Germany Mozart, Ascanio in Alba: Soloists, Vocal Ensemble (recorded), Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, Alden Gatt (conductor). Bockenheimer Depot, Frankfurt, 17.12.2023. (MB)
Manufacturing:
Director – Nina Brazier
Set design – Christoph Fischer
Costumes – Henriette Hübschmann
Lighting – Jonathan Pickers
Dramaturgy – Deborah Einspieler
Solid:
Venus – Kateryna Kasper
Ascanio – Cecelia Corridor
Silvia – Karolina Bengtsson
Aceste – Andrew Kim
Fauno – Anna Nekhames
Secretary – Aijan Ryskulova
Bodyguard – Stefan Biaesch
Silvia’s pals – Valentina Ziegler, Isabel Casás Rama
It’s not day-after-day I get to listen to a Mozart opera reside for the primary time. And but, this 12 months 2023, a while after my first 12 months of opera-going, I’ve achieved so twice: Il re pastore at this 12 months’s Salzburg Pageant (overview right here), albeit in live performance efficiency, and now Oper Frankfurt’s new Ascanio in Alba, directed by Nina Brazier and carried out by Alden Gatt. Two to go, however one other two ticked off the checklist — not that I ever want to hear them solely as soon as.
Ascanio presents its personal difficulties for contemporary efficiency and reception. They lie not in Mozart’s age – although all of fifteen years outdated, he already had appreciable expertise in numerous operatic genres – as within the nature of the fee and thus, fairly correctly, his and his librettist Giuseppe Parini’s response to it. The second of his three operas for Milan, Ascanio was the second of two operas commissioned for – anticipate it …the 1771 marriage of Archduke Ferdinand Charles, Governor of the Duchy of Milan and a youthful son of the Habsburg monarch, Maria Theresa, to Maria Beatrice, daughter of Ercole III d’Este, Duke of Modena, and his estranged spouse, Maria Teresa, Duchess of Massa and Princess of Carrara in her personal proper. Numerous treaties and agreements had been made regarding inheritance, which I shall not element now, however this was, even by ancien regime requirements, an advanced dynastic match, not even initially supposed for Ferdinand, however reasonably for certainly one of his elder brothers, (Peter) Leopold, passing down the road of succession when the latter went as an alternative to Florence in 1765, succeeding his father, Francis Stephen, as Grand Duke of Tuscany (however not as Holy Roman Emperor, the lot of the eldest son and King of the Romans, Joseph, additionally appointed co-regent to Maria Theresa within the Monarchy). I might go on, and can elsewhere, however the level, now additional underlined, is that this was not a wedding concluded for love; it was, like different Habsburg marriages, and as we now ought to say, a enterprise association.
This festa teatrale subsequently provided, its veil of allegory skinny, Venus deputing her son (by the deceased Aeneas) Ascanio to rule the territory of Alba, actually civilising it by turning its pastures right into a metropolis and informing him he would marry Silvia that day. Cupid has already had Ascanio seem in dream type to Silvia, inflicting her to fall in love with him. (There was a distinction right here too, for the reason that precise marriage had been organized when the contributors had been younger kids, and the pair didn’t know one another previous to their nuptials.) The scenario, in any case, was a trigger for celebration, but provided little in the best way of standard drama. The obvious methods by which that may have been achieved had been out of the query: Venus’s (Maria Theresa’s) function as mistress of ceremonies who should unquestionably be obeyed might hardly be questioned. Nor was it attainable to current some type of intrigue by which the 2 ‘lovers’ would possibly initially be thwarted, nonetheless much less by which they could, nevertheless momentarily, have emotions for others. As a substitute, Venus instructs Ascanio – and by no means, it appears, does it happen to anybody to disobey her – to not reveal himself to her, leaving the poor woman to consider she is in love with one other, whom she meets, till simply earlier than the wedding. Silvia will nonetheless do her responsibility and marry Ascanio, whom she lastly discovers to be the one she loves. Cue rejoicing, as each events have acted as they need to, that’s based on Venus’s directions, and might be rewarded each in marriage and in rule.
A contemporary manufacturing would possibly maybe want considerably to deconstruct this and/or to historicise it. Brazier does the previous, I feel, in respectful, refined style, although I admit to questioning whether or not she might need gone additional. Which will have been a matter of my slowness, although, and in some methods it’s a aid to not report a sledgehammer assault on a serenata (as Mozart referred to it) whose slender nature may not face up to it. The up to date setting is company, its blue and yellow colour-scheme suggestive both of the European Union (maybe, in Frankfurt, particularly the euro?) or Ryanair. I’m not certain both was supposed, however the insistence and thoroughness of Venus’s ‘company id’ – in Christoph Fischer’s totalising round set design there might be no escape – imparted, no matter intent, such ideas to me. In any other case, although, couldn’t Venus/Maria Theresa/dynasticism/company energy have been made somewhat extra clearly monstrous? Or another, trendy slant on an organized marriage been offered? A girlish and really pink Silvia, replete with equally girlish and pink girlfriends, was likely bringing cash into the household/agency’s coffers, however that once more had me ask whether or not an strategy taking us again to the eighteenth century, presenting the true plot behind the plot, might need taken us additional.
That’s not to say we should always all have loved a recreation of a Habsburg wedding ceremony: a prospect whose denial might need had greater than merely monetary grounds. However I questioned – and I can’t put it stronger – whether or not admirable reluctance to mess with the work’s dramaturgy had left us with an updating that neither related fairly strongly sufficient to the work nor offered us with one thing whose up to date relevance, for need of a greater phrase, was as obvious because it is likely to be. Maybe, although, that’s merely within the nature of the work’s challenges, and on reflection, in representing the difficulties confronted by creators it has certainly offered meals for thought. May one thing have been tried by which immediately’s Venus aped yesterday’s Maria Theresa, while the remainder of the world suffered accordingly? Probably. It’s simple, although, to give you germs of ideas behind one’s laptop computer on the prepare again from Frankfurt. The craft of theatre path is excess of that, and detailed, considerate Personenregie, even with what even an ardent Mozartian would possibly concede is just not at all times the deepest of characterisation, was very a lot on present.
For the scenario did current Parini and Mozart with a specific alternative for the titular hero, if we could name him that. In an ‘precise’ opera seria, we must be unlikely to search out anybody dealing with such an issue within the central function. This was not the stuff of a primo uomo, although the musical fashion could nicely usually be so, not less than on the preliminary floor. This boy, fully below his mom’s thumb and never essentially by any fault of his personal, got here vividly to life in Cecelia Corridor’s efficiency. Initially considerably pallid, of character if not of tone, there was true growth right here, and each Ascanio’s anguish and subsequent pleasure, in exhilarating duet with Karolina Bengtsson’s Silvia, stepped out of the confines of event and even style, reminding us that Mozart already had not solely expertise of writing operas seria and buffa, but in addition an excellent quantity of affecting sacred music. Bengtsson’s fantastically sung Silvia contrasted and complemented. Her graciousness in gentle of Kateryna Kasper’s calls for as Venus, despatched with imperial precision, would possibly even momentarily – that was all any youngster, not to mention daughter-in-law would possibly hope for – have impressed Maria Theresa. The function of Aceste, priest turned company fixer, was stylishly sung and acted by Andrew Kim, agile and clear of line. So too was that of the shepherd Fauno, Anna Nekhames revelling in its often-absurd coloratura. All singers had been making their function debuts. Choral numbers had been recorded, but had affordable presence, and there was neither jarring nor disjuncture.
That was largely due, in fact, to Alden Gatt’s coordination as conductor. Gatt’s tempi had been well-chosen, and his command, from one of many two harpsichords of the small orchestra, was unquestionable. If there have been a couple of instances once I wished for higher string heat that will have mirrored the acoustic greater than the efficiency. Passages of astonishing psychological acuity – sure, even at this age and on this work – and of sonorous delight from Frankfurt woodwind and horns had been in any case quite a few sufficient to be savoured. The whole lot was in place, and significantly greater than that. First nights, in any case, are usually succeeded by performances that delve deeper, although Ascanio in Alba by no means had that probability first time round. Continuo enjoying, furthermore, was glorious all through, recitatives explaining and connecting simply as they need to.
Simply in case you had been questioning: these two Mozart operas remaining for me to expertise within the flesh are Lucio Silla and Il sogno di Scipione. So, if any enterprising opera firms inside my attain would care to assist out, I must be enormously obliged. And if a nonetheless extra enterprising organisation had been capable of preface Ascanio with the primary of the 2 Milanese wedding ceremony operas, Johann Adolph Hasse’s Metastasian Il Ruggiero, designed by the identical workforce of brothers, we should always ultimately have probability to find how justified posterity’s verdict of definitive Mozartian victory really was. For now, the decision of Maria Theresa’s favorite composer, Hasse, stands: ‘This boy will render us all forgotten.’
Mark Berry
