The Royal Opera House
2024 has started with a really mixed bag of operas but in most cases through no fault of ROH management the normal winter illnesses have hit some productions hard. However, the Royal Opera House is fortunate to have Peter Katona – the Casting Director for the last nearly forty years – and his team who were all able to find replacement singers at very short notice.
Elektra @ROH 2024 / Photo: Alastair Muir
Elektra ▪ Strauss ▪ 18 January 2024
The programme notes for Elektra written by George Hall reveal that Strauss met his librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal in Berlin in 1899. The score for Elektra was not completed until 1908 and first performed in Dresden the following year. Strauss and his librettist were to work together for two decades until von Hofmannsthal’s sudden death in 1929. Elektra’s music overall is earth shattering and totally overpowering from the first opening D Minor chords which are a dominant structure as the music evolves. The music is undoubtedly modern sounding with atonal moments but always leading to a dramatic texture. It is brutal and heart wrenching and at times totally overwhelming. The writer is always left exhausted by every twist and turn with Elektra’s constant revenge neurosis at the core. In this performance Nina Stemme’s Elektra had been replaced by the Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte due to the former’s illness. A shame, but whilst Stundyte didn’t have Stemme’s vocal prowess her quality singing and particularly her acting were outstanding.
The production by Christof Loy is formed out of a Viennese mansion rather than a Greek palace as originally written. A windowed gallery overlooks the servants and Elektra’s living area. The relationship between the three main characters takes place in this space with Elektra’s sister Chrysothemis reluctantly joining Elektra to avenge their fathers murder by their murdering mother, Queen Klytämnestra and her current husband.
The glamorous Karita Mattila was vocally sound as Queen Klytämnestra and conveyed much of the complexities of that role, but it was the sister Chrysothemis sung by Sara Jakubiak who was most interesting and vocally thrilling in her role. The whole performance was conducted by Antonio Pappano with electric pace and internation in a wonderfully sound musical portrayal of this great opera.
La Bohème @ROH 2024 / Photo: Camilla Greenwell
La Bohème ▪ Puccini ▪ 24 January 2024
Puccini’s most famous and complete opera La Bohème with a libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica had its world premiere in Turin in 1896 conducted by a twenty-eight-year-old Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini also conducted a commemorative performance fifty years after its premiere in 1946. For 41 years John Copley’s production had graced the Royal Opera House stage, but the current production is directed by Richard Jones with his designer Stewart Laing and what a production it is! Certainly, the Café Momus scene in Act II is iconic opera at its best - even with the stagehands wheeling some of the beautiful arcade sets around the stage. There is no peace in the crowded urban restaurant and a dramatic build up ensues with all the crowds pouring into the streets and enjoying the Christmas Eve entertainment in and around Café Momus. It is at that stage that Mimi meets Rodolfo’s flatmates, and an energetic Musetta appears to thrill the diners and waiters alike with her razzmatazz performance and her huge High B as her waltz song eventually attracts the positive attention of Marcello sang by a deep colourful baritone Mikhail Timoshenko who is a perfect foil for Lauren Fagan’s expressive Musetta.
The Albanian tenor Saimir Pirgu is a thrilling Rodolfo with substantial flexibility in his tenor output and has a mainly loving relationship with his Mimi sung by the Armenian soprano Ruzan Mantashyan who has a plush sensual tone. Schaunard is the musician sung by Hansung Yoo and Colline the philosopher sung by the Romanian Alexander Köpeczi, and both provide intellectual interpretations of their role. Jeremy White is an authentic landlord, Benoît with lots of amusing colour to his role and Eddie Wade is a great local singer trying to do his best as Alcindoro – Musetta’s romantic companion. The outstanding American/Canadian conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson produced a captivating reading of the score caring for the singers at each stroke.
For most of Richard Jones’s staging as director he provided a fairly sparse and dingy affair with only one mattress in the furnished attic and a fairly snowy empty stage for Act III. However, Act II is genius with constantly swirling relevant sets of colour and movement. With three great casts. This is a production well worth trying to catch.
Tosca @ROH 2024 / Photo: Marc Brenner
Tosca ▪ Puccini ▪ 5 February 2024
In its 14th revival since it was first seen in 2006 Jonathan Kent’s production with Paul Brown’s designs still look really sharp. Overall, it is a wonderful staging that enables the singers to take full advantage of their roles. Set in Rome around the 1800’s the two lovers being the painter Cavaradossi and the soprano Tosca are faced with the evil Chief of Police Scarpia coming between them with his own lust for Tosca.
The Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte is an outstanding acting Tosca but vocally struggles at times. She was brought in as cover in the days before Nina Stemme, the original Elektra, fell ill and had to cancel. That role probably took a toll on her voice for the Tosca. Cavaradossi was the Argentinian tenor Marcelo Puente who also struggled somewhat in Act I especially in his opening aria “Recondita armonia”. There was no such problem however with the substantial thrilling voice of Scarpia - the Italian baritone Gabriele Viviani whose captivating and frightening interpretation provided a lot of emotional weight to this role. The American conductor Karen Kamensek was an authoritative conductor moving the passionate music along at a good pace. A really worthwhile revival.
However, it was a shocking statement by the Arts Council that really made my news in the last few weeks and happily snowballed into a PR disaster for them. It was a warning in their updated policies at the end of January that “political statements made by individuals associated with the Arts Council could cause reputational risk and therefore affect funding.” This attempt by the Arts Council to censor all and anybody that receives funds from them is appalling and does the Arts Council no credit whatsoever. It totally disrupts full freedom of expression and allows only the paymaster to act as the preserver of political statement in the arts. How crassly stupid is this statement and the individuals who chair and run the Arts Council itself. Shame on them.
David Buchler
