Sunday, 2 October 2016

Norma Music Vincenzo Bellini Conductor Antonio Pappano


It has been my good fortune to experience a number of memorable Operatic experiences at the Royal Opera House and at Cineworld Theatres at Bolden, Newcastle, Nottingham and London in addition to enjoying live opera more recently in Sunderland and previously in Newcastle and Leeds. I thought I had witnessed the most emotionally engaging experience of any live theatrical experience last year at the Royal Opera House, but that of Norma at the Bolden Cineworld on Monday 26th September 2016 proved the most complete satisfying blending into a whole of orchestra, voice, production and set that I have experienced in sixty years having first been taken to live performances of Carmen, of Pagliacci and Gilbert and Sullivan as an adolescent.

I arrived late to find someone sitting in the next seat which was odd because the relay from the Royal the Royal Opera House was held in theatre 7 one of the biggest at the multiplex and which was less than a 6th or higher filled.  The woman who immediately engaged in conversation explained that she usually attended relays at a different   cinema which had failed badly and therefore she came to Bolden having booked a seat in the area below the staired tiers and found herself alone so had moved to second seat to one side where I book when performance is located in the theatre. I was tempted to warn that the relays at Bolden did not always go without a hitch and I have given up and left it to others to point out to management that the performance had begun and the lights were still on although in fairness recently the timing has been spot on.

Unless I am with someone I like to sit on my own in an aisle seat to the screen facing right of a theatre as it provides an uninterrupted view, a stretch of the legs possible and not to bother about intruding on the space of the person in the next seat. However, given the special nature of the performance and that the stranger was evidently similarly affected the experience became even more memorable because of the chat in the interval and at the end.

Because of being busy in the days before I had not read up on the subject of the Opera other than to look up what was meant by Bel Canto and only in the information provided at the relay that the role is regarded as one of the great challenges and where the recognised outstanding performances within my lifetime were by Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland. I am yet to find out how the performance of Sonya Yonheva is regarded by other professionals and Opera critics but I thought the way she projected the nature of her character through voice and acting was extraordinary, credible and sustained throughout and on a par with the handful of performances which I can hear and see in my head and will continue to do so over my remaining years, although I hope that in time the ROH will issue a DVD so that I can measure memory against the reality.

Before turning to the two other leads I must address the production and in particular the sets. The opera was created in the 1830’s about a Roman controlled Gaul between 50 and 100 BC and a battle between the religion of the Druids controlled by the virgin high priestess Norma who had urged the army championing at the bit to rise up against the Romans to hang fire. The first Act is set at night in a grove and later at her home. The darkened stage is covered by trees of crosses which are open to interpretation by the audience…symbolic of the importance of the religion and perhaps how the four worldwide influential religions of the past 2000 years, Judaism, Catholicism, Protestant and Muslim have all attempted to fuse religion into the government and laws of state, often persecuting and killing those who fail to maintain required standards, reject or oppose either the religion itself or its control of government and the law.

The second aspect of the production to mention that at the commencement of second Act the scene is set in the 21st century home of Norma with a large screen TV showing the film Watership Down, a struggle with the lifestyle of Rabbits and the grave threat from humans out to destroy and take possession of their homeland. Thus we are provided with a geopolitical as well as human story across time in which at one level little has changed.

The major aspect of the story is the inherent conflict between the ideals of religious faith in which the priests or priestesses need to be virgins, pure and celibate and calling for their followers to aspire to their ideals and because of this those that fall are regarded as having committed the greater crime. The reality has always also been different with sexual passion and sexual need overcoming the scriptures and strictures, an issue which has governed my life although it was not until just before by sixth decade that I came to the truth on finding that my father had been a senior prior of the Catholic church who aged 28 had met my mother when she was aged 4 and was then groomed as a pupil teacher, trained as  a pianist and organist and house keeper and teacher, banished from her homeland  on becoming pregnant, never to return, but remaining devout to her faith through her long life which  ender  in her hundredth year.

In the Opera Norma has two children and a relationship in secret with an occupying Roman administrator Pollione, the Proconsul of Gaul. She has a housekeeper to care for the children and for those who may question how such secrecy would be possible and kept from Druids who would find the behaviour unacceptable then my own experience is  relevant,  because I was  kept locked away in  a bedroom whenever other members of the my  birth  mother’s homeland visited at the end of World War II, never acknowledged  by her as her son in public until she was 96 and entered residential care, effectively brought up by her sisters one of whom  would have adopted if she had not been prevented from marrying because of potentially treated abnormality until her admission to  hospital at the age of 93 and from  which she never recovered. When my birth mother commenced to practice as an unqualified teacher in England during World War II only single women could train and practice as teachers something which continued for a time after the war ended and certainly there would have no question of a single parent bring given a secured position however able, talented and committed she was to the profession.

There would have been no story, no Opera just on this alone. Pollione is not satisfied with a mistress and not only commence a relationship with another woman, but someone who is also a Virgin Priestess and the crucial moment in the Opera is when the priestess who knows nothing of Pollione’s doubling dealing confides her predicament to Norma.  Norma also in effect gives permission to the priestess, Adalgisa to have the affair, understandably because   she has and is doing so herself. The discovery is a great shock and at first Norma does everything she can to discourage Adalgisa from   progressing and presses Pollione to acknowledge her and his children prepared to break from her religion and roots when he recalled back to Rome.  The breakdown of the situation and crisis occurs when Pollione is discovered and captured when visiting her in the quarters for the Priestess and the Druids led by their chief, Norma’s father demands justice according to their law. And this involves the execution of Pollione and finding out who he was visiting.

Angry and revengeful the first reactions of Norma are to withdraw her objection to the army rising up against the Romans and to protect her children by placing the blame of Adalgisa. But then she realises Adalgisa is even more a victim of the behaviour of Pollione than she has been and admits she is the traitor to the religion and pleads to her father to care and protect their children. He finds this a great challenge going against everything he believes and governed his life but he brings peace to his she and Pollione meet their fate on a death pyre in the form of a burning cross.

The Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja has a magnificent voice and the close up through the cinema relay revealed his acting ability and that despite qualms when push came to shove he was prepared to sacrifice Norman and his children to satisfy his passion. While at one level Sonia Ganassi does not have the physical presence of the young virgin priestess she is playing she has the dramatic skill to convince an audience in close up and participated in some glorious duet singing with both leads although that of Yoncheva was incredible and the synergy between the three leads exceptional.

I was overwhelmed by the production (an added factor is that my father although born in Gibraltar was taken to Malta for his education and early training for the priesthood as the eldest son, and it can be assumed without being given a choice, as the family has a traced history of several centuries in Malta).Mu unexpected  companion for the evening also appeared overwhelmed and remained seated and it was only after the majority of others in the audience had left the theatre that we commenced to express our admiration floor what we had experienced,  She  expressed reservations about the pyre  being depicted as a  burning cross so I reminded that Druids had outfits  similar to past Orders in the Catholic Church  and the Klu Klux  Klan in the USA where the burning cross also became one of the symbols of white supremacy. It is also noteworthy that among all the praised lavished on the Opera on Twitter there was one critic of the number of crosses featured.



The Director of the production is Àlex Ollé (Catalan pronunciation: [ˈaɫəks uˈʎe]) (Barcelona, 1960) is one of the six artistic directors of La Fura dels Baus, one of the most innovative and prestigious theatre companies on the international scene, which was founded in 1979 and has been characterized from the start by the search for its own language in which public participation is key for developing the show. In collaboration with Carlus Padrissa, Ollé created and directed Mediterrani, mar olímpic, the epicentre of the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, an event that fascinated and left a mark on millions of viewers around the world.(Wikipedia) Valentino Carrasco was the associate Director and Alfonso Flores was responsible for the set.

I immediate to see further performance to find there a handful of the most expensive tickets for a performance on Saturday and the remaining two others sold out. Although I have a free first class ticket from Virgin Trains I decided against changing my plans and will await the DVD unless further performance of the production with the same lead singers is planned.  Because of the Cineworld monthly subscription the cost to me was £8.10






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