WAITING FOR GODOT – REVIEW OF ATHENS PRODUCTION

James Karas

** (out of five)

When can a number of relatively minor, let us say, infelicities become so cumulatively annoying as to spoil a production? I am not sure I can quantify them but that is what happened in the production of Waiting for Godot which was performed in the courtyard of the Benaki Museum on Peireos Street in Athens.

As the audience slowly sauntered into the 200-seat theatre allowing themselves the statutory Greek 15-monute delay, I heard some unrecognizable music repeating the words Becket or Godot. I try to tune it out. Some sand with bricks in the center of the courtyard will be the main playing area. The famous tree consists of an uprooted stump hanging above the sand.

The two tramps Vladimir (Lazaros Georgakopoulos) and Estragon (Dimitris Bitos) enter and they are wearing clothes that just came back from the cleaner. Their hats are also spick-and-span as is their footwear. These are people who sleep in ditches? The same applies to Pozzo (Antonis Antonopoulos) and Lucky (Aineias Tsamatis).

For some mysterious reason, director Natasa Triantafylli wants us to know that Vladimir and Estrogen are linguistically gifted. Throughout the performance they toss in numerous words and phrases in French and English. A selection: why, what, yes sir, oui monsieur, d’accord, I am happy, look at the tree.

At the end of Act I a voice tells us that the tramps do not move. There is no intermission but we are given the stage directions of “Enter Estragon barefoot.” Do we really need to be told that when it is in front of us and we can all see it? We are treated to an announcement of stage directions as if they were part of the text of the play more than once.

The performance takes place in a small theatre and the actors hardly need to project their voice to be heard by everyone. What does Triantafylli do? She puts mikes on all the actors. These are taped on their cheeks and are perfectly visible. The actors’ voices are heard through loud speakers and at the beginning we also heard an echo. If there is an explanation for this unacceptable move, it escapes me.

Despite all of the above millstones around their necks, Georgakopoulos and Bitos had a good handle on their roles. Godot is or can be a very funny play but somehow in this production they did not manage more than a couple of twitters and not a single laugh.

Antonopoulos underplayed Pozzo and I think he needed to show more viciousness in the first act and more pathos in the second. Tsamatis as Lucky and the Boy did a fine job.

In the end, what should have been relatively minor nuisances individually added up to a disappointing production. Triantafylli, costume designer Ioanna Tsami and music director MONIKA missed a number of details that made for a so-so night at the theatre.

______ 

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett in a translation by Eri Kyrgia opened on July 14, 2016 and will be performed sixteen times at the Aithrio Mouseiou Benaki, 138 Peireos Street, Athens, Greece.   

THE LOVER OF THE SHEPHERDESS - REVIEW OF NATIONAL THEATRE OF NORTHERN GREECE PRODUCTION

James Karas

**** (out of five)

The Lover of the Shepherdess (Ο Αγαπητικός της Βοσκόπουλας) is a classic of the Modern Greek Theater for many good reasons not least of which is the poem and beautiful ballad “I fell in love with a shepherdess.” The National Theatre of Northern Greece delivers the love stories, the rustic humour, the drama, the songs and dances that add up to an amazingly entertaining night at Thessaloniki’s Vassiliko Theatro.

You must know that a very young Mitros (Taxiarhis Hanos) fell hopelessly in love with Maro, a beautiful shepherdess. According to the song, the shepherdess put her hands on his waist and told him that he was too young for the pangs of love. Mitros was crushed.

Twenty years later the play begins. Mitros is searching for Maro, his first and only love. In the meantime we meet Kroustallo (Stavroula Arambatzoglou) the daughter of the widow Stathena (Filareti Komninou) who is in love with Liakos (Orestes Chalkias), the son of the widow Yiannena (Efi Stamouli). Liakos falls in the river but Mitros saves his life. Liakos wants to marry Kroustallo but her mother says no because he is poor.

Dimitrios Koromilas (1850-1898) was a prolific playwright and his 1890 play was written in fifteen syllable verses that are far more fluid than one would imagine. The play is described as a pastoral drama with songs and dances with a considerable serving of comedy. It takes place in a rural village where raising sheep is the main occupation.

Mitros is of a certain age, of course, since he was rejected twenty years ago. He gives a gold chain to Kroustallo and her mother wants her to marry him NOW to get her away from Liakos. My only complaint about Hanos is that he had a tendency to speak too quickly. Koromilas’s verses gain by being spoken with some respect for their meter.

Not that slowly, it dawns on us that the widow Stathena is none other than Mitros’s love Maro whom he does not recognize. Komninou is still attractive as Maro but some of her mannerisms indicated more Kolonaki than Artotina, the village of the play.

Kroustallo is pretty, vivacious, passionate, troubled and deeply in love. We are all rooting for her to get the right man and live happily ever after. Liakos is a relatively minor role but he is handsome, passionate, and sincere and does some high-minded but perhaps stupid things to keep the plot moving. Stamouli as his mother has the most dramatic lines of grief, anger, fear and some heart-felt cursing. The actress does not miss a beat.

On the lighter side, we have Kostas Santas as Chronis, a type of hillbilly character who is a natural comic and never fails to get the laughs. Foulis Boudouroglou plays the minor role of Tsotras and he manages to get laughs with a single word or just a gesture. Gerlas has a nasty side to him but Dimitris Kolovos plays him for laughs and gets them.

The play has over thirty characters which is not a cast but a crowd. They sing some beautiful folk songs, do a number of dances and generate a wonderful atmosphere. Costume and Set Designer Manolis Pantelidakis spares no effort to provide colourful costumes for the men and the women and with that many on stage they provide a show on their own. The set is equally colourful with a number of painted panels being lowered to indicate the village and the home of Maro. The ‘feel” of the production is that of a fairy tale and I think that is the best way to treat the play.

Director Stamatis Fassoulis pays great attention to the colourful unreality of the situation and the setting and wants to enjoy the imaginary world of beautiful shepherdesses, rustic simplicity, faithful love and a happy ending. I could have done with the obvious miking of all the characters. Microphones taped to their cheeks – are they really necessary? Otherwise a superb job. 

The over-all effect of the production was sheer pleasure. Idyllic, pastoral life is embedded in the Greek psyche from ancient mythology to the images of village life in the 19^th and 20^th centuries however remote from reality. It was a delight to visit that world.

______     

The Lover of the Shepherdess by Dimitrios Koromilas opened on July 1 and will play until September 9, 2016 at the Vassiliko Theatro Thessalonikis  in a production by the National Theatre of Northern Greece. www.ntng.gr

SEVEN AGAINST THEBES - REVIEW OF 2016 NATIONAL THEATRE OF NORTHERN GREECE PRODUCTION

James Karas

Author                         Aeschylus

Translator                    Yorgos Blanas

Director                       Cesaris Graužinis

Sets and costumes     Kenny MacLellan

Eteocles                       Yannis Stankoglou

Polynices                     Christos Stylianou                  

Messenger                  Giorgos Kafkas 

Herald                         Alexandros Tsakiris

Antigone                      Nantia Kontogeorgi

Ismene                        Iovi Fragatou

Performed at the Dassous Theatre, Thessaloniki on July 6 & 7, 2016 and then in the Ancient Theatre of Philippi and the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus.

***** (out of five)

The National Theatre of Northern Greece has produced a thoughtful, imaginative, finely directed and well-acted production of Aeschylus’s rarely produced play Seven Against Thebes.

The play tells the story of the cursed Royal House of Thebes from the abdication of Oedipus upon finding that he was married to his mother and had two sons by her to the start of the tragedy of Antigone. Oedipus’s sons Eteocles and Polynices have agreed to rule Thebes on alternate years. But when Polynices’s turn comes up, Eteocles refuses to give up the throne. Polynices asks for the help of the state of Argos and lays siege on his city.

The production in the Dassous Theatre (Forest Theatre) is directed by Lithuanian director Cezaris Graužinis who puts his own imprint on the play.

Yannis Stankoglou and Christos Stylianou alternate in the roles of Eteocles and Polynices. Polynices is not a character in the play but Graužinis has added him as a silent role for dramatic purposes. The director sees Eteocles as an egotistical dictator, full of bombast and patriotism with some awareness of his family’s curse who knows that both brothers must die. He prays fervently to the gods to save his city, the home of Greeks and a place of worship, from the enemy. He seems to have little conception that he is the direct cause of the attack, that the Argive attackers are also Greek and that Polynices has every right to demand the throne of Thebes. This is a civil war.

Graužinis handles the Chorus of Theban Virgins imaginatively and effectively. They sing, speak separately and in unison, perform some dance routines and end up as a most effective part of the play. There is some musical accompaniment (composed by Dimitris Theoharis) that enhances this superb handling of a difficult part of Greek tragedy.

Giorgos Kafkas has the difficult role of Messenger who must give lengthy descriptions of events. Kafkas delivers his lines with sufficient modulation to keep them interesting without straying into unacceptable intonations. The director helps a great deal, as described below.

Alexandros Tsakiris dressed in while played the Herald, a relatively minor role except near the end when he engages with Antigone.  

The Messenger describes the heroes who lead the Argive forces against the seven gates of Thebes. Eteocles must choose six of the best Thebans and assign a gate to each of them with him taking the seventh gate. Here Graužinis takes over and he illustrates the description of the Thebans leaders. He presents them as comic figures that are creatures more out of burlesque than tragedy. One of them comes out on crutches and a comic helmet, another has a horn in his mouth, another brandishes a sword that he can hardlee handle. This is Aeschylus turned on his head.

A stash of war materiel is emptied from a box - helmets, swords, shields, a shotgun, a drum – and the Chorus and the Theban generals pick them up and do a comic romp. These are the defenders of Thebes.   

   

Near the end, Polynices appears and he fights with his brother. This is the climax of the play and the director’s brilliant invention. Initially they both hold cymbals and then discard them and finally fight by rushing at each other and embracing. The embraces become more violent until the men stop. The two brothers are dead but they are standing up in each other’s arms. A stunning visual representation of the tragedy of the brothers, of the result of civil war and of the fate of the Royal House of Thebes.

At the end Antigone and Ismene, the sisters of Eteocles and Polynices appear. They are represented by two members of the Chorus and the groundwork is laid for Sophocles’ Antigone where she disobeys the order not to bury her brother Polynices. The scene seems to be almost certainly a later interpolation but we may never know how Aeschylus ended his play. What has come down of the Seven is in pretty bad shape and about a third of it is corrupt.  As a result the last part of the play is the least effective. The play is over when the brothers are dead and a choral section would be the appropriate way to end it. Here we get some padding that we could do without but there is not much we can do about the shape of the play now.

The set by Kenny MacLellan consisted of the semi-circle of the stage with a single stool and a couple of ladders. One of the ladders was used for Eteocles to climb on and address the Thebans. The stash of war materiel was the only other props required. The men were dressed in modern suits and the women in simple dresses that may or may not be representative of modern Theban virgins.

Edi Lame’s choreography and movement was imaginative and effective.

The theatre is on a hill and holds almost 3900 spectators and it was about two-thirds full the evening that I was there. They do not so much charge for tickets as give them away. Students, seniors, the unemployed get in for €5. You may have to pay as much as €12, if I am not mistaken!

There are a couple of dozen vendors outside and a few inside the theatre selling food and drinks from bottles of wine to fruits and nuts and Styrofoam mats for sitting on top of the concrete, backless seat. I am not sure if smoking is allowed during the performance, but people puffed freely.

Under the clear, starry sky of Thessaloniki with a cool breeze blowing from the Thermaic Gulf and a superb production of a play, this was a memorable night at the theatre.

IL TRIONFO DEL TEMPO E DEL DISINGANNO - REVIEW OF 2016 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

By James Karas

Composer                   Georg Frideric Handel

Librettist                     Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili

Conductor                   Emmanuelle Haïm

Director                      Krzysztof Warlikowski

Set and costumes        Malgorzata Szczesniak

Dramaturge                 Christian Longchamp

Lighting                      Felice Ross

Choreography             Claude Bardouil

Video                          Denis Guéguin

Bellezza                      Sabine Devieilhe

Piacere                        Franco Fagioli

Disinganno                 Sara Mingardo

Tempo                         Michael Spyres

Orchestra                    Le Concert d’Astrée

Continues at the Théâtre de l'Archevêché until

July 14, 2016 in Aix-en-Provence, France.  http://festival-aix.com/

**** (out of 5)

Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno premiered in Rome in the year of Our Lord 1707, a time when Our Lord’s representative on earth, the Pope, had banned productions of opera in the Eternal City. Handel had music in his blood and composed something that His Holiness would permit: an oratorio. Not just any work on religious themes but a rousingly Catholic promotion piece based on a libretto by Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili.

The title means the triumph of time and enlightenment and the oratorio is an allegory sung by Time, Enlightenment, Beauty and Pleasure. As becomes an oratorio, the four figures debate the virtues and vices of their namesakes and if you have not guessed who will win the argument you will probably end up in Hell.

Director Krzysztof Warlikowski was given this static work and instructed to produce it for an opera festival where listening to Handel’s music and four accomplished singers for two and a half hours may not prove as uplifting as His Eminence hoped for or the audience paid for. As the list of credits indicates, Warlikowski decided to convert the oratorio into an opera.

We start with a video of an orgiastic party. We see young people dancing, drinking, passing out and being taken to the hospital in a wild display of erotic pleasure and decadence. All in modern dress and in today’s decadent world.

The stage of the Théâtre de l'Archevêché is divided by into two banks of seats with a glass enclosure in the middle.

We meet Bellezza (Beauty) admiring herself in the mirror (there is no mirror but who cares) worried that her looks may not last forever but Piacere (Pleasure) assures her that she will always be beautiful. Beauty is dressed in a leather jacket and she looks like she may have been employed in the oldest profession. Pleasure is in a hospital bed and he may not have taken a bath for a while. We are not thrilled by them as representatives of what (most of) our hearts desire.

Tempo (Time) and Disinganno (Enlightenment) arrive to inform us that beauty is fleeting and there are more important virtues. Time looks like he could have just left a doorway in the Cours Mirabeau where he slept and Enlightenment with her fur coat looks like she espoused her new calling because there was not much left of her old attractions. In short, all of the allegorical figures look like wrecks so far.

The ‘illustrated” version of the oratorio provided by the director continues with a good number of beautiful women, stunningly dressed parading in the glass enclosure in the centre of the stage. Was there a man or a woman in the audience who did not say to hell with the moral strictures of Time and Enlightenment, that is where I want or want to be? No doubt, I was the only one.

It should be noted that while the beautiful women are on stage, Time sings about funeral urns which enclose what used to be beauties but who have become ghastly skeletons but at that time he is totally unconvincing. The visual illustrations of pulchritude beat moralizing hands down.

In the second half, Time and Enlightenment spruce up their appearance but they are a long way from convincing to adopt what they say which may not be the same as what they do.

Il Tempo contains a great deal of music and singing and the vocal mettle of the principals is tested and triumphs.

The sermon becomes heavy handed at times. The tears of the poor become pearls in heaven we are told and the oratorio is about saving our soul. The message is never in doubt but in the end it is clearly stated and Beauty repents and sees the true light of God. That is what the text says but this Beauty knows better: she commits suicide.

Seeing a woman conduct an orchestra is still a relative rarity and a continuing disgrace. Emmanuelle Haïm does a brilliant job of conducting Le Concert d’Astrée in Handel’s wonderful score.

Warlikowski took a tough task of converting a preachy oratorio into a superb opera. 

PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE – REVIEW OF 2016 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

James Karas

Conductor                   Esa-Pekka Salonen

Director                      Katie Mitchell

Set Designer               Lizzie Clachan

Costumes Designer    Chloé Lamford

Lighting                      James Farncombe

Dramaturge                 Martin Crimp

Pelléas                        Stéphane Dégout

Mélisande                   Barbara Hannigan

Golaud                        Laurent Naouri

Arkel                           Franz Josef Selig

Geneviève                   Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo

Yniold                         Chloé Briot

Doctor                         Thomas Dear

Choir                           Cape Town Opera Chorus

Orchestra                     Philharmonia Orchestra

At the Grand Théâtre de Provence from July 2 to July 16, 2016

***** (out of 5) 

           

Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande is a complex opera replete with symbolism, impressionistic music and a mythical world that is somewhat unfamiliar. Director Kate Mitchell has taken all of that and turned it inside out (perhaps more precisely, given us a cross-section view) in a production that is riveting, stimulating and quite confusing.

Mitchell has taken King Arkel (Franz Josef Selig) and the Kingdom of Allemonde with its forest, castle, dark cave, fountain, and tower and transferred them to the modern house of a wealthy gentleman. In the opening scene we see a bride in a well-appointed room with a large bed. She steps out into a hall, a curtain closes the room from our view temporarily, some branches are attached to the bed and the story begins with the beautiful and mysterious Mélisande (Barbara Hannigan) meeting Golaud (Laurent Naouri), the grandson of the king “in the forest.”

Opening scene with Barbara Hannigan as the bride Melisande. Phot: Patrick Berger/Artcomart

We soon realize that there are two Mélisandes. One is the soprano singing the role and there is a duplicate that appears quite frequently. Does Mélisande have a split personality? Is one of them the truthful Mélisande and the other the mendacious one? Is she torn between love for her husband Golaud and love for her Pelléas (Stephane Dégout)? How many other possible explanations are there? More on this later.

The story of the opera is quite simple in bare outline. Golaud and Mélisande meet and marry. She meets Goloud’s brother Pelléas and falls in love with him. Their love is discovered and the inevitable conclusion follows. Well, not quite as far as Debussy and librettist Maurice Maeterlinck are concerned. And things get considerably more complex when Mitchell takes over. 

Golaud, Pelléas, their mother Geneviève (Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo) and Arkel appear in scenes where they are not expected or included in the libretto. When Pelléas and Mélisande go into the dark cave, Mélisande sees three poor people asleep and becomes frightened. The three people in Mitchell’s interpretation are Arkel, Genevieve and Goloud’s son by a previous wife, Yniold (Chloe Briot). Is this her guilty conscience making her see things?

The two Melisandes and Golaud in the death scene. 

There are dozens of fascinating instances like this but I will describe only the death scene. Pelléas and Mélisande go the fountain (in this case a cross section of an empty swimming pool). She undresses to her bra and panties and he wears only underwear. They express their love and as he sits on the floor she puts her legs over him. They are making love and on the point of orgasm, Golaud appears and slashes Pelléas' throat and injures Mélisande.

In the next scene Mélisande is on her deathbed but not from the injury from Golaud. As Mélisande is lying in bed Golaud appears and the “other” Mélisande jumps in his arms. In the meantime, Pelléas or I suppose his ghost appears. The “death” is moving but long with one Mélisande being bathed in light as if she were being transfigured while the other Mélisande is dying in bed. The former one leaves the room and we assume that the latter has died. Wrong. She sits up.

Most of the singing is done by Pelléas, Mélisande and Golaud with meritorious contribution by Arkel and lesser quantity by Genevieve and Yniold. Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan takes on the tough role of Mélisande with fearless conviction. She needs a supple and beautiful voice and be mysterious, passionate, mendacious and secretive. A stupendous performance.

Baritone Stéphane Dégout sang an excellent Pelléas, a man confused and confusing like the rest of the characters. The jealous husband Golaud is handled by bass-baritone Laurent Naouri who must show anger and some innocence when he sees childish play instead of the reality of what is happening between his wife and his brother.

Bass Franz-Joseph Selig with his rumbling and well-controlled low notes does an unfailingly good job as Arkel.         

The sets by Lizzie Clachan have the entire action take place in room-size spaces on the stage. They show great versatility in having quick changes made to the basic set by having a curtain pulled over and then back.

The Philharmonia Orchestra was conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

With superb performances by the orchestra and the singers, this was Katie Mitchell’s show - imaginative, brilliant, stupendous and confusing. One should see it several times to begin absorbing its wealth of symbolic, psychological and theatrical depth.

KALÎLA WA DIMNA - REVIEW OF 2016 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

James Karas

KALÎLA WA DIMNA

By Maneim Adwan (muisc) and Fady Jomar and Catherine Verlaguet (libretto)
Theâtre de Jeu de Paume, Aix-en-Provence

                                                July 1 to July 17, 2016

Conductor                               Zied Zouari

Director                                  Olivier Letellier

Set Designers                          Eric Charbeau et Philippe Casaban

Costumes                                Nathalie Prats

Kalîla                                      Ranine Chaar

Dimna                                     Moneim Adwan

The King                                 Mohamed Jebali

The Queen Mother                 Reem Talhami

Chatraba                                 Jean Chahid

Violin                                      Zied Zouari

Cello                                       Yassir Bousselam

Clarinet                                   Selahattin Kabaci

Qanun                                     Abdulsamet Çelikel

Percussion                              Wassim Halal

***** (out of 5)

Kalîla wa Dimna is an opera in French and Arabic by Moneim Adwan that was commissioned by the Aix-en-Provence Festival and received its world premiere on July1 2016. Now count how many “firsts” there are in the last sentence.

The “firsts” are irrelevant, of course, and what counts is that this is a delightful opera that tells a compelling story, has wonderful music and receives a splendid production in the tiny Jeu de Paume theatre in Aix directed expertly by Olivier Letellier.

 Kalîla wa Dimna (2016 © Patrick Berger / Artcomart)

The story or series of stories have their roots in India some twenty-four hundred years ago. Fady Jomar and Catherine Verlaguet have based their libretto on an 8^th century translation of the stories by the Persian Ibn al-Muqaffa.

In a mythical kingdom, Dimna becomes a counselor of the king and attempts to use the relationship for personal gain. His sister Kalîla senses the dangers of his actions and tries to dissuade him but to no avail.

But there is trouble in the kingdom in the guise of a poet called Chatraba who is very popular with the people and sings to them about their sufferings and injustice. Dimna brings Chatraba to the king and a friendship develops between the two men. Dimna is determined to bring an end to it.

Kalîla and the King’s mother try to warn Chatraba about Dimna’s machinations by telling him the fable of the wolf, the crow, the jackal and the camel.  Dimna lies to the king about Chatraba and in the end the poet is put to death. The King finally opens his eyes and there is a promise of justice. The opera ends as it began with a beautiful song of freedom.

This story is told in Arabic with the beautiful narrative power of Kalîla (Ranine Chaar) and the five characters sing a variety of songs in Arabic. Many of the songs have the flavour of ballads accompanied by the beautiful melodies played by the five musicians. We hear the mellow sound of the clarinet especially in its lower range, the deep sound of the cello, and the rich chords of the violin. There is also a quanun, a stringed instrument related to the zither that produces a wealth of splendid music. 

Kalîla wa Dimna (2016 © Patrick Berger / Artcomart)

Understandably, all the songs and music have an Arabic flavour that is melodic, expressive and splendid. There are long arching phrases, plaintive sounds and angry expressions that the singers, especially Chaar, handle with ease. There is protest – if you kill a poet, he will come back a thousand times – and a push towards justice. If Dimna is guilty of something, he should be arrested and tried rather than summarily executed like Chatraba.

All the characters are dressed in modern clothes. The Queen Mother and Kalîla wear long dresses but the costumes do not suggest anything exotic. The set consists of white stands that are simple and functional.

The production lasts an hour and a half and it is the most delightful ninety minutes to be had almost anywhere.

COSI FAN TUTTE - REVIEW OF 2016 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

James Karas

Conductor                   Louis Langrée

Director                      Christophe Honoré

Set Designer               Alban Ho Van

Costumes                    Thibault Vancraenenbroeck

Lighting                      Dominique Bruguière

Fiordiligi                    Lenneke Ruiten         

Dorabella                    Kate Lindsey

Despina                       Sandrine Piau

Ferrando                     Joel Prieto                  

Guglielmo                   Nahuel di Pierro        

Don Alfonso               Rod Gilfry                 

Chrous                        Cape Town Opera Chorus

Orchestra                    Freiburger Barockorchester

*** (out of 5)

The performance finished at about 1:10 in the morning and at 3 hours and 40 minutes that is approaching Wagnerian duration. The singers, the chorus, the conductor and the orchestra all received enthusiastic ovations. The director and the creative team walked on the stage and were greeted with resounding and extended boos.

We were watching Mozart’s delightful Cosi Fan Tutte, the opening production of the 68^th edition of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in that beautiful medieval city.

Opera directors in general and European ones in particular have for some years now been pushing the envelope as it were in producing classic works in most unlikely versions. Wagner’s Ring in a gas station, Rigoletto in Las Vegas, Zaide in a third-world sweatshop, The Abduction from the Seraglio set among the jihadists and ISIS are just a few examples that come to mind.   

A scene from Cosi fan Tutte?

As the curtain opens we are ready for a new production of Cosi directed by Christophe Honoré, known better as a writer and film director and fairly new to opera. But instead of hearing the lilting and uplifting overture played by the Freiburger Barockorchester under Louis Langre we listen to some strange song played on an old turntable. There is a rundown building and a fire burning in a cutoff barrel. We see a couple of white men milling around and abusing  a couple of black women. Abusing consists of manhandling, grabbing and in one instance pulling the woman to the side and …well, was she just sitting on his lap or was she being quietly raped?

The setting is a colonial village somewhere in Africa. The soldiers wear fezes but the natives are black so you can decide where we are. The only way to treat the natives, especially the women, is by pushing, grabbing them by the hair, shoving them to the side or hitting them. None of the colonial overlords need mistake them for people. Without putting too fine of a point on it, the locale is a slum.

Oh yes, Mozart’s opera. To jog your memory, Ferrando and Guglielmo who are not black, live in that village and are madly in love with the sisters Dorabella and Fiordiligi and swear that their loves could never be unfaithful to them. Their older and wiser friend Don Alphonso is willing to bet that, yes, they can and will be unfaithful because cosi fan tutte, all women are like that.

Dorabella and Fiordiligi at home?

The ruse is to send the men off to war and have two Albanians (Guglielmo and Ferrando in disguise) visit and successfully court the ladies. Don Alphonso is assisted in his plot by the clever and lovable servant Dorabella.

Back to the slum, please. The question is: what is the relationship between Mozart’s music, Lorenzo da Ponte’s libretto, the social stratum in which the story takes place and a slum in colonial Africa? Can the two be made to coexist? Can you superimpose a foreign culture of cruelty, abuse, inhuman treatment of natives on an opera that deals with love, humour and some silly game-playing by people who have not much else to do?

If Honoré wanted to draw attention to himself, he has certainly succeeded. Many reviews may be similar to mine and talk mostly about him. Did I mention the wonderful singing? Soprano Lenneke Ruiten as Fiordiligi and mezzo soprano Kate Lindsey as Dorabella are lithe young singers with supple voices and physical agility. They would have delighted us if only they had not moved to the slums and adopted the dress code and some of the manners of that world. They have servants including the white Despina of Sandrine Piau who usually enchants us. Again her singing and acting are superb but what is she doing in that milieu?

Guglielmo and Ferrando are transformed into unrecognizable Albanians by making the black. Bass di Pierro as Guglielmo and tenor Prieto as Ferrando were youthfully arrogant and emotional as becomes lovers and vocally expressive as Mozartian singers should be. Don’t worry about the black make-up. Gilfry as Don Alfonso missed a couple of beats but he straightened out and joined the crowd in bad manners but good singing.  

Conductor Louis Langrée and the Freiburger Barockorchester stuck with Mozart and they were a delight to hear.

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Cosi Fan Tutte continues at the Théâtre de l'Archevêché until July 19, 2016 in Aix-en-Provence, France.  http://festival-aix.com/