(Photo: Dutch National Opera/Monika Rittershaus)

(*** Trigger warning based on explicit content & suicide ***)

“Le Lacrime di Eros” takes the audience back to the Italian city states of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, a period still basking in the afterglow of the High Renaissance, in which the artworks of Da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo hung in the houses of the wealthy and adorned the walls of churches, while its cities had been transformed by the fabulous buildings designed by architects such as Palladio and Brunelleschi. The patronage of renowned families, such as the Medici, was instrumental in sustaining this movement with their financial support, as they tried to outdo each other. Music, however, was a late developer. The great Italian composers only started to appear in the later years of the 16th century when the likes of Monteverdi, Caccini, Malvezzi, and others took advantage of the creative and experimental energy that gripped society, which was to give birth to opera in 1597 when Jacopo Peri premiered his work “Dafne” in Florence. It is works by these composers that form the basis for “Le Lacrime di Eros.”

The Renaissance in a Dialogue With the Present

The opera was conceived by its conductor, Raphaël Pichon, who was not interested in simply creating a pastiche of their works but wanted to present them with a coherent narrative in a manner that captured the spirit of experimentation that existed during the period, which he sees as being very similar to that which exists in today’s society, one characterized by a rapid development in technology. His idea was to create a work that presents the music using new technologies in an experimental fashion to form an amalgam of the past and present with the aim of exploring the dark side of love.

It was a collaborative exercise in which Pichon worked alongside the American composer Scott Gibbons and Italian director Romeo Castellucci.

Pichon selected a variety of pieces from Renaissance composers, starting with “Udite, selve, mie dolce parole,” an anonymous piece from 1480, before moving forward to a selection of composers who adopted a more experimental approach, although with occasional examples from the earlier years. The works included dance, short sinfonie, and madrigals for solo voice, duets, and choruses, arranged into six books, each with a distinct theme, associated with love; Book III, for example, entitled ‘Place of Loneliness,’ consisted of four pieces by Alessandro Orologio (1597), Peri (1600), Caccini (1600) and an anonymous composer (1597). Each book was staged as an independent scene, although there were connections between them, notably through the characters of Orfeo and Euridice and its overarching theme of the dark side of love.

Gibbons’ music threads its way through the opera, acting to bind the individual pieces together by providing transitional passages along with the occasional individual number. His music is experimental and is fundamentally different from that selected by Pichon. He used electro-acoustic technology to amplify the sounds of the people and equipment that form the production “to emphasize their real existence.” For example, the machines that are used on stage form part of the music, as do the breathing of the singers and movements of the musicians. In many instances, most people would refer to the composition as sound rather than music. However, it worked very well in creating an atmospheric backdrop to support the drama, and its stark contrast to the music of the Renaissance was not unattractive and successfully opened up a dialogue between the music of the past and the present.

An Opaque Staging That Leaves One Baffled

Castellucci provided a fascinating yet challenging staging, one, however, that had little to do with the music and everything to do with the intellect. He wished to explore the renaissance vision of the pain caused through loss, the fear of losing love, of separation, of yearning and melancholy; a simple and perfectly reasonable response to the selected music and texts, at least that was the initial reaction. In practice, each scene proved almost impossible to decipher. In the prologue, a man sits on a large, white, open stage. A medical operative arrives and drains his blood into a bucket. Later, a mass of plastic, transparent pipes is lowered from the ceiling into which the blood is pumped.

While trying to make sense of what is actually happening, we have moved on to Book I, entitled “Love Machine.” A heap of naked dummies appears at the back of the stage, in front of which a man sits. Another, almost naked, man is performing oral sex on the dummies. Eventually, the scene is brought to a conclusion with the chorus dismembering the dummies and taking the parts off the stage. And thus, the drama continues, moving from one perplexing scene to the next.

Even after reading Castellucci’s program notes, and the meanings become clear, one simply becomes frustrated. Book II, entitled “Love,” for example, revolves around a number of torture scenes, in which, among others, a completely naked man in a black hood is being abused. Ideas of sadomasochism might come to mind, but you would be wrong. Rather, as Castellucci explains, this represents self-inflicted mental torture caused by “the absence of the embrace of their beloved.” Without the director’s explanation, one would have struggled to light upon this interpretation, and when overwhelmed by such obtuse symbols and metaphors, it becomes tiresome; far more enjoyable, therefore, to cease looking for the meaning and concentrate on the music.

On the odd occasion when the meaning was clear, it was still difficult to share Castellucci’s vision. In Book VI, entitled “Counterworld,” we watch a couple commit suicide by attaching a hose from the exhaust to each other’s car window so that they die separated from each other. The music for the scene includes Monteverdi’s madrigal “Zefiro torna, e di soavi accenti,” a sensitive lament about the loss of a lover that even Nature’s beauty cannot assuage. While suicide is a possible reaction for lovers determined to die rather than be separated, why would they do so in two different cars? Of course, Castellucci may have had a more obscure meaning in mind.

The staging did have the occasional positive. The dance routines were imaginative, energetic, even frenzied, and expertly choreographed, and one or two of the scenes did possess a pleasing aesthetic, although this did not make them any more accessible. Ultimately, however, one is thrown back onto the music, which fortunately had a lot to admire.

Strong Musical Performance in Which the Chorus Shines

Pichon, conducting the orchestra Pygmalion, produced a full, multi-layered sound with a depth that one rarely hears from period instrument orchestras, which are usually smaller in size when performing music from the period. Their playing beautifully evoked the spirit of the Renaissance; it was refined, elegant and detailed, in which the textures were carefully revealed and the rhythmic contrasts deftly managed. Melodies were sensitively developed, and the dances furnished with an energetic drive. Most impressive, however, was the degree of connection Pichon was able to build between the orchestra and the chorus; it felt like a single, integrated entity.

In fact, it was the Pygmalion chorus that was the real star of the performance. The sensitivity and subtlety, nuance and sheer dramatic intensity they brought to their interpretations of the choral pieces was at times breathtaking.

The four soloists all engaged fully with Castellucci’s ideas, producing committed performances. Baritone Gyular Orendt, who played the roles of Orfeo and Il Poeta, moved from one state of misery and despair to the next as he suffered all the negative emotions that love’s dark side has to offer. His singing was secure, articulate and expressive, to which he added occasional short embellishments.

Soprano Jeanine De Bique showed off her attractive singing voice, characterized by her tonal beauty, vocal agility and delightful soft phrasing in the of roles Euridice and La Ninfa. Although her presentation of Monteverdi’s “Se I languidi miei sguardi” never managed to capture the full passion of the text, it was nevertheless beautifully sung.

Together, Orendt and De Bique produced a sensitive, moving rendition of “Zefiro torna, e di soavi accenti” in which their two voices converged delightfully to ornament the line.

There were also two minor roles, La Messagiera and Il Pastore, which were both given solid performances by mezzo-soprano Katie Ledoux and tenor Zachary Wilder, respectively.

Ultimately, it was the quality of the music that rescued the evening. Castellucci’s staging was simply too opaque to allow the audience to understand the ideas behind it. Yet, for all my criticisms, I would have liked to have seen it again. One does get a sense that there is something worthwhile in the staging, but it is very unlikely that its meaning could be discerned in one performance.