A Tale of Two Sélikas

A review of L’Africaine, Opéra National du Rhin, Théâtre Municipal, Strasbourg, 17 and 20 June 2004

The Opéra National du Rhin has long been known as one of France’s foremost opera companies, and it has added further lustre to its reputation with its splendid new production of L’Africaine, in which for the first time in years a French company pays proper tribute to this important but neglected opera. The Théâtre Municipal, with its charming if slightly dusty-looking red, cream and gold auditorium seating 1142 on five levels, is a good size for the piece, large enough for epic scale but small enough for the level of intimacy which is necessary if the opera is not to descend into brainless spectacle.

Jean-Claude Auvray’s production pays fascinating tribute to the nineteenth century conventions within which the opera was first staged. Before the opera begins, the curtain rises on a bare stage, with only a dingy grey backcloth and the “lume de voyeuse”, the watchlight, to be seen (in the nineteenth century French theatres were never completely dark). As the conductor enters the pit, the curtain descends and, in the wings, a staff is thumped on the floor to signal the start of the performance, an old French theatrical custom which still survives in some theatres today. The curtain stays down for the overture and Inès’s scene, then rises to reveal the Council Chamber, dominated by a domed floor beautifully painted to represent a map of the known world in Vasco da Gama’s time. Serried rows of chairs are placed in a semicircle in front of a huge white canvas, suspended from a flybar, onto which is projected an image of the chamber. The use of the twenty-first century projection combined with the nineteenth century canvas is a staging post in our journey back to the theatre of the nineteenth century. All the costumes invoke the late sixteenth century without being precise copies: Vasco and the nobles wear splendid Elizabethan suits of black or brown leather, the nobles with velvet cloaks with their names embroidered on them, the clerics are in long, sombre grey and brown robes, and Inès and Anna in slightly fantastical period gowns, the former with a leather bodice and jewelled collar and headdress. Against all these sombre colours, the light, floating garments of Sélika and Nélusko stand out in splendid contrast, the former’s vivid blue in particular making her a focal point wherever she is on the stage. For Act 2, the cloth is lowered to the ground, leaving the grey backcloth and the domed floor to represent the prison, and Vasco studies the map at “Terrible et fatal promontoire”.

During the six-minute pause between Acts 2 and 3, a black-and-white animation of a ship in stormy seas is projected onto the curtain, augmented with suitable sound effects. When the curtain rises, the stage is bare apart from a ship’s wheel, then during the prelude, the ship is created before our eyes using nineteenth century theatrical techniques. It is as though, following the mixture of old and new methods used in Acts 1 and 2, as we come closer to the exotic east, the recreation of the older theatrical styles take over, luring the audience towards Vasco’s “Paradis”. There are no more projections: instead exquisitely painted cloths representing the sea and the side of the ship are flown in and rigging is lowered and attached to the stage by the sailors. A wind machine is set in one corner. A light, gauzy cloth is lowered in front of the ship cloth to represent a sail. As the scene is assembled, Nélusko strolls in along a walkway, still donning a sailor costume which turns him, superficially at least, into a Portugese, the character being assembled along with the setting. (Later he adds a scarlet cloak which, in the livid, pre-storm light, stands out like a beacon, a messenger of death.) While Don Alvar and Don Pedro discuss him, he is dimly glimpsed eavesdropping on them behind the gauze sail, and as he pushes it gently it billows as though in a strengthening wind. At “Gouvernez vers le nord!” it is raised using a nineteenth century theatrical winch. The ship appears to have no sides, so that Vasco’s rowing boat draws up at stage level and he steps straight out of it onto the deck! (Nineteenth century stage shipping appears not to have been very true to life - the best description I have found is the chapter on The Sailor in Jerome K. Jerome’s Stage-Land [1], which is satiric but probably accurate). The storm is spectacular, with sailors operating the wind machine and swirling the sails, cloths and rigging, and native warriors swinging across the stage on ropes to strike the sailors down as Nélusko, tearing off the hated Portugese costume, stabs the still unsuspecting Don Pedro (who sinks to his death down a hatchway) and rushes out along a walkway.

In Act 4, “Paradis” has taken over, with a gloriously ornate backcloth painted with a beach strewn with broken boats and a magnificent golden temple backed by lush foliage, like an exotic vision from another world. The ballet, depicting native dancers harassing and eventually bearing away a Portugese survivor, is based on a good idea but the choreography is unimpressive. I was amused to note that Sélika and Nélusko have apparently been away from home long enough for fashions to have changed, as the former’s magnificent Victorian ballgown (still in the same ravishing blue) and the latter’s long robe and red boots are totally unlike the long purple robes and veiled sombreros of the female chorus and the tattooed bodystockings and feathers of the male chorus (Very nineteenth century, though, for the principals to dress in a totally different style to the chorus). For Act 5 Scene 1, the backcloth depicts a lush tropical landscape, Inès’s “Fleures nouvelles, arbres nouveaux”, but the image is divided into two like a stereoscopic slide, perhaps showing how the world is going out of joint. The final scene has one last, small cloth, hung in the centre of the stage, with the mancenillier tree painted on it in sombre tones. Fallen flowers, red as blood, are scattered over the ground. Behind it, the sea backcloth from Act 3 is hung at an angle. Sélika stands at centre as handmaidens divest her of her ornaments and leave her to her fate. She gathers up the flowers, her “bouquet nuptial”, and inhales them, then takes up the hem of the cloth and drapes it about her like a bridal veil. It falls from the flybar and she walks forward, still swathed in it, only letting it go as she falls to the ground. Nélusko, meanwhile, has crept in from the auditorium and conceals himself in a fold of the stage curtain. As she falls, he comes forward, sinks to his knees, takes up a couple of flowers, inhales them, and falls, rolling over and becoming entangled in the cloth as he dies while Sélika rises and walks out at the back during the final chorus. The sea backcloth rises, leaving the stage with the “lume de voyeuse” as at the beginning. The opera is over: the wheel has come full circle.

Recognising that a modern orchestra is louder and ‘heavier’ than its nineteenth century equivalent, and that in the 1860s there would have been a thrust stage, Auvray provides something of the same sense of intimacy by staging several important scenes wholly or partly in front of the closed curtains. This device is sometimes used for continuity, for instance during the end of Act 5, Scene 1, which ends in front of the curtains while the stage is reset for Scene 2, which can then continue without a break. Major arias, including “O paradis” and “Adieu, mon doux rivage” are given this treatment. On a stiflingly hot night in a theatre without air conditioning, I wondered how the singers felt about having to sing important passages directly in front of sound-absorbing velvet drapes. During full-stage scenes, singers sometimes come out onto walkways on either side of the orchestra pit, focussing attention on the character(s) involved, helping them to project over heavy orchestration and allowing “asides” to be delivered away from the main action – this is particularly effective in “L’avoir tant adorée” and the final invocation of “Fille des rois”. Many entrances and exits are made via pass doors at either side of the stalls, using the walkways to reach the stage. All this creates a real sense of contact between the singers and the audience, which becomes vital in enlisting the sympathy of the audience for the characters, as this is a production which pays this sometimes derided opera the compliment of treating it seriously. Despite the constantly present motifs of nineteenth century practice to remind us of the artificiality of the stage performance, the emotions and dilemmas of the characters are convincingly and movingly presented from first to last.

Cuts were, of course, regrettable but inevitable. Some were obvious (e.g. a good two-thirds of the ballet, which was just as well given the standard of the dancing and choreography), others more puzzling. To present Acts 1 and 2 with only minor cuts and then to impose savage cuts on the remainder threatened to unbalance the whole. I would gladly have exchanged some of the endless debates in the Council Chamber for more of Meyerbeer’s and Scribe’s carefully organised plot and character developments in Act 3 (where the cuts were especially brutal), the slashed central section of “L’avoir tant adorée” or the finale to Act 4, the omission of which meant that Vasco was not allowed to hear Inès’s voice offstage, and therefore did not know that she was alive until they met in Act 5. In Act 5, Inès’s aria “Fleures nouvelles, arbres nouveaux” and her duet with Vasco, both often cut, were restored, but at the cost of a deep cut in her crucial duet with Sélika, which is surely more important to the drama, and – most gratuitous of all – the omission of the final Sélika/Nélusko duet. What possessed the ONR to start the evening performances as late as 20.00? To start an hour, or even half an hour, earlier would have enabled us to hear so much more music.

The late withdrawal of Carolyn Sebron meant that the role of Sélika was shared between Sylvie Brunet and Isabelle Vernet. The latter sang only one performance, on 17 June. Thus the performance dates I had chosen enabled me to compare and contrast the very different vocal and dramatic portrayals of these two singers, which I found a fascinating experience. At times it was like hearing and watching two different operas. Brunet is very much the kind of singer modern audiences expect to see and hear in the role, a tall, glamorous, exotic mezzo-soprano in the Grace Bumbry/Shirley Verrett mould who storms through the role, every inch the imperious queen even in captivity, furious and defiant in the face of every insult - the moment when she silently confronted Inès at “Allons, sortons” in the Act 2 finale was so electric that I thought she would burst into flames. Only with Vasco could she show a softer side, because only he could cause her pain. Her voice is amazingly strong and impressive, and she used it to wonderfully dramatic effect, but she sounded uneasy in some of the higher passages, especially in the final scene. Vernet is a complete contrast, a lyric soprano who does not have the last few ounces of power needed for some of the heavier sections of the role but sounded happier than Brunet in its higher reaches, especially in the daunting “Sur mes genoux”. Dramatically, too, she was completely different. She does not cut such a commanding figure onstage, and used this to emphasise the vulnerability of the young queen who had suffered terribly in slavery and who recognised how her vulnerability was increased by her love for Vasco. The difference between the two singers’ approach to the character was polarised in their attitudes towards Nélusko. The regal Brunet treated him like a faithful dog to be kicked when necessary, looking down on him with disdain and never allowing him the slightest familiarity, even icily snatching her hand away when he tried to kiss it. Almost the only time she touched him was to pull him aside to talk him into confirming her story about her marriage to Vasco, and her treatment of him here highlighted the blatant emotional blackmail of this episode. This had the effect of passing the chain of cruelty and indifference down from Vasco through Sélika to Nélusko, which is a valid way of depicting the situation between the three characters, but I found Vernet’s interpretation much more rewarding and convincing. Her gentler Sélika needed Nélusko just as much as, in a totally different way, she needed Vasco. There was a real sense of two people who had been through a lot together, lonely exiles in a foreign land who depended deeply upon one another and knew and understood each other well. Although he revered her as his queen, she treated him almost as an equal, respecting him as much as he respected her. Their tragedy was that, although she cared very much for Nélusko, she could not return his love. She wanted to be able to show him more consideration, but was painfully aware of how volatile their relationship had become: at “De trouver près de toi” she made to lay a hand on his arm, but drew back, realising that even this slight gesture could ignite a powder keg. There was a great gentleness in the understanding between them, tellingly demonstrated in the moment in Act 2 when, having awakened Vasco, she put a tray into Nélusko’s hands, letting him conceal his dagger beneath it, while singing the words “ton esclave fidèle” with intense sweetness, allowing him to realize that she was getting him out of a difficult situation and could even be saving his life as well as Vasco’s. (Brunet pushed the tray into his hands with an I’ll-deal-with-you-later glare). This approach brought out an important part of the opera’s complex network of relationships, what Letellier has described as “a deep association of loyalty, love and stability operating under the surface commitment of Sélika to Vasco which is never realized except ephemerally, and is doomed to disillusionment and loss.”[2]. I feel that the libretto bears this out: they address each other with remarkable frankness for a queen and her servant, and always use the “tu” form, which would hardly be likely if she were treating him as a despised underling.

A fascinating article by Gérard Condé in the programme[3] observes that an editorial note at the time of the opera’s première designated the role of Sélika as forte chanteuse, to be sung by “the artiste singing Alice in Robert le Diable or Valentine in Les Huguenots”. Condé points out that this and the other designations given were doubtless influenced by the casting in the original production, when Sélika was sung by Marie-Constance Sass, who sang Alice at the Opéra de Paris in 1860 and would sing Valentine there in 1868, but also sang Élisabeth in the disastrous Tannhäuser of 1861 and created Élisabeth de Valois in Don Carlos in 1867. All this suggests that the type of singer originally expected for the part was a strong soprano, stronger than Vernet perhaps, but definitely with her high, bright, pure kind of voice. Looking at Letellier’s meticulous list[4]of twentieth centuryproductions, early in the twentieth century the role was associated with sopranos such as Ponselle, Rethberg, Raisa, Konetzni, Caniglia. Only in the 1960s and after did it become more associated with mezzo-oriented voices such as Veasey, Bumbry and Verrett. I would therefore conclude that Brunet’s mezzo-soprano (which I would regard as vocally nearer Eboli than Élisabeth de Valois!) is what modern audiences have come to expect, and better conveys the exoticism expected of the role, but that Vernet could be nearer what was originally intended. Now we have to see whether the prevailing fashion for this role will remain with the mezzo-soprano voice or shifts back to the soprano.

Vasco is, of course, the hardest role in the opera to cast: Condé[5] points out that although the editorial note at the time of the première designated the role as fort ténor, to be sung by “the tenor singing Raoul in Les Huguenots”, it is placed much more in the centre of the voice than Raoul or Arnold in Guillaume Tell, and that Emilio Naudin, the first Vasco, later sang Don Carlos. Given the additional weight of a modern orchestra, it is no wonder that it is almost impossible to find tenors nowadays who can sing the Meyerbeer roles, combining as they do the elegance of a tenore di grazia with the strength of a tenore di forza (The casting of Don Carlos often faces the same problem). In an interview in the programme[6], Jean-Claude Auvray observes that it was a miracle to have discovered Bojidar Nikolov. The company certainly could not have contemplated staging the opera without him. He attacks the role fearlessly, with a thrilling, open sound which reaches all the notes with room to spare but can turn raw in alt and sacrifice vocal beauty for volume. Consequently he was more successful in the heroic than the lyric aspects of the role, and “O Paradis” missed the hushed wonder that it should have, although his singing of it was warmly appreciated by the audience. He is a tall, handsome man with a commanding stage presence so long as he doesn’t move, but unfortunately his acting ability is minimal (in the course of two performances I was not aware of seeing his pleasant face change its expression once!) and he moves awkwardly onstage. This threw more of the dramatic burden onto his colleagues than would normally be the case, and I was particularly impressed by the way that Vernet coped with his lack of responsiveness. His French was the worst I have heard in twenty-four years of operagoing. When the performance began, I wondered why on earth the ONR thought it necessary to surtitle a French opera for a French audience, but when Nikolov began to sing I realised why – if it wasn’t for the surtitles, I would not have understood a word and would have wondered whether he was really singing in French!

If Vasco created a bland impression due to lack of acting ability, this was more than compensated for by Nélusko, whose blazing intensity carried the performance along like a tidal wave. Peter Sidhom, as much a life force as a baritone, sang this difficult role with great power, riding the waves of orchestral sound and steering around the vocal hairpin bends with surprising flexibility for such a huge voice - and his French was perfect. The sheer intensity of his interpretation sometimes made for raw high notes, and some might wish for a little more vocal elegance, but this became irrelevant in the face of his total, overwhelming identification with the role, in the mixture of passion, fury, tenderness and fierceness which he imparted to this complex character. This “noble guerrier” could never truly be a slave, any more than Sélika: even at his first entrance he was coolly looking around the Council Chamber, appraising it, more than a match for any man there. His fierce defiance was at its most unnerving when he appeared servile, as when he encountered a deeply suspicious Don Alvar during the Act 2 finale and bowed with assumed humility, and when, shortly after, he offered his services to Don Pedro. In Act 3 he came into his own, and in “Adamastor” (his singing of which has haunted me for weeks) he seemed larger than life, personifying the fury of the elements, terrifying the sailors with his wild laughter as he spun the ship’s wheel and used the song to openly defy the dumbfounded Don Pedro. The end of Act 3 was overwhelming, dominated by his fierce joy as he reverted to savagery, casting off his Portugese jacket, stabbing Don Pedro and exulting in the massacre. As I indicated earlier, Nélusko’s relationship with Sélika differed greatly according to which soprano was singing. Sidhom evidently found it rewarding to work with Vernet, who responded to him so much more, enabling them to create that deep rapport between the two characters. This was especially true of the “Fille des rois” scene in Act 2, and it also enabled him to maximise the impact of “L’avoir tant adoreé” in Act 4, where the sense of pain and betrayal was palpable. In that sudden stillness, broken only by the sound of two cor anglais, we could almost hear Nélusko’s heart break. But their most touching moment was still to come, in the recitative at the end of Act 5, Scene 1, when she told him to meet her at the mancanillier, and he reeled in horror at the realization that she intended to commit suicide. In answer to his passionate warning she answered, again with that great sweetness, “Je le sais…je le sais,” and turned away. Unable even now to declare his love, he clasped her shoulders from behind and laid his head on her shoulder, letting that gesture say all that he could not, but she gently disengaged herself as she continued “Mais de ces lieux…” and he could only stumble away in despair. It was an incredibly moving moment. Brunet, as ever, took a different approach, moving away as he tried to clasp her (in all fairness, she had to – her gown was far more revealing than Vernet’s, and his touch might inadvertantly have removed it!) but watched him as he stumbled away, making to follow him as though only just realising that her decision had condemned him, too, to die. After that it was such a crying shame that the beautiful final duet was cut, but at least Nélusko was allowed to return to die silently with Sélika. He had to – in this powerful and moving interpretation there was simply no possibility that he could have gone on without her.

The cuts to Acts 3 and 4 unfairly meant that Inès had to open the opera, suffer throughout Acts 1 and 2 and then virtually disappear until Act 5. In between she was only allowed two brief lines in Act 3 and a silent appearance in Act 4, being dragged with Anna to the mancenillier. Nicoleta Ardelean looked a treat and sang with exquisite beauty and flawless attention to vocal decoration, especially in a gorgeous account of “Adieu, mon doux rivage” to launch the evening, but it was probably not her fault that she did not make the character very interesting. The restoration of “Fleures nouvelles, arbres nouveaux” and her duet with Vasco enabled her to re-establish the character in Act 5 in time for her confrontation with Sélika, but she was not helped by having to play the aria almost as a mad scene. Nicolas Testé looked and acted well as Don Pedro, but the voice was disappointingly muddy. Among the minor roles, I was particularly impressed by Alain Gabriel’s Don Alvar, a lovely lyric voice allied to impressive acting ability. Antoine Garcin’s Don Diego, Simone Totelecan-Ivas’s Anna, Frédéric Caton’s whippet-like Grand Inquisiteur and Cyril Rovery’s Grand Brahmine were also worthy of note. I have learned from site.operadatabase.com, a French web forum, that Rovery sang Nélusko with great success in Act 3 of the 2 July performance in Mulhouse, after Sidhom collapsed onstage during Act 2 – fortunately Sidhom recovered enough to sing Acts 4 and 5 and to sing the final performance two days later.

Edward Gardner, a very young English conductor, is a name new to me (the shame of it! – I’m English, and I’d never heard of him!) but is definitely one to watch. Although he appears so youthful that the end of the performance looked to be well past his bedtime, he conducted with astonishing command and assurance, catching the exotic, romantic and epic quality of the work. This is clearly a score that he appreciates very much. Would that there were more like him to spread the Meyerbeerian word!

The ONR have done Meyerbeer and L’Africaine proud. Is it too much to hope that this remarkable production may be shared among other opera houses in France and abroad, to give a wider audience a chance to see and hear it?

[1] Jerome K. Jerome, “Stage-Land: Curious Habits and Customs of its Inhabitants”, first published by Chatto & Windus, 1889. Available online at http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/stg-sail.htm

[2] Robert Ignatius Letellier, History, Myth and Music in a Theme of Exploration: Some Reflections on the Musico-Dramatic Language of Meyerbeer's L'Africaine, published in "Meyerbeer und das europäische Musiktheater", ed. Sieghart Döhring and Arnold Jacobshagen, Laaber 1998, also published at the Meyerbeer Fan Club website.

[3] Gérard Condé, “Les Voix de “L’Africaine”, programme for L’Africaine, Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg, May 2004.

[4] Letellier, ibid.

[5] Condé, ibid.

[6] Jean-Claude Auvray and Cathérine Jordy, “ Le théâtre, ses machines et ses émotions”, programme for L’Africaine, Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg, May 2004.