Extreme Sex in Music and Vision 28 April

Extreme Sex
Set in the aftermath of a nuclear war,
the first performance of
Luca Francesconi's 'Quartett'
is reviewed by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

The Teatro alla Scala has a rather traditional, or more appropriately, conservative audience. Thus, its effective and efficient press office had gently prepared the opening night elegant crowd for the shock of the world premiere of Luca Francesconi's Quartett on 26 April 2011 -- just in the middle of the Easter Holiday when Parsifal or other 'spiritual' and/or 'holy' operas are normally on stage in major European opera houses. Francesconi's latest work for the stage was commissioned by the Teatro alla Scala in co-production with the Vienna Festwochen, English National Opera and Amsterdam Opera, but it was booked by other theatres (mostly French and American) even before its world premiere. A clear signal that sex attracts audience even in electronic acoustics and in eighty minutes of dense text (in English) and music.
Quartett is based on a widely performed play by Heiner Müller, one of the twentieth century's most important avant-garde playwrights. He himself described this text as 'a reflex on the problem of terrorism, using material which on the surface has nothing to do with it'. The play is a dark, playful, and erotically-charged reworking of Chaderlos de Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses in which the familiar characters of the Marquise, and her longtime lover, Valmont, put on mask after mask in an elaborate dance of seduction and perverse love-play. Older now, exhausted from the monotony of pleasure-seeking, they can find sustenance only in their ability to inflict pain on each other. Locked in a power-struggle in which neither will yield, their passion to destroy each other binds them together with a ferocity that can only be dissolved in the cold embrace of death -- in a world just destroyed by a nuclear war. The set is, at the same time, a seventeenth century elegant drawing room and a bunker after a hypothetical World War Three and nuclear death for the humanity. For the two protagonists (a soprano and a baritone), theirs is a haunting journey into a landscape of ache, of the hunger for meaning, and of the fear of the void that yawns beneath our frail civilization and ourselves. Müller's Quartett is a brief dialogue -- only twelve pages in the published text -- with its reptilian imagery in stark opposition to several stage adaptations of Laclos. By reducing the characters to two, Müller focuses on the manipulative power play between Merteuil and Valmont and by having those two play-act each other's roles and the roles of women Valmont seduces, he moves his work close to the terrain of Jean Genet in The Maids.

A scene from Luca Francesconi's 'Quartett' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2011 Rudy Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
Over a decade after his death, Müller continues to have an enormous influence on European playwriting, dramaturgy, and performance. The journal New German Critique devoted a special issue to his work. He is the only playwright to have ever received such an honor. In 2009, one of Europe's leading intellectual publishing houses, Suhrkamp, issued the final three volumes in a twelve-volume edition of Müller's collected works. The only twentieth century German dramatist who holds the same status is Bertolt Brecht. Müller has also paved the way for a new generation of directors, playwrights, and dramaturgs who regard themselves as 'samplers'. Müller adopted Brecht's notion of Kopien (German for 'copying'), the practice of regarding texts by others as material to be used, imitated, and rewritten. In regards to Brecht's own oeuvre, Müller stated 'to use Brecht without criticizing him is treason.' For Müller, the work of other writers and artists was not seen as private property; it was to be used as raw material for his own work. Thus, Müller's work in the theater marks the beginning of a tradition of densely poetic dramaturgy based in the logic of association, rather than linear 'dramatic' narrative. With Müller's work, theater is a forum for examining history; it is 'a dialogue with the dead'.

Allison Cook as the Marquise and Robin Adams as Valmont in Luca Francesconi's 'Quartett' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2011 Rudy Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
Quartett is vastly different from Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the best preferred novel by the unlucky French Queen Marie-Antoinette. Even though Chaderlos de Laclos' novel smells and sweats eroticism at every single page, its intention is moralistic: a plea for better education for young ladies (so that they cannot to be easily seduced by older libertines) and severe punishment for the two dissolute protagonists (the Marquise and her degenerated lover Valmont). Les Liaisons Dangereuses has already been the subject of several movies (directed, eg, by Vadim, Frears, Forman and Kumble) and by two recent operas (by the American Conrad Susa and the Belgian Piet Swets) as well as by a couple of ballets. In my opinion, only Vadim's movie (with Gérard Philippe and Jeanne Moreau as protagonists and a lush black-and-white photography) caught Chaderlos de Laclos' intentions in a transposition of the plot to the Parisian wild 1950s -- the twilights of the Fourth Republic.
Thus, Quartett is Les Liaisons Dangereuses seen through Müller, firstly, and by Francesconi, secondly. Luca Francesconi studied piano at the Conservatory of Milan and composition with Azio Corghi, Karlheinz Stockhausen (in Rome) and Luciano Berio (at Tanglewood). He also spent a period in Boston studying jazz. Between 1981 and 1984 he worked as an assistant to Berio. In 1990 he founded Agon Acustica Informatica Musica in Milan, a center for music research and production using new technologies. His fundamental experience has been at IRCAM, the Parisian contemporary music and electronic music center created and animated by Pierre Boulez. Thus, he has a rather unique language: he is a bridge between Darmstadt's serial twelve note row system and French calligraphic writing, molded with electronic-acoustics. Similar bridge functions have been played by Eötvös, Ligeti, Xenakis, Scelsi and Sani, among others. He is, of course, miles away from improvisation à la Cage and minimalism à la Glass. In Quartett there are ariosos, duets and even a 'cavatina' like in Romantic and neo-Romantica operas, even though the subject is grueling and both the orchestral and the vocal writing are clearly of the twenty first century. Since February 2008, Francesconi has been the Artistic Director of the music sector of the Biennale in Venice. Although he is also a well known conductor and is known mostly for his instrumental music, Francesconi has already a number of successful operas in his handbag. A final comment before focusing on the performance: Quartett is one of the major points of a maxi Festival (Suona Francese -- 'Play as the French do it'), involving one hundred and sixty different events (and over five hundred artists) in forty Italian cities from April to June; this year Suona Francese is entirely dedicated to contemporary music.

Allison Cook as the Marquise and Robin Adams as Valmont in Luca Francesconi's 'Quartett' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2011 Rudy Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
The stage set and direction are entrusted to Alex Ollé and the Catalan Group La Fura Dels Baus. In the center of the stage there is cube midway from the stage and the scenic tower. The cube looks like a bunker but the sparse furnishing recalls the seventeenth century. There the Marquise and Valmont play their extreme sex to death: during the 'cavatina', the Marquise masturbates herself and the play goes on to experience a full gamut of positions (from fellatio to sodomy), but there is neither erotic tension nor joy, as the sex road is geared to tragic death. Vocally, Allison Cook (the Marquise) is almost a coloratura soprano with very impervious acute. Robin Adams (Valmont) is a baritone strong in the central register and in the legato. They both must sing in the most unusual positions and do a commendable job. Around the cube, black and white projections show the aftermath of a major war (most probably a nuclear war) with destruction and aimless people in the ruins. Müller's basic concept is there, but there is not much of Chaderlos'.

Allison Cook as the Marquise and Robin Adams as Valmont in Luca Francesconi's 'Quartett' at Teatro alla Scala, Milan. Photo © 2011 Rudy Amisano. Click on the image for higher resolution
The music is interesting and effective. It requires a large orchestra in the pit (conducted by Susanna Mälkki, one of the most successful Finnish conductors) and a smaller orchestra behind the set (conducted by the young Canadian Jean-Michaël Lavoie), an imposing chorus (echoing The Marquise's and Valmont's troubles) and a large electronic acoustic apparatus which envelopes the audience. As mentioned, the twelve note row system is only partly followed and is mixed with traditional operatic conventions, including an orchestral intermezzo.
Most likely Quartett will go a long way. La Scala's audience was lukewarm; there were neither protest nor contestation but only four curtain calls.
Copyright © 28 April 2011 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

LA SCALA
MILAN
ITALY
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