Pre-Season Training

Roy Keane and Richard Wagner – two names I doubted I'd ever be writing in the same sentence, but then again who would have thought that the following combo of words would have ever graced your eyeballs – "Katie Price, best-selling author of… "

But back to Keano and Wagno. In his biography the current manager of Ipswich Town came up with one of those motivational sport phrases that normally include the words burn / pain / sacrifice – but in this instance involved nothing that suggested you were about to eat one of my culinary experiments. Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail were the words of wisdom that Keano bestowed upon our unworthy heads. I'm not suggesting that anyone going to see DMvN (to Calvin Klein the coming shebang) needs to undertake a month long boot camp into the world of Wagner's eighth published opera to enjoy it, but a little knowledge can make the experience that bit more pleasurable. Or at least it does for me. Before anyone utters the words anorak / geek / obsessive let me tell you a brief story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin…

Once upon a time there was a prince, with the most wondrous head of hair, who liked to go to the opera. He liked it so much that when he went on his travels to foreign lands he would visit opera houses there as well. Thinking that he was possessed of immaculate linguistic skills the prince, with the silkiest golden locks the world has ever seen, decided that he didn't need to listen to Handel's Xerxes before a trip to Budapest and on a balmy May evening up went the curtain and so began several hours of enjoyable music making, exquisite singing and fantastically kitsch sets that were enjoyed by all. Except the dunderhead from Wales who hadn't thought of the recitatives being spoken in Hungarian and that his Italian, while okay for asking how much a pair of flip-flops cost, was restricted to goldfish memory sized chunks of usefulness – amore…mio…amore…mio…amore……mio.

I know that there'll be surtitles in English, Welsh and thankfully not Hungarian at the Armadillo but there's no mistaking the added enjoyment you can get if you're familiar with the characters and plot in advance. Also what would happen if a squirrel gnawed through the electric wiring running to the surtitles screen eh? Huh. Hadn't thought of that had you?

With this in mind I'm beginning my Keano Anti Failure Preparation Tasks ™ with the first hurdle – DVD or CD? Which is the best for that first close encounter? The benefits of DVD are obvious – the opera played out on your telly with usually excellent casts. You sit back and enjoy with wine, chocolates or fish fingers. CD gives you the opera for your ears with top-notch casts, and the words if you're lucky. You become glued to the libretto, wondering why Eva has suddenly developed into an unusually deep soprano, tip your wine and burn your fish fingers. Is one better than the other? It depends on what you want. If you're after the opera without the drudgery of hard work go for DVD. If you want to know what's being sung from the first, hundredth and final lines go for CD. This highlighted run of words will give you an idea of what's on offer at Amazon – including a very reasonably priced Met production on DVD.

Which did I choose? Call me geek. I went for CD. Unknowingly without the libretto, which meant that while I'm appreciative of Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues video, I decided to fork out for this libretto instead of producing yet another breeze blocked sized lump of A4 pages. This was the CD I ended up choosing for a few reasons. Reason #1 Among the cast were Gwyneth Jones and Kurt Moll, both were judges at last year's Cardiff Singer of the World and being the sentimental haircut that I am now and then I fell for it. Reason #35b As I'm as likely to get a ticket to the Bayreuth Festival as I am to swim the river Ogmore with a hydrophobic penguin strapped to my back I thought I'd listen to something with a touch of authenticity to it. Reason #96 was the most persuasive of all – it was ridiculously cheap when I bought it. You can call me Scrooge, I won't mind.

There now follows a critical appreciation of the first act…

Don't worry, I won't go down that road – Budapest is still fresh in my mind.

Meistersinger - Let the Tweeting Begin

In little over two months time WNO will unveil it's eagerly anticipated new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, or as it's known to people who own a sundial – The Bloody Long One. Coming in at little under three days per performance it's an endurance test that will see sales of Red Bull soar in the Cardiff Bay area, prompting fears from local residents of an increase in pensioner driven crime involving battery by opera programme to feed these crazy thugs addiction to the blue cans and Wagner.

Heading the cast is the current Met menace, Bryn Terfel, whose odds at developing a Red Bull addiction have shortened considerably since word seeped out that this will in fact be the Director's Cut of Meistersinger. Rumours that the set will be flambéed at the end of each performance have been strongly denied by a WNO mole, although unnamed figures from Bayerische Staatsoper were spotted at a London hotel in January meeting their counterparts from WNO with both groups practising what's known in fire fighting circles as RBD (Rapid Bucket Deployment) wearing dampened towels over their heads.

In celebration of the coming production WNO have turned to twittering the build up to the opening of the production with a dedicated MeisterMole twitter. So far it's early days with no mention of any assassination plots or RSI injuries to WNO's brass section. But I have to disagree with the following tweet – "The American journo H L Mencken said 'Die Meistersinger' took more skill to plan and write than the whole of Shakespeare." Barbara Cartland maybe, but not the Bearded Wonder of Stratford.

Another twitter worth following is TraviataJones who, unless she's a relative of Walter Mitty, is an Assistant Stage Manager with WNO. The National Enquirer loving atoms in my being are hoping for photos / video clips as she tweets about weaning Bryn Terfel off Red Bull with countless cups of Nescafè Gold Blend.

Due to my contractual commitments to the Gods of Misplaced / Lost / Uncharged Mobile Phones I'll be un-de-non-participating in tweeting my own preparations for Meistersinger. Instead I'll chronicle my journey into the land of Nürnberg right here in the coming weeks. Read my musings as I contemplate philosophical questions such as – "How do I gain a fluent knowledge of German in eight weeks?" "Will it be okay to feign an ankle injury and con my way into a pensioner's aisle seat?" "Did Wagner suffer from narcolepsy and think his works only ran for ninety minutes each?"

So join me, if you can, and preferably with a monetary donation towards my own Red Bull / Nescafè bills over the next few weeks and experience the thrills, coffee spills and anguishes as I prepare to greet Richard Jones' Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (and possibly a programme wielding Bryn Terfel juiced up on Red Bull and looking for his next fix).

The lull before the storm

A few months before 2009 winner Ekaterina Scherbachenko makes her Covent Garden debut as Tatyana the race to succeed her as BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2011 begins with The Final of the Welsh Singers 2010. Just as with the big boy competition the final is held at St David's Hall, who are now selling tickets for the final on June the 28th.

The four finalists are balanced neatly at fifty-fifty of the human species with Catrin Aur Davies and Rebecca Afonwy-Jones representing the gals with John Pierce and Samuel Evans sticking up for the boys. The winner will follow 2008 winner (gal) Natalya Romaniw and represent Wales at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2011.

The jury is made up of some hangers on and general leeches who go by the monikers of Elaine Padmore, Rebecca Evans, Julian Smith, Robert Tear and some bloke who calls himself Bryn Terfel. Dubious looking bunch if you ask me.

Behind the looking glass with WNO

If you're in the vicinity of Llandudno this coming Saturday you may like to avoid the usual weekend extreme sport of playing chicken with your overdraft and pop down to Venue Cymru and enjoy a free WNO behind the scenes day with activities for all the family to enjoy (apart from any Don Jose wannabes). Full details of what to expect can be found by downloading a pdf file from WNO's website. And if you're taken with what you see why not take in a performance of Carmen that same evening?

Carmen - WMC 4th of March 2010

WMC

If there's one thing more daunting than putting on another performance of Carmen, it has to be writing about another performance of Carmen. Everything's been said, picked over and pulled apart to leave original thought a single mote in Miss Havisham's drawing room. But as I've begun to write, I'll carry on until the burnished dust settles, and I've laid my thoughts bare on WNO's recent effort at the Armadillo.

The production itself is an ochre dessert, concocted by Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser that due to its sparse nature levers the duty of storytelling firmly towards the performers both on stage and off. Visually it's like dipping your eyes into a Rothko painting and entering a dream like state of existence, with the sole sparks of liberty belonging to the crowd in the final act. This solemn, sparse atmosphere inhabits the characters themselves. Carmen (Patricia Bardon) isn't a feisty senorita but rather a slightly worn, cynical creature who begrudgingly ensnares the luckless Don Jose (Gwyn Hughes Jones), her declarations of la liberté false and hollow as she appears incapable of imagining escaping from her fate. For his part Jose haplessly falls for Carmen, though his violent nature is revealed at telling moments within the opera so that his descent into a murderous rage appears a realistic outcome. Acting as the catalyst for the tragic denouement Escamillo (David Soar) is a more cunning, calculating creature than he is normally portrayed as being, which adds life to what can sometimes be a cardboard character.

Bardon, on this night, sang with a mild chest infection that was only audible on one or two occasions – otherwise her deep mezzo allowed for her world weary Carmen to be fully realised. The striking aspect of her portrayal was that with an array of showpiece arias at her fingertips she could have been forgiven to have indulged in some showboating, but she bought into the direction whole heartedly and gave a well drawn, yet instinctive performance.

Jones, a regular with WNO and no stranger to the role of Don Jose gave a beautifully sung performance that was both a strength and a weakness. As the supposedly naïve Jose his tenor was an ideal vehicle for expressing the character's emotions, but as the path to jealousy and finally murder was travelled I was hoping for a touch more danger to his performance, which never came. Whether this is down to the lyrical nature of his voice, or a desire to conserve his voice (this was the third performance of four spread over eight days) I'm not sure, but it was the only troubling fault I had with his vocal performance.

Soar, as Escamillo, was once again in great voice – an evenness of tone throughout his range allowed him to do justice to a tricky character introduction that has undone far more celebrated singers than himself. I'm in no way suggesting anything about him as a person but he played the role of a scheming Escamillo with assurance, especially his calculated thankfulness towards Carmen for being his saviour. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.

Of the remaining cast members the one who made the biggest impression, in the most irritating of roles in opera (to my mind at least), was Sarah-Jane Davies as Micaëla. Where others have shrieked, squawked and generally made a mess of this irritatingly bland character she gave a refreshingly controlled and clean performance. A member of ENO's Young Singers programme she has a promising future given time and measured advice.

Curiously, given that I'm not a conducting expert the star of the evening for me was Frederic Chaslin. I've seen a few Carmen's, in one way or another, but this was the first time I was consistently made aware of how wonderful the score is. Okay, I know that the arias can tend to pull the ear's attention given how memorable they are, but under Chaslin's watchful eye the orchestra of WNO had me bathing in a musical oasis from beginning to end and I began to hear things I hadn't heard before. Whether or not musicologist's will say he veered off course with the score as Bizet intended it to be played I have no idea, but it was an orchestral performance that demands praising. Such a shame then that during the curtain call the stage manager curtailed Chaslin's and the orchestra's ovation with a too hasty curtain drop.

As ever the chorus get an undeserving solitary sentence proclaiming their brilliance, but really – there is nothing else I can say about them.

For all the positives it would be unforgivable of me not to highlight an aspect of the production that does need working on and that's stage violence. The fight scenes are a touch laboured, and I would beg the revival director to allow Carmen to perish without screaming, as it was more Carry on than Carmen. But these are miniscule, mote sized quibbles that can be corrected with no trouble whatsoever.

Familiarity can breed contempt, but once in a while it can give birth to a surprising discovery, and thanks to the efforts of all involved this Carmen makes you realise that there is more than just the tunes to fall in love with. And next time stage manager – let Chaslin have his moment in the spotlight as he will have earned it.

Yellow Flower Power Day!

Okay, so this isn't a post on opera, but I thought I'd share my wearing of a daffodil with you to celebrate St David's Day / Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant. It's a day that brings about a curious mix of emotions that run from pride in celebrating the country and the people of my mamwlad to a tinge of melancholy in knowing that as much as I want to see us become an independent country, replete with all the usual bickering, infighting, resentment that exists in all countries, I know that this will probably never happen.

But sh$$ dude, it's a sunny day - leave the moping to another time! Here's a bit of Bryn Terfel singing Suo Gân and another enjoyable Welsh export of recent years, The Stereophonics, having a bash at Dakota. To finish off there's the English version of Ar Hyd y Nos, as sung by the great Paul Robeson - who wasn't Welsh officially but is in the hippyish Brotherhood of (Wo)Man mood I'm in today.

The Abduction from the Seraglio - WMC 20th of February 2010

Le photo from WNO

As I was freezing moi backside off while crossing over to the Armadillo last night I was wondering if I wouldn't have preferred to have been at home watching women in skin tight lycra throwing themselves down a snow covered hill in Canada instead of spending the night watching one of Mozart's lesser known pieces that had garnered a mixed bag of reviews the previous week. If everything I had read was to be believed then I was going to regret the chance to miss Lindsey Vonn's backside juddering along with more tempi than the best known bit from Rossini's William Tell Overture.

Pushing all this to the back of my mind I made way upwards, upwards, upwards to the home of the visiting confused ("Where are the toilets?") and the short of cash (me). For the opening overture we were treated to a map of Europe / Orient and, erm, well the knowledge that everything was to take place on board The Orient Express at the beginning of the 1920's. The production, born in America under the midwifery of James Robinson has echoes of Crosby / Hope Road Movies with a bit of The Three Stooges thrown in. The comedy is played to the extreme – perhaps a bit too much because after a while the jokes that are funny have been diluted by one crotch joke too many. Another slightly troublesome aspect was the insistence of Robinson to keep in clunky Muslim jokes involving veils and trussed up servants that would have had many audience members flashing to memory banks of the happenings of recent years. But all in all the set is a dream to look at with all the action set onboard a train partitioned off into various carriages. The next time I'm travelling long distance I want that train!

Playing the thanklessly straight roles of Konstanze and Belmonte were American soprano, Lisette Oropesa and Irish tenor Robin Tritschler who were a visually believable couple. I'd been looking forward to Oropesa singing since I saw her in a recent Met production of La Rondine opposite Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna and, in a small world coincidence myself…okay, not myself but Marius Brenciu, a former winner of Cardiff Singer of the World. Her opening rendition of Ach ich liebte was competently sung, if one or two of the money notes were pinched – but given this is her opening aria a certain amount of common sense must come into play. Where she showed her intriguing promise was in a heartfelt Welcher Kummer that was sung with understanding of Konstanze's position and not as a vanity exercise that can happen with this aria with some singers. Her lover, Tritschler possesses a beautifully clean tenor that did justice to the decision to cast him as a replacement for the originally named Colin Lee (who, unfortunately, has admittedly bigger fish to fry these days). Tritschler played the dashing hero with aplomb. My only regret is that as beautiful a voice he has, it lacks strength when called upon to compete with an orchestra.

As the comedy duo Blonde and Pedrillo, Claire Ormshaw and Wynne Evans performed with a keen sense of comedy and character. Lancashire born Ormshaw proved again that she's a pocket rocket with a rich middle to her voice and she made for a feisty Blonde. Carmarthen Tenor Evans (yes, the Go Compare tenor) gave an energetic performance as Pedrillo and was the focal point of much of the laughter on stage – but don't be fooled into thinking it's his slapstick that has got him onto the stage, he has a voice with plenty of steel when he needs it.

The remaining performances were given by Greece's Petros Magoulas as Osmin – an assured performance given that he had to wear an enlarged costume that took some skill in manoeuvring around the stage. Although he didn't put a foot wrong I would have preferred a gruffer voiced Osmin to battle against Pedrillo. Pasha Selim was played suavely by Simon Thorpe – doing more than justice to a role, and admittedly a libretto that is hardly Shakespearean in its depth.

One criticism I would make is that with the set design the chorus were forced to sing from too few spots and through too many pieces of furniture for their sparkling cameos to have the energy they give to the work as a whole.

Criticisms over the orchestral playing have been laid at the door of conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini that I thought overly harsh. Sure the opening overture was slightly hampered by a tinsy winsy slow tempo that felt a bit disjointed, and there were one or two occasions where a more flowing approach to the score would have been appreciated but these were exceptions on the night I attended.

Despite my doubts it was worth a trip out – in the scheme of things it may not be the most profound production to have ever graced an operatic stage, but with the never ending breadth of misery available to opera goers it's always worth remembering that life is more than just about tragedy – and Mozart, being the canny bloke he was understood this. Leave the grieving diva alone for a night and enjoy a Marx Bros style night out.