Classical Music: Opera buffs are cautious about what directors can do

Feb 8 2008 by Peter Spaull, Liverpool Daily Post

THIRTY-FIVE years ago Peter Brook, directing Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream at Stratford, had the cast juggling plates on the top of sticks while they went about their business. It was outrageous, but was a phenomenal artistic success.

Playgoers can usually take it , but opera buffs are more cautious about what the director can do to an opera – and wisely so. Some argue that concert performances have an advantage, and in Richard Strauss, Berg and Bartok the presence of the orchestra on stage gives detail and bloom to the sound usually lost in the pit. Tomorrow, at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, Gianandrea Nos- eda brings his Turin Teatro Reg- io opera company to join the BBC Philharmonic in Salome.

Tomorrow week, the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra semi-stages Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro at Pacific Road, Birkenhead, with singers from the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester. Mark Heron conducts and Stefan Janski directs.

Meanwhile, the conservative opera lover may look sideways at two recent DVD releases. Ariadne auf Naxos, by Richard Strauss, tells the tale of an opera company led by Ariadne and a Commedia del Arte Company led by Zerbinetta, due to perform in a rich man’s Viennese mansion, and we are told during the Prologue that both shows have to take place simultaneously. Cause for alarm indeed.

The action, which should take place outside Ariadne’s cave in the Island of Naxos is set in this production in a well-known Jugendstil restaurant in Zurich. Ariadne’s Naiads are waitresses, and Zerbiaetta’s comedians yobs who are thrown out for bad behaviour.

Eventually, Ariadne gets her man. Christoph von Dohnanyi conducts this Zurish Opera production from TDK, and I felt the whole thing came off very well. American Emily Magee copes well with Ariadne, although the camera dwells on her emoting longer than necessary, while Elena Mosuc is a sparky Zerbinetta.

Nielsen’s opera Maskerade has been in the Copenhagen repertoire since its first staging in 1906, so it is not surprising that, for the centenary, they decided to do something different.

The traditional story is of two men who meet two girls at the Maskerade, to the disapproval of their fathers, who have their own ideas as to their future daughters-in-law. Of course, when masks are removed, it is discovered that the ladies are one and the same. Problem solved. Act One is set in a house where the rooms seem to go on for ever, with a fine piece of scenic trickery. In Act Two, bedrooms have somehow come through into the street outside, while the supposed Maskerade turns into a sort of circus, with all kinds of acrobatics going on.

Director Kasper Bech Holten has also befuddled the issue by having everybody wearing masks in daily life, but not at the masquerade. So everything is turned upside down. Conductor Michael Schonwandt introduces this Da Capo release, which the audience enjoyed as I did. It’s a great show, but I’d like to see a traditional production.