OPERAS of the PAST, MIRRORS of OUR PRESENT © Sylvia L’Écuyer, Vancouver 4 March 2018
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OPERAS OF THE PAST, MIRRORS OF OUR PRESENT © Sylvia L’Écuyer, Vancouver 4 March 2018 Today I will open Pandora's Box to bring you my reflexions on a subject that ignites fierce debate in opera houses around the world: new and provocative interpretations of well- known works for the lyric stage. Needless to say, such productions do not always gather universal approval. Indeed, to a sizeable portion of the audience these productions may seem either outrageous, obscurantist, or the work of egomaniacal vandals. And yet a major opera house that presents productions no different from those of regional theatres would surely be accused of being lazy, safe, and boring. The contemporary stage mirrors a much broader audience for opera than existed even fifty years ago, making necessary the re- interpretation of a repertoire that is no longer a part of the artistic conventions of our day. Directors will expect experienced audiences to demand more from the stage than the productions that would have wowed their grandparents at a new work's premiere. And how are opera productions a mirror of their time? Even a conservative production reflects the attitudes of its audience, their time and place. Productions in regional opera centres will tend to reproduce directorial interpretations, so the Bohemians will be in a 19th-century garret and Carmen will work in a cigarette factory and be wooed by a glamorous Toreador. A quite interesting case in point is Puccini’s La Bohème. A few days ago, the Metropolitan Opera was presenting in cinemas the classic 1981 Zeffirelli production, which continues to wow audiences, while in December the Paris Opéra’s production of the same work by director Claus Guth, a representative of the so-called Regietheater, was set… on the moon. In smaller or regional opera houses, and in North America in general, the repertoire will often be limited to about thirty or so works, except for the occasional new piece by a local composer, if government funding can be found. For a public that wishes more than that— challenging new works, or new interpretations of the staples of the repertoire—there are festivals in Europe like Wexford, Ireland, where a few of you have been, and where I return gladly every year. As host and producer of the weekly opera program for Radio-Canada’s ICI Musique network, one of my favourite moments, after listening closely to the work I am about to introduce, is to write a synopsis of the plot: “And here is what happens in the first Act…” After all, radio has always been a wonderful medium for story-telling and in my experience listeners look forward to this part of the program, particularly when I give them musical cues to help them follow the storyline. I must admit, however, that some libretti are quite challenging to summarize in a clear, coherent and engaging way. To make the matter even more confusing, sometimes the text of the original libretto does not correspond to the actual action staged. Well, you might say, after all, this is a radio broadcast, but even then, sometimes the 'soundtrack' of the staging does not correspond to the stage directions originally provided by the composer. You might hear gunshots instead of the rattling of swords, or the roaring of an automobile engine instead of the clop-clop of horseshoes. These are only minor adjustments but the fact is that nowadays, régisseurs have no qualms about doing much more than merely ‘updating’ the action: they will bring it to another time, in another setting, even on another planet. I saw a Sylvia L’Ecuyer Lecture given to Vancouver Opera Guild March 4, 2018 – © 1 Fura dels Baus production of Les Troyens in Valencia a few years ago with Æneas landing at Dido’s court in an inflatable spaceship. In some cases, régisseurs would go as far as to offer a complete re-interpretation of a work. This, of course, is perfectly legitimate if one accepts that the stage director is also a performer and a creator, endowed with the power to bring a work to life on the stage, to shed new light on it, and even to offer a new vision of an opera we might have seen dozens of times before. The stage has to become alive. These interpretations may delve into psychoanalysis, reference social and cultural history, or even criticize the works and attitudes of the composers and librettists themselves. And some very successful productions bring about modernizations that do not fundamentally corrupt the essence of the original. There is a point, admittedly, where the freedom taken by a director in adapting a libretto crosses a line, provoking a tsunami of protests from a significant share of the public. These protests are quite legitimate when the director seems to have staged a completely different work, one in which not only the time frame and location are modified—so that the sets, the costumes, and the relationship between the characters are revisited—but also, in certain cases, in which the libretto appears to be altered to infuse it with a political or ideological message. Sometimes even the music is tampered with, as when cuts are made for staging or budget convenience, when da capo arias are abridged, or when scenes requiring an extra set, a ballet or a choir are suppressed. These kinds of cuts have been imposed on composers in the past. And sometimes music is even added, borrowed from other works of the same composer (or by someone else!), either as a creative gesture, or in line with established tradition. Adding a ballet, for example, was common practice in Paris in the mid-19th- century. A moving example of the latter practice was the introduction of Tchaikovsky's Liturgy of St John Chrysostom at the end of his opera Iolanta in a Peter Sellars production in 2015. The Liturgy, sung by the choir a capella, is a sublime musical moment that carries strong dramatic impact. Iolanta is blind. She lives a secluded life and is treated like a doll. A long time ago her father, King René, hid her from the world. At the end, Iolanta is healed and her father consents to her marriage to Vaudémont. But regaining her eyesight doesn't bring Iolanta the expected deliverance. She is filled with fear and this is when the action is suspended and a choir sings this beautiful Liturgy bringing peace and light. To attempt to justify the work of all directors on the grounds of cultural necessity is pointless, but at the same time there is no case for operas to be presented on stage as if nothing had happened to extend our understanding of them since they were written. Most art fails, after all, and most operas have themselves disappeared. Some have left the stage only because the opera environment today is financially insecure and culturally conservative. In light of this, many questions naturally arise. How far can the director go? When is a production 'unfaithful' to the intentions of the composer? Where is the red line that cannot be crossed without distorting the spirit of the work and fundamentally altering its essence? I will come back to these questions later, but first one might ask if there are any productions Sylvia L’Ecuyer Lecture given to Vancouver Opera Guild March 4, 2018 – © 2 that can be deemed entirely faithful to the cultural context and intentions of the originator? The only example I can think of might be productions of baroque opera, staged in the original sets and costumes, with music performed according to authentic performance practices of the time, using baroque theatrical gestures, and employing reproductions of the spectacular scenery and clever machinery of 16th- and 17th-century opera productions. And yet, when these special effects can be easily reproduced using new computer-enhanced electromechanical techniques, not even a purist would think of lighting the stages with hundreds of candles. In the case of later repertoire such as 19th-century opera, scholars wishing to get a sense of the original staging may wish to consult contemporary livrets de mise en scène (staging manuals) which are kept in libraries, but such a scholarly historical approach does not appeal to directors—nor does it appeal, for that matter, to the general public either. These staging manuals, hundreds of which are found at the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, for example, were meant to help recreate new productions in small theatres across the country. While they can help establish a performance edition of the score, or give us an indication of what was expected from the singers at the time of the premiere, by no means would we consider reproducing these stagings today. So how faithful should we expect a director to be? Since every production is, to some degree, a premiere of sorts, I am convinced that the 'faithfulness requirements' of any production must depend strongly on the nature of the work being staged. When staging an opera buffa—Rossini’s Barber of Seville or L’Italiana in Algieri, for example—the director is generally granted greater freedom, and the public will demonstrate a higher degree of tolerance towards his creativity in adapting, updating and even re-writing the plot. The assessment of how appropriately a director deviates from the spirit and the letter of both the libretto and the music will also depend upon the listener's familiarity with the opera itself, his conception of the work, his knowledge of the circumstances of the its first performances and of the biography of its composer.