Never look back
'L'Orfeo at Glyndebourne
My previous Blog concerned tenor singing son Sam (Herman-Wilson). The day after his concert with ‘Cantus’ he was a part of a substantial party who travelled to Glyndebourne to witness his brother Hugo (Herman-Wilson) make his solo debut there as Pastore (Shepherd) II in Monteverdi’s ‘L’Orfeo’.
Surprisingly, this was the first time this sublime work had been performed at Glyndebourne. The director was the South African artist William Kentridge, known for his complex and thought-provoking visual responses to the operas he directs.
In the case of ‘L’Orfeo’ Kentridge’s initial inspiration were the ‘Sonnets for Orpheus’ by the German poet Rilke. These led him to set the opera in the 1920s (Rilke’s poems were published in 1923), with Orfeo as a poet who is part of a very substantial community of aesthetes who congregate in the studio of a painter who ‘creates’ the opera as it progresses.
The same soprano (Francesca Aspromonte) sings both ‘La Musica’ and Eurydice. She is on stage throughout, painting a range of designs, and manipulating a stage model. As she paints, Kentridge’s images appear as projections, but in a constant state of flux. At times it seems as if the images change bar by musical bar, literally shadowing Monteverdi’s sound world. The effect is sometimes frustrating (there’s a lot to take in – including surtitles!) or bewildering, (why is a street plan of Johannesburg projected)? But the affect is mainly awe-inspiring, with Orfeo’s descent to the underworld to reclaim his dead Euridice conjuring images of leaden despair, while his journey back to the land of the living is a tortured realization of waking from a nightmare, only to confront greater horror. Perhaps the biggest compliment to pay to Kentridge and his production is that when Orfeo turned to see if Euridice is still behind him (condemning her to remain in Hades forever) a good number of the audience gasped. I shall never forget that stage picture. Amid almost constant movement, this was a moment of utter stasis.
The other members of the artistic community aid in the opera’s creation, comparing sketches, assessing their impact in different locations. They pull ropes to aid Orfeo’s descent and return and become those celebrating the marriage of Orfeo and Euridice, mourners at her death, the spirits in Hades and, perhaps most memorably, the boat which carries Orfeo across the River Styx where they create the movement of the boat and the waves with their bodies’ motion, and simple drawings representing the flowing of water.
At the same time as the hallucinatory background twists, turns and dissolves, key phrases from the Rilke sonnets are projected. When combined with Monteverdi’s music the audience experiences total artistic immersion. The experience is challenging, staggering, invigorating and life-affirming.
The musical performance matched the setting and directorial concept in power and impact. Baroque music is sometimes seen as merely elegant and decorative, but here, conductor Jonathan Cohen with the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment made clear from the very first notes of the Prologue that this would be an interpretation of raw visceral force as well as sublime beauty. Playing throughout was superb: the coarse, cruel rasping of the regalle accompaniment to Callum Thorpe’s excellent Caronte was unforgettable.
The singing was of a universally high level. As Orfeo Polish tenor Krystian Adam demonstrated exemplary baroque style and fervent imaginative involvement. Francesca Aspromonte, doubling the roles of La Musica and Euridice and playing the artist who is the creator of this version of the Orfeo story, sang with bell like clarity and tonal allure. In an interview, Kentridge made the point that though Euridice has very little to sing, she has an important story to tell, so in this production she is embodied by a dancer (the excellent Roseline Wilkens) who fills in the gaps in her sung story with vibrant movement. The two Hugos, (Herman-Wilson and Hymas) were eloquent shepherds and spirits in solo and duet. As the Messaggera and La Speranza Australian mezzo Xenia Puskarz Thomas treated us to singing of Wagnerian amplitude, which drew an ecstatic response from the audience at her curtain call. But the entire cast, excellent chorus (hand-picked and superbly trained by chorus master Aidan Oliver), and talented production team deserve the highest praise for this superb achievement. Do go if you possibly can!