Verdi: Aida, Soloists Bergslagen’s Music-Dramatic Chorus; Classic Chamber Conductor: Georg LidströmOpera på Skäret, Kopparberg, Sweden, 28.7.2007 (Premiere) (GF)

 Production

Directed by Sten Niclasson
Set Design: Sven Östberg
Costumes: Karin Olebjörk
Masks: Helena Andersson
Light Design: Ronny Andersson

 

Cast:

Aida – Charlotta Larsson
Amneris – Anette Bod
Radames – Stuart Neill
Amonasro – Ole Jörgen Kristiansen
Ramfis – Michael Schmidberger
King – Mikael Axelsson
Messenger – Won We Choi
Priestess – Anna-Carin Niclasson
Dancers – Ulriqa Fernqvist, Sara Suneson, Peter Svenzon

Bergslagen’s Music-Dramatic Chorus; Classic Chamber Conductor: Georg Lidström

 

Aida :Charlotta Larsson

Deep in the dark spruce forests in central Sweden, some 200 kilometres north-west of Stockholm, on the northern end of Lake Ljusnaren, an enormous red, wooden building towers above the surrounding houses. Once it was a saw-mill, but it closed down and today it is transformed into probably the most unique opera house in the country. “Skäret” (The Skerry) is the name of the little village nearby and “Opera på Skäret” (Opera on the Skerry) is a summer festival held in these beautiful surroundings for some years now. It was opera singer and director Sten Niclasson who found the place a decade ago and had a vision, though in this case it didn’t remain a vision only. Sten Niclasson managed to get the local and regional authorities interested in the project, a foundation was created, the University of Örebro became involved and through donations and sponsors funds were raised that made it possible to buy the property. A first test concert was carried through in 1999 and in 2003 the first festival was held, including a master class for young singers in collaboration with the College of Music in Örebro. In 2005 there were three concert performances of La traviata, last year the first complete own production, Rigoletto, was performed six times and this year there are two different productions: a recently rediscovered 18^th century comic opera and Verdi’s Aida, which will be given ten times until 19th August.

Amneris: Anette Bod

The auditorium is high, long and fairly narrow, the atmosphere airy: one can even see the surrounding nature through the openings between the boards of the walls, so it is in fact a half-and-half outdoor event. But contrary to Dalhalla, 200 kilometres northwards, one is protected from rain and on the premiere afternoon a short but violent downpour rattled intensely against the roof and managed to drench the pianissimo opening of the prelude. If this was bad timing, the opposite occurred during the short change of scene between Act III and 4IV, when what seemed like the world’s longest freight train thundered by on the railway that runs only 50 metres from the opera house!

The auditorium seats 800 visitors. The chairs – very comfortable and beautiful! – in the stalls are placed directly on the floor and since the stage is fairly low that means that people seated in the rear part of the stalls sometimes have difficulties in seeing the action. I think this can, at least partly, be solved by placing the chairs zigzag instead of straight behind each other. The stage is rather narrow, which can be a hampering factor when staging a monumental opera like Aida with its mass-scenes, but in practice it worked splendidly. It is like the difference between a hardback novel and the paperback version: the same text but smaller print. The sets were simple but efficient: two enormous wooden gates that could be opened and closed for different purposes, a high column to the left suggesting the Egyptian setting, an Isis statue to the right. During the third act’s Nile scene, the moonbeams glittering on the water was reflected on the gates and there were other examples of clever lighting. As I said: simple but efficient, leaving to the on-lookers’ imaginations to fill in the rest. The costumes further placed the action where it should rightly be: in ancient Egypt.

Radames: Stuart Neill

The action was in the main rather sparse and even statuesque, especially in the first two acts. On the other hand there is very little overtly dramatic that happens there – the drama doesn’t catch fire until Act III and the driving force there was Amonasro, sung and acted with enormous intensity and stage presence by Ole Jörgen Kristiansen. The three dancers contributed strongly to heighten the tension in the first two acts and especially Peter Svenzon who offered a virtuoso show in Act 2, accompanied by delighted screams from the ladies of the chorus. I was quite impressed by the chorus, who are not professionals but did a splendid job. Of course Sweden is a country abounding with choral singers; more than one million, out of a population of less than nine million, regularly sing in one or more choirs. They were well balanced, sang in tune and what was lacking in sheer force – which an opera chorus would have produced – was more than compensated by the homogeneity of sound. The experienced Georg Lidström led his fine orchestra with both sensitivity and power and there were many finely executed instrumental solos, of which the English horn, very exposed during Aida’s Nile aria and on the whole in much of the third act,should be mentioned . There isn’t room for a full-size orchestra at Skäret, neither financially nor space-wise, which is a pity in this opera, where so much important happens in the string section, especially in the high violins, and a handful of further players wouldn’t have come amiss. The almost inaudible opening of the prelude was of course ruined anyway by that unfortunate shower of rain but it’s the same situation in the Nile scene and elsewhere. This is no real criticism though, rather a statement,  and throughout the performance the playing was admirable with a really punchy Triumphal scene with the Aida trumpets on stage ringing out gloriously.

Amonasro: Ole Jörgen Kristiansen

Turning now to the singers, the star of the cast should of course be American tenor Stuart Neill, with an international career that has taken him to many of the leading opera houses of the world, including the Metropolitan, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Paris and Covent Garden. He had a somewhat shaky start – his Celeste Aida was well conceived but he was rather wobbly; it wasn’t very kind of Verdi to have the tenor sing this testing piece so early in the performance!  Soon he settled, however, and in the third act he was both vocally and dramatically formidable. He has a large voice, quite baritonal in timbre, but with gleaming top notes cutting through even the thickest orchestral fabric. Occasionally I had a feeling that he sacrificed sensitivity to show off his forte, but he made amends in the final scene, the Tomb duet with Aida, where he scaled down the histrionics and sang sincerely with lyrical restraint and beautiful head tone, only to end the duet on a weightless pianissimo. This was great singing, indeed!

His Aida, Charlotta Larsson, has primarily sung lyric roles but she was ravishing in this role too. True, it is a lyrical voice but to be a successful Aida one needs to be youthful, both in voice and appearance. She was both and she was powerful enough to make the fortes ring out with brilliance. Her only weakness was the lowest register, which didn’t quite carry out over the orchestra. She sang both her arias with great care for nuances, and especially in the Nile aria, O Patria mia, she mustered impressive dramatic power – without going over the top. Beautiful and impassioned singing of the highest order.

I have already mentioned her father Amonasro’s dramatic potential but Ole Jörgen Kristiansen also impressed through his pure singing. His baritone voice is large enough to challenge even Stuart Neill for sheer volume, but it is also warm in tone and he has an impressive legato, which he showed in one of the most beautiful passages in the whole opera, his solo in the second act, where the phrase Ma tu, Re, tu signore possente was rendered with a heartfelt lightening of tone. Anette Bod as Amneris, didn’t have one of her better days. From the outset she felt small scale and sang with a pronounced wobble. Not until the last act and the scene with Radames did she get her voice in check. It is a vibrant voice but this is more or less part and parcel for the role and she seemed to have gained in volume too. Anyway, this was one of the more thrilling scenes in the performance. In the lowest department both Michael Schmidberger as Ramfis and Mikael Axelsson as the King made honourable achievements, Anna-Carin Niclasson was a good Priestess and Won We Choi sported an impressively voluminous and beautiful voice in the small role as a Messenger, a role normally taken by a comprimario or even someone from the chorus. It turned out, however, that this Korean tenor also is substitute for Radames, which says something about his capacity.

Besides everything else I was deeply impressed by the lavishly illustrated 48 page programme book with artists’ profiles, a good essay on Aida, a very detailed synopsis and the history of Skäret, among other things. This was my first visit to Skäret and I will certainly return next year, when Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte is scheduled.

 

Göran Forsling

 

Photos: Petter Koubek

Website: www.operapaskaret.se

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