Modern Myth-telling

Opera began with a fascination for Greek myths and Vic Opera continued this tradition in its opening double bill. What does the myth offer the art form? Here's some notes from our discussion of centuries of earlier operatic portrayals of gods and mortals - and comparisons with the new Australian offerings.

Operas from Greco-Roman myths abound - check out the Wikipedia list! We're exploring the modern myth=telling of the Vic Opera double bill by dipping in to the tradition of Greek myths in opera. For those who were not with us long long ago, and those who don't have any recall of our 2017 sessions(!!) when we spent a term on Greek myths in opera, here's the link. Lots to think about there.

And here's a fascinating lecture about modern opera's myth-telling. Have we been watching examples of 'modernizing classicism'? 'Motivated not by a sense of wanting to flee from the present day world, this modernizing classicism somewhat paradoxically evokes the ancient past specifically for purposes of modernizing an art form.'

Here are links to extracts we played for consideration.

The Orpheus myth. Begin the Baroque

The myth is spelt out by Monteverdi, in 1640, and modern productions spell it out in modern mode.

Will he look back to her? Simon Keenlyside sings Orpheus

Here's the brilliant baritone Simon Keenlyside in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, 1998. Act V: 'Questi i campi di Tracia' . The full opera of this wonderful production is in segments on YouTube. Here's Act 1. Rene Jacobs conducts and Trisha Brown is choreographer - Theatre Royal de La Monnaie, May 21, 1998

And a century later.... it's classical Gluck Orfeo ed Eurydice.1762. Unknown (movie?) Orpheus meets the demons Moving on to Romantic:

Offenbach, Orphee aux Enfers 1858. BBC movie 1983.Offenbach makes the portrayal of the head of the gods in Cassandra seem quite respectable. Go to 59.00 for the classic "Down with Jupiter" scene as the gods protest the boredom of nectar and ambrosia.

The Troy stories

La Belle Helene Offenbach's "La Belle Hélène", given at Paris Théâtre du Châtelet in 2001. Hélène of Troy is sung by Felicity Lott, Yann Beuron is Pâris, Michel Sénéchal is Ménélas, Here's the splendid ending as Paris abducts Helen to cheers from the foolish god-mob on the beach.

Jupiter as modern (immoral) man - what does the myth offer the opera's messages?

Back to Baroque, Handel portrayed the top god as brutal and deceitful in Semele 1743, along the way, giving him in Act 11 the most famous aria, 'Where'er you walk'. The promise of perfect scenery is a move in abduction - and a step to destruction for the mortal woman. It is sung here by Jupiter (John Mark Ainsley) to Semele (Rosemary Joshua). From the 1997 Semele from the English National Opera (ENO), conducted by Harry Bicket.

Earlier this year, OperaVision screened Semele from Comic Opera Berlin, in a production by Barrie Kosky that stressed the violence and betrayal - check out the trailer here. Jupiter at his most murderous is played by Allan Clayton.

Allan Clayton as a less jolly Jupiter in Berlin

And into the 20th century - a return to the Troy stories. Richard Strauss' brilliant portrayal of Elektra was first performed 1909. Rather than retell the Trojan war tales, it focuses as did Sophocles' tragedy, on the destruction of everyone around Agamemnon and Elektra's lust for revenge. How to present this modernist drama - with Freudian messages - and who can sing that role?

The most renowned Elektra in recent years was Hildegard Behrens, who sang the role in a very simple Met production in 1994. Here's her call to her dead father: 'Agamemnon!' And from the same production, her extraordinary, subtle portrayal of Elektra's response when she realises her brother lives and has returned. 'Orest!' (Orestes is Donald McIntyre). Thus to the 21st century, and Nina Stemme has owned the role recently - here's the trailer for her bloodsoaked 2019 Lyric Opera performance.

And at the Met, in 2016, in a drier production, here's the confrontation scene with her family. That Met production starred Christine Goerke i 2018 - here's her cry to her dead father: 'Vater Agamemnon' .

Lyn, 21 May 2021

It's a mad week at the Met from 17 May

It's a mad week at the Met - 'Unhinged Mad Scenes'.

These were the infamous show-off scenes for (mostly) a diva soprano in Italian and French opera - mostly in the early decades of the nineteenth century. But Mozart did it (like so much else) earlier - the lineup this week includes Idomeneo with Elza van den Heever as a brilliant Elektra (above) maddened by her failure to win the love of our hero; (the tenor is Matthew Polenzani.) This was Mozart's first opera seria - aged 25. It's also possibly his strangest opera and regarded as his best choral work. Summary here. It screens Wednesday our time.

And Friday our time the Met offers lighter relief - Bellini’s La Sonnambula . The sleepwalker is Natalie Dessay, and the puzzled suitor Juan Diego Flórez. Here's a (pirate) extract from that production with the 'mad scene'. It's a pretty weird production but singing is marvelous.

You have to get through a lot of most of these operas to celebrate the dramatic moment of the mad scene. There's a terrific summary with links to performances of the great mad scenes of opera here.

Mad scenes faded as realism took over opera, and bel canto singing gave way to more natural cadences. A summary of mad scenes is here. But Britten continued it in Peter Grimes - for the disintegration of the tenor anti-hero. Here he is in the Met's production with Anthony Dean Griffey. Gilbert and Sullivan loved the mad scene, augmenting it with clever lyrics! - here's Mad Margaret from Ruddigore.

And then of course there are the madnesses in Shakespeare - and especially Hamlet - which in Thomas' version and more recently Brett Dean's could be summarized as one long mad scene. Here's our blog on Australian Dean's version of Hamlet.

The Met's offerings this week include Joan Sutherland's famous last Met production in 1982 of Lucia di Lamermoor.

As always the link to the Met timetable is here. And don't forget, the screenings are a day later for our time.

Lyn, 17/5/21

Another myth speaking truth to male power

It's from Ovid's Metamorphoses, a Roman mythological epic from the Augustan Age. Echo was a lovely mountain nymph and Narcissus the beautiful youth who loved only himself. He fell in love with his own reflection, according to Ovid.

Echo, a talkative nymph of the forest, has lost the ability to speak for herself (that's another story - she helped Zeus cheat on Hera, who got her own back by cursing Echo to be able only to repeat others' words. There's a full account of the myths, with wonderful illustrations from art, here.

She falls in love with Narcissus - not the first - but is rejected and retreats to the caves, doomed to forever only repeat the words she hears. Narcissus is unable to tear himself away from his own reflection and turns into a flower on the riverbank. (There are several versions of the story - check them out on Wikipedia here. In one, which I prefer, the Goddess Aphrodite had overheard everything and decided to punish Narcissus for his vanity and treatment of Echo with a curse: the next time he saw his reflection in the water, Narcissus would immediately fall in love… with himself.)

Echo, by Alexandre Cabanel, 1874; with Narcissus, by Caravaggio, 1599

Enter Vic Opera. Composer Kevin March and librettist Jane Montgomery Griffiths brought this version to the stage, the music and the libretto designed to mirror and echo the recent experiences of loneliness and helplessness with Covid - 'A new thing born from grief’s dark

ache.'

Echo is Kathryn Radcliffe and Narcissus Nathan Lay, and an extraordinary dimension of the opera is provided by a 'Female Ensemble'. Like 'Cassandra', this opera score was restricted to four musicians, a very different score, lyrical and sometimes ethereal, with the four musicians playing here viola, flute / piccolo / alto flute, harp and percussion. 'March’s finely wrought scoring for violin, flute, harp and percussion was appropriately delicate and enigmatic and often ravishingly beautiful,' said the SMH reviewer.

Here's Kathryn Radcliffe talking in lockdown - mainly about cakes!

Echo is Kathryn Radcliffe and Narcissus Nathan Lay

Like Cassandra, this opera offers, in Director Sam Strong's words, a combination of epic and intimate. "The relationship between the timeless and the timely, the epic and the intimate, has been exquisitely drawn out by the two composer and librettist teams, Simon and Constantine and Kevin and Jane. Both teams bring a human dimension to these mythic stories, creating people we recognise and care about. Yet somehow both operas also retain the poetic qualities of their classical sources, occasionally exploding into delicious flights of lyricism."

Here's Kevin March talking about his process as a composer. And here about his earlier opera Lilies.

And as Melbourne moves to winter, we have the first narcissus flowers... but now they come with delicate and sometimes ravishingly beautiful music.

Lyn, 12 May 2021