Gripping and Engrossing in Music and Vision 12 September

Gripping and Engrossing

'Otello' in an immigration camp
at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest,
experienced by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Every other year, just when the Salzburg Festival ends, the Enescu Festival begins in Bucharest and other Romanian cities and towns. As The Guardian wrote some time ago, the Romanian Festival is the only competitor to Salzburg in terms of depth, breath and quality of offering. It is an important instrument for nation building through music [read Music and the Pride of a Nation, 20 September 2011] . It started in 1958, just a few years after the composer's death, as a major international event; at that time, the Romanian communist regime was at odds with Moscow. In the seventies and eighties, it became a 'regional' (ie Soviet Bloc) Festival.
Starting in 1991, it began a new life. The turning point came in 1995 when some of the major symphony orchestras performed at the Festival. Now the artistic director is Ioan Holander, the longest serving (eighteen years) Director General of the Vienna State Opera. The 2013 edition includes nearly two hundred performances of opera (even a full Ring), symphony and chamber music. I spent a long weekend in Bucharest and will report in three different articles, dealing with opera, twenty-first century music and symphonic music. I was able to taste only a small sample of the events; the performances start, seven days a week, at 11am and the last concert begins at 10.30pm. In Bucharest, six different stages or halls operate in parallel.
From the large operatic offering (from baroque to modern music theatre), I selected the opening night, 6 September 2013, of a new production of Verdi's Otello because it is the joint work of three women and, as a low cost staging, may travel to other countries. The three women are Vera Nemirova (a young Bulgarian stage director who became internationally known with her staging of Berg's Lulu at the Salzburg Festival a few years ago and also because she modernized the dramaturgy at Frankfurt Opera), Keri-Lynn Wilson (a Canadian conductor who made a name for herself when she was asked to replace Sinopoli in a production of Lohengrin) and Viorica Petrovici (stage sets and costumes, with a long experience in abstract sculpture). This is an innovative and small budget Otello which deserves to be seen in several European countries.

A scene from Act I of Verdi's 'Otello' at the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Photo © 2013 Sorin Lupsa. Click on the image for higher resolution

Its strong points are dramaturgy and setting. We are in a bleak Mediterranean island where the soil is rocky, the sea is grey and the sky is dark. There is a local upper middle class and a well-off military establishment (Cassio, Rodrigo, Emilia and especially Jago); they dress up when the Venetian ambassadors come to the island in the third act. Most of the population are poor immigrants. Other immigrants are coming in on makeshift boats. The Governor's Palace is an immigration camp where Otello and Desdemona are different from the others and increasingly more lonely. She keeps herself busy by helping the immigrants and playing with their children. He knows how to be a stranger and becomes ever weaker, unable to fight for the others (as required), run the camp or handle his own personal life when the evil Jago understands that the 'Governor' can become a deadly tool.

Iulia Isaev as Desdemona and Marius Vlad Budoiu as Othello with members of the chorus in Act I of Verdi's 'Otello' at the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Photo © 2013 Sorin Lupsa. Click on the image for higher resolution

There is violence: the ballet in the first act is almost an orgy where immigrants and guards get drunk and try to harass the women. There is also tenderness; after the first act duet, Othello and Desdemona make love in an inflatable boat. Violence and tenderness are carefully balanced: after the third act duet, Otello tries to rape Desdemona but then cries like a baby. There is a gripping and engrossing dramaturgy where at the end, after Othello has killed Desdemona and before stabbing himself to death, Jago murders Emilia. When the diminuendo closes the opera, Jago appears in high uniform in the first box on the left-side of the stage.

A scene from Act I of Verdi's 'Otello' at the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Photo © 2013 Sorin Lupsa. Click on the image for higher resolution

Keri-Lynn Wilson did marvels with the orchestra and eighty-five-year-old Stelian Olariu did the same with the chorus. There was excellent acting. The singing was just at an average level for a central European opera company. Wagnerian tenor Peter Seiffert was expected to sing the title role, but was replaced by Marius Vlad Budoiu, who can be an excellent 'Alfredo' in Traviata but lacks the stamina to be Othello. Next to him, baritone Stefan Ignat was an impressive Jago. Iulia Isaev was very good in the 'Willow Song' but, due to her small volume, seems to be better as a chamber music soloist than in a dramatic part.

Iulia Isaev as Desdemona and Marius Vlad Budoiu as Othello in Act III of Verdi's 'Otello' at the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Photo © 2013 Sorin Lupsa. Click on the image for higher resolution

The key aspect is that the production will become part of the Romanian National Opera House repertory but, I hope, also travel abroad.