Carlo il Calvo review – Baroque opera made relevant for the modern era

Bayreuth is not all Wagner. Norse Gods, heaving bosomed Valkyrie, magic swords, filched rings, Rhine Maidens, Val and sidekick Halla may all strut their Gesammkunstwerk stuff (note: pretentious use of Wagner’s peculiar spelling of his term for the complete artwork that was his Ring Cycle) all they like in that famous Festival Temple on the hill. It is a totemic, annual pagan ritual. 

Meanwhile, downtown is the lesser-known Margravial Opera House. And it is there that Bayreuth Baroque has set up house to dragoon us all into loving baroque opera, usually a preserve of pseuds and castrato masochists. 

Oddly, “Gesammkuntswerk” is not one of the terms on the Ofcom idiot list of banned abusive language published earlier this week. Clearly an oversight. Alongside the proscribed “Boomer”, “Karen”, and “Snowflake,” terms of self-evident abuse all meant to instil quaking fear into this sensitive generation’s boomer-snowflakes called Karen, “Gesammkuntswerk” is a flamethrower spouting Germanic superiority. 

Too incendiary for today’s wussy airwaves. Italian two-bit composers Verdi, Puccini, France’s wimpy Berlioz, Britain’s – hang on, Britain didn’t really have any 19th-century opera composers – lie scorched on Wagner’s chosen battlefield and fried to a crisp in the heat of his self-asserting total artistic superiority. 

Perhaps “Baroque” should be on the Ofcom banned list, too. In the right hands – Bayreuth Baroque – that post-Renaissance operatic era from the late 16th to mid-18th century, too easily passed over as complex flummery with relentlessly repeated recitatifs and arias banging on about God knows what happened in Greece and in Rome the millennia before – can be a powerful tool, delivering classical or medieval stories cloaked in the immediacy of present-day events.

The Baroque Festival has revived the Margravial venue from its long sleep as a worthy museum to reprise its glory days as a living opera house. Inaugurated in 2020, curbed by Covid-19, resuscitated in 2021 and now announcing its programme for 2022, this new lease on life looks likely to last. 

The 2021 season featured three operas, Carlo il Calvo and Polifemo by Nicola Antonio Porpora and Judas Maccabeus by George Frideric Handel, along with a complementing programme of concerts and recitals. Carlo il Calvo is currently available on Arte TV here.

Prepare for the long haul. At 3 hours 30 minutes run time, it may be only half the length of Herr Wagner’s Götterdämmerung up the hill. It seems longer. That’s because the endless repeats in Baroque opera have not been trimmed. 

Why so long-winded? The thing to remember about Baroque era audiences is that it provided an occasion to be seen in exclusive surroundings, not just an art form to be appreciated. 

Attention spans were short. Audiences milled about, waved across boxes, disappeared discreetly behind curtains for rumpy-pumpy and re-emerged to find the same aria continuing. They had not lost the plot. And, hey, Philip Glass’ 1979 Einstein on the Beach lasts seven hours and has no plot. Just a numbers aria – “One, two, three, four – two, three, four, five …..” Don’t knock Baroque for monopolising impenetrability. At least Signor Porpora used more notes. 

Today’s audiences remain respectfully silent, nailed to their seats – probably some Ofcom regulation – so trimming of libretto repeats would not go amiss. Carlo il Calvo (Charles the Bald) focuses on Machiavellian court manoeuvres over the succession following the death of Charlemagne. 

Carlo is still a small, disabled, child being fought over, kidnapped and generally traduced by relatives and powerbrokers. The setting is time-warped to an early 20th century Goodfellas mafioso era – all slicked-back hair, sharp suits and proliferation of handguns.

Carlo il Calvo premiered in 1738 at Rome’s then leading opera house, the Teatro delle Dame. The cast consisted entirely of men and castrati. Women were not allowed to appear in public in the Papal States. Porpora’s opera is based on a Venetian libretto dating from 1699, which, in various forms, has been set to music by many composers, Vinacessi, Keller, Alessandro Scarlatti, Orlandini, Predieri, Fioré, Hurlebusch, Telemann and Vivaldi. In the Baroque era, there was no monopoly on the plot. The score has been preserved at the Conservatory in Naples.

Action is set in that period of the early Middle Ages when Charlemagne’s Europe was disintegrating at the hands of his quarrelling heirs. Its distinctive feature is that the titular hero is a child. In contrast to his colleagues, Porpora even gives him some verses to sing. 

Some of the plot (all of it would numb the brain). Louis the German, Charles’ half-brother and Charlemagne’s grandson, portrayed in Bayreuth as a hood with an impossible slicked back creamy wig and a walking cane abducts the legitimate heir to the throne to rob him of his sovereignty. This provides Charles’s mother with the opportunity for heart-wrenching scenes of despair and breathtaking outbursts of crying. 

In the role of Louis, seduced into doing evil by treacherous advisers, Max Emanuel Cencic – Croatian countertenor – has the chance to launch into pathological hysteria. And he does. Only Franco Fagioli – Argentinian countertenor – as the noble knight Adalgiso, has what it takes to stop the tyrant and re-establish the God-given order. But in doing so, Louis’ son comes into conflict with the fourth commandment… etc., etc. As Margaret Thatcher once said, “On, and on, and on.”

Cencic also directs and mistakes wild choreography for compelling action. There is much random running around and intrusively distracting gun waving. What is an excellent improvement on traditional Baroque productions is the subtle interaction between minor characters onstage while principals deliver their never-ending set pieces. The side whispers and sometimes hilarious antics of relatives “given to drink” in this production form a parallel tableau.

That gun-waving thing. It too often resulted in absurd, lengthy stand-offs between the rival factions, circling each other menacingly. This was a Mexican Opera stand-off ad infinitum. I caught myself shouting, “just pull the bloody trigger,” at the screen. After some distracting firing in the air, all is resolved, and the family dinner, with which the opera opened, is resumed. There is a mad granny in a wheelchair who is never successfully explained. 

Those reservations aside, Cencic succeeds in making ancient themes relevant to the modern era. The singing of the countertenors is almost unbelievable in fluency. The Armonia Orchestra, led by George Petrou, a Greek conductor, provides true vigour. Petrou is an acknowledged specialist in baroque music and a smart choice by the festival organisers.

Porpora’s music is a wonder of flowing beauty. He was a Titan in his day, with no fewer than fifty-three operas to his credit. The birth of Baroque opera – moving from court to a public arena – was real showbiz, especially in birthplace Venice, a commercial operation featuring intense competition among composer impresarios who often assumed financial responsibility for mounting their own productions. 

Capital was secured by the seasonal sale of boxes in theatres owned by nobles to the gentry – hence the continued use of the term Box Office in theatres today – and income flowed from Bolletini, tickets purchased on the night to gain entry. Venetian theatres often featured four tiers of boxes, and the nobility fought over the real estate. No Arts Council grants shielded risk-taking impresarios from bankruptcy if the public did not flock. 

Lawsuits arose over boxes that had been bought off-plan then failed to materialise. Shades of China’s Evergrande apartment selling overstretch today. Bums on seats dictated success or failure. There were many bankruptcies. Investors and guarantors lost – and made – fortunes. Unpaid singers haunted sponsors’ homes. What went on behind the scenes of this vibrant commercial free-for-all was often more exciting than the dramas featuring on stage. 

So, as President Biden bafflingly “Builds Back Better” at the UN, Bayreuth Baroque Builds Back Bigger. Probably with a better chance of achieving actual results. The centrepiece of Festival 2022 (8 to 25 September) is a new production of Leonardo Vinci’s epic opera Alessandro nell’Indie, directed again by Max Emanuel Cencic. 

Vinci’s opera about Alexander the Great’s Indian campaign will be performed in its entirety for the first time in almost 300 years. Bayreuth’s unspoken strategy is to make their annual festival the crucible for Baroque opera revival. They are well on their way.