Opera review: Simplicius Simplicissimus and Oreste

4 / 5 stars
Simplicius Simplicissimus

THERE are passive as well as active ways of combatting political extremism.

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Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus deals with the Thirty Years’ War

Like many anti-Nazis who decided not to emigrate in the 1930s, the composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann had to play a double game. As a protest he banned any public performances of his work within the Third Reich and his compositions were only performed abroad, mainly at contemporary music festivals. 

He survived the war by entering into a kind of “inner emigration”. Significantly Hartmann’s opera Simplicius Simplicissimus, given its UK premiere last week by Independent Opera, deals with another turbulent time in Germany: the Thirty Years’ War (1618 to 1648). 

Every German state, and troops from all the major European powers, fought over Germany. As armies criss-crossed the country they spread terror and plague. Hartmann drew on the 17th century writer Grimmelshausen’s picaresque novel for his plot, where he saw parallels with Hitler’s Germany.

The protagonist Simplicius is an innocent peasant boy who flees for his life when soldiers destroy his village. He takes shelter in a remote forest with a hermit who teaches him to pray, is caught up in the war when the hermit dies and whisked to the court of the depraved Governor.

Here he is appointed a licensed “fool”, free to speak his mind about the people exploited by the Governor and his kind. Independent Opera, founded in 2005 as a platform to encourage new operatic talent, commissioned young director Polly Graham to produce the work. She has staged a no holds barred, fast-moving, series of scenes on Nate Gibson’s two-tiered set of a partly demolished house with the upper layer resembling an attic stashed with old suitcases.

Soprano Stephanie Corley as the boy Simplicius (the Simplest Simpleton) sustains a high energy throughout. After the death of the Hermit (Adrian Thompson), Simplicius falls in with William Dazeley’s swaggering Soldier and Tristan Hambleton’s bully boy Sergeant and is taken to the court of Mark Le Brocq’s venal Governor.

The gang rape of a woman (dancer Chiara Vinci) and some scatological language in the libretto, translated by David Pountney, are shocking though not gratuitous given the subject. Hartmann’s score, played by Britten Sinfonia under conductor Timothy Redmond, is influenced by Stravinsky among other early 20th century composers. It’s not a comfortable sound but, as Hartmann himself wrote, he intended to send “an urgent message” that is still sadly relevant today. 

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Handel referred to Oreste as a “pasticcio”, made up of favourite arias from his earlier operas

The Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Young Artists programme is designed to nurture emerging singers and their productions are popular with talent watchers. Part of the attraction for the sold-out run of Handel’s Oreste lay in its being sited in the atmospheric Wilton’s Music Hall in east London. 

Handel referred to Oreste as a “pasticcio”, made up of favourite arias from his earlier operas. The melodramatic plot is based on Greek myth with Agamnenon’s daughter Ifigenia as the high priestess of a tyrant’s murder cult that kills any stranger landing on the island.

Ifigenia’s beloved brother Oreste is cast ashore, and faces execution. Powerful performances from the cast of six, particularly Handelian mezzo from Angela Simkin as Oreste and soprano Jennifer Davis as Ifigenia. Director Gerard Jones, however, has done no favours to the singers or Handel with a bloodspattered cartoon like production.

VERDICT: 3/5

Hartmann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus Independent Opera Lilian Baylis Studio, London N1 (Tickets: 020 7863 8000/ sadlerswells.com; £20)

Handel’s Oreste Royal Opera at Wilton’s Music Hall, London E1 (Run ended) 

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