Whatever the question, one answer, in Tobias Kratzer’s production of Fidelio, revived by the Royal Opera, is a horse. Large, black and friskily beautiful – the ideal decoy, say, to a not quite convincingly sung aria – he was led off stage, mercifully, after a few expensive and nerve-racking minutes. Add in live videos, a rejigged version of the story, new dialogue and a visual leap from Revolutionary France, in Act 1, to the present day for Act 2, and you get it: Kratzer sees Beethoven’s only opera as a mighty problem that needs solving. He hurls everything at it, turns up the houselights and incriminates each one of us in humanity’s quest for liberté, égalité, fraternité. Fair enough. Amid the squall of ideas or, were you feeling ungracious, “ideas”, there are insights. New in 2020, designed by Rainer Sellmaier, lighting by Michael Bauer, the run was interrupted by the pandemic. The revival diector is Anja Kühnhold.
No one would pretend the work is without difficulties. For some, this parable of loyalty, bravery and the love of a faithful wife proves naive and cloying. Beethoven wrestled with its composition. That struggle, from darkness to light, harmonically and dramatically, is both its essence and its reward. If the cast was uneven, there were excellent performances where it mattered: specifically, Jennifer Davis, exemplary in the fiendishly taxing, high-lying title role of Fidelio/Leonore (referred to in the business, I’m told, as a “larynx-ripper”), and Peter Rose a richly sympathetic Rocco. Eric Cutler was effective as a hairy, John the Baptist-style Florestan whose indignities included imprisonment on what appeared to be a desiccated dung heap. Christina Gansch (Marzelline) and Michael Gibson (Jacquino) were outstanding in their supporting roles, here somewhat fleshed out by Kratzer.
Beethoven’s score, restless in its constant shifts of style, key and mood, disregarding operatic convention at every turn, was conducted by Alexander Soddy. Having built his career in Germany, the British conductor has worked exhaustively on Fidelio in Berlin and elsewhere. In his authority and clear understanding of the music, that familiarity paid off. The orchestra responded to his brisk tempi with fluency and expertise. High praise to horns and oboe. The chorus, too, negotiated their big moments with thrilling confidence, the blazing finale, in which they stepped front of stage, singing full throttle, as good as it gets. If you can override the lurching jumps and jolts of the production, go – for Beethoven. (Many seats were available at the time of writing.)
Founded and directed by two leading practitioners, Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen, the London Piano festival returned to Kings Place last weekend for its ninth season. This year’s eclectic event encompassed Mozart concertos, Gabriel Fauré a century after his death, jazz, new commissions, and a recital of music by women spanning 200 years (played by Susan Tomes, whose recent book Women and the Piano explores the subject). In scale and repertoire, one programme was especially daring. On Sunday in Hall One, the Latvian Reinis Zariņš made his festival debut with Messiaen’s Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus (1945).
The piano repertoire has many works that could be described, without hyperbole, as epic: no shortage by JS Bach (Goldberg Variations, The Art of Fugue), and if you Google names such as Satie, Sorabji and Rzewski you find pieces that last half a day or more. Messiaen’s Vingt Regards, at a mere two and a quarter hours in Zariņš’s performance, is compact in comparison. Its pianistic demands, as well as its spiritual design, could hardly be more ambitious. The 20 sections take us from the nativity of Jesus to the white-robed multitude of the resurrected, “all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues” as described in the biblical Book of Revelation. Messiaen was a devout Catholic, his faith inhabiting every note he wrote. References to angels, stars, rainbows, grace, suffering, radiance are scattered across the pages of his scores.
As pure music it has Messiaen’s distinctive hallmarks: complex rhythms, inflections of Greek and Hindu traditions, ragas, gamelan, chant, modes and singular harmonic patterns. On his website, Zariņš says he seeks, through music, “to sound the mystery of life”, to look beyond. He brought this sense of the numinous to his visionary performance, while also maintaining precise control and mastery of every technical challenge presented. Each movement is a meditation on a biblical quote, here with the text floated momentarily on a screen above Zariņš.
The atheist friend I went with, absorbed in the sheer brilliant variety of the sounds he was hearing, saw these as an annoying distraction and shut his eyes. I found them thoughtfully done and a useful reminder of Messiaen’s intentions, no more awkward for a sceptic than anything else in the long tradition of religious music. From the vastness of part 6 – conjuring the creation of space, time, galaxies, photons, the lot – to the glassy, bopping chords of the contemplation of joy, to the Chopin-like intimacy of 15 (the kiss of the infant Jesus), Zariņš gave a majestic, probing performance: a high point of the year.
Messiaen needs no antidote, but the urgent, amplified pop rhythms and choral and choreographed abundance of Spinifex Gum turned out to act as one. This choral song cycle created by Felix Riebl (of the Australian band the Cat Empire) was performed by Marliya, an all female ensemble of Indigenous Australian singers, with the children’s voices of Gondwana, directed by Lyn Williams. They have already performed in the outback, and at Sydney Opera House, but appearing at an international stage is an exciting novelty.
At the Barbican they were joined by the massed voices of Farnham Youth Choir and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Youth Chorus. The 16 songs, with video showing the Pilbara region of Western Australia, are political and uplifting, one or two leaping out from a homogeneous whole to make a stirring impact. Issues such as land rights, disproportionate incarceration and deaths in custody became harmonious protest. These teenagers, talented and committed, were crying out about their past and future lives. We all need to listen.
Star ratings (out of five)
Fidelio ★★★
Messiaen: Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jésus ★★★★★
Spinifex Gum ★★★★
• Fidelio is at the Royal Opera House, London, until 26 October
