Reviews 2018
Reviews 2018
✭✭✭✩✩
music by Rufus Wainwright, libretto by Daniel MacIvor, directed by Peter Hinton
Canadian Opera Company, Four Seasons Centre, Toronto
October 13-27, 2018
“Popular tradition has not been wrong in regarding love always as a form of
initiation, one of the points of encounter of the secret with the sacred”
(Mémoires d’Hadrien by Marguerite Yourcenar, 1951, trans. Grace Frick)
The most anticipated opera of the Toronto opera season arrived right at its beginning with the Canadian Opera Company’s production of the world premiere of Hadrian. The opera is composed by Canadian indie pop singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright to a libretto by multi-award-winning Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor. The opera aroused much excitement as the first commission by the COC for a new mainstage opera since The Golden Ass by Randolph Peters to a libretto by Robertson Davies in 1999. In addition, COC General Director Alexander Neef has assembled the starriest cast for Hadrian Toronto has ever seen for a Canadian opera. In the event, the glorious singing of the principals, the ravishing playing of the COC Orchestra under Johannes Debus and the straightforward direction of Peter Hinton only make clear the inherent flaws in both the libretto and the score.
The prime motivation of both Wainwright and MacIvor is to make the true story of the overwhelming love of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (reigned 117-138 ad) for the male youth Antinous as known to the public as the great classical love stories of Dido and Aeneas or Antony and Cleopatra. The difficulty with the libretto is that except for this love, all that surrounded it is fiction.
The story begins on Hadrian’s final night before death. He still mourns the death Antinous, who died at age 19, eight years earlier. The ghosts of Trajan (Roger Honeywell), his predecessor who adopted him as heir, and of Trajan’s wife Plotina (Karita Mattila) appear to Hadrian (Thomas Hampson) and offer him a deal. Worried about the rise of monotheism and the future of paganism, they wish Hadrian to sign a degree declaring war against Jews and Christians. If he does so, the ghosts will allow Hadrian to relive two days with Antinous – one of joy, one of misery. Hadrian agrees and relives the day he met Antinous (Isaiah Bell) in 123 and the day Antinous died in Egypt in 130. Hadrian wants to experience the second in particular to solve the mystery of why Antinous was found drowned in the Nile.
According to MacIvor’s fiction, Antinous’ tolerant views toward monotheism were beginning to sway the Emperor. Therefore, Sabina (Ambur Braid), Hadrian’s neglected wife, and his military leader Marcius Turbo (David Leigh) plot to encourage Antinous to sacrifice himself to his bring the ailing Hadrian back to health. The opera seems to end several times before its conclusion not just with Hadrian signing the ghosts’ declaration of war, his predicting that monotheism will conquer paganism and his death, but with Hadrian’s being reunited in death with Antinous and, finally and most jarringly, with the cry “To war!” from the chorus of Jews.
A stickler for historical accuracy will note that Hadrian’s persecution of the Jews, particularly the brutal putting down of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-136), occurred when Hadrian was still alive. Far from inclining to monotheism, Hadrian deified Antinous after his death creating a cult that survived Hadrian’s own death by centuries. MacIvor mentions only Hadrian’s (fictional) notion of renaming the star Sirius after Antinous. (In fact, Hadrian named a constellation after him in 132 which remained in star catalogs until 1930 when it was merged with the constellation Aquila.) One might think that Hadrian’s historically recorded deification of his beloved would be both more dramatic and involve more profound repercussions since Christians and even some pagans objected to Hadrian’s extravagant tribute to his same-sex lover.
As for the score, Wainwright’s desire to compose a “grand opera” has led him to write a modern melodic opera seria but with all the form’s attendant problems. Prime among these is that the arias to do not move the action forward. They express a single emotion and even have the da capo effect of repeating the first stanza at the end. The arias are linked by recitative, but this is not classic recitative in a rapid conversational style. Instead, Wainwright gives each word the same heavy weight so that information is conveyed very slowly only to introduce arias that themselves are very slow. As can happen in opera seria the general impression is of moving from one static tableau to another.
Rather than finding his own voice, Wainwright exhibited the same impulse as he did in his first opera Prima Donna in 2009 by composing the opera as a series of homages to previous composers. The music depicting Hadrian’s madness was very like Prokofiev’s in depicting Renata’s madness in The Fiery Angel (1954). Plotina’s long seductive aria in Act 1 to win Hadrian’s agreement was heavily influenced by Gershwin. Hadrian and Antinous’ first declaration of love imitated one of the Sea Interludes in Britten’s Peter Grimes (1945). Hadrian’s love song to Antinous about his villa on the Appian Way was itself a close imitation of the “Appian Way” section of Respighi’s Pines of Rome (1924). Appearances of the Sybil are given accompanied by references to Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Elsewhere Gustav Holst, Richard Strauss, Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, and Poul Ruders all seemed to hold sway at various times. The most effective aria of the evening and the one that first caused the audience to stop the show with applause was Sabina’s Act 2 lament of her neglect – an aria that sounded more like Wainwright’s own music than any of the other arias and for that reason struck the ear as fresh.
Hinton’s main addition to the production is a troupe of five male ballet dancers clad only in buff-coloured thongs and usually relegated to the upstage area. They function in many ways like a mute chorus, their actions choreographed by Denise Clarke serving to reflect the themes sung about by the principals. They thus help to lend action to the generally static tableaux that form during every aria or duet. This being a “grand opera”, Wainwright gives them a short ballet of their own.
COC General Director Alexander Neef assembled an unusually starry cast for this premiere with both Thomas Hampson and Karita Mattila making their COC debuts – Hampson as Hadrian and Mattila as Plotina. Hampson displays a gloriously full, multi-hued voice whose warmth and expressivity were ideal in making Hadrian a sympathetic character. Mattila’s huge soprano is so enormously impressive one might have wished that Wainwright had given her more than one long aria where it could shine.
As Antinous, Canadian Isaiah Bell impresses with a high, well-rounded, English-style tenor that well suited the young haughty male on the brink of manhood. American David Leigh sings Antinous’ nemesis Turbo with a bass of of unusual agility, depth and darkness. Canadian Ambur Braid’s powerful coloratura soprano and sensitive acting as Sabina make her a strong presence throughout the evening. Wainwright so emphasizes Plotina as the principal ghost, that one seldom has a chance to hear the strong tenor of Roger Honeywell as Trajan. Wainwright has written a cameo aria for Canadian Heldentenor Ben Heppner as the provincial governor Dinarchus which proved his voice still has its familiar might and lustre.
Hadrian is worth seeing if only to hear singing of such a high calibre. A standing ovation began long before Hampson and Mattila made their appearances and only grew louder when Wainwright and MacIvor took their bows. There was undeniable excitement in seeing a new Canadian opera on the COC’s main stage after so long and one given such a lavish production. An important segment of the audience was elated to see a large-scale opera unashamedly focus on a gay love story and not shy away from depicting sensual scenes between two men.
With his gift for melody, now that opera no longer shuns it, Wainwright could still become an important opera composer if only he would trust his own voice, as he does in his songwriting, and overcome the need to imitate the great classical music he clearly loves. Hadrian is great step forward from Prima Donna. We will hope that in his next step he can finally free himself from the past.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This is a version of a review that will appear later this year in Opera News.
Photos: (from top) Thomas Hampson as Hadrian and Isaiah Bell as Antinous; Karita Mattila as Plotina, Thomas Hampson as Hadrian and Roger Honeywell as Trajan with four dancers; Thomas Hampson as Hadrian and Isaiah Bell as Antinous. ©2018 Michael Cooper.
For tickets, visit www.coc.ca.
2018-10-16
Hadrian