Pinchas Steinberg and Àlex Ollé signal a reference ‘Ariadna and Bluebeard’ on the Teatro Real | Culture | EUROtoday

In 2005, veteran Israeli maestro Pinchas Steinberg revolutionized the Royal Theater pit with masterful performances of The girl and not using a shadowby Richard Strauss. He then carried out considerable rehearsals and numerous acoustic checks, to the purpose of asking that the curtains of the containers be eliminated to achieve brightness and readability in an orchestra of 130 musicians. Five years later he returned to direct, with an identical success, the useless metropolisby Erich Wolfgang Korngold. But he has confronted his biggest orchestral problem now, having simply turned 80, earlier than a rating as fascinating as it’s extreme in symphonic phrases: Ariadne and Bluebeardde Paul Dukas.

Steinberg satisfied from the prelude on January 26, which opens this “musical tale in three acts” primarily based on Maurice Maeterlinck’s beautiful adaptation of Charles Perrault’s well-known story. He did so with a tense and admirably proportioned studying of that genuine nursery of motifs that the composer of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice He developed it over seven years, between 1899 and 1906.

From the tone postwagneriano from the mysterious citadel, drawn by interlocking wood columns supported by the trembling of the bass string, to the obsessive chromatic motif of the peasants’ insurrection; but additionally from the impressionistic fragrance that permeates Ariadna’s theme, with rhythms dotted in steel, to the brutal character of Barbazul, outlined by a hasty bounce that generates speedy concern.

Added to this dense orchestral writing, which has required near 90 instrumentalists within the pit, is the issue – not a minor one – of not protecting the voices. From the outset, the peasant refrain that opens the opera is extraordinarily complicated, as it’s divided between pit and stage, and as a result of a writing that rigorously follows Maeterlinck’s instructions to symbolize an agitated and invisible crowd that warns Ariadne of the hazard of her marriage to Bluebeard. Added to that is the singing of the protagonist with the nurse, by no means melodic, strictly topic to the prosody of spoken French.

The challenges of this opera don’t finish there. Dukas assumed as his libretto a symbolist play with minimal motion, with out secondary plots, dramatic twists or parallel actions, and with characters that had been tough to characterize. The distribution can also be very uneven: Ariadne at all times stays on stage, whereas Bluebeard intervenes solely on the finish of the primary act, disappears within the second and returns as a mute character on the finish of the third; Maeterlinck additionally dispenses with the moist nurse within the second act to focus on Bluebeard’s 5 wives. All of this requires a staging able to avoiding stagnation with out falling into exaggeration, in an environment dominated by darkness.

All these difficulties have been admirably overcome by the Teatro Real on this first resounding success of the season, simply two months after having offered the opposite opera impressed by Perrault’s story: Bluebeard’s Castleby Béla Bartók. It can also be the return of the uncommon Dukas title to Madrid, the place it had not been seen since 1913; Its final manufacturing in Spain could possibly be seen in 2011 on the Gran Teatre del Liceu. Steinberg’s demanding and meticulous musical path on the head of the strong Teatro Real Choir and Orchestra has been joined by a wonderful forged, led by the mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy, and an excellent stage manufacturing by Àlex Ollé, premiered on the Lyon Opera in 2021, in full confinement.

From the primary act, the scene with the dear stones stood out masterfully, the place the nurse agitatedly opens every of the primary six doorways, going through the distancing of Ariadne, obsessive about the seventh, the forbidden door. Dukas conceives it as six colourful variations of the Ariadne motif, which Steinberg elevated with admirable sonorous sumptuousness. But it was even higher, within the second act, that lengthy and dense crescendo that Dukas writes to symbolize the passage from darkness to mild, from the darkish F sharp minor to the concluding radiant B main. The complicated symphonic building in 4 components of the third act was additionally not far behind, the place the music recovers the darkish and dramatic tone, and the orchestra narrated with rigidity and vividness the revolt of the peasants and the seize of Bluebeard.

Steinberg shared last ovations with Paula Murrihy. The Irish singer shone in her debut as Ariadna with a lyrical voice of mezzo-soprano properly managed within the in depth monologues in French, though with out standing out for depth or quantity. He compensated for this decrease projection and the shortage of chew within the low register with an attractive timbre, served with readability and suppleness, and supported by a masterful orchestral accompaniment. He shone powerfully within the diamond aria of the primary act, O my clear diamondsand added intimacy within the central part You are pure. But the place he most exhibited his versatility was within the second act, with the in depth ethereal Ah! I discovered youstuffed with texture adjustments to specific the complicated emotional cocktail he experiences when discovering Bluebeard’s 5 wives alive.

The mezzo-soprano Silvia Tro Santafé, who was additionally making her debut within the function of the moist nurse, supplied a wonderful distinction to Murrihy. The Valencian singer, who in her newest performances has continuously carried out bel canto roles, confirmed right here grit and energy in a very completely different repertoire, with beautiful French diction and full command of the in depth tessitura of a personality written for contralto. A superb instance of this was his warning to Ariadne earlier than the opening of the seventh door, resolved with physique and authority within the low flat be aware on the phrase “mort.” The bass Gianluca Buratto was a really perfect Bluebeard, with a cavernous voice, and the vocal quartet of the wives was magnificent, the place the darkish and velvety timbre of the mezzo-soprano French Aude Extrémo as Sélysette. They had been joined, as his fifth spouse, by the effusive Alladine of actress Raquel Villarejo Hervás.

Àlex Ollé oriented the symbolist plot of Dukas’s opera in direction of a beautiful studying that mixes its feminist validity with its historic reference to the daybreak of psychoanalysis. It doesn’t abound within the path of actors, nevertheless it does provide an applicable framework for the motion, properly coordinated with the music. It additionally advantages from an efficient set design by Alfons Flores, together with the essential lighting by Urs Schönebaum and the profitable costumes by Josep Abril Janer.

It was much less convincing to transform the scene of the dear stones and the opening of the forbidden door right into a dream sequence, since this eludes a visible reference to the synesthetic predispositions proposed in Dukas’s music. Everything improves, nonetheless, with the next look of a marriage banquet, the place the looks of Bluebeard is situated. The identical factor occurs within the second act, when the tables and lamps of that banquet are stacked throughout the aforementioned crescendo musical from darkness to mild. And it was particularly profitable to show the third act right into a tribute to Bluebeard’s victims, who recuperate their shallowness in entrance of the viewers and culminate the motion with him subdued, in a robust last picture that closes the opera evoking the identical mysterious music from the start.