loves a Princess Aricie, introduced by Racine to provide Hippolytus with a girl- friend. I quote Hippolytus from Euripides (translated by Philip Vellacott, Penguin Classics 1953): My body is innocent to this day of sexual love, except by hearsay or from pictures I have seen – which I have little urge to look at, since my mind is virgin still. (Homosexual practices were banned in 17th and 18th century France until 1791. The compoer Lully, Rameau’s predecessor, who was born in Italy, was rumoured to indulge in ‘the Italian vice’ though this did not impede his advancement at court.)

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So how did Glyndebourne present these two masterpieces? First, Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie: Given that they had promoted this to be the first Rameau opera to be produced there and that they had chosen what is reputedly the best of the composer’s tragedies lyriques and hence the greatest of French 18th century operas, it could have been assumed that they would have chosen a French director steeped in the period to let the composer speak for himself in a period production. Instead we got a British director who imposed his own concept on the whole as if saying ‘what can I do with this boring old opera to make it appeal for a twenty-first century audience?’ His level of interpretation is:  The plot is the conflict between Diana and Cupid (here standing in for Venus) .Diana is emotionally cold. Therefore let’s set it in a large refrigerator. Or: The opera involves the triangle of Phaedra, Aricie and Hippolyte. Let us set a scene in a split stage with four adjoining rooms as in an Alan Ayckbourn farce. While this may provide entertainment for a large part of the audience, it is a betrayal of the Director’s duty to be true to the composer’s vision. Here, instead of enhancing the poignancy of the relationships of the characters expressed in the words and music, the staging diminished it. The only time music and staging came together was in the confrontation of Theseus with Pluto in a scene set in a baroque Hades in baroque costume. For the rest we found that, unlike Handel, Rameau’s music is not sufficiently robust to stand up against inappropriate staging; Handel’s Rinaldo which suffered similar misguided direction at Glyndebourne in 2011 was redeemed by the orchestra and singers. I leave open the question: Is this production an ambitious attempt or a misguided effort to make the opera acceptable to the Director’s concept of a twenty-first century Glyndebourne audience?

Rameau wrote over thirty musical works for stage of which Hippolyte et Aricie (1733) is the first of just six tragédies lyriques written in the conventional five-act form of the French baroque period. I have previously reviewed Zoroastre seen in a fully baroque production at Drottningholm, Sweden, which exploited to the full the contemporary stage machinery and effects of the Slottsteater there, directed by Pierre Audi and conducted by Christophe Rousset. In 2003 there was a concert performance of a French stage production of Les Boréades conducted by William Christie with his Arts Florissants at the Barbican. Of Rameau’s other stage works, I saw at the Palais Garnier in 2005 the ballet bouffant Platée with Musiciens du Louvre under Minkowski – a hilarious self.-parody. In 2004 there was an electrifying audio-visual production of the late comédie-ballet Les Paladins, again Christie at the Barbican. These experiences have led me to name Rameau the Andrew Lloyd Webber of the eighteenth century, doing for the musical what Handel did for the opera. This is a view I put to John Eliot Gardiner, following a lecture he gave praising Rameau above Handel’s static and formalised opere serie. In reply, he asked whether I had seen Hippolyte et Aricie. Now I have and see no reason to change my mind. Rameau in no way can match the dramatic tension Handel miraculously conjures out of a succession of recitatives and da capo arias. On the other hand, Handel has none of the ballet interludes, required in each of the five acts of the tragédie lyrique, of the French baroque.

Writing some time after the event, memory has filtered out much of the detail of the performance. Of the large cast, François Lis stood out taking the roles of Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune. He was well matched by the Theseus of Stéphane Degout and the Hippolytus of Ed Lyon. Of the ladies, the Diana of Stéphanie d’Oustrac shone brightly, descending from her icebox in the sky rather than from clouds. Sarah Connolly gave her usual reliable baroque performance as Phaedra, maintaining her dignity despite having to appear in skimpy red dress and stiletto heels. Christiane Karg as Aricia sang sweetly enough without leaving a strong impression. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was conducted by William Christie. There could not be a more persuasive advocate of Rameau and the French baroque.

We were left with the impression that underneath the absurdities of the staging there was a great musical trying to get out. Next time, Glyndebourne, get a French director.

Since writing the above, I have found on the internet (Google Hippolyte et Aricie Haim) a French production conducted by Emmanuelle Haim. This confirms the extent to which the Glyndebourne production disguises a great masterpiece.

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 Very little appears certain  about Theseus’ reasons for abandoning Ariadne. Apart from the two possible reasons mentioned above a very plausible scenario is put forward by Mary Renault in her novel The King must Die. According to this version Theseus’ ship bound for Athens makes a short stop at Naxos. They arrive on the eve of a Dionysian Festival. Although warned by Theseus not to get involved, needing  an early start the next day, Ariadne allows herself to be swept away by a group of binge-drinking Maenads. The next morning, Theseus, horrified by her behaviour, finds her sleeping off a hangover, just leaves her and sails away . As we know, from Strauss and from Titian, Ariadne is in despair until carried off by Dionysus and lives happily ever after.

The ‘Opera with a prologue’ Ariadne auf Naxos devised by Richard Strauss with Hugo von Hofmannsthal is set in eighteenth - century Vienna in the grand house modelled on Molière’s Parisian Bourgeois Gentilhomme,  M Jourdain (a self-made millionaire, not the wealthy, cultivated patron of the arts as stated in the Glyndebourne website). In the Prologue, preparations are underway for the performance of a new opera on the subject of Ariadne finding happiness after being dumped by Theseus, as an after-dinner entertainment. These are interrupted by the arrival of a troupe of travelling players under Zerbinetta with the news that they are to follow the opera but then that the two entertainments are to run simultaneously in order that a firework display can start promptly at nine o’clock. The second half ‘The Opera’ shows the result of this amalgamation. Ariadne is desolate at the loss of Theseus or amour proper or both. She is inconsolable by an uncomprehending Zerbinetta who, in a famous and brilliant coloratura aria, extols the benefits of a free and easy life-style. Bacchus arrives. Ariadne and he fall in love and the opera ends with a divine duet leading up to the fireworks.

In the 2013 Glyndebourne production directed by Katharina Thoma, the action moves again, this time to an English stately home during the Second World War where it has been commandeered as a military hospital. This provoked strong views both for and against. My view is that this is an interesting idea which nearly worked. Here Ariadne’s attendants become Red Cross nurses, Zerbinetta’s troupe, ENSA entertainers and Bacchus a Royal Air Force pilot. The first major mistake is that in moving from Vienna to England the language remains German. Thus we have the absurdity of a Greek god Bacchus arriving in England dressed as an RAF fighter pilot singing in perfect German. (Such things matter to a perceptive audience.) The other problem is Zerbinetta. Badly mis-cast, she comes over as an English rose as seen through the fanticising of a schoolboy about ‘the girl next door’, not the free spirit of the original.

Since I only saw this production in an online replay, I will not comment on the performance except to say that the orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski had a great  Viennese sound, also incongruous in the English setting and that Soile Isokoski as Ariadne and Sergey Skorokhodov, Bacchus, were sublimely moving in the final duet. But there were no fireworks.

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The third new production at the Glyndebourne Festival was a straightforward account of Don Pasquale directed by Mariame Clément, first given, to critical acclaim,  by Glyndebourne on Tour in October 2011. This year the star role of Norina was played  by Danielle de Niese The plot concerns a stratagem by a Dr Malatesta to enable the marriage of his friend Ernesto to the young impoverished widow Norina against the wishes of his uncle Don Pasquale, threatening to disinherit him. A false marriage is arranged between Pasquale and Norina disguised as a wealthy ingénue. After this ‘wedding’ Pasquale’s life is turned upside  down by his ‘bride’s’ extravagance. He is only able to extricate himself by recognising the union of Norina and Ernesto. All ends happily. I was unable to attend this myself but Tim Wickens, whose judgement I respect, has written:

Traditional costumes and an effective (revolving) set to reveal each of the different rooms in the house, this was a thoroughly enjoyable and well-cast production. The outstanding characterisations were the dominant (and domineering) personality of Norina, and Don Pasquale himself (Alessandro Corbelli)), who had a super mix of peevishness, childlike enthusiasm and bewilderment in the title role. The doctor (Nikolay Borchev) was by far the most enigmatic figure, but the set meant that he could rove from room to room with ease, facilitating his manipulation of the situation. His motivation remains unclear: the production implies a level of two way flirtation (and more) with Norina (am not sure about the bath and bubbles!), although she seems happy enough to be married off to Ernesto (Alek Shrader). The singers were strong (although Norina was perhaps borderline screeching in places) and the orchestra balanced. The oddest part of the set was the chorus (meant to reflect society at large?) observing and commenting upon developments. At one point they were seated on a lawn with debourne style hampers, at another, arriving late at the start of the act, and one was left wondering whether artistic directors were mocking their audience (in which case they would do well not to bite the hand that feeds them. Not everyone had the same reaction, so perhaps I am being overly sensitive). That said, it was an enjoyable production, a Donizetti which leaves you with the ‘feel good’ factor, and a welcome return to normality after the cumulative absurdities of Ariadne.

14 August 2013