The Royal Opera has taken its time before dipping its toes into the weird and
wonderful world of the Italian baroque. Since its post-war inauguration at
Covent Garden, the company has tackled nothing earlier than Purcell's
“semi-opera” King Arthur (1691). Monteverdi's three surviving masterpieces
remain absent from the repertoire. It is surprising, perhaps, that
Monteverdi's most prominent successor and erstwhile assistant, Francesco
Cavalli, has preceded his master to Bow Street with a visually sumptuous and
provocatively ribald production of his anarchic sexual tragicomedy La
Calisto, first seen in Munich as staged by the British-based American David
Alden and two of his regular designers, Paul Steinberg and Buki Shiff.
Although their work is familiar to British audiences, this is Team Alden's
debut at Covent Garden. It goes without saying, I suppose, that the
notorious director of ENO's “chain-saw massacre” production of Tchaikovsky's
Mazeppa in the 1980s violently divides opinion. Anyone expecting discreet
“period” hanky-panky between Olympian gods and Arcadian nymphs and shepherds
should probably avert their eyes, although they will miss one of the most
dazzling displays of scenography (Steinberg) and costume design (Shiff) seen
at Covent Garden since the ROH reopened in 2000.
First performed in one of Venice's public theatres in 1651, this beautiful and
astonishingly broad-minded opera relates the rise, demise and stellar
elevation of the nymph Calisto, one of the goddess Diana's retinue, through
her unorthodox relationship with that mythological master of disguise,
Jupiter. He seduces Calisto by transforming himself into a likeness of his
daughter, the goddess of chastity. When Calisto reciprocates “his” lesbian
caresses to the real Diana, the celestial huntress is outraged and banishes
her votress from her entourage. Meanwhile, Juno, on permanent red-alert
where her husband's amorous escapades are concerned, descends from Olympus
to investigate and punishes Calisto by turning her into a bear. Jupiter
takes pity on her, transporting her to the heavens as the constellation as
Ursa Major.
Giovanni Faustini's libretto imparts an almost Offenbachian satirical edge to
this cheerful mythology. Alden, characteristically, goes further, turning
the opera into a glitzy, glamorous, bedroom-farcical take on our
contemporary obsession with the sex lives of celebrities. Steinberg's
setting is the foyer and bar of an over-the-top Las Vegas hotel, in which
1950s fashionistas parade in fancy dress and catwalk couture. Juno's
attendant peacocks are fabulous showgirl creations, strutting their stuff in
their iridescent catsuits and feather headdresses.
It's all very vulgar, of course, but the Alden style suits Calisto. The sexual
coarseness is sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, but it's surely what Cavalli
and Faustini intended. Alden's staging is not filth, however. He respects
the cosmic-philosophical dimension of the piece in the climactically
beautiful metamorphosis of Calisto from bear to hall-of-fame princess,
against a skyscape of Steinberg's spectacular backdrop of radiating
concentric moons (the moon Callisto is one of Jupiter's satellites). A
breathtaking finale.
Musically, the performance is in the capable, stylish hands of Ivor Bolton,
conducting a small period-instrument group comprising the Monteverdi
Continuo Ensemble and members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
Sally Matthews (Calisto), Umberto Chiummo (Jupiter), Markus Werba (Mercury)
and Véronique Gens (Juno) all sing more than decently, but a couple of
big-name stars might have helped to fill the stalls.
London's symphonic season opened with a big bang around the Calisto premiere
on September 23. Valery Gergiev launched his second full programme with the
London Symphony Orchestra a fortnight ago, not with a single concert, but
with three, a compact mini-festival comprising all three of Rachmaninov's
symphonies and his Third and Fourth piano concertos.
At the Festival Hall, two days later, the two resident orchestras faced each
other off in consecutive concerts, both featuring a big theatrical work of
Stravinsky's. Esa-Pekka Salonen inaugurated his principal conductorship of
the Philharmonia Orchestra with the Latin opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex, while
Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic opted for The Rite of Spring.
This competitive spirit packed the hall with enthusiastic listeners, an
encouraging endorsement - at least one hopes - of the imaginative
programming we can expect from these conductors. Salonen preceded Stravinsky
with a coruscating account of the Suite from Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin
and an immaculately played, though emotionally reticent reading of
Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto by the cool Russian virtuoso Vadim Repin.
Jurowski's juxtapositions were even bolder: his first half unexpectedly
comprised British music, Vaughan Williams's Eighth Symphony - arguably his
most unorthodox and brilliantly orchestrated - followed by the world
premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage's violin concerto, Mambo, Blues and
Tarantella. In a stroke of programming genius, Jurowski preceded
Stravinsky's Rite with Ligeti's static cloudscape, Atmosphères. Instead of
presenting these seminal modernist works as separate items, Jurowski segued
seamlessly from the nothingness of the Ligeti's close into the opening
bassoon solo of the Stravinsky. The contrast between these two pieces - the
Ligeti a study in motionlessness, the Stravinsky a convulsive eruption of
movement - was only enhanced by Jurowski's linking device, making one listen
with refreshed ears. Jurowski's dynamism inspired the orchestra to surpass
itself in the Rite, while the players' native understanding of Vaughan
Williams's idiom resulted in an unexpectedly idiomatic and flamboyant
account of the Eighth Symphony.
Turnage's concerto proved a perfect complement, with its even more impressive
battery of percussion instruments. Unusually, in the energetic outer
movements, the composer treats the violin as quasi-percussion, with
jagged-edge multiple stopping and wild rhythmic abandon. The slow Blues
movement is a serene oasis of calm at the heart of the work. This is a
notable addition to the concerto repertory. The solo part was thrillingly
played by the dedicatee, Christian Tetzlaff, a rare champion of new music
among elite contemporary violinists.
The Philharmonia's Oedipus Rex proved as involving a climax to Salonen's
concert as did Jurowski's and the LPO's Rite. The sobriety of Stravinsky's
hieratic opera-oratorio suits the Finnish conductor's laid-back, less
demonstrative style. It is one of his party pieces, and he understands its
cumulative power as well as any leading conductor today. A fine cast, headed
by Stephen Gould's heldentenorish Oedipus, Ekaterina Gubanova's lustrous (if
too young) Jocasta and Kyle Ketelsen's dark-voiced Creon/Messenger, was more
than matched by the youthful (male) Philharmonia Voices, a professional
choir and a spectacularly good one, too.
At the Barbican, Gergiev continues to divide opinion. As always, there is an
edge-of-seat unpredictability surrounding his concerts, partly explained by
charisma, of course, but also by his “It'll be all right on the night”
rehearsal methods. Not everyone will respond to his unsentimental, by turns
darkly brooding and unashamedly flamboyant Rachmaninov, but his accounts of
the First and Third symphonies, especially, had a cohesion and tautness of
construction that elude many conductors of this discursive music. The
masterly Second Symphony certainly has had more loving interpreters than
Gergiev, but I was gripped by the unfolding drama and convinced by his free
approach to phrasing and tempo. His season of themed concerts devoted to (mostly
Russian) exiles could hardly have opened more propitiously.
