Our former spear-carrier for the Handel Opera Society is in a unique position to observe that it's high time his operas were performed here.
 Photo: NZ Opera General Director, Aidan Lang

Right from the outset, I must lay my cards on the table; I am unashamedly a fan of Handel's operas. That the stars are happily aligned and The NBR New Zealand Opera is set to mount the first fully staged Handel production in New Zealand brings me not only huge personal pleasure, but also sends me back to the start of my career; some of my very first professional engagements were in the early '80s when I worked in London for a couple of seasons as a stage manager on a series of productions given by the Handel Opera Society.

We take it as a given that Handel is now regularly performed in opera houses around the world, but this was certainly not the case 30 years ago. The pioneering work of the Handel Opera Society, and the two German Handel festivals in Gottingen and his birthplace Halle, was indispensable in bringing attention to the operas of a composer who was otherwise exclusively known as a writer of oratorio, plus a couple of well-known orchestral suites. That the Handel Opera Society would lose its government funding within a couple of years of employing me was hopefully not down to my stage-management skills - nor indeed to my occasional cameo performances as assorted servants, bodyguards or, on one bizarre occasion, half of the Greek army! Having carried the Handelian flame almost single-handedly for so long, it is slightly ironic that the company didn't move with the times and respond to the extraordinary sea changes that took place in the early '80s, and which would forever change the way that Handel's operas would be presented: namely, the emergence of new styles of operatic production and the advent of "period" practice in music of the baroque era.

With the benefits of hindsight, the fairest adjective to be applied to the Handel Opera Society's productions is "worthy". Often inspired in their presentational style by etchings of the original performances, the taste was for historical authenticity. Forgetting perhaps that a drawing is inevitably the stylised capture of a single moment of a theatrical perfrormance and not a living archive, the general method required the performer to sing an entire section of an aria in one static position, and then stride with great purpose (but little or no dramatic intent) to a different spot on the stage during the ritornelli - the short orchestral passages linking two sung sections - before launching off again.

Sometimes, this reliance on contemporary visual reference also applied itself to the costuming. This usually consisted of the singers donning plumed headgear with a naive colour coding, according to character type: the innocent soprano in white, the villain in black, and red reserved for the slightly racy or morally dangerous mezzo-soprano. And when productions were not trying to be "authentic", they would go in the opposite direction, filled to the brim with naturalistic stage "business" which sat completely at odds with the resolutely non-naturalistic idiom of baroque opera. So therein lay the problem: how to find a theatrical style that was appropriate to the works themselves, and yet spoke to a modern audience. Enter stage left that sometime hero, sometime villain, the contemporary opera director.

The hallmark of a "modern" opera production is not whether it is in modern dress or not - a common red herring - but whether it attempts to find a new and suitable theatricality for the work in question, which in turn allows its inner meaning to be read alongside its basic narrative. This often results in a move away from the straitjacket of naturalism that so dominates our theatre today - and let's remember that the overwhelming majority of the core operatic repertoire was written before the concept of naturalism had even been conceived. So Handel is a perfect candidate for revisionalism, and in recent years we have seen a string of truly outstanding produtions, which have revealed his operas to have a keen sense of dramatic pacing and a profound and truthful understanding of human behaviour in all its shades and colours. In other words, Handel has been shown to be a real dramatist and a truly great composer of opera and not just a quaint historical curiosity.

Working in tandem with this new theatricality has been the rapid growth of period practice in the way in which baroque works are now played. Research into baroque style, coupled with the reconstructions of period instruments, has created sound worlds for Handel's music that are completely different from those I experienced when I stood poised in the wings, spear in hand, ready to risk my all. I have been asked why The NBR New Zealand Opera has gone to the trouble of bringing a period orchestra to New Zealand to play for Xerxes - the acclaimed Lautten Compagney.

The short answer is that now I simply cannot conceive of Handel's music being played on modern instruments. My memory of the orchestral sound back in the 1980s was that it was genteel. Yes, the musical phrasing was stylistically correct, but the unfortunate players, armed with powerful modern violins, were continually having to hold back, trying their best to prevent the music from sounding like Brahms. Put a violin strung with gut into the hands of specialist baroque players, however, and you have a completely different beast. The music is liberated. The fast-moving passages - and there are many in Handel - dance with a savage intensity, which rivals the virtuosity Handel demands of his singers. It's rough-edged, visceral and thrilling.

Xerxes is witty, lyrical, moving and at times explores the human condition with acute perception. For Handel opera "newbies", it is a perfect introduction to his genius. You are in for a treat.

Aidan Lang, General Director

As with the Auckland season, we recently offered another guest blogger the chance to attend Macbeth opening night in Wellington and share their thoughts on the show. Sarah Chesney was our lucky guest, and below is her blog on Wellington's opening night of Macbeth...

"A performance to equal last year’s impressive Eugene Onegin is no easy task, but The NBR New Zealand Opera production of Verdi’s Macbeth was fiery from beginning to end.

Michele Kalmandi sings Macbeth superbly, his voice shifting easily from a vivid, full sound to the cupa or hollowness Verdi demands.  As Lady Macbeth, Antonia Cifrone is formidable, her second act aria, ‘La luce langue’, captivating and resolute. She sustains a vocal intensity throughout the opera from the brilliance and polish of her bursts of coloratura in the brindisi to the sense of controlled detachment in her mad scene. 

The production conveys all of Verdi’s fast-paced dramatic continuity. The three main props – three blasted trees, a bed and a folding screen – are used to good effect, particularly the screen, which successfully differentiates between public and private spaces within the unchanging, shady scenery. Although later in opera some of the dramatic sense is lost when the trees and bed are used together, confounding any distinction between inside and outside. This is especially obvious in Act 4 when the introduction of Lady Macbeth’s sonnambulismo is used to change the scene from Scottish border to bedroom and Lady Macbeth must carefully and sanely pick her way through the branches.

The fantastical element of Macbeth is limited in this production. Rather than prophesising, the witches appear to make ‘educated guesses’, garnering their information from the newspaper scraps they sweep up. The witches are the fundamental dramatic impetus of the opera. Three of them maintain a constant presence on stage, serving as a visible extension of their permeating voice in Verdi’s score. With not a cauldron in sight they sneakily stalk the stage, half-crouched, as cleaners and midwives. In Act 3, they deliver perhaps the descendents of Banquo, who they predicted would father kings in the first act. At the very least, the witches’ mischievous dance, tossing the babies amongst themselves and fashioning them tiny crowns to wear, presents a symbol of life. This scene is contrasted with (but doesn’t completely justify) the superfluous action of the prelude, in which Lady Macbeth suffers a miscarriage.

The performance was punctuated by the gasps of horror from the person sitting beside me. Lady Macbeth enters the stage in a bloodstained dress (gasp). The witches slide back the screen to reveal King Duncan’s murdered body (gasp). The assassins leap from the trees to attack Banquo (gasp). My neighbour’s reaction attests that even if the fantastic is absent, it is offset by the shock of violence, on-stage death and gripping dramatics. However, perhaps director Tim Albery could have followed Verdi’s lead and limited the continuous literal depictions of the characters’ thoughts and visions to Banquo’s ghost and the apparitions. Little is left to the audience’s imagination – or the music – when all is visible on stage.

The banquet scene was particularly brilliant. The chorus developed the unsettling mood, reacting against Macbeth’s flights of madness and Lady Macbeth’s exaggerated attempts at diversion during her brindisi. The only blip in an otherwise sensation performance by the Chapman Tripp chorus was the weak assassins’ chorus – too sotto voce even for Macbeth – which briefly showed an imbalance between singers and orchestra evident in a couple of passages. Overall though, the Vector Wellington orchestra perform admirably under the direction of Guido Ajmone Marsan. The nuances of Verdi’s score were well executed and the interplay between the winds in their solo passages and with the vocal lines was especially notable. 

Of the supporting roles, Roman Shulackoff shone as Macduff.  His tormented Act 4 aria (‘Ah, la paterna mano’) was memorable for his sustained phrasing and lyricism.  Jud Arthur’s Banquo was assured and rich, his entrance as the ghost, wrenching off his bloodied clothes prompted a final gasp from my neighbour.  Macbeth ended spectacularly with the original 1847 ending, suitably updated to the production’s Cold War-era staging.  It was, by a whisker, my highlight of the performance." 

Sarah Chesney, guest blogger

For the Macbeth season in Auckland we offered our online followers the opportunity to attend Macbeth opening night and write a blog entry for us on their experience. Olivia Young took us up on the offer, and put together a succinct review of her experience at Macbeth. Here’s what she had to say about the production…
Photos: Jane Ussher   

“Verdi wrote to his librettist Francesco Maria Piave “This tragedy is one of the greatest creations of man, if we can’t do something great with it, let us at least try to do something out of the ordinary.” The season of Macbeth for The NBR New Zealand Opera has illustrated a fine execution of the restaging of this Shakespearean play.

Shakespeare’s tragedy unravels against a sombre and dark backdrop, complimenting the gloomy Scottish theme. The back wall is well used with the comings and goings, notably for the construction of three perches for the devious witches. The ominous, twiggy trees are creatively featured throughout as broom sticks, a bonfire and the infamous Birnam Woods.

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are an intense, brooding couple. Michele Kalmandi plays the role of Macbeth. He captures the intensity required and gives an honourable and effective performance. The stage is commanded with a combination of vocal grandeur and dramatic tension. Lady Macbeth (Antonia Cifrone) filled the house with her sustained, full-voiced lyrical phrases. 

The supporting cast is led by Macduff (Roman Shulackoff) and Banquo (Jud Arthur). The latter excelled in his second-act aria before his murder, however Macduff was shown up against Macbeth and we were left wanting more from his character and voice.  A highlight of the evening was the brilliant singing of the Chapman Tripp Chorus, also noted for their ability to smoothly change roles throughout when required.

Tim Albery’s production creates some visually powerful and convincing scenes, particularly in the choral tableaux featuring the witches and the exiles. The use of lighting emphasizes the emotion and atmosphere of the production, bringing the sparse landscape to life alongside the drama. Despite death being a main theme in question, perhaps a display of more gore and blood would have been well received. The use of a screen to hide the deaths interrupted the narrative which was an unnecessary addition to the staging.

Guido Ajmone-Marsan conducts conducted the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra superbly, and they relished the challenge of Verdi’s arousing and emotional score. The power of the music itself, the brilliant performances of Kalamandi and Cifrone, and the superb Chorus and Orchestra created much magic. The NBR New Zealand Opera has executed another magnificent opera, and we can look forward to another scintillating season in 2011.”

Olivia Young, guest blogger