Lock Up Raw
The Met’s new production of Janacek’s From the House of the Dead sets high standards for the company, but as an indicator of the Gelb Era, it may be too good to be true.
Excellent all around, Patrice Chéreau’s From the House of the Dead is a new high-water mark for the Met. From the first chords to blackout, the director’s humanist, precise staging excels at capturing that ineffable sense of theatre and event. Janacek’s bleak opera is also in his sweet spot, coinciding with the director’s own favorite themes – the elusiveness of love and the mysteries of intimacy.
Just a few years ago, Chéreau staged Cosi fan tutte for the Paris Opera, and seemed at loose ends. The scenic design for that production - a rehearsal hall made of grey concrete with the repressive Vietato Fumare! stenciled onto the rear of the stage - was similar visually to this new production. (The use of text is an auteur touch for Chéreau; his 2006 film Gabrielle also uses onscreen text as a plot commentary. In From the House of the Dead, the supertitles are projected onto various parts of the set.) But in Cosi Chéreau seemed to be superimposing existential drama onto an essentially comic plot, and the results were muddy.
Chéreau’s approach to From the House of the Dead is more refined in tone and emotionally right, and he shows himself to be a gentle, artful conciliator of some dramatically tricky material. The ensemble scenes touchingly document the varieties of intimacy these men experience in the harsh reality of their imprisonment. A wounded eagle that has taken refuge in the prison is, in Chéreau’s hands, a toy – an object onto which these men project their own hopes of healing. In the pantomimes for the two orchestral prison plays, he uses bawdy sexual humor, both for levity and to suggest a more desperate kind of commerce inside the jail. Disposing of intermissions (an archaic convention?) he links the three acts with two surprise theatrical devices, both of them strikingly effective – the first, a kind of disaster, possibly symbolic of futility; the second, a huge black curtain like a ship’s sail, foreshadowing death.
From the House of the Dead is overwhelmingly a director’s opera because of its large ensemble, and because it favors a speech-like setting of the text above any display of purely musical values. It was safe in the hands of the extremely collaborative yet decisive Chéreau, who drew on his long experience in French experimental theater and film to integrate its patchwork scenes into a cohesive narrative.
The enormous cast features Peter Mattei, Eric Stoklossa, Willard White, and Kurt Streit, and at least a dozen smaller parts, in addition to a large men’s chorus and non-singing actors. Both the excellent lighting design, by newcomer Bertrand Couderc, and the concrete gulag set by Richard Peduzzi, explored subtle shades of grey. The appropriately drab and institutional costumes, by Caroline de Vivaise, suggested uniforms of the prisoner or Nazi variety without being too specific
Mattei connected brilliantly to the role of Shishkov, the tormented man who killed for love. Is it unfair to say that he sang almost too mellifluously, where some growl may have been more believable? Esa-Pekka Salonen, in his Met debut, got mostly precise playing from the Met Orchestra, though they sounded under-rehearsed in places, with spotty intonation in the difficult close-harmony violin writing. His reading of score, characteristically cool and detached, produced a robust and agile accompaniment throughout.
From the House of the Dead, co-commissioned with the Festival Aix-en-Provence, was produced in Europe and filmed for DVD there before coming to New York. [Following up on operabitch's comment below, and in the interest of accuracy: it's a "production of the Metropolitan Opera and the Wiener Festwochen, in co-production with Holland Festival, Amsterdam; the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; and Teatro alla Scala, Milan." - LC] The re-staging here must have commanded an enormous amount of resources and rehearsal time. Percussive and episodic, it lacks the sweep and lyricism that make Jenufa and Kát’a Kabanová repertory staples since the 1990s Janacek craze, and it is not likely to match their popularity. Monday night’s audience, younger and hipper than usual, received the performance with cautious enthusiasm, but the atmosphere was somewhat that of a succès d’estime.
It would be gratifying to see Chéreau get his hands on a Met production of a standard repertoire work with a greater musical appeal. Though this production represents the best of Peter Gelb’s intentions for the New Met, a fringe piece like From the House of the Dead cannot define the company. This leads one to wonder how sustainable such endeavor might be for a company that produces so much opera as they do, and whether it is fair to expect this quality of work from other new productions this season.
We’ll find out soon. Les Contes d’Hoffmann, in a new production by Barlett Sher, will open December 3. Carmen, opening December 31, is the next popular repertory piece to be replaced since Luc Bondy’s Tosca opened the season. The incumbent Carmen, a familiar and effective Franco Zeffirelli warhorse, will be missed by many, and director Richard Eyre has his work cut out for him.
Under Volpe’s administration the Met ran a clever rep system which made it one of the most efficient garages for good individual performances ever.
House of the Dead is essentially a stagione system import. In order to achieve that ensemble quality on a consistent basis, Gelb will need to look at whole scale restructuring. The discomfort to his audience will be great.
This is assuming several things, two of which are the Met can afford such a switch (it can’t,) and whether Gelb understands ensemble, stagione, or for that matter opera.
It is certainly possible to run a theater basically on the Met “hybrid” system (which amounts to a modified stagione plan rather than anything like true repertory) and still find time in the schedule for event programming like this From the House of the Dead. In fact, this is how most of the big international houses do it: yearly revivals of the standard works in two or three blocks of performances (not sprinkled through the season as in true rep) and then several big events that are really done as a stagione, i.e., a run of 8 performances or so, then the production is shelved.
The only innovation here is that chez Volpe, the mindset of the Met was so focused on business as usual and butts in seats, nobody seriously questioned the questionable artistic standard of programming 12-15 performances of Boheme every season to the neglect of other works. (Really in those days the only time the Met did anything out of the ordinary it was because Levine wanted the musical challenge, or, rarely, because a star singer had a pet project.)
From the House of the Dead is not a vehicle for conductor or star; rather, it’s a vehicle for the opera house and the audience. That’s an entirely new concept, i.e., framing the Met as a showcase for genius instead of a garage for singers.
Any chance we will see another “entirely new concept” this season or next or just more of “garage for singers?” Just curious.
I assume that last sentence is supposed to be ironic?
Maybe “great” is meant as in “enormous”?
Yes
After the Bayreuth “Ring” videos were released, I realized why Dame Gwyneth was so enthusiastic about Chereau’s directing. (She wasn’t as enthusiastic about Peduzzi’s buehnenbild.) When I first saw the production in 1979, however, I didn’t much care for it.
The Ring videos and the “Queen Margot” film convinced me Chereau is a superior director, who understands how people connect emotionally and physically and the elation and destructive outcome that can result from such bondings.
The reported six-week rehearsal at the Met period for FTHOTD obviously paid off and I’m certainly looking forward to the 12/5 matinee. Squirrel’s review is a good guide to what to look for in the production.
As for other possible Chereau projects at the Met, I’d love to see him direct a new “Tannhaueser”. Others who post here will doubless have different suggestions, but the main thing is to bring him back.
Unlike some many of his director counterparts, Chereau’s work is carefully considered, brimming with passion and integrity and though FTHOTD didn’t originate at the Met, it apparently is a milestone in the company’s history.
no. 2 Well we all know how open minded, flexible and adaptable the Met public is.
There are two points in squirrel’s review (a very fine one, let me say that going in) with which I will disagree. Troublesome though John Dexter and his production period at the MET could be, Dialogs of the Carmelites, definitely fringe repertory at that point in MET history, became an iconic production that DID indeed define the best of the MET, strongly seconded by Billy Budd, Lulu, the Parade triple bill and the Stravinsky triple bill–all of them very much “fringe.” And these productions held up through the decades and multiple revivals, people call for revivals of some of them to this day. I know I’d buy tickets to any of them in a heartbeat.
I will not mourn the loss of the Zeffirelli Carmen production with its gargantuan hanging lace tablecloths, Toreador Song staged as a glitzy musical comedy number, and the idiotic addition of a crazed young man repeatedly attacking a horse and rider from behind during the scene when the girls pour out of the factory for Carmen’s arrest. Zeffirelli pandered whorishly to the tourist bus segment of the MET’s audience that reveled in empty, meaningless spectacle.
House of the Dead may well be just too prickly musically for a mass audience at the MET, but who knows? A group of men carrying a toy eagle around the stage might just become as iconic an image as a group on women lying face down on it.
Provided that I am not a big Zeffirelli fan, I don’t believe that he panders whorishly to the tourist bus segment of the Met’s (or any other opera house) audience. He truly believes in that hyper-realistic, hyper-detailed, hyper-everything type of production. Sometimes (Falstaff, or his neo-realism Pagliacci) he is more successful at it, but more often the results tend to be on the tacky side (like Carmen).
Ercole,
I have to disagree. His persistent use of the stage elevator was exactly that: the whorish pandering to the tourist bus segment of the Met. He wrecked the moods in both Tosca’s and Traviata’s third acts… I can’t forget, nor forgive, how upset I was at the audience applause in these quiet hushed moments… It really ruined the act.
One man’s empty, meaningless spectacle is another man’s night of beautiful music and fulfilling theatre. Not everyone strives for a deep experience in the opera house. Yes, we need auteurs, but many people enjoy and love the Zefferelli productions greatly, they have a place in their heart. As long as the Met offers something to everyone, from theatrical novice to avant garde expert, I will be happy.
I loved the Alden Don Giovanni at NYCO, but don’t we all have nights when we just want to see some magic on stage?
Wozzeck is another production that has lasted at the Met. The production of Peter Grimes that preceded the current one, etc. I think keeping this perspective in mind is good.
The Met has done some staged non-standard (at least for its audiences) repertory in the past, and it may be FTHOTD is being overhyped partly because of the dissatisfaction with Tosca, Sonnambula, Lucia, among the dud productions of recent years.
People went going crazy over Fille when it premiered, but it too was a shared production, and hardly in the same league as the 2006 Barbiere.
I can think of other productions, the old Frau, the 1971 Tristan, the Karajan/Schneider-Siemssen Walkure the previous Les Troyens, that were often praised to the skies when they premiered. But as the decades rolled by, these productions lost much of their luster and many were happy to see them replaced.
I don’t think many savvy operagoers would weep if Rosenkavalier replaced.
I would be very sad to see the Rosenkavalier replaced. I have seen it countless times since 1969, and I love it. It was especially good this year. With the right cast and conductor, it can be as magical as it was with Leonie, Christa, Walter and Reri. I wouldn’t mind seeing the whole thing rebuilt and restaged — even by Cheraux — but I’d hate to lose those familiar iconic images.
I would. (Oh, but I suppose that makes me not-savvy.) Not because I find it unimprovable, or think that it has weathered the decades in fresh form; but because any replacement is unlikely to be better (we could get lucky, I suppose), and given the frequency of the opera’s return, it will pretty quickly look shabby and spottily rehearsed itself.
There has certainly been some precedent for carefully prepared new productions of fringe repertory at the Volpe-era Met, that played a relatively compact run with mostly unchanging cast. Wouldn’t Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Makropulos, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Moses und Aron, Doktor Faust, The Gambler, and Rodelinda fall into this category? (Allowing for a quibble over one or another of the titles.)
All but one of the fine productions Orlando mentions were also revived for at least a second season. The exception was the DOKTOR FAUST – and it’s not too late.
I think we have to rethink the idea that a co-produced or shared production somehow doesn’t “belong to” or wasn’t collaborated in by the MET. First of all, given the tremendous expense of mounting productions these days, House of the Dead and other rare or non-standard repertory operas would be seen much less often than they are unless expenses are shared among two, three or more houses. It’s the way of the world these days and yet one more manifestation of just how interconnected everything is internationally these days.
For myself, I don’t care whether a production sits idle in containers in the MET’s storage lot, or plays and stores in L.A. and Brussels between revivals at Lincoln Center.
Lovely review with really interesting points. I have only seen this work once in the theatre – many years ago – and the effect was shattering. What I find a real shame is that such an artistic event and triumph is not being made available as part of the HD broadcasts programme.
While I admire your review-writing, Herr Squirrel, I am compelled to wonder who you’ve been talking to about the Zeff Carmen, as I don’t know as I’ve ever heard anyone say a kind word about it.
I called it “familiar and effective” not “critically acclaimed”, and the ladies in line at the Met gift shop actually do feel some fondness for the thing.
otherwise, thanks?
Oh, I was referring to “missed by many.” And maybe it will. Anyway, you’re welcome?
Yeah, missed by the same who miss the Tosca. There’s no big point about the Zeff Carmen that I was trying to make, more about the remaking of the core repertory (as opposed to the importing of new, unheard at the Met, works)
also, my editor (la c) said the exact same thing about that passage – I’m a stubborn squirrel, alas.
Just for the historical record. From the House of the Dead is NOT a “co-commission between the MET and the Aix festival.”
It was produced by the MET and the Vienna Festwochen — they are the lead producers — and the co-producers are Aix, the Holland Festival, and La Scala.
..that is is NOT a brainchild of the MET only. Just as I’ve said.
Thank you for a very interesting review; the discussion sparked by this review is also very interesting. I totally agree with the statement about Peter Mattei almost sounding too beautiful, especially if you’ve seen the Gerd Grochowski performance a few times. I am glad to read what you said about the orchestra because I noticed the same thing, but, that is, again, because I’ve seen the DVD from Aix-en-Provence a number of times, though I really really enjoyed this production, only having listened to it on the broadcast. I only wish I could go.