Daan Janssens – Brodeck

Brodeck – Damien Pass
Emélia – Elisa Soster
Fédorine – Helena Rasker
Göbbler / Peiper – Thomas Blondelle
Schloss – Kris Belligh
Orschwir – Werner Van Mechelen
Büller / Ulli – Tijl Faveyts
Poupchette – Soloist of the Kinderkoor Opera Ballet Vlaanderen
Anderer – Josse De Pauw
Diodème – Jean-Pierre Baudson

Kinderkoor Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Koor Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Symfonisch Orkest Opera Ballet Vlaanderen / Marit Strindlund.
Stage director – Fabrice Murgia.

Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium.  Friday, February 9th, 2024.

A world premiere is always an important moment, as well as a statement of intent, for an opera company.  Tonight, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen presented Brodeck, an opera by Daan Janssens based on Philippe Claudel’s 2007 novel, le Rapport de Brodeck.  Janssens is not an operatic novice.  Indeed, Brodeck is actually his third opera.  He combines his composition work with a professorship in composition and orchestration at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Gent.  The house has assembled a cast of active Flemish singers, joined by a company member from Italy and a guest from Australia, alongside actors Josse de Pauw and Jean-Pierre Baudson, for this run that opened tonight.  The house orchestra and choruses were placed under the direction of contemporary music specialist Marit Strindlund, with the stage direction confided to Fabrice Murgia who, together with Janssens, wrote the libretto. 

For those unfamiliar with Claudel’s award-winning novel, it’s certainly worth a read.  Set in a village, in an unnamed land after a major war, the novel evokes the Shoah, although without mentioning it explicitly.  Claudel, despite writing mainly in French, frequently references a Germanic dialect of his own creation.  Brodeck, originally an outsider, is betrayed to the soldiers of an occupying force, and is taken to a concentration camp.  The bulk of the events in the plot occur after he returns to the village, having survived the camp, although it also refers to his earlier days studying in the capital.  The novel, and in turn the opera which stays very close to the original, switches constantly between moments in time, continually giving fragments of what happens, what happened, and what may occur.  Following the war, a stranger, the Anderer, shows up in the village and is subsequently killed by the male inhabitants, who become suspicious about why he’s there.  Brodeck, who witnesses the scene after the murder, is then tasked by the villagers to write a report about what happened. 

This is a place where nothing is as it seems.  Underneath the respectable surface lies a people in trauma, still fuelled by hate and the irrational fear of outsiders.  As subject matter for an opera, this could not be more topical, given the rise of the far-right in Europe and the horrifying rise of antisemitism we have experienced in the last three months.  The fragmentation and constant temporal switching of the novel is echoed in the libretto and in Janssens’ music.  The score feels very much as if responding to events in the plot, rather than driving them.  It alternates between big brass and percussion outbursts, with hazy strings and bluesy winds.  There are nods to others who have gone before.  I heard traces of Act 5 of Pelléas et Mélisande, Wozzeck, and, in a scene where Brodeck recalls his university days, Act 2 of Rosenkavalier, complete with additional accordion.  Despite the competent and confident handling of the orchestral forces, I did find the score to lack a long-term structural thread that took us through the evening – though with the caveat that this is a first hearing.  Furthermore, it felt that the score lost steam somewhat in Act 2, relying often on spoken sections over a single deep pedal note.  Still, it’s a very assured score and provided a suitable framework.

Murgia’s staging set the action in a place that could be of the past or of the future.  He makes use of two camera operators, and the images that they film are projected onto a larger screen on stage.  This gives us a different perspective on the action and also helps with sightlines for those higher up.  Murgia’s direction of the large choruses was confident, if rudimentary, often forming large blocks on stage.  That said, he created compelling stage pictures through their placement on stage, making use of a revolving stage to make what we see as fragmented as what we heard, both in the score and in the libretto.  Murgia also elicited some extremely touching performances from his cast, with a central assumption of genuine brooding from Damien Pass in the title role.  Even if Elisa Soster didn’t have much to sing as Emélia, thanks to her detailed acting, she was a haunting presence on stage.

Strindlund charted a confident path through the score.  The quality of the playing that she elicited from the orchestra was superb.  There was an unanimity of attack in those big brass and percussion outbursts that was seriously impressive.  She also brought out the eerie high string harmonics over hazy tone clusters, encouraging the orchestra to ‘voice’ the textures with clarity.  The orchestra provided a world of seemingly unlimited tone colours with, notably, the piquant accordion or the organ leading into a romanticized version of a Bach chorale.  Jan Schweiger’s chorus sang with equally impressive precision of ensemble, the sopranos fearless as they scaled the heights, sustaining high soaring lines as they added a halo to orchestral textures from off-stage.  The children’s chorus, prepared by Hendrik Derolez, was also extremely enthusiastic.

By and large, the French-language libretto was audible, meaning that one did not have to refer to the bilingual English/Dutch surtitles very often.  Janssens’ word setting was appropriate, tending to avoid large leaps, and fortunately showing an originality in the vocal lines that hasn’t always been a feature of many operas written today.  Pass brought a handsome, chestnut-toned baritone to the title role.  The voice is well-focused, with an agreeable warmth to the tone.  I did find, however, that the role as written requires more of a heldenbariton than Pass is.  I did wonder if swapping roles with Kris Belligh’s Schloss might have been more optimal casting.  It’s a big sing for a lyric baritone such as Pass, with frequent big declamatory lines over a brassy tumult from the pit.  Pass did suggest some signs of tiredness by the end, with a dryness entering the tone, but he never succumbed to the urge to hector and sang the role true to his own instrument throughout.

The roles in the opera are mainly given to basses and baritones, with a single role for soprano, contralto and tenor each.  Elisa Soster’s Emélia demonstrated some delectable fizzy tone, soaring with agreeable ease across the range.  She did have to give a big outburst towards the end of Act 1, in which she rode the orchestra with focused tone.  Helena Rasker brought a beautifully, ruby red contralto to her music, the registers always even.  Thomas Blondelle’s roles seemed an echo of the Tambour-Major from Wozzeck, a role Blondelle has sung frequently.  His tenor remains focused for the main part, but the top does become rather grainy and disconnected.  He was an energetic stage presence.  In the remaining roles, Werner Van Mechelen brought an appropriately world-weary baritone to the role of Orschwir, the slight graininess in the tone in keeping with the character.  Belligh’s baritone, brought a pleasant fast vibrato around a steely core to the role of Schloss.  Tijl Faveyt’s lightened the voice to make it appropriately youthful for the role of Brodeck’s student companion, while also able to bring a touch of malice where required.  De Pauw was a suitably otherworldly presence in the spoken role of the Anderer, declaiming the text with genuine poetry.

Tonight was an evening that showed this house at its best.  The work had clearly been thoroughly prepared, the singing was respectable, and the choral singing and orchestral playing were both superb.  Murgia’s staging was imaginative and fully reflected both the music and the libretto.  Certainly, this is the most overall satisfying evening I’ve had in Flanders in a while.  I did leave with some reservations around Janssens’ score.  The second act, in particular, does feel like a work in progress, for the reasons outlined above.  And yet, the subject matter could not be more timely and the evening really does provoke reflection – just in the way that it should.  The audience greeted the cast and creative teams with a warm and generous ovation at the close.