Even with director Lydia Steier mangling Spontini’s ending, this is Paris Opera at its best.
When the grisly corpses of Roman hero general, Licinius, and his main squeeze, vestal virgin (virgin in a euphemistic sense) heroine, Julia, emerged bloodied, suspended and tightly trussed on a gantry stage right, the audience correctly guessed that someone had fiddled with Spontini’s happy ending to his 1807 opera, La véstale.
Surely the lovers are meant to dance off, up the sunlit Palatine Hill, waving, marriage their destiny? It wasn’t to be. Director Lydia Steier mangled the ending of Gaspar Spontini’s (1771 – 1851) La véstale – presented at Opéra National de Paris, in September 2024 but currently available at Operavision.
It must be set in Rome. For starters, it’s an opera with a uniquely Roman narrative – Temple of the Vestals, an eternal flame, victorious generals crowned with a wreath of immortality, triumphal processions, foreboding soothsayers, all the chariot-gusto paraphernalia of Ben Hur.
Instead, Steier chose an anonymous dystopian military dictatorship, perhaps in the future, but with allusions to a Nazi past. The vestal virgin’s flame was fed by a supply of burning books. Think Königsplatz, Munich 1933.
Black-cloaked villains strode about keeping the chorus, all kitted out as interwar working-class folk waving patriotic hankies on demand well curbed. Firmly in their place.
But pace the self-indulgent interference with Spontini’s plot, Steier delivered the most compelling two and a half hours of nail-biting, seat-gripping, jaw-dropping, fast-paced drama that I’ve encountered on a stage in many years. Anyone coming fresh to opera would not waste time on the piffling detail of originality. “Is opera all this good? What have I been missing?”
I had seen La véstale before. Unusual, as it is seldom performed. Wexford 1979, the second year I had attended the Irish festival. It is forever etched in my mind because disaster struck in Act I.
Licinius and his sidekick Cinna are leading a triumphal procession, having beaten the bejeesus out of a bunch of Barbarians in Gaul. Wexford staged the action on a highly raked stage, empty save for an altar to the Vestal Virgin, burning front, just before the orchestra pit.
All would have been well if the stagehand charged with dousing the stage with lemonade before curtain-up – to make it sticky and navigable – had not been detained in the nearby Bar/Undertaker. Not drinking lemonade.
As Licinius mounted the stage lustily singing his victory aria, it soon became apparent that things were heading south. Standing still, he performed a slow, involuntary pirouette, all the while circling downstage with increasing momentum towards that looming orchestra pit.
Arrested from a tragic end among the brass, only by grabbing the Vestal altar and clinging on for dear life, he gamely never missed a note.
Cinna emerged next, unaware of the hazard in waiting. That didn’t last long. He too began the long slide to the safe haven of the altar where they grasped each other manfully, performing their duet.
By now, the audience knew the ranks of heavily armoured legionnaires whose heads next appeared above the ramparts never stood a chance. As they collapsed in chaos the stage manager intervened. Cue curtain. After half an hour, an unexpected interval drink and a quart of Jameson’s stickiest Irish lemonade, good order was resumed.
The moment was captured for history by the great Bernard Levin, columnist for The Times and occasional opera critic. Only he got it wrong. He referred to a lack of lemon juice. Close, but no cigar.
What’s going on? Licinius has returned home from the war as a victorious Roman general. He encounters His comrade, Cinna, who wants to know why he is so sad. Licinius is in love with Julia but five years previously her father gave him the brush off.
To improve his standing, he joined the army. After his return, he learned that Julia was forced to promise her father on his deathbed that she would become a Vestal Virgin and remain chaste. Cinna agrees to stand by Licinius, comrades in arms.
There is a hint in the Steier production that they may be prepared to mount a revolt against the tyrannical regime and the perfidious Great Vestal.
Licinius is sung by Michael Spyres, who self-describes as a baritenor. Spyres won the title of male singer of the year at last year’s International Opera Awards. He grasped the role of the lovelorn hero and wrung every ounce of pathos out of it. He has a voice that flows like a river, effortless.
Spyres was paired with tenor Julien Behr as Cinna, a role demanding an equal presence as the former mates end up in conflict. They were a joy to listen to together. Spontini’s flowing written-through score, pioneering for the time, but a style later adopted by Wagner, suited the pair well.
The Vestal Virgins sing to their goddess and the eternal flame they guard in the temple. The Great Vestal condemns to death every virgin who breaks her vow of chastity. The role is performed by Eve-Maud Hubeaux, a French mezzo-soprano of terrifying directness with a towering presence. If it’s possible to exude evil intolerance, she did it. Especially when flogging her reluctant vestal, Julia.
To celebrate Rome’s thrashing of the barbarians in the war she announces a triumphal procession. Julia – The Great Vestal knows she lusts after Licinius – is given the task of crowning him with the “wreath of immortality”. Left alone, Julia is torn between her joy at seeing Licinius again and her fear of the consequences of her forbidden love.
Julia is sung by South African soprano Elza van den Heever. If ever the words lyric, dramatic soprano were to be made incarnate, they would take the form of van den Heever. Earlier this season she took on the challenging role of Empress in The Metropolitan Opera’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, in which she was spellbinding. Another triumphant outing for her in Paris.
During the festivities, The Great Vestal, just to rub it in, chooses Julia to guard the eternal flame in the coming night. She will have to crown Licinius. Licinius hears about this and tells Julia of his plan to abduct her from the temple. A consul, the High Priest and the entire population celebrate the triumphant warrior.
Act II finds us, at night, in the temple. Julia begs the goddess, Vesta for mercy. She wishes to see Licinius one more time and then surrender herself to the gods’ vengeance. In front of the altar, Licinius and Julia swear their love.
“In a fever of passion,” it says in my programme. They actually have rumpy-pumpy. Affronted, the eternal flame goes out. Cinna enters the temple and tries to persuade Licinius to flee. But he stays put.
When voices are heard from outside, Licinius and Cinna depart. The people and the other Vestal Virgins swarm into the temple and condemn the crime that has been committed. The extinguished flame tells all. The High Priest demands that Julia name the intruder, but she refuses to talk. He curses her and sentences her to death.
Act III finds Cinna telling Licinius that he has put together a troop of legionnaires to assist him. Licinius tries unsuccessfully to persuade the High Priest to overturn the death sentence. He fesses up that he is Julia’s lover and tries to assume the blame.
The Chief of the Aruspices, sensing trouble at mill, points out the gathering soldiers, Licinius supporters to a man, to the High Priest and recommends delaying the sacrifice.
However, the High Priest rejects this idea. But before the death sentence is carried out, he has Julia’s veil placed on Vesta’s altar. If the veil catches fire it will mean that Vesta forgives her priestess.
Licinius publicly admits that he is the guilty party and demands that Julia’s life be spared. But Julia pretends not to know him. Suddenly a storm breaks out, and a lightning bolt sets fire to Julia’s veil. The High Priest proclaims a miracle and Vesta’s forgiveness.
And here the plot veers off the rails. Cinna turns against Licinius and crowns himself, dismissing Licinius and Julia, who are escorted behind a frosted screen and executed to the sound of machine gun fire. Frighteningly realistic. Totally caught the audience by surprise. Wheel on the corpses. But why? Shock and awe, but inconsistent with his role throughout.
This is Spontini’s masterpiece. Richard Wagner was so impressed that he befriended Spontini and conducted a performance of La véstale in 1844, with Spontini present at rehearsals.
It is surprising that the opera is so overlooked today. A cracking story, great music. With a cast to die for, even in the Regietheater hands of Steier, it was Paris Opera at its compelling best. And not a bottle of Jameson’s Wexford lemonade in sight.
(Image: Elza van den Heever, ©Guergana Damianova)