On 26 September 2016, my wife and I went to the Royal Opera to see the new production of Norma, which was musically superb.   However, the word “travesty” is grossly inadequate to describe the production, which has been “updated” to some recent time – or at least a time as recent as a flat-screen television which was on stage in the second scene of the first act.  The librettist Felice Romani set the work in 50 – 100 B. C., with the Romans and the Druids on opposing side.  In this version, the Druids have become some sort of vaguely fundamentalist Christian sect, with some Christological imagery, as well as images similar to those of the Ku Klux Klan – white costumes with peaked hats, a burning cross, etc.

In a programme note the director writes (with a sense that he is revealing something we couldn’t possible have guessed, much less understand) that Norma “is no stock character but a very human figure, whose doubts and problems have an entirely contemporary resonance.”  Golly.  Fancy that.  We might never have been able to infer that by ourselves had the opera had been produced as if it were taking place in the period 50 to 100 years before Christ.

Later in his note, the producer informs us that he and his team have “chosen to create a production that chimes with current social preoccupations….  Our main intention is to encourage people to stop and think about what has to be done if we want to overcome the contradictions of the present.”  What this production “chimes with” so overpoweringly is directorial conceit, in both senses of the word.  It bespeaks  lurid journalism rather than good theatre.  Is the director suggesting that we should give up the idea of going to the theatre to be entertained and accept that we must take part in a post-modernist seminar about the ills of the modern world?  Why bother to pay £150+ for a seat to do that, when we could just around in a room and waffle aimlessly about the “contradictions of the present?”    It might come as a surprise to the director and his team that many of us, if not all of us, are capable of thinking for ourselves, and we do not need the patronizing assistance of a production that is trite, arrogant, and unaesthetic to make comparisons between human feelings and values today and the feelings and values of our human predecessors.

There were both embarrassing and risible moments in the production.  The scene with Norma and her children, set in a modern house or apartment, made one wonder why she would talk so openly with Adalagisa about her love life.  The children continue to play and ignore the conversation completely, which seems curious:  most children would probably love to eavesdrop on a parent talking about her amours.

A risible moment came when men in uniform armed with pistols, crawled underneath the timeless oaks, or, rather, a screen of hundreds of tiny crucifixes representing the sacred wood of the Druids.  The poor singers in the chorus looked distinctly uncomfortable.  It’s lucky for theatre producers that they are not subject to the Trade Descriptions Acts or the Sale of Goods Acts (to invoke a common observation).

The musical side was exceptionally good.  Maestro Pappano conducted brilliantly, making Bellini’s music sound cogent, intelligent, and moving.  I can have nothing but praise, admiration, and even a bit of awe for Sonya Yoncheva’s Norma.  She sang like a goddess, which is what a high priestess should do, with purity of tone, accurate phrasing, and a clarity that was breath-taking.  She readily made you forget the loathsome parameters in which the character of Norma was recreated.

Joseph Calleja is also a wonderful tenor, and he was on top form, though some of his acting was of the semaphore-style.  As Norma’s lover and the father of the two children, he is a bit of cad in the opera as he swithers between loving Norma and wanting Adalgisa; however, he has a thrillingly compelling voice, beautiful and sensuous, and his phrasing is sensitive.  I very much liked Brindley Sherratt’s well-sung Oroveso, but his body language had the effect of suggesting that he did not much like the characterization the director imposed on him.

It was one of those evenings at the opera when one had to ignore the inanities and banalities on the stage and listen to life-enhancing performances of the music. We left the opera house vastly impressed by the triumphant musicianship of the orchestra and the singers and soundly depressed by the egregious self-indulgence of the production.