thu 28/03/2024

Niobe, Regina di Tebe, Royal Opera | reviews, news & interviews

Niobe, Regina di Tebe, Royal Opera

Niobe, Regina di Tebe, Royal Opera

Agostino Steffani's baroque obscurity is an unmissable operatic revelation

One after the other they came. Stunning aria after stunning aria. Affecting in their harmonies, infectious in their rhythms, arresting in their textures, vivid in their melodies. The Royal Opera had taken a mighty gamble with Agostino Steffani's 300-year-old Niobe, Regina di Tebe, a forgotten opera by a forgotten composer. But they were completely right to do so. For Niobe is a masterpiece. And last night's performance was a triumph.

What theatrical capital there is in the miserable little tale of Queen Niobe is not immediately obvious. The story crops up in The Iliad four pages from the end. Achilles summons up the sorrowful queen, while consoling the grieving Priam, as if to say, "If you thought your life was bad, you've got nothing on poor Niobe."
Niobe, Queen of Thebes, bears witness to the bloody murder of all 14 of her children, the consequence of a moment of overreaching pride. She is then turned to stone, and forced to weep for evermore. It is a tragedy of unremitting horror. In the Metamorphoses - the source for Steffani - Ovid is at his most Tarantino-esque in his recounting of the bloody fall of an entire family.
Steffani's 1688 operatic treatment fills out the back story with those other famous Thebans, Creonte (Iestyn Davies) and Tiresia (Bruna Taddia), reduces Niobe's total offspring to four, and washes out the blood. A fresh lowly foil to the central royal characters - in the form of the two honest lovers, Manto (Amanda Forsythe) and Tiberino (Lathar Odinius) - are introduced to offer some light. All of which fleshing out allows space for Niobe's character to develop and descend and for the drama to puff out its chest with pride.
To compete with the dramatic ebb and flow, a sort of magic emanates from the pit, as Thomas Hengelbrock - who was responsible for rediscovering the work and producing it for the 2008 Scwetzingen Festival - and his own Baroque orchestra, Balthasar Neumann Ensemble (who, technically, put most of our British Baroque orchestras to shame) pull more and more new sounds out of their orchestral hat. There's the hellish wheeze of a raspy medieval regal (a sort of advanced squeezebox), the doleful shy breeze of a recorder, the strum of a guitar, the rattle of a tambourine, trumpets, viola da gamba, timps; all phrased to sweet perfection.
It is a magic that is more than matched by Steffani's magpie style. His arias, mostly da capo, flirt with French dances, march with Purcellian ground basses, stun themselves into ravishing slow rounds and canons, allowing the strings to lap against their sleepy heads, like Handel would do 20 years later with more than a nod to Steffani. Arias duet with recitative; recitative court ariosi; tempi morph mid-aria and, periodically, there is the most heavenly slippage - chromatic contrary motion - that had me reeling. It adds up to a compositional style that has more freshness, economy and clarity than any of Steffani's contemporaries.
Director Lukas Hemleb's focus, too, was on economy and clarity. Most of the time a simple, nicely stagy Victorian vision of Greek mythology, one full of familiar archetypes - black-winged emissaries from Hell, gold-breast-plated gods, crowned Kings and Queen - prevailed. But every now and again a fantasy took over. A glitter ball offered us a magical starry canopy all around; a Boschian, black Lycra sack of bodies spewed forth the dark arts of Polifermo and his charge Creonte; a huge, weightless room of balloons, bouncing languidly off the walls like a Warhol installation, carried us into the heavens. There wasn't too much flapping. The story was told, the touches of surreal genius were delivered. One couldn't ask for more.
And there was one more revelation to be had: the male soprano voice of Jacek Laszczkowski. A truly astonishing range, facility and power in the very highest registers was to be found in his efforts. Not all of it was as elegant as countertenor Iestyn Davies's controlled, carefully phrased and ardent contributions - and certainly Davies won the clean coloratura competition - but Laszczkowski still stole the show with his soulful and soft thoughts of heaven at the end of Act One, a ravishing aria, delivered in the most exquisite sotto voce, and his barnstorming ascension into heaven in Act Two.
Véronique Gens's Niobe is given a less interesting vocal role in many respects, though psychologically there is plenty for her to do. Gens cut an equivocal baddie. She hit the heights in her final offerings, where Niobe has to endure divine wrath. The two other females added much to the mix: Delphine Galou's Nerea, ripe and lively in voice, the harbinger of the end-of-act saltarello, was a handy jester, while Amanda Forsythe's dewy, bright Manto (one to watch) brought a frisky spring to the Theban step.
But the honours must go to Hengelbrock, not just for rediscovering this work and somehow convincing Covent Garden to take it on but also for making what might have seemed at the start to be a three-and-a-half hour slog a perfect joy. I've never heard a Baroque orchestra roared on so loudly by a Covent Garden audience. They thoroughly deserved it. And they thoroughly deserve your custom. For this is without doubt the operatic revelation of the year.

Comments

ye gods, you must be joking - never been so bored in all my born days

Is this a review or an advertising pitch to the ROH ?

Loved it absolutely. Gorgeous music and great perfomace by everyone. Just amazing: I was totally transfixed by it

You really can't be serious calling it a masterpiece or the operatic revelation of the year! This has filled a slot for the ROH, quiet cheaply I suspect, while their orchestra is on tour. Midly interesting at best. I read the synopsis before going and still had no idea what was going on. Some of the production was pointless and stupid. Agree the best part was the conducting and orchestral playing and the thrilling high notes of the male soprano. But your review is totally over the top and needs to be a bit more balanced.

Wonderful and amazing production. A creative team which really worked so it was visually stunning, musically moving, constantly surprising - the audience was entranced. It was witty, sophisticated, glamorous - all the kinds of things I do not associate with baroque music. Agostino Steffani is not even in Kobbe so I did not know what to expect. On the edge of my seat for three and a half hours- what a treat!

Flew halfway around the globe to witness this event and found it well worth the trip. At times fascinating, intruiging, glorious music, occasionally palls but not enough to detract from what was on the whole a wonderful performance of this rarity. Very sad then, as seen from a few comments made here, that some patrons were seemingly incapable of appreciating what was undoubtedly a highly innovative, entertaining and clever production. Congratulations to all inlvolved.

For what it's worth I was also there and wholeheartedly shared Igor's enthusiasm (with a few more reservations about the male soprano). There were beautiful unfamiliar tunes, elegant visuals, and some astonishing playing going on in the pit. We need to stop being quite so knee-jerk suspicious about rediscovered works, or assuming that those who feel genuine enthusiasm are somehow engaging in an emperor's new opera type exercise. If those arias had been heard on ClassicFM everyone would have lapped them up.

I came away from the first night feeling disappointed despide the inventige staging. I felt little sympathy for the characters. I think it must have been the singers who often weren't up to the job in a large house, a notable exeption being the soprano Niobe. Jacek Laszczkowski had some beautiful music but I was concerned from the outset that he was saving his voice to ensure he made it to the end. It was interesting to hear the mini da capo arias as a foundation for more elaboate versions later from Handel, etc. If you want to hear magnificent male sopranos, try the William Christie DVD of Landi's Il Sant'Alessio. A unique work. Philippe Jaroussky is a revelation of Alfred Deller proportions.

I absolutely loved this work. Steffani's music is glorious - wonderful melodies, beauty of texture, gorgeous harmonies especially in the duets, originality, subtlety and sheer expressive power - in other words, just about all of the qualities which make Baroque music so appealing to us today. Hengelbrock and his orchestra sounded superb and played magnificently, and most of the singing and acting were well up to the task - my own favourites being Iestyn Davies, Amanda Forsythe and a truly wonderful Veronique Gens. Visually, the production has its ups (heavenly smoke and spheres) and downs (male costumes), but altogether the opera was an absolute delight. Just as well, because we travelled 400 miles to see it. In summary, please can we have more Steffani, from Covent Garden or anywhere else with the enterprise to perform it? Congratulations to Thomas Hengelbrock and to all concerned!

Ultimately I agree with the more positive punters, and I'm glad your review - and the raves of several students - prompted me to go, Igor. Only heard about three numbers in the first act of stunning originality, but the invention and the production's more haunting aspects proliferated in Acts 2 and 3 ( I dreamt celestial spheres last night). Committed singing from all, despite the Polish male soprano's bizarre technique and dematerialising middle range. So a personal note of gratitude for making me see something I'd otherwise have missed.

I absolutely loved the music and the singers - though I would really like to hear Michael Maniaci have a go at the male soprano role. However, I thought the staging was really crude and let the whole thing down. I have recently seen the Glyndebourne Fairy Queen and the ROH Artaxerxes in the Linbury and both were FAR better as far as staging went. Nevertheless, an event I really wouldn't have missed for anything. You could always shut your eyes - which I did. Also,sitting in the Upper Amphi, the surtitles were often blotted out by the fierce lighting below - did the director ever go that far up in the house to check?

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