Lammermuir Festival: Scottish Opera: Daphne
St Mary’s, Haddington - 07/09/23
The first day of this year’s Lammermuir Festival got off to a flying start, with two chamber music concerts and a concert performance of Richard Strauss’s one act opera from 1938, ‘Daphne’. I was able to go to ‘Daphne’, a work I sang in more than 30 years ago in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and I loved the concert, which was a sell-out!
I have a couple of caveats to deal with first:
St Mary’s Church, Haddington, is a wonderful venue for many concerts, but I am not convinced about its value for concert performances of high romantic opera. The whole East end was filled with the Scottish Opera Orchestra, conducted by Stuart Stratford, Music Director of the company. In the Crossing, between the orchestra and the audience, a stage had been erected on which the cast performed from memory in a semi-staged and costumed production by Emma Jenkins. The company had performed the opera in the Theatre Royal in Glasgow on Tuesday, so were comfortable with the staging. However, there would have been no time really to balance the voices and the orchestra, and the conductor was physically behind the singers at all times. The cast could see him on their monitor screens, but I didn’t feel that Mr Stratford could possibly gauge whether the singers could be heard over the enormous full symphony orchestra in real time, and for a lot of the opera, the voices were simply overwhelmed. Obviously, in a theatre, the band is in the pit and the singers on stage, and there will have been two or three full orchestral rehearsals to work out the balance. Ideally, for me, any opera after the early years of the 19th century is too big for the venue, and perhaps this could be kept in mind for the future.
My other grouse is that, in keeping with modern operatic practice, the director decided to offer us her thoughts and ideas on Richard Strauss’s relationship with the Nazi Regime in Germany at the time of the opera’s premiere in Dresden in 1938. Daphne, the chaste tree-lover, was identified with Sophie Scholl, a non-violent opponent of Nazi rule who was executed in 1943, and Apollo, the Sun God, was supposed to represent an arch-Nazi, complete with leather boots etc.. The shepherds and fisherfolk, celebrating the Feast of Dionysus with drinking and lewd behaviour, were representative of the seedy decadence of the Weimar Republic. Now there are obvious parallels to be drawn, but do we really need it forced down our throats, especially in a concert performance? Surely it is much better to let the audience make up their own minds and let Strauss’s wonderful music do the rest.
Finally, and I am sorry to have been negative about a show that was so good, we come to the music and the singing and playing, which was fabulous!
As I wrote in my preview for the EMR, the main reason ‘Daphne’ is rarely performed is because of its extreme difficulty. It needs a tireless soprano, a deep contralto, a charismatic bass, and two tenors, who are given roles which defy belief. We just about got away with it in 1990, and Scottish Opera have managed to find a cast to do justice to Strauss’s fantastic music in 2023.
The role I sang all those years ago was Peneios, Daphne’s father. It’s a lovely part, and in Dingle Yandell (which must qualify as one of the best names in modern opera!), we heard perhaps the best voice of the evening. I first met Dingle when he sang the Doctor in Garsington Opera’s ‘Pelléas et Mélisande’ in 2017, when I was singing King Arkel, and you could hear, even then, a quality voice. He has matured well in the years since and dominated the stage from his first entrance tonight. He is a tall man, and although he was given a thankless task as a sort of Master of Ceremonies by the director, with much hand waving, his voice effortlessly carried throughout the church, and rang out impressively. After several years as a founding member of the vocal ensemble ‘Voces8’, he is now in demand as an operatic bass, and has a fine career in front of him.
For a composer who was celebrated as one of the very finest writers for soprano voice, Strauss was deeply confused by the tenor voice. Many of his tenor roles are near impossible to sing, often requiring a heroic tenor on a Wagnerian scale, combined with the high notes of a Rossini tenor. Both Leukippos and Apollo in ‘Daphne’ are such roles, particularly Apollo, but Scottish Opera has found two pretty good singers to attempt these killer roles, and I salute Shenghzi Ren and Brad Cooper for tackling them, and really excelling in them.
The Chinese tenor, Shengzhi Ren, who was a Scottish Opera Emerging Artist in the Covid year of 2020/21, has a lovely lyric voice, ideal for the likes of Fenton, Ferrando and Nemorino, but was able to stretch out into the heavier challenge of Leukippos, Daphne’s young suitor, to thrilling effect. Strauss’s demands are high, but Mr Ren coped with the extremely high tessitura with aplomb. His acting is a little stiff, but that can be remedied, and he conveyed a personable character on stage, catching the flavour of a shy youth suddenly realising that he must stand up for himself in the face of a challenge from a godlike character in Apollo.
As Apollo, the Australian Brad Cooper coped manfully with the almost impossible task of singing a role which is long, loud and high. He was encumbered with the director’s desire for an arrogant Nazi to attempt to seduce and dominate Daphne. The character is already arrogant and self-satisfied enough without adding layers of fascism, and I felt sorry he had to do so much strutting and gesticulating. The voice is quite exciting, and apparently tireless – given that he had sung the role on stage only two nights ago, this performance was heroic in the extreme. The impossibly high tessitura was mostly dealt with and I liked the way he softened the character at the end, when he realises what he has done, and tries to make amends by asking Zeus to turn Daphne into a tree (a fate she welcomes, by the way). He probably needs to go and lie down in a darkened room for the next few days!
As the eponymous heroine, the South Korean soprano, Hye Youn Lee was a revelation. This was a world class performance by a singer at the height of her powers, nicely acted and beautifully sung. Ms Lee is well-known to Scottish Opera audiences, having sung such roles as Micaela, Mimi and Cio-Cio San, but this was on an altogether different level. Rising to the challenge of one of Strauss’s great soprano roles, she coped with all the high notes, the huge soaring phrases and the simple tree melody at the end with unflagging excellence. Burdened with the unnecessary mantle of Sophie Scholl, she painted a sympathetic portrayal of the chaste young girl, who wants nothing more than to commune with nature, and to enjoy the sun. Whatever the role threw at her- huge orchestration, astounding high notes, long phrases- she sang with poise and musical intelligence. A triumph.
Among the smaller parts, which were all excellently cast, I liked the Scottish baritone, Ross Cumming and the Ukrainian soprano, Inna Husieva, both Emerging Artists for the forthcoming season, and the Edinburgh soprano, Catriona Hewitson, who had impressed me so much at this year’s New Year Messiah in the Usher Hall. I do hope Scottish Opera continues to reward local talent, and to give more Scottish singers a chance to sing some more substantial parts. As a company artist with Scottish Opera back in 1982, I learned an enormous amount from working with established artists in my own country. There is so little opera in Scotland, compared with almost all other countries in Europe, that if we don’t develop our own singers in our national company, they won’t get the chance to develop properly as artists.
Despite my caveat about balance, Stuart Stratford conducted a ravishing performance of this most luscious of scores, with fine work from all the instrumental principals, and it was a privilege to be able to hear once again this phenomenal, if slightly flawed, opera. When it returns, to the Usher Hall, in three months’ time on December 10th, it will be worth going along to hear this astonishing late work of the 74 year old composer.
Cover photo: Sally Jubb
