Photograph: Maria Baranova
Richard Strauss’s Die ägyptische Helena (1928) is a wierd, static, talky, and infrequently abstruse work. Hugo von Hofmannsthal thought the libretto was his finest, initially envisioning it as a mythological farce within the fashion of Offenbach. It turned, nonetheless, into one thing extra critical, surreal, and private; it is a story in regards to the aftermath of warfare and betrayal and the therapeutic that should happen.
Hofmannsthal and Strauss revisited this theme a number of occasions with tales involving troublesome marriages and the necessity for forgiveness, with marriage and kids being the last word objective. Die Frau ohne Schatten, Intermezzo (libretto by Strauss based mostly on an autobiographical incident involving him and his temperamental spouse Pauline de Ahna Strauss), and Die Liebe der Danae (libretto by Josef Gregor based mostly on a Hofmannsthal sketch) all cope with {couples} coping with betrayal and finish in a hymn to conjugal love. In Arabella, now we have an affianced couple coping with an alleged infidelity who additionally come to forgiveness and reconciliation with the pledge of matrimony in a radiant closing duet.
Die ägyptische Helena checks all these bins exploring these themes in a tenuous plot, derived loosely from Euripides’s Helen, that the actual Helen by no means went to Troy with Prince Paris however was spirited away to Egypt and languished whereas a phantom Helen launched a thousand ships. This story emerged in historical mythology maybe to revive the consideration of Spartan ladies from the disgrace of an adulterous and traitorous queen.
However each Euripides’s play and Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s opera had been created within the aftermath of big wars – the Sicilian Expedition (a defeat for Athens) for Euripides and World Battle I (a defeat for Germany) for Strauss and von Hofmannsthal. The theme of forgiveness and rebuilding, forgetting the previous may be very a lot au courant with the spirit of these occasions, as societal points are explored via the private and romantic lens.
One other theme is selecting phantasm and escape over remembrance and actuality. The libretto symbolizes these opposing concepts with the lotus juice, which makes one neglect the ache of actuality, calms emotional misery, and heightens sensation and emotion with the opposing drink of remembrance, which brings one again to harsh actuality but in addition fact. Menelaus and Helen, a married couple, drink the lotus juice to neglect which ends up in an ecstatic reunion. This results in a repeat of jealousy and irrational obsession. In Act II, Helena chooses the draught of remembrance for each her and her husband to see one another as they are surely and construct from there. Any true relationship should be based mostly on each self-knowledge and an actual notion of your associate with all their faults and errors. All of it ends with a reunion with their younger daughter Hermione and a rapturous love duet with refrain whereas (on this manufacturing) snow gently falls from the sky.
Photograph: Maria Baranova
The ringmaster of this mythological circus is the sorceress Aithra. In Act I, Aithra lures the shipwrecked Helen and Menelaus to her secluded Egyptian island, offers Helen a youthful makeover and medicines them with lotus juice. She sells Menelaus a pretend story in regards to the phantom Helen who went to Troy. This confuses poor Menelaus, resulting in a rapturous evening of marital love with a spouse who might or might not be actual. Act II which begins nicely with “Zweite brautnacht” (the hit tune of the rating) then turns right into a weird farrago involving the amorous barbarian King Altair and his equally on-the-make son Da-Ud, who’re extra cardboard puppets than individuals. The rating will get frantic (as does Menelaus) and musically empty, filled with note-spinning and phony bombast. Da-Ud is killed in a hunt by a paranoid Menelaus who’s having flashbacks of Paris’ abduction of Helen. Aithra waves away these marionettes and brings on the kid Hermione and we get a form of pressured pleased ending that isn’t earned. These characters speak about their emotional journeys greater than reside them.
The Bard SummerScape manufacturing (seen on August 2, the final of the run) accepts the weirdness of the opera by itself phrases with out apology or condescension. Many Parterre readers have professed to like this opera, however even they admit that one should ignore the story and plot and wallow within the decadent lushness of Strauss’ rating to get pleasure from it. Bard stage director Christian Räth agrees that “(t)he key to creating sense of this opera may very well be to cease making an attempt to know it intellectually and as a substitute permit it to unfold as an emotional and psychological journey.”
Räth envisions this work as perhaps the primary surrealistic opera which “unfolds like a Freudian dream during which the true which means of the character’s intentions and actions lie hidden from themselves beneath an entertainingly absurd floor.” Basically all of it is a dream (presumably conjured up by the lovelorn Aithra who has been deserted by Poseidon with the important assist of the lotus juice consumed by all of the principal characters) that may heal her emotional wounds by reuniting Helen and Menelaus (who could also be lotus juice-inspired fantasy determine alter-egos). Helen turns into Aithra’s alter ego and so they even trade wigs (gentle blonde for darkish) as if taking over one another’s identification.
Räth and Daniel Unger’s scene design initially reveals a very grey condominium with a desk set for dinner – the again wall turns into a display screen for dreamlike projections of what’s speculated to be occurring offstage. The Omniscient Seashell (mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel) emerges from an image body turned television display screen. The stable grey partitions fracture into turning flats with cell mirrors that counsel actuality dissolving into phantasm. The stage footage grow to be more and more surreal and dreamlike with vivid saturated colours and background vistas of fantasy landscapes. All of it looks like an opium dream (and for the reason that “lotus eater” flowers of Homer’s Odyssey had been supposedly truly opium crops this makes good sense). This roots the story in a form of actuality whereas letting the fantasy run wild and free. It doesn’t should make sense.
Into this subtle and stylish milieu, Bard offered a powerful forged and wonderful musical values. Probably the most polished standout efficiency got here from the wonderful Jana McIntyre, a Bard and ASO common, who blossomed in Aithra’s difficult high-lying vocal traces with colourful and sensible tone. As Aithra is the one character who reveals company and propels what plot there may be, she usually steals the present (as Diana Damrau did within the 2007 Metropolitan Opera manufacturing).
Hailey Clark as Helena was a late substitute for Ambur Braid (who selected to do one other Strauss position, the Färberin in Frau at Aix), studying the demanding position in only some months. Her soprano has a gleaming tone underpinned with a female heat that fills out when the road will get expansive and excessive. She balanced each the amoral fascinator and regretful spouse elements of the character whereas sustaining cool poise onstage.
Photograph: Maria Baranova
Within the inconceivable, voice-breaking, excessive declamatory heldentenor vocal writing for Menelas (as he’s referred to as right here), one other Bard and ASO common, John Matthew Myers once more revealed a stable method and musicality utilized to punishing tenor music. He has a plangent virtually Irish tenor-like timbre that may take stress with out breaking and makes music the place different tenors make noise.
Different constructive components had been bass-baritone Blake Denson as a vigorous, mahogany-toned Altair, Nansteel (doubling the Omniscient Seashell and the Second Servant Maid), and Catherine Creed (because the First Servant Maid). Tenor Shawn Roth as Da-Ud began out weakly with weedy, unsupported tone however got here into focus in his transient love duet with Helen earlier than he’s summarily dispatched by her husband. James Bagwell’s giant and versatile refrain scored of their transient interjections and choreographer Catherine Galasso’s good-looking dancers embodied slain Trojan princes and barbarian henchmen with athletic aptitude.
In the meantime, down within the pit, Bard president and SummerScape inventive director Leon Botstein presided over a pointy, clear, completely built-in musical efficiency. The enjoying was exact, and he contrasted the numerous fascinating colours in Strauss’ wealthy orchestration.
Botstein has performed the work in New York earlier than: I used to be launched to the opera in an interesting American Symphony Orchestra live performance efficiency in January 1998 with a radiant, effulgent, golden-voiced Deborah Voigt as Helena (Paul Frey, Helen Area, Peter Coleman-Wright and Wendy Hoffman had been the opposite soloists). Our fearless chief and web site founder James Jorden/La Cieca was additionally there. He was taken with the opera (he all the time had a weak spot for the absurd and decadent) and had this to say:
An essay in this system e-book means that Helena loses little in live performance efficiency. I’ve to disagree. To start with, Helena’s private look is a significant plot level… Additional, the “plot” of the opera is usually inner and due to this fact conveyed via refined gesture and eye contact, not really easy to do with scores and music stands. A staged manufacturing of Helena must be the final phrase in stylish and class, each in design and efficiency, so I don’t assume we’ll see one quickly.
Properly James, we did see one at Bard and it was a revelation, probably the greatest all-around productions the competition has produced. I simply want you had been round to see it.
In the meantime, Dr. Botstein is constant his exploration of Richard Strauss’ operas with an American Symphony Orchestra live performance efficiency of Intermezzo at Carnegie Corridor on April 1, 2027. Subsequent summer time at Bard SummerScape, although, has not but been introduced.
