Salome, Bastille, 26/09/2003

Seconde chronique en anglais de l'Opéra Bastille de 2003, rescapée de mes archives: les débuts de Karita Mattila en Salomé!


Karita Mattila has become a favorite in Paris. After her sublime Lisa at the Opéra Bastille and her wonderful Arabella and Jenufa at the Châtelet, I had been waiting with impatience for her debut as Salome for the last two years. On the hand, I was a bit frightened by the idea that Lev Dodin would be the stage director. I have a problem with him: his psychiatric setting for The Queen of Spades three years ago destroyed the whole enchantment of one of the most fantastic music performances I have ever attended in my life, also with Mattila, and there were Keenlyside, Dernesch, Zaremba, Gerello and outstanding and exciting tenor and conductor: Galouzine and Jurovski.

I was glad to see that the staging of this new Salome is far more interesting and exciting, without pollution of false good-ideas. Lev Dodin respects the spirit of the work and offers both the elegance and perversity required by Wilde and Strauss. Regarding singers direction, I would add I have rarely seen such truth in actors on stage (especially in the main role) since the last Chereau productions. The stage depicts the terrace of a Mediterranean palace beautifully. The moon follows its course, changes the color of the sky and is hidden by a total eclipse as soon as the closing scene begins. The audience suddenly shares with Herodes thr feeling of an upcoming supernatural event. Iokanaan is in a jail, a metallic cage, Salome often climbs to adopt the position of a cat watching a bird before attacking it. The work Dodin has carried out directing Mattila is outstanding. At the beginning, this tall beautiful woman performs to perfection the childish attitude, aggressive and capricious, perhaps more cruel than perverse - definitely evil. She does not play the angel with any of the male characters, being definitely sexually provocative and violent. Her dance is astonishingly complicated for an opera singer, and I know everybody expects one to tackle the following issue when the issue is a performance of Salome: yes, she ends the seven veils song quite naked, in a very elegant manner. Nevertheless, the most provocative idea of the setting is the final minutes, when Salome after having kissed a long time with violence Iokannan's head, lies on the ground, masturbating and singing with exhausted voice the satisfaction of her desire. Words may be shocking, but in a context where Salome has never shown any inhibition all the performance long, it appears very obvious it is the only way Salome could behave at this time.

Mattila's performance tonight was one of the most miraculous I have ever seen on a stage. However, she is first a singer. And what a singer… All the psychological aspects of her stage performance are rendered with perfection in the voice. It reflects, depending of each moment, pure seduction, aggressive cruelty, childishness, provocation, and in the last minutes of the opera, the satisfaction of her violent orgasm. Her ability to inflect her words is the one of a Lieder singer, but the final scene shows all the transformation of Mattila's voice in true hoch dramatisch soprano. The lower register sounds perhaps a bit weak, but it would be unfair not to acknowledge this Salome as probably the best since Anja Silja, for her blended of beauty and truth on stage, with a glorious, powerful and sensual voice. Mattila's performance enters tonight the list of few unforgettable performances I have seen on a stage, in the same class of Rita Gorr's First Prioress, Leonie Rysanek's Klytaemnestra, Waltraud Meier's Ortrud or Anja Silja's Kostelnicka. Is there anything else to add?

Speaking of Anja Silja, she was Herodias, singing with class, incisiveness and presence. The voice is decreasing in size, but intensity remains and she belongs to the race of singers magnetic as soon as they enter on stage. There was true emotion when Karitta Mattila embraces Silja at the final curtain with joy and spontaneity: I could not resist to the idea that the greatest Salome of the 20th century was passing the role to the greatest Salome of beginning of the 21st one. Falk Struckmann is well known in Paris. He is an immense artist, and his Iokanaan is definitively superb. The voice seems less arrogant it used to be, but the expressivity and intensity of his diction has improved. Although his performance was hidden by the feline magnetism of Mattila, he was definitely up to the level of what was happening on stage tonight, singing and acting with presence and charisma. Regarding charisma, stage and vocal presence, Chris Merritt's Herod is outstanding. The ancient Rossinian tenor has transformed his voice into the one of a true heldentenor. Powerful, subtle with words, Merritt has communicated a rare intensity to his verbal expression, with a ringing and easy voice, and his usual glorious upper register. Finally, William Burden, Felicty Lott's Paris in Minkowski production of Offenbach's La Belle Hélène two years ago at the Châtelet, has sung a beautiful, lyrical and intense Nabarroth. James Conlon conducted the performance with professionalism, with attention to stage regarding sound intensity and a taste for transparence in his orchestra. Nevertheless, I have noticed a lack of enchantment, and little imagination for Straussian colors in such a marvelous and hypnotizing score.

Lev Dodin's and Mattila's work on the main character, Mattila's own vocal performance, the magnetic presence of Merrit and Silja, the greatness of Struckmann and the beautiful contribution of Burden have made this night one of the outstanding events all opera lovers long for. Definitively outstanding, and a well deserved triumph for this new production of Salome at the Opéra Bastille.