Welsh National Opera |
| Welsh National Opera- Lulu , Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff , February 18, 2013 |
The opening opera of this debut season, Free Spirits, by the company’s new Artistic Director and Chief Executive David Pountney is a truly fantastic and compelling production. Alban Berg is regarded as one of the most important composers of the twentieth century. His first opera Wozzeck was first performed in 1924. Its last production by the WNO will always remain one of the company’s most remarkable successes. Berg completed the first two acts of Lulu just before he died in 1935, now nearly eighty years on it remains as fresh, ‘modern’ and penetrating as it ever did. Here under the deft and firm control of the company’s musical director, Lothar Koenigs the WNO orchestra reach near perfection.Perfection comes again in the truly beautiful and very strong performance of Swedish born, internationally acclaimed soprano, Marie Arnet. It’s a long opera and she sings continually from the moment she is taken out of the body bag that the animal trainer, sung by Richard Angas with a touch of the pantomime baddie and nonetheless compelling for that, drags her on to the stage until just before we see her Jack the Ripper-slashed body through an opaque boudoir window. Equally she grasps the acting demands of the role and seduces not only many of the men in her story but also many of the men and women in the audience. Pountney, a great catch for the WNO, will undoubtedly place the company well and truly in the twenty first century. Of the great classical operas he says, “… what we inherit is an incredible cornucopia. Those who exploit it without adding to it are betraying the heritage of which they purport to be the custodians, and they should be cast out!!” Berg’s music may lack the melodiousness of traditional opera but the romance remains. Pountney’s steel cage setting, only casually half-hidden as the audience enters the auditorium before the start, designed by Johan Engels is an elaborate and startling innovation, stark as the story demands, particularly as the dead bodies of Lulu’s first two lovers hang suspended over most of the proceedings. The company’s previous production of Lulu was the first ever by a British company; this Pountey production will surely become one of the company’s iconic works. Lulu’s irrepressible sensuality is the key to her undoing. At the start Lulu’s current lover, Dr. Schön, a strong and excellently sung performance by Ashley Holland is observing her being painted, as soon as his back is turned she seduces the artist, her husband enters the studio, unexpectedly, sees them, has a heart attack and dies. Leaving Lulu a very rich woman. She marries the artist but soon riddled with disappointment he takes his own life. In act two dominated by a gigantic bed, the mattress being moulded like a very large female body on to which Lulu continues to attract her admirers, including the countess Geschwitz, a superb musical and acting performance from Viennese-born Natascha Petrinsky, a school boy, an acrobat and a servant. Schön has had enough of all this and tries to force Lulu to kill herself but the gun goes off and Schön is dead. Lulu’s lover is now Schön’s son, Alwa, a truly exciting performance from Peter Hoare, returning to the company where he started his singing career. The surrealism and Berg’s discordant yet captivating music continues but though the twinkle has not quite left the director’s eye, the sight of Lulu’s wrecked corpse seems a good place to stop for me. The second of the Free Spirits will bring us Pountney’s production of Janáček’s A Cunning Little Vixen where we will again see his mastery of this mould-breaking Czech composer. The third of the Spirits, Cio-Cio-San better known as the heroin of the company’s beautiful and enduring Madam Butterfly. This, always popular Puccini opera was first presented by the company in 1978. The production has outlived its director Joachim Herz who sadly passed away in 2010. See the company’s web site for details. |
Reviewed by: Michael Kelligan |
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