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by Hans Werner Henze, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer

Canadian Opera Company, Hummingbird Centre, Toronto,

January 19-February 3, 2001

“An Exhilarating Experience”

The Canadian Opera Company's production of Hans Werner Henze's "Venus und Adonis" is the most exciting production they have presented since their acclaimed double-bill of "Bluebeard's Castle" and "Erwartung".  Experiencing so powerful a work so perfectly performed gave me a rush of adrenaline unlike anything I've felt at an opera performance for some time.  Any national opera company should be expected to further the development of opera by its own composers, and the COC has a programme for that very purpose.  But to make the latest work by a living, foreign composer part of a company's regular season takes a courage of conviction few general managers of opera companies on this continent possess.  We are extraordinarily fortunate in Toronto to have such a man of conviction in the person of Richard Bradshaw.

 

Bradshaw conducted the North American première of "Venus und Adonis" at the Santa Fé Opera last summer and has brought the work to Toronto, convinced that it is a masterpiece.  Such is the integrity of the piece and of the COC's performance that he convinced me, and, from the chorus of bravos Wednesday night, many others besides of the validity of his judgement.  I left the theatre exhilarated from having seen a great performance of a great new work.

There are, of course, people who, although they may read new novels and see new films, somehow fear new music.  I know of people who can't come to terms with any music written after Mozart.  But for anyone who is able to deal with the Richard Strauss of "Salome" or "Elektra", Henze's music should provoke no terror.  Henze's music for this opera is rather like topiary hedges of holly--simultaneously lush and harsh, yet confined within clearly defined forms.  The work is divided into 17 sections.  The first 16 sections fall into only three categories--madrigal, recitative, and bolero and dance-song--with the 17th as a lament and epilogue.  There are only three characters in the opera, all playing opera singers rehearsing roles for an opera based on the story of Venus and Adonis--the Hero-Player as Mars, the Prima Donna as Venus and Clemente as Adonis.  The most unusual and innovative aspect of the work is that the inner thoughts of these three characters are acted out by similarly clad dancers  Thus, while the Hero-Player is reading his newspaper and the Prima Donna is rehearsing her part, their dance-doubles circle each other around the room revealing to us the raging thoughts the two singers are hiding under a guise of nonchalance.  Eventually, even the dance-doubles bring out more elemental, libidinous aspects of themselves--a mare as Venus, a stallion as Adonis and a boar as Mars.  The orchestra itself into three groups, each assigned to accompany the actions of one of the three characters and his/her dance-double.

The work achieves an extraordinary richness in how these various sets of threes play off each other.  Far more interest and complexity is compressed into the mere 75 minutes of this opera than in most others three times as long.  One viewing is not enough fully to compare and contrast the façades the singers present to each other versus the violent danced interactions of their thoughts.  As the work progresses an enormous tension builds up between the violent emotions sung and danced and the strict formality of the work's design.  Only when the inevitable catastrophe occurs, as dictated by the myth, is the tension released in a lament for Adonis and a contemplation of this world from the perspective of the next.  It is an amazing moment that caps a work full of amazing moments.

 

In the production of this work that seeks to unite the worlds of dance and opera there is not one weak link.  The three principals--Timothy Noble (Mars), Susan Marie Pierson (Venus), Alan Woodrow (Adonis)--not only have huge, rich Wagnerian voices, but are also fine actors.  Functioning as a kind of Greek chorus, the six madrigalists--Shannon Mercer, Krisztina Szabó, Allyson McHardy, David Pomeroy, Andrew Tees and Alain Coulombe--display an exquisite blending of voices and balancing of vocal lines in the Gesualdo-like music Henze has given them.  The dancers, all members of the Canadian troupe Dancemakers, combine breath-taking athleticism with incredible precision and detail of movement.  The work of Robert Glumbek (Mars), Carolyn Woods (Venus) and Jay Gower Taylor (Adonis) is astounding.  The choreography of Serge Bennathan, Artistic Director of Dancemakers since 1990, combines a quirkiness, violence and passion perfectly suited to the music.  It is the most imaginative choreography I've seen outside of Matthew Bourne.

 

John Conklin's set, representing a rehearsal hall with three walls and a ceiling with a skylight, seems innocently realistic until we recognize that this box will soon become an arena of death and gateway to the afterlife.  The juncture of the floor with the footlights on the stage is a kind of no-man's land of crumbled floorboards as if the room we see has been torn from the rest of the building.  Here, too, is where the only suggestion of nature lies, so often referred to in the madrigals.  David Finn's lighting is non-naturalistic, changing suddenly to reflect the shifts in mood from one section to the next.  David C. Woolard's costumes are an improvement on those in the Santa Fé production since, through colour co-ordination, he more clearly links each opera singer with his or her dance-double.

 

Elkhanah Pulitzer's precise direction succeeds in the daunting task of co-ordinating the singers with the dancers so that the relation between them is clear.  Richard Bradshaw brings out the strange beauty beneath the score's surface dissonance and makes us relish its unusual harmonies as if we were experiencing an alternate reality.  Henze's opera is preceded by excerpts from John Blow's 1681 masque "Venus and Adonis".  This not only introduces us to the story but also points to the masque as an antecedent structure for opera in its linking of song, madrigal and dance.

 

Seeing the COC bring off the latest work by a contemporary master in a production equal to anything the great opera houses of Europe can offer is a liberating experience.  Richard Bradshaw trusts the company to meet new challenges and trusts the audience to do so, too.  I left the theatre thinking that if they can do this work with such dedication and conviction, they can do anything.  I hope the success of "Venus and Adonis" will encourage Bradshaw to bring Toronto further 20th-century masterpieces that the conservative opera establishments of New York, Chicago and San Francisco are so loath to embrace.  I have my own wish list of Adams, Birtwistle, Ligeti, more Henze, Hindemith, Martinů, Messaien, Prokofiev, Ruders, Sallinen, Schoeck, more Richard Strauss, Tippett, Walton and Zimmermann. But Bradshaw has established such a trust in his judgement with this daring work, I am sure we will be willing to accept whatever adventure he next chooses to present us.  Productions of the integrity of "Venus and Adonis" open the eyes, ears and mind.  I, for one, am ready for more. 

©Christopher Hoile

Photo: Timothy Noble and Susan Marie Pierson. ©2001 Michael Cooper.