Bartók and Weill at Welsh National Opera: (WNO premieres) Soloists and Orchestra of Welsh National Opera / Carlo Rizzi (conductor) Diversions Dance Company, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, 23.5.2007 (BK)

Bartók: Duke Bluebeard's Castle

Bluebeard - Andrea Silvestrelli
Judith - Sara Fulgoni
Former wives: Samantha Hay, Dorothy Hood, Sara Pope

Production:

Director: Willy Decker
Revival Director: Martin Gregor Lütje
Designer: John MacFarlane
Original Lighting Design: David Finn
Lighting Realisation for WNO: Robert Marsh

Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins

Anna 1 - Marie McLaughlin
Tenor 1 - Mark Wilde
Tenor 2 - Andrew MacKenzie Wicks
Baritone - Owen Webb
Bass - David Soar
Dancers of the Diversions Dance Company

Production:

Director: Roy Campbell-Moore
Designer: Jonathan Adams
Costume Designer: Paul Shriek
Lighting Designer: Malcolm Rippeth
Rehearsal Director: Joanne Fong

Sara Fulgoni (Judith) and Andrea Silvestrelli (Bluebeard)

Almost inevitably destined to be a game of two halves, this  pairing of Bartók's operatic  masterpiece with the last collaborative effort between Kurt Weill and Bertholt Brecht seemed  promising on paper. Coupling  Bluebeard to a compact work of equal artistic merit is never easy and on the face of it, this was a bold, innovative and wholly complementary choice. Sadly it didn't work out that way.

As is so often the case these days, the problem lay with production - or at least in the contrast between the  two productions. Willy Decker's idea of Bluebeard - first staged at Royal Opera in 2002- is set in John MacFarlane's damp, blood-stained and derelict vision of the castle hall which perfectly reflects the dread and discomfort of the place to which Bluebeard brings his new wife Judith. It is deliberately oppressive, warmed -if that's the right word - only occasionally by the  lighting effects that accompany the opening of the seven doors.

Inside this grim setting - perhaps a representation of Bluebeard's own mind - Willy Decker presents Judith as the archetypal harpie, as malicious in her own way as we generally imagine Bluebeard  to be. Though Bluebeard pleads with her poignantly, holding on to her pathetically as she digs ever further into his secrets, her  demands become more and more insistent until at last she discovers the truth: the former wives are still alive but like her have destroyed all  possibility of  love with their mistrust.

In this production, text, action and settings all work together to bring out maximum meaning - including the  ambiguities - as carefully as possible:  and when the piece is sung as well as it was here, the cumulative effect is enthralling. Both Sara Fulgoni and Andrea Silvestrelli sing excellently, often with great beauty of tone, and Carlo Rizzi's thoughtful and atmospheric accompaniment works seamlessly  with the singers to reveal the composer's extraordinary achievement. With the legendary Ludwig/Berry/Kertesz recording always in mind during this opera, this performance measured up marvellously and was a genuinely fine achievement by WNO.

Marie MacLaughlin (Anna I ) and Diversions Dancers

If the artistic gods had been kinder to me as a child, a psychologist would have spotted my rhythmic dyspraxia. This  life-long incapacity leaves me with  a complete ineptitude for dancing myself, and with something much, much worse... a total inability to make any sense whatever of almost all   modern dance. Whenever I  watch it, the Mock Turtle's school curriculum in Alice in Wonderland keeps  spinning through my mind: 'We had  Reeling and Writhing,' the Mock Turtle said sadly  'And also .....Fainting in Coils.'

By contrast with the coherence of the WNO Bluebeard, this new production of The Seven Deadly Sins comes off rather  badly. Roy Campbell-Moore says in the programme notes that after worrying about how to introduce twelve dancers to Brecht's narrative, the designer Jonathan Adams suggested to him that seeing the piece as a celebration of sin would give it a 'more modern day feel' and would allow  a  portrayal of  'decadent anarchy.'

The upshot is that the five singers (the four man 'Greek Chorus' and Anna 1) pop out of a curved plastic surface between the orchestra and the stage, while the dancers (including Anna 2, the dancing alter-ego of Anna 1)  reel and writhe  non-stop to illustrate the sinning.

But the story is about the evils of capitalism  and how the Annas sell their souls to raise  money for grasping relatives. It's hard to see this as funny  yet the audience laughed out loud, especially at the portrayal of Pride; a team of lady body-builders posing for a competition. Rhythmic dyslexia or not, I really didn't get it.

The singing is uniformly fine.  Marie MacLaughlin sings  Anna 1 as if born to it, the four man chorus is excellent and Carlo Rizzi and his orchestra make easy work of Kurt Weill's engaging music.  It's a very decent  production - apart that is, from the dancing.

And if I  should ever get shot by hordes of militant  balletomanes, I'm arranging for my headstone to read - like Spike Milligan's -  'I told you I was ill.'

 

Bill Kenny
 

Note: This  performance of Bluebeard's Castle was dedicated to the memory of Terry Parr who died recently after working for 36 years as  WNO's Head of Costume.

Pictures © Bill Cooper 2007