Los Angeles Opera: “The Stigmatized”
Robert Brubaker as Alviano and Anja Kampe as Carlotta. Photo by Robert Millard
Aficionados of opera, lulled by the lush orchestral melodies of Puccini and Debussy, but preferably without the minimalist makeovers of Robert Wilson and Peter Sellars, should reach for their telephone or go online at once. Franz Schreker’s “The Stigmatized” (1918) won’t let you down.
With a Jewish relative somewhere in the genetic mix, the once immensely popular and – better yet – critically acclaimed Schreker was squelched and silenced when the National Socialist party took power. The composer, who wrote eight major operas according to conductor James Conlon, succumbed to the effects of mounting stress and died two days before his 56th birthday in 1934.
Schrekers’s descent into oblivion wasn’t due entirely to Nazi suppression. Late Romanticism was on the wane even by the 1920s, and the sweeping sounds and lush melodies we associate with it were giving way to the avant-garde music of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berg and Webern.
For the moment, Schreker is the human Pompeii of early 20th century composers. He’s beginning to be excavated, but to what extent remains to be seen. “The Stigmatized” – and there really doesn’t seem to be a better translation of “Gezeichneten,” unless you prefer “The Branded” or “The Marked Ones” – gets fairly sentimental, even sappy (and other works, like “Der ferne Klang,” or “The Distant Sound,” don’t seem any better), but there’s more than enough to like and even to adore in this new production. New, because apparently this is the very first time a Schreker opera has received a staged treatment in North America.
That also means that (unlike the case with, say, “Madama Butterfly”) you’ll need a brief synopsis.
First of all, “The Stigmatized” is set in 16th century Genoa, but the visuals – and what visuals they are! – have been transferred to fin-de-siècle Vienna.
Alviano Salvago (the nicely emotive Robert Brubaker) is a young nobleman – so far, so good – who is also a crippled hunchback – umm, not so good – with the aesthetic sensibility of a Bernard Berenson or Kenneth Clark. He has taken an offshore islet and fashioned it into an Eden-like preserve or sanctuary that resembles the shape – although hardly the mood – of Arnold Böcklin’s “Isle of the Dead.”
Elysium, as this enchanting oasis is called, is about to be deeded to the city. A framed, aerial blueprint of the island can be seen hanging among Alviano’s pictures by Egon Schiele. However, unbeknownst to him, there is a grotto in the lower recesses of the island – its sexual nucleus – where bacchanalian orgies have been taking place, although “orgies” might be putting too gentle of a spin on it. Other well-to-do young men have been abducting the wives and daughters of prominent Genoese families and taking them to the island where – as we shall see – they are ravished against their will.
This rather salacious and perhaps self-gratuitous aspect of “The Stigmatized” should be considered in the context of what was making the rounds in Schreker’s day: “Salome,” by Richard Strauss, and “Samson et Dalila,” by Camille Saint-Saëns; not to mention the provocative art of Gustav Klimt, Franz von Stuck, and Félicien Rops; the stories and plays of Arthur Schnitzler; and the public’s fascination with the theories of Sigmund Freud.
There is, of course, a pretty young heroine. Carlotta (Anja Kampe) is a painter somewhat akin to the composer Arnold Schoenberg (he painted, too, in the Expressionist manner of Otto Dix and Oskar Kokoschka), who appears to fall in love with Alviano, but who later will be brutally courted and seduced by Count Andrea Vitelozzo Tamare (Martin Gantner). Meanwhile, the scene in Carlotta’s studio has warm, creamy tones and faintly evokes the Victorian-era Orientalism of Lawrence Alma-Tadema. And that leads me to the opera’s second heroine.
This is the video artist Wendall Harrington, whose projections onto scrims fore and aft more than make up for the restrictions that this production had been facing, primarily the use of limited props and a steeply raked stage that’s in place to accommodate the concurrent and big-budgeted rendition of Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung” (my review of which, ahem, is on the Easy Reader website). The last time I’d seen video projection used so effectively at L.A. Opera was for “Fidelio,” and it was employed to depict the bluish-green depths where Florestan is held prisoner. This time, however, the effect is mesmerizing and cinematic throughout.
For example, the opening of the third act – just after intermission – calls to mind the “Nocturnes” of Debussy, and the music is complemented by the silhouettes of gondolas skidding across the surface of the water to Elysium. It’s very painterly, this prelude, and seemingly a merging of live action and animation that’s actually more riveting than anything we’d see on a movie screen (George Coates did stuff like this in the ‘80s). There’s the hint of a vast pleasure outing along the lines of a fête galante (think Watteau’s “Embarkation for Cythera”), and once the visuals actually transport us onto the island there’s an array of scenes that suggest or paraphrase the late 19th century Symbolist art of France and Belgium and, yes, Austria. In particular, I would point to the scene where Carlotta and the shady Duke Adorno (sung with true gravitas by James Johnson) are strolling through a wooded meadow while the sun glitters through the trees. Very effective.
But “The Stigmatized” is about the corruption of the beautiful – and a portrait of a fracturing world, and there’s a certain contingent of society, the young men already referred to, that does not want Elysium turned over to the public. The conclusion, thus, will not be a happy one. But that’s opera, isn’t it?
Schreker’s score is lavish and florid, and it captures the excesses that populate his libretto. Of course, opera – and more especially Romantic opera – is more about suggestion and intimation than floodlights and explication, which is why the bacchanalian orgy, when crystallized into a rather graphic rape, veers sharply from the tone of the work as a whole. That’s not to say that I shielded my eyes when the young actress on stage was divested of her clothing, but the incident could have been veiled without losing its impact or significance. On the other hand, the same director, Ian Judge, gave us the cavorting bodies in Venusberg, in the opening act of “Tannhäuser,” which was tantalizing but more sensibly bathed in a dim red glow.
This is a lengthy opera, and it slows down here and there and even gets a little confusing, perhaps because Schreker was hoping to engage us on many levels at once. Well, by and large he succeeds, and this production is solidly behind him pretty much all the way. I’d been anticipating seeing it ever since James Conlon gave us a snippet as part of the first “Recovered Voices” program some four seasons ago, and I was not disappointed. I truly hope it gets the attention it deserves.
The Stigmatized, in German with English subtitles, is being performed Sunday at 2 p.m., Thursday, April 22, at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, April 24, at 7:30 p.m., in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles in the Music Center. Running time, three hours, 20 minutes. Tickets (and please note the reasonable prices) range from $15 to $125. Call (213) 972-8001 or go to laopera.com. ER