The Powder Her Face opera will premiere on Friday in the Brno Reduta Theatre. The love life and divorce of the Duchess of Argyll is, however, not the essential topic of the work by British composer Thomas Adès. Composer and chief conductor of the Janáček Opera Marko Ivanović is in charge of the musical arrangement of the first production of Adès' opera on the Czech scene. We talked not only about the work itself, but also about the music of Thomas Adès and performing contemporary operas on the Brno scene. And we also touched on the Excursions of Mr. Brouček directed by Jan Švankmajer.
How are rehearsals for the Powder Her Face going? Are the singers healthy in the crazy weather that we are now having?
They are healthy and also very nervous. The opera is extremely difficult and is very demanding on everyone. That is why we chose two sets of cast for the roles as well as the orchestra because it is a performance where it would be difficult to fill in.
I glanced only briefly at the score and I would say that the writing is even spiteful at times...
However, everything sounds more natural than it is written. There are hard rhythm-counting things, many pauses. When a musician is not together with others, they do not know whether that is on purpose or whether it is a mistake. Sometimes they feel like it does not matter what they play and suddenly everything comes together. The opera has many absolutely harmoniously pure moments, which, however, come only if everyone is completely accurate.
To my knowledge, this is the first production of Adès' opera in Czech theatre. Why did you choose Adès? Are you close to him as a composer?
When Jiří Heřman and I started, our goal was to produce one contemporary thing at least once every season. At the beginning, we agreed rather generally on the works of the 20th century, but I was a fan of the idea of these being true contemporary works. Let's say the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21th century. To play things that have proven themselves abroad. These are titles that we lack, yet they belong to the world repertoire. At first, we were limited by the smaller space of the Reduta Theatre because we were not certain how many visitors we would have. So I was given the task to look for a suitable title. I had several of them in mind. This one seemed to be the most interesting one and Jiří Heřman thought so too. There are more reasons: the singers and orchestra are perfect for this space and we have internal resources for both. Another reason is that we have known Adès for many years and he has always been a soul mate for me as a composer. His approach to music is very non-dogmatic, wide, he resists pigeonholing. Stravinsky said: "All music is my territory," and I feel like this is double the truth with Adès. Yet it is communicative music, no scheming intellectual language. It is always clear what he wants to say. And the first production of his opera on the Czech scene was also an impulse.
What were the other operas that you considered?
For example, Life with an Idiot by Alfred Schnittke. This was at a time when we are still thinking in the broader context of the 20th century. Shostakovich's Nose also came into consideration. I was also thinking about scenic things by Heiner Goebbels or The Cave by Steve Reich that will be performed by the Brno Contemporary Orchestra next season. As well as about his Three Tales. It will be performed by the Prague National Theatre next season. In the next season, we will present a contemporary work on a big stage but we only want to reveal it in February at the 2016/17 season concert preview.
Our audience had the opportunity to see Adès' opera The Tempest in a broadcast from MET or live in Vienna. The music is really difficult to perform and I can hardly imagine that anyone would produce The Tempest in the Czech Republic.
I think that, for example, the role of Ariel was written for a specific singer, and it is not even possible as a repertory role. In Powder Her Face, the requirements are also extreme, but still within operational limits.
In The Tempest, I felt a very strong influence of Benjamin Britten.
I think that it is also apparent in Adès' operatic debut. There is an English musical tradition in it, but also a shift elsewhere. There is a lot of influence of Lulu and German expressionism overall, which Adès himself admits. It is obvious in the structure of the whole thing which sometimes comes close to the cabaret concept. There are closed acts, almost songs, hints of tango and songs reminiscent of Weill – only hints, of course. There are many quotes. With most of them, I was not even sure whether it is a style quote or direct quote. Violoncellist Josef Klíč pointed out to me that one whole interlude is literally copied from the film Vertigo, and there are more such references in the opera. In terms of the genre, there are a number of deviations, yet the result is homogeneous. It is not a postmodernist polystyle like Schnittke, but instead a compact unit.
I had the same feeling with The Tempest – many influences combined in a distinctive whole.
I also see a sense of drama in it, which is not something that every composer has. It is apparent especially in dialogues, downright dramatic situations. The lyrics give guidance on how to interpret the subtext and how to stage it – similarly as in Janáček's works – with its rhythm, intonation and dynamics. That is what I also enjoyed in the Makropulos Case or Jenufa and Adès has it in his music, too.
After all, he does work with Janáček's compositions.
That is true. We went to see him in Vienna, also to ask about some technicalities regarding the performance, but he also started to talk about Janáček. Adès is a great pianist and he is currently recording a compilation of Janáček's works. He also has conductor ambitions and he shared his dream to produce Excursions of Mr. Brouček directed by Jan Švankmajer with us. They have some family ties, his mother supposedly knows the Švankmajer family. It is an interesting idea, although the question is to what extent it is feasible. But above all, this shows his interest in Janáček. We hope that this interest will also take him to one of our repeated performances.
Combining the career of a composer and conductor is also characteristic for you, so you have that in common.
I do not dare to compare myself with Adès...
...I meant it rather as a parallel.
Certainly. Adès is an extraordinary talent and he is one of the rare examples of a man who was a child prodigy and was able to successfully continue his career in adulthood. Some people grow up soon, which makes them interesting, and then they drop among average artists. That did not happen here.
Is it not almost suspicious when an opera written by a contemporary composer – here, I am referring to The Tempest – premieres at Covent Garden?
But that did not come out of nowhere. He is now riding the media wave, but that is now. Powder Her Face was written for a low-budget festival and with no ambition to be repeated anywhere else. Dramaturgist of the Janáček Opera, Patricie Částková, pointed out that Powder Her Face is an absolute exception among works ordered for the Cheltenham Music Festival, since it succeeded. It is certainly also due to the scandalous theme, but that is not superficial. It is some sort of an attraction that arouses interest, but the opera is about something else. About transience, the hedonistic way of life which turns out to be completely empty. About what is worth something in life and what is not. About the fact that a person living in absolute luxury may also live in complete solitude. It is also a parallel to today's world. To Europe, where we live in some sort of a bubble where everything is great. While not reflecting on the context in which we exist.
Despite all the problems, Europe is our luxury living room.
Exactly. At the same time, there are many things in the lyrics that will speak differently to a Czech audience than the British one. It is based on the class division of the English society which is so deeply rooted that we cannot even imagine it. It constantly works with minor differences in pronunciation – the duchess pronounces often as [o:fn] while the journalist says [oftn]. These are the subtleties of the language, which are very difficult for us to capture. Even her scornful remarks about the middle class which means something entirely different to us.
In our country, belonging to a social class or living at a good address is not nearly as important.
We are a plebeian society that finds value in equality and a nation which decides on its path. British democracy is built on other principles. We saw it in the concept of the "middle class" which we also discussed with our language adviser. Although he is American, he knows the context and what we consider the middle class would still be the "working class" in England. Their middle class is elite from our perspective but it is still not the hereditary aristocracy. I saw an interesting BBC documentary about people who became rich quickly or gained some recognition, yet the high class never accepted them.
In the instrumentation for Powder Her Face, there are a high number of percussion instruments, but there is only one string instrument and one wind instrument. How does it work together?
Not only percussion instruments, there are many unusual instruments. But the instrumentation is very smart – even in segments that seem purposeless when reading the score or look like you will not be able to hear them. However, none of that was true. There is a number of fishing reels to give a whirring noise and create nice segments. Electric bells are slightly reminiscent of the horns in Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, but everything has its purpose. We were a little afraid of those proportions.
Why do you play in the Mozart Hall?
When we were thinking about the location, we thought, of course, about the usual Reduta Theatre. But it turned out that we would not fit into the orchestra pit. And when Jiří Heřman saw the Mozart Hall, he was very excited and considered it the perfect place for this opera. And Tomáš Studený as the director came up with the concept of placing the artists in the middle and the audience to the sides with elevation. We found the optimal place, but not the ideal place for the orchestra. The string instruments are farthest from the audience and even though the winds play away from the audience, there is a certain disparity that we must deal with. There are also many extreme requirements, clarinets are constantly in the three-line position, which they do not normally use, and when they do, they are not asked to play ppp or pppp. Now they are asked to play it constantly and it cannot be achieved to the extent that the recording allows. So we had to modify the dynamics a bit for the sound to work homogeneously.
Do you have the production of the opera written among ideas for the future at the request of the Brno National Theatre?
This is already happening, but I would prefer not to go into detail. In the upcoming seasons, we want to perform major contemporary operas and initiate the creation of new works of our composers. We have already begun negotiations with the younger middle-age generation, here I am referring to composers such as František Chaloupka or Michal Nejtek. So we will see how it goes.
At the beginning, Jiří Heřman told me that you should also write something.
I am, of course, avoiding turning the National Theatre into my own playground. Such conflicts of interest bothered me with others and they bother me with myself, too. On the other hand, it is true that after Čarokraj, many people, even from within the theatre, ask me so there is a certain demand. Something is planned and it should be more concrete in about two seasons.
At the end, I would like to ask you how you like working in Brno?
Specifically, in this performance, I cannot imagine working on it with any other theatre orchestra in the country. The Brno orchestra surprised me quite pleasantly with their support for contemporary music and their ability to perform it when they brought Čarokraj to the Janáček Theatre. They quickly navigate a difficult score and I think that Pavel Šnajdr with his Brno Contemporary Orchestra contributed to it significantly. A lot of people in the ensemble are from the theatre and it may start already with studies at JAMU. There are not nearly as many prejudices towards contemporary music here as elsewhere.
