2024-07-12 10:44:44
The Hungarian composer György Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre belongs to the most performed operas of the second half of the 20th century, and yet the Czech audience could not see it for a long time. Only the Prague State Opera changed that, where a production directed by Nigel Lowery under the baton of Jiří Rožná with an international singing ensemble premiered last month.
Works outside the romantic canon of classical music do not have an easy time on Czech stages, whether it is the willingness of the performers or the interest of the audience. The first pleasant observation is the fact that even at the fourth performance last week, the auditorium of the State Opera was relatively well filled.
György Ligeti, who lived from 1923 to 2006, was one of the most unique creators of European post-war music. His interest in experimentation and the search for new forms clashed with his fascination with sound and its straightforward effect. Thanks to this, many of his works are attractive to listeners, even though they lack conventional musical parameters such as melody, harmony or regular rhythm. Proof is the success of Atmosphères from 1961, which accompanied the flight through space in Stanley Kubrick’s famous film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In the 1970s, when Ligeti began to explore ideas about opera, the deconstruction of the genre and its clichés was a popular theme among Western avant-gardists. There was talk of so-called anti-operas, breaking down the form of musical theater into its primary elements, often with a critical undertone.
Ligeti, himself fond of subverting all conventions, went a step further and called his work an anti-anti-opera. As a result, he presents to the audience a musical-theatre formation, where operatic acting and singing are performed and which has a relatively straightforward plot. At the same time, he often leaves the audience in doubt as to whether what is happening on stage is serious or parodic. It mixes genres and musical practices of the past and present. In addition to the usual orchestral instruments, he uses car horns, sirens or doorbells.
The opera Le Grand Macabre premiered in 1977, but a significantly revised version from the end of the millennium is currently being performed. The libretto is based on a play by the Belgian author Michel de Ghelderode from 1934 called La balade du grand macabre, i.e. The Ballad of the Great Skeleton, which the composer adapted with puppet theater expert Michael Meschke.
The author of the opera György Ligeti in 2000. | Photo: AFP / Profimedia.cz
This choice of collaborator makes sense, as Le Grand Macabre has a lot of the fairground aesthetic of itinerant puppeteers and other fallen culture heroes including the comic strip with its expressive acronym. There is no room for psychologizing the characters, but extravagance and colorful craziness. “I’m more inclined to extremism than absolute balance. Exaggeration is important to me,” Ligeti said in an interview.
The opera takes place in the fictitious principality of Breughelland, where a strange figure named Nekrocar suddenly appears, announcing the end of the world. His guide is a local drunk Piet called Bečka and subsequently the Astradamors observatory. The principality is ruled by the childish Prince Go-Go, or perhaps rather his White and Black Minister with the head of the secret police, Gepop.
The combination of bizarre humor, vulgarity, language playfulness and at the same time the “serious” theme of the end of the world offers a lot of room for directorial invention. At the same time, the composer and the librettist wrote into the work many instructions specifying the appearance and actions of the characters.
British director Nigel Lowery, making his debut at the National Theater in Prague, also took charge of the creative component, including the costumes. He found a position that is less provocative and vulgar than other productions from recent years, but still has a lot of goofiness, fun and ambiguity. The costumes here serve to blur and make the identity of the characters uncertain. The loving couple Amando and Amanda wear “gender-divided” clothes – on one side, women’s, on the other, men’s. The pair of ministers, on the other hand, are reminiscent of Victorian ladies with handbags, hats and umbrellas.
While according to the author’s instructions, the Nekrocar should appear suddenly as a ghost emerging from the tomb, in the Prague production he appears on the scene from the first time the curtain rises – only he is first dressed as a tavern keeper delivering beer to guests. The effect of his sudden appearance is thus lost, but again from the beginning we are left with doubts as to whether he is really a supernatural, demonic being, or just an impostor.
Marcus Jupiter as the Nekrocar (left) has been on the scene since the curtain first rose. On the right is Thor Inge Falch as Piet called Bečka. | Photo: Serghei Gherciu
Prince Go-Go, as in many Czech fairy tales, at first looks like a weakling manipulated by evil ministers, but in the end, unlike them, he is able to work with a crowd of his subjects.
The first two acts take place on a rather simple stage in front of a glittering cabaret curtain, which is complemented by the stargazer’s house and the painted backdrop of the castle interior. Nekrocar’s tomb is hidden in the toilets, his tools instead of a scythe and a pipe become a toilet brush and a floor mop.
In the second half, when the end of the world comes dangerously close, the scene opens up in depth and is dominated by a large factory building, somewhat reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s Animals album cover. Nekrocar’s movers in butcher’s clothes and pig masks herd masses of people into it so that fresh sausages fall out of the building on one side and suitcases and clothes of the victims come out on the other.
The last meeting brings us to a nursing home, where the heroes wonder if they are in heaven after death, or if it was just another successful drinking session. And like in baroque operas, everything ends with a sung lesson: “Don’t be afraid of death, good people. No one knows when your time will come. When it comes, just calm down. And in the meantime, look to enjoy yourself. Farewell and live happily.”
Although the Prague production is more settled compared to others, it balances well on all possible edges so that its grotesqueness encourages different readings.
Probably the only directorial idea that doesn’t really fit into the whole is the references to the recent epidemic of the covid-19 disease. Children in black hoods and with small coronaviruses in their hands run chaotically around the stage for a while, while a dancer in a large coronavirus ball symbolizes a comet that is supposed to contribute to the destruction of the world. The Czech solution to the epidemic sometimes resembled a theatrical farce, but at the same time, it was as if this link called for some specific interpretation. Does this mean that the epidemic was also possibly just a mirage?
On the other hand, the Czech subtitles, whose author is the dramaturg of the production Ondřej Hučín, deserve unusual praise. Their playfulness sometimes surpasses the English original and they make the whole hall laugh at least once by using the name of the conductor Jiří Rožná.
In addition to the usual orchestral instruments, the opera Le Grand Macabre uses car horns, sirens or doorbells. | Photo: Serghei Gherciu
Musically, Le Grand Macabre is a colorful catalog of Ligeti’s musical language. Here we hear the “cosmic” surfaces of densely intertwined melodic lines that made the composer famous in the 60s, as well as complicated rhythms from later periods. Several quotes from music history can be registered in a grotesquely twisted form.
At the launch last week, the orchestra’s sound seemed a little weak at first, which was a shame with the infernal passages in the deep positions. In the second half, however, the musicians seemed to warm up to full intensity. Despite several rhythmically uncertain places, conductor Rožeň handled the score with dignity.
All the singing parts are very demanding, they push the performers to extreme positions, and in addition, they often require intense acting with lots of movement. In this regard, the ensemble made up of domestic and foreign singers is probably the most pleasant surprise. It doesn’t have a weak link and all the members complement each other perfectly in terms of voice and acting.
Some of the characters seem to have been conceived in pairs. Marcus Jupiter’s bass-baritone, singing Nekrocar, is imaginary against the high countertenor of Prince Go-Go’s David DQ Lee.
Magdaléna Hebousse and Arnheiður Eiríksdóttir in the role of Amanda and Amanda are inseparable as a pair of lovers who are constantly longing for each other, Thor Inge Falch singing the Piet called Bečka and Ivo Hrachovec as the stargazer Astradamors resemble two companions who become helpers at the end of the world not quite willingly.
Benjamín Hájek and Michal Marhold in the roles of the White and Black Ministers, caricaturing professional political manipulators, among other things, almost rattle off an alphabetical list of swear words in the best tradition of so-called catalog arias. Eir Inderhaug as the head of Gepopo has the most technically complicated role, and her perfect performance shows that she has performed in other versions of this opera before.
Le Grand Macabre premiered as part of the Opera Nova show hosted by the National Theater last month. Nevertheless, it remains in the repertoire, and further repetitions follow in October.
The world of opera, and especially the domestic one, can appear as a relatively preserved reservation, in which only a few proven names of composers are admitted and on which performers demonstrate their abilities. In this regard, let Le Grand Macabre be proof that even a newer work can fit well into the context and appeal to a wider audience. After all, the vision of Breughelland, a land of merry eaters and drinkers, is not so far from the pictures we like to paint of ourselves here.
Opera
György Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre
Direction, set and costumes: Nigel Lowery
Conductor: Jiří Rožeň
State Opera, Prague, premieres on June 14 and 16, next reruns on October 10, 13 and 27.