Yesterday I attended a performance of Sciarrino's opera in a production by Music Theatre Wales at Cardiff's Millennium Centre.
[SPOILER ALERT - for anyone who is due to attend future performances of this work by MTW there is a description of the production in this report which you may not want to read until after the performance]
The story on which the opera is based is that of Gesualdo's murder of his wife and her lover although when Sciarrino found that Schnittke was writing an opera on the same story he made the theme a more generalised one of infidelity revenged, although his treatment of it is anything but conventional. The action takes place in a single day moving from morning to night
The production by MTW was performed with the audience brought onto the stage, the audience forming three sides of a rectangle with the other side filled by the small orchestra. Emphasising the sense of intimacy, even claustrophobia, the stage curtain was brought down so that the auditorium was blocked off, with only two side entrances to the rectangle used by the protagonists. This both increased the intensity of the production and allowed the audience to see the expressions and better hear the words. This production was performed in an English translation, which was essential for the dramatic impact though perhaps may have detracted somewhat from the musical effect as the sounds of the words are carefully constructed. The four protagonists, the Duke, the Duchess, the Guest and the Servant, were all dressed in black except for the final evening scenes where the Duchess was in white. The only other colour present was red, a single rose in the opening scene, a bunch of roses later on and descending rose petals before the scene in which the Duchess meets the Guest. The rose appears symbolic of love, pain and death: its thorn pricks the Duchess in her opening love scene with the Duke; the petals and bunch of roses which are present in the erotic and tormented scene between the Duchess and the Guest seem to portend the greater loss of blood in the denouement, as first Guest then Duchess are killed. The Guest is revealed on the bed with rose petals on his breast. The way the actors move has also been well choreographed in this production, particularly in the Duchess/Guest scene where the actors initially move away and avert their eyes but are drawn to each other through an irrestistible yet unwished attraction (this scene accompanied by anguished and even tortured music). The lighting, too, was effectively used, sometimes conveying an almost chiaroscuro effect as in a painting, and particularly effective in the penultimate scene between the Duke and the Duchess where both faces were lit by candelight.
Sciarrino's music - which was new to me - was quite unlike anything I have heard. The singing is stylised, with the singers sometimes rising to a high pitch and then descending rapidly to something like a Sprechstimme. There is hardly any solo singing, but the singing is predominantly in duet, sometimes with the second singer echoing the first. In the final scene where the Duke kills the Duchess the singing is broken up by ordinary speech. The small orchestra consisted of 8 strings, doubled flutes, saxophones, bassoons, trumpets and trombones, plus bass clarinet and percussion. The sounds they created were almost expressionistic, not so much abstract or pure music, but almost expressions of human movement and existence: sighs, breaths, cries, whispers. The orchestra came to the fore in several brief intermezzi which are used to separate the different scenes. One of these intermezzi is essentially an arrangement of a madrigal by Claude Lejeune, and disjointed echoes of this are heard in subsequent intermezzi. One of the most powerful sections is the music that is heard before the appearance of the bed containing the murdered Guest: with high, disturbed violins and subterranean rumblings in bass instruments the music is punctuated by what seem to be painful exhalations, as if from the dying breaths of the Guest or the last terrified gasps of the soon-to-be-murdered Duchess.
The production was probably close to a sell-out on an extremely wet Cardiff evening - at least, there were very few spaces on the tiered seating surrounding the stage. The audience which was of all ages and certainly younger on average than at the usual Cardiff opera performance was very appreciative. It was an exhausting experience, as if combining the intensity of a Beckett play with the conciseness of a Webern piece. Music Theatre Wales deserve much credit for mounting such an ambitious production, taking such care over the staging of it and getting such fine performances of difficult music from the performers and the orchestra - especial praise here to Michael Rafferty the conductor and to Amanda Forbes as the Duchess and George Humphreys as the Duke. I have been to some indifferent productions (and some real stinkers
) in recent years from the senior opera company in Cardiff, WNO, and it is good that a small company can show them how to do it. There are further performances at the Royal Opera (Linbury Theatre) on 24 Oct - it may be sold out though - and also at Llandudno on 2 November and Swansea on 26 November. I would recommend those who can get to any performance to go.
Edit: here are some pictures of the production (possibly from the one at Buxton):
[SPOILER ALERT - for anyone who is due to attend future performances of this work by MTW there is a description of the production in this report which you may not want to read until after the performance]
The story on which the opera is based is that of Gesualdo's murder of his wife and her lover although when Sciarrino found that Schnittke was writing an opera on the same story he made the theme a more generalised one of infidelity revenged, although his treatment of it is anything but conventional. The action takes place in a single day moving from morning to night
The production by MTW was performed with the audience brought onto the stage, the audience forming three sides of a rectangle with the other side filled by the small orchestra. Emphasising the sense of intimacy, even claustrophobia, the stage curtain was brought down so that the auditorium was blocked off, with only two side entrances to the rectangle used by the protagonists. This both increased the intensity of the production and allowed the audience to see the expressions and better hear the words. This production was performed in an English translation, which was essential for the dramatic impact though perhaps may have detracted somewhat from the musical effect as the sounds of the words are carefully constructed. The four protagonists, the Duke, the Duchess, the Guest and the Servant, were all dressed in black except for the final evening scenes where the Duchess was in white. The only other colour present was red, a single rose in the opening scene, a bunch of roses later on and descending rose petals before the scene in which the Duchess meets the Guest. The rose appears symbolic of love, pain and death: its thorn pricks the Duchess in her opening love scene with the Duke; the petals and bunch of roses which are present in the erotic and tormented scene between the Duchess and the Guest seem to portend the greater loss of blood in the denouement, as first Guest then Duchess are killed. The Guest is revealed on the bed with rose petals on his breast. The way the actors move has also been well choreographed in this production, particularly in the Duchess/Guest scene where the actors initially move away and avert their eyes but are drawn to each other through an irrestistible yet unwished attraction (this scene accompanied by anguished and even tortured music). The lighting, too, was effectively used, sometimes conveying an almost chiaroscuro effect as in a painting, and particularly effective in the penultimate scene between the Duke and the Duchess where both faces were lit by candelight.
Sciarrino's music - which was new to me - was quite unlike anything I have heard. The singing is stylised, with the singers sometimes rising to a high pitch and then descending rapidly to something like a Sprechstimme. There is hardly any solo singing, but the singing is predominantly in duet, sometimes with the second singer echoing the first. In the final scene where the Duke kills the Duchess the singing is broken up by ordinary speech. The small orchestra consisted of 8 strings, doubled flutes, saxophones, bassoons, trumpets and trombones, plus bass clarinet and percussion. The sounds they created were almost expressionistic, not so much abstract or pure music, but almost expressions of human movement and existence: sighs, breaths, cries, whispers. The orchestra came to the fore in several brief intermezzi which are used to separate the different scenes. One of these intermezzi is essentially an arrangement of a madrigal by Claude Lejeune, and disjointed echoes of this are heard in subsequent intermezzi. One of the most powerful sections is the music that is heard before the appearance of the bed containing the murdered Guest: with high, disturbed violins and subterranean rumblings in bass instruments the music is punctuated by what seem to be painful exhalations, as if from the dying breaths of the Guest or the last terrified gasps of the soon-to-be-murdered Duchess.
The production was probably close to a sell-out on an extremely wet Cardiff evening - at least, there were very few spaces on the tiered seating surrounding the stage. The audience which was of all ages and certainly younger on average than at the usual Cardiff opera performance was very appreciative. It was an exhausting experience, as if combining the intensity of a Beckett play with the conciseness of a Webern piece. Music Theatre Wales deserve much credit for mounting such an ambitious production, taking such care over the staging of it and getting such fine performances of difficult music from the performers and the orchestra - especial praise here to Michael Rafferty the conductor and to Amanda Forbes as the Duchess and George Humphreys as the Duke. I have been to some indifferent productions (and some real stinkers
) in recent years from the senior opera company in Cardiff, WNO, and it is good that a small company can show them how to do it. There are further performances at the Royal Opera (Linbury Theatre) on 24 Oct - it may be sold out though - and also at Llandudno on 2 November and Swansea on 26 November. I would recommend those who can get to any performance to go.Edit: here are some pictures of the production (possibly from the one at Buxton):
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