Opera reviews: Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur and Schoenberg’s Moses Und Aron

FRANCESCO CILEA's romantic melodrama is full of hothouse emotions, Dynasty-style cat fights, sumptuous music and a fatal bouquet while Schoenberg's 1932 Old Testament opera brings together a philosophical libretto and a score that’s not always easy on the ear

Clare Colvin, Opera, reviews, Cilea, Adriana Lecouvreur, Schoenberg, Moses Und AronCilea's melodrama is full of hothouse emotions, Dynasty-style cat fights and a fatal bouquet[FRITZ CURZON]

Premiered two years after Puccini’s Tosca, Francesco Cilea’s romantic melodrama Adriana Lecouvreur is similar in one aspect, ending with the death of a Diva. Cilea based his story on a famous Comedie Francaise actress living at the time of Louis XV. The fact that the opera never achieved the popularity of Puccini’s tragedy is partly due to the absurdity of the heroine’s death: poisoned by the scent of a bouquet of violets. 

Martin Lloyd-Evans, with designer Jamie Vartan, transfers the action to a film studio in Paris during the Second World War. Cheryl Barker’s Adriana steps out of her trailer in 18th century costume puffing a cigarette and changes later into 1940s couture.

The libretto, based on the Old Testament, is deeply philosophical

Hothouse emotions run high. The devoted, shirt-sleeved impresario Michonnet (Richard Burkhard) struggles to tell Adriana of his unrequited love for her but is pre-empted by her confession that she already has a lover, a soldier Maurizio. She learns later that her soldier is the renowned Count of Saxony in disguise. 

Adriana’s rival in love for Maurizio is the Princess of Bouillon whose secret meeting with Saxony, ostensibly for a political intrigue, leads to a cat fight of the Divas reminiscent of an episode of Dynasty.

Adriana wins on points when she delivers a speech on stage using the final lines from Racine’s Phaedre to publicly insult the Princess. Soon the bouquet of poisoned violets arrives in the actress’s dressing room, leading to the fatal sniff.  

Italian mezzo Tiziana Carraro attacks the role of the wicked Princess with ferocity and tenor Peter Auty is the double-dealing Maurizio. Simon Wilding as an effete Prince of Bouillon and Robert Burt as a gossiping Abbe de Chazeuil provide camp commentary on the goings on. Celea’s sumptuous music is played with relish by the City of London Sinfonia under conductor Manlio Benzi.   

Schoenberg’s unfinished opera Moses Und Aron, written in 1932, is a sharp contrast. The composer’s astringent score, using his innovative 12-tone technique rather than the traditional seven-note scale, is not easy on the ear. The libretto, based on the Old Testament, is deeply philosophical, beginning with a debate between Moses and his brother Aron on the dilemma of conveying the omniscience of God to a people who crave an image to worship. 

The Welsh National Opera staging by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito dispenses with the background of desert and wilderness by setting the action in a present-day conference chamber in the Middle East where John Tomlinson’s Moses attempts to explain God’s invisible nature to an increasingly irate people.

Clare Colvin, Opera, reviews, Cilea, Adriana Lecouvreur, Schoenberg, Moses Und AronThe libretto of Schoenberg’s Moses Und Aron based on the Old Testament, is deeply philosophical [PH]

Tenor Rainer Trost’s lyrical Aron is in sympathy with their thirst for a graven image which leads on to the second act, the orgiastic Dance Of The Golden Calf.

Wieler and Morabito have refrained from creating a Golden Calf by setting the second act in a cinema with the audience facing us, while Aron works the projector behind them, so we see only the effect on the audience of his inflammatory film.

Eventually, there is general disorder and coupling, though the Naked Virgins, led by Elizabeth Atherton, remain resolutely clothed.

The orchestra under conductor Lothar Koenigs gives an exemplary performance. WNO’s Chorus is superb, not only in its singing but also in embodying so effectively the volatile mob mentality. Tomlinson conveys the inner anguish of the prophet who lacks the ability to articulate his beliefs and Trost is a smoothly plausible Aron.   

Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur is at Opera Holland Park, London W8 (Tickets: 0300 999 1000; £15-£75), rbkc.gov.uk/subsites/investecoperahollandpark ; Schoenberg’s Moses Und Aron, Welsh National Opera, Royal Opera House, London WC2 (Run ended), wno.org.uk/moses

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