The first week of February
2017 has been exceptionally worrying for the ordinary citizens Britain, for the
people of Europe and the United State but I have also experienced some amazing artistic
events at the opera, in theatre and at the ballet. I also watched all ten
programmes of Michael Portillo on his wondrous exploration of the railways from
mid-America to the Grand Canyon, together with Homeland and Scandal, listened
to Desert Island Discs, the Archers and a programme about Corbett’s rural
rides, spent the week making anew statement about child abuse while also
watching Unforgotten and the Apple Tree Yard, together with the Halcyon Hotel
series but last night went to bed after the half time Lady Gaga Super bowl show
to miss one the great turn arounds in the history of that competition.
I want to begin with the most
unexpected of experiences, the Bolshoi Ballet Swan Lake, relayed to a packed
audience on Sunday afternoon February 5th at 3pm at the Cineworld
Bolden, South Tyneside. Of all the art
forms, the dance in general has always less engaged my interest but since first
hearing an orchestral suit by Tchaikovsky during the Promenade Concert season
back in 1956 and immediately buying a Vinyl LP I have taken the opportunity of
the Cinema Relays to view the ballet for its music. Not reading reviews prior
to the performance on what had been a spring like day on my way there and back to
a supermarket before an enjoyable lunch I was not prepared for what now ranks
as one of the important cultural experiences of my life.
I have since learned that
Svetlana Zakharova is regarded as one of the great ballerinas, particularly for
performing both roles of Odette and Odile in the ballet. Now I understand why
as the beauty of her movement is breath taking and inspiring, and I am urging
Cineworld to arrange and encore performance as they have recently done
following the relay of the new production of the Tempest from the Royal
Shakespeare Company at Stratford with tits use of digital motion capture and
projection for the time in live theatre. In the instance of this production
while praise is also due for the performance of the English sounding but
Russian born Denis Rodkin as Prince Siegfried whose solos and duets with
Svetlana brought repeated and prolonged Russian style rhythmic applause, the
dancer whose performance I can only label as amazing, is that of Artemy
Belyakov as the Evil Sorcerer and who with an interpreter was interviewed
during the interview for English and French speaking audiences, demonstrating that he is also an articulate and profound
thinker as well as having the ability to act and leap height and appear to momentarily float, the ability
he shares with Denis Rodkin. It will be difficult to impossible get hold
of a ticket at the Royal Opera House when this production goes on World Tour so
in the meantime I am pressing Cineworld for an encore. There are long excerpts
on you tube as the three dancers perform parts of the earlier production plus several
full-length productions including by the Bolshie and Kirov companies. The 2015
production is available on Blue Ray but several purchasers have commented on
judder. Hopefully it will not be too
long before the 2017 cinema related production becomes available
On Thursday evening February 2nd,
having discovered only in the morning that there was to be a live relay of
Amadeus from the National Theatre, I had hastily abandoned the intention to
watch 2 Trainspotting and booked ticket for the performance at the Cineworld,
Bolden, Tyne and Wear. I had been to see the production at the National Theatre
on New Year’s Eve during my visit to London for the New Year. I had wondered if
I would make the performance that day because of various industrial actions and
road closures from mid-afternoon in preparation for embank firework display at
midnight.
I had travelled early to
London from East Croydon Station to Victoria Station and then taken the bus to
Waterloo, walking the short distance to the theatre, arriving as the lunchtime
menu became available. Getting a bench table for four in the restaurant area I
had first enjoyed a bowl of soup with a small piece of baguette and then seeing
the bowl of chips purchased for a child by a young couple nearby, had done
likewise.
I had moved to a table in the
main course to read a book but was soon joined by a couple of ladies of my
generation who were anxious to arrange a taxi for the end of the performance a
where they had previously seen a previous production in New York. It is one of
the few joys of aging that strangers of all ages are willing to engage in
conversation or show trust as I had been asked to keep an eye on their child by
the young couple as they went to order their meal who spoke in an East European
language, but spoke English better than most and from conversation had lived
and worked in the capital for some time. The conversation had commenced when
the child turned around saw me gave a big smile and wave, so I waved back!
I had also previously seen a
theatre production of the Peter Shaffer play and the film in cinema theatre and
on TV. The unusual nature of the National Production is that a black man Lucian
Msmarti plays the central character of Salieri, and in an interview with Lucian
shown before the cinema relay performance commenced he confronts those who have
questioned his casting without seeing the show performance. On New Year’s Eve
sitting at the back of the stalls without the benefit of close I considered his
performance on of the greats of my lifetime ranking alongside that of Olivier
as Archie Rice in the Entertainer and has one of the two auditoriums at the
National named after him. The close on Thursday evening reinforced my first
reaction that this was one of the great dominating stage performances which as
he explained brought a depth of understanding that his deliberate successful
attempt to first restrict the rise of Mozart and then to destroy his reputation
and to prevent performances of his music, operas and his requiem mases was more
a protest to God than against Mozart whose music he appreciated more than any
other contemporary. The reality was at each step he took he own fame, fortune
and power increased while Mozart’s work became more creative, revolutionary and
eternal.
The performance of Adam Gillam
as Mozart is also exceptional and he deserve being second centre stage at the
end followed closely by Karla Crome as his wife. The second unusual feature of
the production is having the 20 strong South bank sinfonias as playing actors
on the stage together with the six singers and the official 16 actors and
integrated cast of 42 and which as members of orchestra explained, usual they
sit near blending music with their neighbours to create the required sound,
where not only are they without music but stand and move with no immediate awareness
of the impact of the total sound on their audience.
On New Year’s Eve, having an
end of row seat. The next vacant having returned and gained a credit for the
adjacent seat. I had quickly made my way on what had been and remained an
unpleasant damp afternoon back to Waterloo station and took the underground
Jubilee line to Westminster and then a Circle/District line train to Victoria
and where there was no difficulty getting a seat on an early evening one stop train
back to East Croydon and the warmth of my Premier Room a few yards from the
station. My car was parked on site and purchased some food and a cold drink
from the adjacent Co-op for it too closed early. Having brought my printer, the
lap top and note book I could check emails, news and watch TV. Breaking off for
the firework from the annual Jools Holland show.
There was no such imperative
to rush from Cineworld on Thursday evening
but I noted that the cast did not hang about for more that the two
deserved curtain calls, if the National stage had a curtain. A special mention
of |Peter Schaffer who created this masterpiece of play whose prose also commands
thoughtful attention but also uses the music to show Mozart’s development and
how the music poured out from regardless of his circumstances until he appears
to have struggled before getting perfect his memorials for humanity to grieve.
I own a five CD collection of his Masses, The Horn and clarinet Concertos, both
on vinyl and CD, plus the concerto for Flute and Harp, Alfred Brendal playing
his piano concertos, operatic excerpts from several operas and the 34 excerpts
two and a half hours of CDs titled Amadeus, the essential Mozart which has been
filling my home for the great part of the day.
The third standalone cultural
experience of the week is the opera Il Travatore which I saw on Tuesday the 31st
of January also the Cineworld Bolden. My previous visit to this cinema theatre
to watch a relay had been an exasperating experience because as has happened
many times before management failed to supervise the relay so that the lights
were not turned off until the live performance had commenced and a member of
the audience went out to complain to the staff. I gave the performance a zero
rating in order to hopefully get through to management that although my
continued attendance appeared assured because I enjoy the advantages of the
unlimited card I was beginning the extra cost and time of combining cinema
visits to the Odon Silverlink which requires the extra expenditure of going
through the Tyne Tunnel with journeys to the Gateshead Metro shopping centre
where the Odeon there has an Imax projection screen, now that the chain has
also introduced its own version of the
unlimited card.
Although I will continue to
make use the Vue cinemas in Croydon as my bank provides 6 free tickets a year as
part of the account I also travel into London for the Cineworld’s at the 02
Dome and nearby East India Docks, and at Wandsworth via Clapham Junction
Station and then a bus. I am looking forward to also experiencing Imax at the
new Cineworld at the historic Empire in Leicester Square where there is a £2
premium for the visit plus the extra for the Imax screen. When it comes to
Odeon’s nearest to Croydon is at Wimbledon where there is a direct link by tram
which recently derailed causing several deaths and serious inquiries. There is
course the world-famous Odeon Leicester Square, the huge Imax screen on the
South Bank close to Waterloo and a couple of other in the city centre I have
used.
On my as frequent visits to Nottingham there
is a Cineworld in the centre of the city there where I take the Tram from the
free carpark at the Forest or the free bus from the car park in the southern
part of the city near boots and the Riverside Travel Lodge where I stay when
watch cricket at Trent Bridge. When staying at Mansfield Travel Lodge I will go
to the Odeon to the south east of the shopping complex which also has a
Sainsbury Supermarket and restaurants. On my less frequent visits to Brighton
and Worthing there is a Cineworld with free parking at the Brighton marina
centre and an Odeon where the horrendous car parking cost is always a factor
assuming one is also prepared to join the queue when travelling from
Worthing. Thus, any decision to change
monthly subscriptions will not be taken quickly but it became under serious
consideration and I was therefore relieved that my complaints and possibly that
from others was listened to this time and management is now giving special
attention again to the live relays which take place at least once a week,
sometimes two and this week exceptionally three. The Unlimited subscription
also provides a reduction on over £6 on relays, 25% on ice creams, sweets, food
and drink and a similar discount on local restaurants. I am yet to establish if
there are similar discounts at the Odeon who have operated a points system
where I still have an account.
Now to my fourth experiences
of the Opera Il Travatore in Theatre relay or on Internet/TV productions (Metropolitan
Opera House Subscription service). I begin with my review of the performances
from Barcelona and the Metropolitan New York in 2009 and 2010. I included some of the writing especially of
the story when experiencing the 2011 performance from the Metropolitan and
finally my reactions to the contemporary set production from the Royal Opera
House London on January 31st this year.
As I have written before I had
arranged the trip with an extra day at the Lodge with the intention of visiting
again the Calle exhibition at the Whitechapel, having a pre-Christmas meal at
the Cafe Rouge at Victoria station and a relay from Barcelona of Il Trovatore
at the Odeon Convent Garden. My Traviata and Trovatore being mixed up
beforehand but no more.
Having watched and heard the opera twice (listening again as I checked this writing) since the live relay I confirm my reaction on the night that this is the most satisfying operatic experience to-date. The opera is full of powerful and passionate arias from the four lead characters where the two female parts were outstanding in the Barcelona production but nothing can compare with the 1988 Metropolitan production with Pavarotti and Dolora Zajick. Every part of the four-act opera performed with one interval between Acts 2 and 3 contains moments of moving drama and singing challenges and listening ecstasy. The reason is the almost unbroken melodiousness of the opera. Yet it nearly did not happen for me
As with the Metropolitan New York and Convent Garden the effect of showing the height of the stage with the width creates an oblong effect shortening the width of the Opera at Barcelona. I could work out the true perspective by counting the number of seats in a row in the theatre and at the opera house and this only served to emphasis the height and depth although unlike the Metropolitan we were not given a behind the scenes peek
The Gran Theatre del Liceu was destroyed by fire in January 1994. While the auditorium was re-created the opportunity was taken to improve the backstage and to fund the development the theatre became Public.
The Liceu production is comparatively simple which a fixed contemporary looking structure of ceiling high columns at either side between which performers enter and exist, and single backcloths designed to show that as a background to the story there is conflict and war between two noble houses in Southern Spain. When the separate houses are represented on stage they have their own backcloth and the soldiers wear blue or red neck scarves and shining red or blue gauntlets. The effect is that much more dramatic than the Metropolitan with its stairways and changes in structures, impressive as these always are. It is also fair to say that the war between the two aristocratic houses is minor significance in terms of the two big issues of the opera.
The opera opens with the captain of the guard for the noble house of Aragon, a baritone, explaining that in the past, the story is set in the fifteen century, a gypsy woman was seen over the child son of the Count di Luna and chased away but the child then fell ill and the court believed that the woman had cast a spell so she was apprehended and told to remove the spell and when the condition of the child did not improved she was burnt at the stake in front of her daughter, who listened to her mother’s cry, daughter, avenge me. By coincidence I was to watch a showing of the Wicker Man a few days later and which has the most vivid and effective of the martyrdoms at the end of the film in which the victim calls for the salvation to his God. In this story the pagan response of the gypsy was to have such profound effect on all the principal characters.
Her daughter Azucena was a young girl with a child of her own in her arms and seeing the horror of her mother’s death and the entreaty to take revenge, managed to enter the castle of the Count and steal one of the brothers, a child of similar age to her own, intending to throw it into the still burning pyre on which her mother had perished. However, in her emotional condition she had mixed up the two babies and thrown her own child which was also burnt alive, bringing up the son of the Count as her own. However, throughout the rest of her life she remains uncertain of what she did, except that she was responsible for the burning to death of a baby
There are different views on this aspect of the story with some writing claiming that the libretto was written with a view that knowing what she had done she would use her son one day against his House, although the Count dies and his other son the Count is not sure if it was his brothers bones in the ashes or the boy was raised by the gypsies.
After this long singing soliloquy of a prologue accompanied by a chorus of the guard, the advises the audience that the opera is to begin.
Most writers admit the melodramatic story has its flaws and none more so that than what happens to the infant that lived and was raised by the gypsy woman, Manrico, who as soon as he is able to, despite a close relationship with his mother, leaves her to become a Troubadour, and somehow as well as a soldier who takes up the cause of a rival Noble House and becomes,, for the purposes of the opera, a leading if not leading assistant on behalf of the House against the Count di Luna. What is worse he has fought and sung his way into the heart of the Duchess Lenora, who the Count coverts with overwhelming passion. When the Count, di Luna learns that the man is singing below the balcony of Leonora he orders his men to apprehend Manrico at the first opportunity.
Having been alerted to his presence one night the Duke approaches and suddenly finds Leonora in his arms who in the fog mistakes him for Manrico who also appears and the three are together on stage with musical as well as dramatic fireworks. In the stage directions, the men fight a duel but this aspect is omitted in both version of the opera I have seen.
The Act ends and with a brief musical introduction the next act begins with a gypsy encampment. The gypsies are working on sword making and the audience is treated to one of the well-loved choruses in opera, The Anvil Chorus. The focus of the Act is the gypsy woman, sung by Luciana D ‘Intinio in the relay and Dolera Krijick in the Met Opera video available on the internet and audio CD. While Luciana is regarded as one of the leading Mezzo sopranos of the present generation, now aged born 1959, specialising in Verdi with Il Trovatore and Aida, plus the Requiem, her major roles, she has no Wikipedia entry. I thought her performance was outstanding and along with that of Lenora the two women made the evening a memorable one. Interestingly she has performed both - Il Trovatore and Aida at the Met. The Act provides the opportunity to recount the past to her son so having had the perspective of the Captain of the Guard we now have that of the daughter. She has been hiding in the land of the House of Biscay but came out to find her son and to nurse him back to health after finding him injured from the recent battle between the forces of Biscay and Aragon. Understandably the account of the past raises doubt about the parentage of Manrico and when he raises these Azucena pulls back and claims that she explained things badly because of her emotional state reliving the trauma.
It is his ‘mother’s’ turn to question Manrico because we learn that in the duel at the end of Act 1 he had got the better of the Count di Luna who had led the forces of Aragon in the recent battle. The gypsy woman wants to know why Manrico did not kill the Count when he had the opportunity and he explains that a voice from heaven prevented him doing so, thus suggesting a subconscious kinship link between the two.
A messenger arrives from the Prince of Biscay to order Manrico to take charge of the forces defending the city of Castellor and we also learn that Leonora believing him dead has entered a convent to take the veil.
The scene switches to the Count who has also heard that Leonora has entered the convent and he sets out to kidnap her before she takes the Holy Orders. Critics claim that his baritone solo is one of the most beautiful solos in Italian opera. The performance of Roberto Frontali as the count is excellent and in my judgement compares to that of Sherrill Miles at the Met, although the latter is regarded alongside Domingo and Pavarotti with whom he has featured in many performances and on CD’s
However before he can implement his plan Marico arrives with greater forces and Leonora amazed that he is alive leaves the convent to join him and there is a moving end to this part of the opera before the only interval as the three express their feelings with the support of the chorus of nuns and military supporters.
During the interval, I enjoyed a coffee from the Theatre and the Danish pastry carried around since leaving the Travel Lodge the day back in my seat, and marvelling at how the day had worked out so far. Whatever happened on the journey back, I was enjoying myself with skin tingling singing
The Third Act opens with the Count laying siege to Castellor where Manrico has taken Leonora with him. There is a commotion and the Count finds that the Captain of his guard has apprehended a gipsy woman who proclaims she is a wanderer looking for her lost son. She is recognised as the woman who took his brother and cast him to the flames and protesting her innocence she calls out to her son by name. Understandably the Count realises that he has double reason to hold the woman prisoner and to burn her at the stake when she has served her purpose. While in the relay production the woman is played by a singer of similar years, this was Krijick’s first role at the Met and she had to age herself by a grey wig and makeup. He voice had not matured to extent of the recent AIDA performance but is nevertheless magnificent. The emotion she coveys is extraordinary and sets as one of the all-time greats. As with AIDA I hope she reprise her role in Il Travatore in some relayed production in the future.
In Castellor Manrico and Leonora are about to be married when news comes of the capture of his mother and breaks off from the ceremony to try and rescue her. I was not impressed by the performance of Marco Berti as Manrico, something shared by Jose M Irurzun who attended several performances to hear the performances of all the International singers taking the roles with in effect three different casts, although there were some cross overs. I also noted that other critics had felt that his singing and characterization has not lived up to expectations in others rolls around the world.
In the fourth act, we learn that his attempt to save his mother failed and he has been captured and thrown into a cell in a prison tower with his mother. Leonora learns of his situation and puts into operation a desperate plan to save his life at the expense of her own. She carries with her a poison ring which indicates what is to take place when she offers herself to the Count in exchange for Marico.
She alerts Manrico of her presence by what has become one of the most familiar most familiar melodies in all of opera, the Miserere.
The plan works in that the Count agrees to free Manrico in exchange for Leonora but Manrico does not accept his release and works out the price Leonora appears to have paid, something he does not understand or forgive until the poison works quicker than anticipated and she dies in his arms. The Count is so angered at being duped that he orders the immediate execution of Manrico and too late he learns from Azucena that he has killed his long-lost brother. Everyone loses. Before there is some moving sing from all four leads with Azucena’s cry, Mother you are avenged.
In the relay, Leonora is played by Florenza Cedolins one of the outstanding new generation of Italian sopranos who first performed only in 1992 and four years later won the Pavarotti Vocal Competition with a prize which included singing Tosca with him in Philadelphia. She was invited to sing The Requiem Mass for Pope John Paul II. I thought her performance on the night was also exceptional and matching that of D’Intinio. For the Met Eva Marton sings Leonora. The Hungarian born singer only four year younger that myself was of matching maturity with Pavarotti when they and together in 1988 and brings her then musical and singing experience to the role. She possesses great power in her voice which led to singing Wagner which was her Met debut in 1976. She performed Il Trovatore at La Scala in 1978 ten years before the Met performance with Pavarotti. In later years, she made Turandot a major role, retiring in 2008
Enrico Caruso stated at the turn of the last century that the opera required four the greatest voices of any generation to match the strength and brilliance of Verdi’s creation. While the relay could be said to have two performances worthy of the opera, the Met production has four and is why I am listening again as I write, the third time since my return. My next interest will be Carmen from the Met on January 16th. Before then I will experience a video, which has been added to the Met Player performances available.
After the pre-Christmas relay and the music filling my senses I had a brilliant journey back to the Travel Lodge. reached Victoria Station in time to get on a one stop train to East Croydon as it prepared to leave the platform, but I managed to find a seat albeit next to a new European who appeared to have been drinking heavily although there was also evidence of some office partying among others returning to Sussex, Brighton and other south coast homes.
Wednesday, 4 May
2011
I have now experienced two live
relays and two recorded productions of Il Trovatore since the Christmas of
2009. I was in the mood of the Opera 18 months ago, on the day after that
horrific car journey between Wallington and the Travel Lodge at and then found
that I was without my mobile phone so I had returned to Wallington to collect
this, parked the car at considerable expense by East Croydon station and then
travelled to Victoria where I had lunch at the Cafe Rouge before experiencing
the Sophie Calle exhibition at the White Chapel gallery after first collecting
my theatre relay ticket from the Odeon. I thoroughly enjoyed the day before the
performance although there was underlying anxiety about the weather conditions.
The 2009 performance was from the Gran Theatre Del Liceu Barcelona where the city football reached the final of the European football cup last night for the third time in four years. Afterwards on the Metropolitan Opera New York player I watched the 1988 production with Pavarotti and Dolora Zajick. On Saturday 30th of April I visited the Cineworld Bolden and could get one of the remaining seats for a live relay of the Opera from the Met and with Dolora Zajick repeating her 1988 role as the Gypsy mother of the two royal brothers.
I will begin with a confession that I quickly became tired and struggled not to go to sleep which affected my appreciation of the Met relay so my response may not as objective as it would normally be.
The Liceu production was comparatively simple which a fixed contemporary looking structure of ceiling high columns at either side between which performers enter and exist, and single backcloths designed to show that as a background to the story there is conflict and war between two noble houses in Southern Spain. When the separate houses are represented on stage they have their own backcloth and the soldiers wear blue or red neck scarves and shining red or blue gauntlets. The effect is that much more dramatic than the Metropolitan with its stairways and changes in structures, impressive as these always are. It is also fair to say that the war between the two aristocratic houses is minor significance in terms of the two big issues of the opera. I continue to feel the Liceu production remains the most visually effective. This time the Met used a revolving stage which substantial reduced scene change time between the four acts. However the overall effect was dark and added nothing to the overall performance.
The opera opens with the captain of the guard for the noble house of Aragon, a baritone, explaining that in the past, the story is set in the fifteen century, a gypsy woman was seen over the child son of the Count di Luna and chased away but the child then fell ill and the court believed that the woman had cast a spell so she was apprehended and told to remove the spell and when the condition of the child did not improved she was burnt at the stake in front of her daughter, who listened to her mother’s cry, daughter, avenge me. By coincidence I had watched a showing of the Wicker Man a few days after the Barcelona production has the most vivid and effective of the martyrdoms at the end of the film in which the victim calls for the salvation to his God as be burned to death within a large wicker framework filled with animals and produce. In this story the pagan response of the gypsy was to have a profound effect on all the principal characters.
Her daughter Azucena was a young girl
with a child of her own in her arms and seeing the horror of her mother’s death
and the entreaty to take revenge, managed to enter the castle of the Count and
steal one of the brothers, a child of similar age to her own, intending to
throw it into the still burning pyre on which her mother had perished. However,
in her emotional condition she had mixed up the two babies and thrown her own
child which was also burnt alive, bringing up the son of the Count as her own.
However, throughout the rest of her life she remains uncertain of what she did,
except that she was responsible for the burning to death of a baby.
There are different views on this aspect of the story with some writing claiming that the libretto was written with a view that knowing what she had done she would use her son one day against his House, although the Count dies and his other son the Count is not sure if it was his brother’s bones in the ashes or the boy was raised by the gypsies. It was interesting to see Dolora reprise her role after two decades and as anticipated she never fails to provide a technically perfect performance with great emotional acting. As with the other production all four principal characters are given several opportunities to come to the fore and in this instance, it was the performance of Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Count di Luna which proved the great crowd pleaser.
Dmitri had starred earlier in the season as Don Carlo which I had intended to experience but missed. Born and trained in Russia he came to the fore after winning the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. A tall man with striking silver hair, once seen and heard he is not forgotten.
After this long singing soliloquy of a prologue accompanied by a chorus of the guard, then advise the audience that the opera is to begin.
Most writers admit the melodramatic story has its flaws and none more so that than what happens to the infant that lived and was raised by the gypsy woman, Manrico, who as soon as he is able to, despite a close relationship with his mother, leaves her to become a Troubadour, and somehow as well as a soldier who takes up the cause of a rival Noble House and becomes for the purposes of the opera, a leading if not leading assistant on behalf of the House against the Count di Luna. What is worse he has fought and sung his way into the heart of the Duchess Lenora, who the Count coverts with overwhelming passion. When the Count, di Luna learns that the man is singing below the balcony of Leonora he orders his men to apprehend Manrico at the first opportunity.
Having been alerted to his presence one night the Duke approaches and suddenly finds Leonora in his arms who in the fog mistakes him for Manrico who also appears and the three are together on stage with musical as well as dramatic fireworks. In the stage directions, the men fight a duel but this aspect is omitted in the versions of the opera I have seen.
The Act ends and with a brief musical introduction the next act begins with a gypsy encampment. The gypsies are working on sword making and the audience is treated to one of the well-loved choruses in opera, The Anvil Chorus. The Act provides the opportunity to recount the past to her son so having had the perspective of the Captain of the Guard we now have that of the daughter. She has been hiding in the land of the House of Biscay but came out to find her son and to nurse him back to health after finding him injured from the recent battle between the forces of Biscay and Aragon. Understandably the account of the past raises doubt about the parentage of Manrico and when he raises these Azucena pulls back and claims that she explained things badly because of her emotional state reliving the trauma.
It is his ‘mother’s’ turn to question Manrico because we learn that in the duel at the end of Act 1 he had got the better of the Count di Luna who had led the forces of Aragon in the recent battle. The gypsy woman wants to know why Manrico did not kill the Count when he had the opportunity and he explains that a voice from heaven prevented him doing so, thus suggesting a subconscious kinship link between the two
A messenger arrives from the Prince of Biscay to order Manrico to take charge of the forces defending the city of Castellor and we also learn that Leonora believing him dead has entered a convent to take the veil.
The scene switches to the Count who has also heard that Leonora has entered the convent and he sets out to kidnap her before she takes the Holy Orders. However, before he can implement his plan Marico arrives with greater forces and Leonora amazed that he is alive leaves the convent to join him and there is a moving end to this part of the opera before the only interval as the three express their feelings with the support of the chorus of nuns and military supporters.
At the end of the second act and commencement of the Interval Renée Fleming interviewed Sondra Radvanovsky who played Leonora and Marcelo Alvarez who played Manrico. The two have performed together several times before and enjoy the relationship. However, what struck me is despite considering that people fall for each other for irrational reasons that most women given a choice between the two men involved would go for the Count, tall, handsome, wealthy and oozing personality whereas Manrico is overweight with a tinge of wetness about him and comparatively poor! Oh, I am being so unfair.
Sondra was born and bred in the USA and is now in her early forties having been developed as a young artist by the Metropolitan I have little information except that she also performed with Alvarez in Don Carlo, He on the other hand has an extensive repertoire of 29 roles since commencing his professional career in leading roles in 1994, born in Argentina in 1962 and is highly regarded as a leading tenor.
Renée interviewed Dolora and Demitri after 15-minute break when you could sit in and watch someone doing some work on scenery or got for a natural break and in my case out to the car to eat a prepared prawn salad and drink a diet Pepsi.
The Third Act opens with the Count laying siege to Castellor where Manrico has taken Leonora with him. There is a commotion and the Count finds that the Captain of his guard has apprehended a gipsy woman who proclaims she is a wanderer looking for her lost son. She is recognised as the woman who took his brother and cast him to the flames and protesting her innocence she calls out to her son by name. Understandably the Count realises that he has double reason to hold the woman prisoner and to burn her at the stake when she has served her purpose
While in the relay production the woman is played by a singer of similar years, in the Met film this was Krijick’s first role at the Met and she had to age herself by a grey wig and makeup. “Her voice had not matured to extent of the AIDA performance but is nevertheless magnificent” I wrote at the time. The emotion she coveys is extraordinary and marks her as one of the all-time greats. “As with AIDA I hope she reprises her role in Il Trovatore in some relayed production in the future.” Well she did wow, and she was great along with Dmitri
In Castellor Manrico and Leonora are about to be married when news comes of the capture of his mother and breaks off from the ceremony to try and rescue her. “I was not impressed by the performance of Marco Berti as Manrico, something shared by Jose M Irurzun who attended several performances to hear the performances of all the International singers taking the roles with in effect three different casts, although there were some cross overs. I also noted that other critics had felt that his singing and characterization has not lived up to expectations in others roles around the world.”
In the fourth act we learn that his attempt to save his mother failed and he has been captured and thrown into a cell in a prison tower with his mother. Leonora learns of his situation and puts into operation a desperate plan to save his life at the expense of her own. She carries with her a poison ring which indicates what is to take place when she offers herself to the Count in exchange for Manrico.
She alerts Manrico of her presence by what has become one of the most familiar most familiar melodies in all of opera, the Miserere
The plan works in that the Count agrees to free Manrico in exchange for Leonora but Manrico does not accept his release and works out the price Leonora appears to have paid, something he does not understand or forgive until the poison works quicker than anticipated and she dies in his arms. The Count is so angered at being duped that he orders the immediate execution of Manrico and too late he learns from Azucena that he has killed his long-lost brother. Everyone loses. Before there is some moving sing from all four leads with Aucena’s cry, Mother you are avenged.
“In the Barcelona relay, Leonora is played by Florenza Cedolins one of the outstanding new generation of Italian sopranos who first performed only in 1992 and four years later won the Pavarotti Vocal Competition with a prize which included singing Tosca with him in Philadelphia. She was invited to sing The Requiem Mass for Pope John Paul II. I thought her performance on the night was also exceptional and matching that of D’Intinio. For the Met Eva Marton sings Leonora. The Hungarian born singer only four year younger that myself was of matching maturity with Pavarotti when they and together in 1988 and brings her then musical and singing experience to the role. She possesses great power in her voice which led to singing Wagner which was her Met debut in 1976. She performed Il Trovatore at La Scala in 1978 ten years before the Met performance with Pavarotti. In later years, she made Turandot a major role, retiring in 2008
Enrico Caruso stated at the turn of the last century that the opera required four the greatest voices of any generation to match the strength and brilliance of Verdi’s creation. This statement was repeated by Renée Fleming in her introduction.
The response of the full house audience at Bolden was mixed with the husband/companion of one woman to one side appearing irritated by the ending and departing as soon as the opera ended. The woman remained to enjoy ecstatic applause in the auditorium. There was a double curtain call restricted to the principals. In terms of good tunes the Opera is second only to Carmen.
I therefore come to the 2017 production from the Royal Opera House with
Alexander Tsymbalyuk as Ferrando, Lianna Haroutounian as Leonora, Francesca
Chiejina as Ines, Gregory Kunde as Manrico, Vitaliy Billy Count de Luna, Anita
Rachvelishvili as Azucena, Jonathan Fisher as the Old Gypsy, Rus Samuel Sakker
and the messenger Andrew O’Connor.
In the introduction to the Opera and again I believe during the interval
the point was made that the opera only works if four of the most technically
accomplished singers perform the lead roles and possess the internal experience
understanding and acting abilities to communicate the emotional intensity of
the roles. I only have visual memory and
no musical sound so cannot compare how the four soloists on this occasion
compared with previous. Physically the four were well casted and there was
credibility with one exception in that despite her extraordinary moving and
justifiably acclaimed performance as the mother of Manrico, Anita
Rachvelishvili came across as too young to be his mother although this may my
eye sight.
The Royal Opera House had chosen production and set designers to place
the opera in a contemporary setting of civil war complete with a real looking
tank. The ambiance a gypsy encampment was replaced by a garish small
contemporary caravan and the set was in constant darkness which has become
common place with periodic symbolic burst of fire including a large heart
shaped fire on Azucena’s burning pyre made most real at the end of the film the
Wicker man. I thought the production and set did not achieve its intended
purpose but the overall performance was not affected given my attention was
concentrated on the magnificent signing performances. From a conversation
across the aisle I learned that that the orchestra and singers were out of sync
at times and it was evident from the comments of the man standing that he
regarded individual as an expert on all things musical who had been to see one
current musical production four timers to gain an understanding of what is was
all about. Where I was in total accord was their comments that La La Land was
overrated and over hyped. It was a memorable evening given the nature of the
week but I need to experience again the Met production to come to any overall
judgement on my four experiences of the opera in seven years.
Trump’s America
From cultural fiction, I turn to the main political events of the week. I
begin with the America of Donald Trump and the recent second series of train
journeys and stop overs across the USA by the former Conservative Deputy Party
Chairman, Margaret Thatcher supporter and Leadership candidate Michael Portillo,
and who travelled across the great plains to the Grand Canyon, Arizona. It is
said that Mr Portillo who like me has a part Spanish background, was the front
runner to become Tory Party Leader in 2001 before be backed out (it is said
after pressure from the still influential Lord Tebbit, whose appearance on the
Andrew Marr show in 2014 heralded the first announcement by the then Home Secretary
of a national inquiry into historical child abuse for England and Wales).
Mr Portillo has since remained a political commentator since leaving the
House of Commons in 2005 by being the only other stalwart of the late Friday
evening Politics show. His main career move was to become the expert on
railways throughout the UK, Europe and now the USA although he had featured in several
TV series, notably Great Britons.
The USA Train series is the second series with the first commencing in
Manhattan travelling to Niagara Falls and then Gettysburg before Washington DC
to Mount Vernon and Jamestown. In the recent series he commenced in Missouri,
St Louis, and moved to Jefferson City and Washington, Sedalia, St Josephs and
the meat packing capital of the state, Kansas City, from there along Tornado Alley, from Lawrence to Topeka and Dodge City and
then Lamar Colorado; he visits Pueblo and learns what it takes to become a
cowboy, the tourist centre of Colorado Springs comes before the n journey through
the Arkansas river gorge on a narrow-gauge railway, and then to New Mexico and Santé
Fe, Albuquerque and ending at the Grand Canyon. This week I am watching his
journey from Minneapolis and St Paul built around the Mississippi River and then
into the Deep South, to La Crosse Wisconsin Tomah and Portage, Milwaukee to
Racine and the windy city of Chicago before travelling the Mississippi.
The journeys of Mr Portillo, and in which he always shows respect for
the local history and cultures, are highlighting the size of the country, and the
separateness and individuality of states, counties and communities,
particularly from the Federal government and which reminds of my long belief in
a one country states of Europe with Russia having the same relationship as
Canada and Turkey as Mexico with the USA. It is several generations since I
listened to Alistair Cooke’s weekly Letters from America on the BBC Radio and
continue to treasure his book America
which accompanied a TV series which also provided an overview of the history,
vastness and diversity of this part of the American continents. Since those
days when the cinema pictures provided perspectives on a weekly basis with the
films on the USA participation in World War II, the Saturday morning children’s
show Western, the gangster movies, small town dramas and the sophisticated
relationships of the big cities, I believe I have understood the awesome individual
power of the USA President and its limitations.
Anyone who wants to understand something of the truth of how a
Presidency works in practice should view all 140 episodes of the West Wing, the
recent film of Jackie (Kennedy’s
Camelot) or the current TV series Scandal
and Homeland. It is impossible
to compare the roles of a heredity monarch, personified with Queen Elizabeth,
celebrating 65 years in office, and whose
function to advise and warn
but not command in terms of changes in
the laws and political policies and
actions, with that of the elected head
of state in the USA where the office has a maximum tenure of eight years, and is actually the
commander and chief with the power to
create an executive order, the equivalent of the Royal Prerogative.
The problem here in the UK is the misconception that the Government is
just the Cabinet led by the Prime
Minister or even the raft of Ministers, their individual political advisors and
Civil servants but in reality is a
complex balance of powers brought
together through the Privy Council and with a distinct role for the individual Peer members of the House of Lordships, the Barons, descended
from the Barons of Magna Carta (The Upper House) and where there are Privy
Council sub committees for the judiciary separate from the law makers and for
national security which covers the role
of the various security services. Much of the work of the Crown, the Privy
Council and Government is secret but recently there been greater transparency
admitting that through the head of state treaties are entered with other
counties and that are sometimes secret.
Separately I have been writing about Spies, and those working undercover
and which includes the use of informants, traditionally used to bring down
criminals and their networks but also as a major means to know what other
countries are up to and as an offensive and defensive weapon in terms changing
the balance of power between neighbours and in the twentieth century between
continents. We are unlikely to know how
far moves to bring the buffer states between Russia an existing NATO countries
into the alliance provoked Russia into
making moves against Ukraine or how far the openly knowledge that under
President Obama the USA was reducing interest in NAT0 in part because of the lack of funding coming from
Europe, more because of the to give greater
attention to the Pacific ring and the political and economic advancement of
China, in part because of the new approach to offensive intelligence military action through cyber
technology and military action and
because of the use of digitally controllable
pilotless air machines, defensive umbrella shields and so on it all means that
unless one is a top insider one only sees what is intended to be seen and the
appearance of anything is rarely its reality.
The British popular vote against the capitalist enterprise of the European
Common Market created the international climate which enthused Donald Trump and
his supporters into believing they could triumph in the USA using same methods
successful in the UK, despite the whole apparatus of the state and
establishment being directed to preventing this happening. How much of Trumps reputed $10 billion went
on buying him into power and how much was provided by those who can call in their
debts will never be known. The reality is that he now able to use his knowledge
and skill which got him into power to stay there for at least 8 years. If he succeeds in his approach I foresee
several changes to the USA constitution including the maximum tenure of any
individual in office.
As commander and Chief he can use the power as an elected head of state
in much the same way as Hitler did in Germany. We may also never know who put
up the British PM to engineer the visit to see Trump and if this came from him via
Farage. It could have come from within Europe as the price for an eventual soft
Brexit and to get Trump to make positive public noises about NATO and to hold
him back from doing open public deals with Putin. It could have been from panic because the
information about the reality of past and current UK and USA intrigue, under
cover deals, are now to known to the new President. It was one of a series of
major political blinders which the May Premiership is making.
There is no doubt that the President is determined to do what he said he
would do and to do it quickly before the system organises to prevent him. The
idea that he needs someone like the PM in the way Regan needed Thatcher is
absurd, in the same way the idea that the Queen can be expected to have any
influence is dangerous. Trump is what he is and has never made any secret of it
just as Jimmy Saville was open about his behaviour and a wide range of people
looked the other way.
So far there has been a partial awakening to the implications of leaving
the umbrella of Europe and the implications of a Trump presidency. The response
of the Labour Party which has the risk of imploding has been excellent for once
recognising the enemy without and the outburst from Speaker Bercow timely. The
boat could be rocked further and even off course when the Lord out amendments
to the Brexit Bill and it would be great if they force the government to hold a
General Election to abolish the second chamber. Anyone who claims to know or be
certain about the outcome of the Brexit referendum on the implication for British
citizens of Trump’s triumph is a fool. I am still of view of a May General
Election.
