Arcadia. Locus amoenus of classical antiquity. A collective literary fantasy of bucolic peace and simplicity, the long-lost earthly paradise of medieval yearning, a Rousseauesque utopia of Enlightenment idealism. This poetic dreamland, peopled by shepherds and shepherdesses whose sole purpose in life is philosophical reflection – mainly about the joys and pains of love – has had a long life in the cultural imagination of Europe. But what does the idea of Arcadia mean to us, now, in the twenty-first century? After the terror of two world wars, after the dystopian projects of communism, national-socialism, and religious fundamentalism, can it mean anything to us? That is the question Tatjana Gürbaca asks in her most recent production of Johann Adolf Hasse’s (1699-1783) favola pastorale, Leucippo (1747), one of a mere handful of the composer’s non-ecclesiastical works that are being performed today. Or rather, that is the question her production fails to ask.
Leucippo was first performed on 7 October 1747 at the Jagdschloss Hubertusburg near Dresden on the occasion of the Elector Friedrich August II’s birthday, who was Hasse’s Saxonian employer until his death in 1763. It tells the story of two star-crossed Arcadian lovers, Aristeo (Valer Sabadus) and the nymph Dafne (Regina Richter), who, in turn, is pursued by Delio, the god Apollo disguised in human form (Claudia Rohrbach). There is trouble in paradise, for ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’. In librettist Giovanni Claudio Pasquini’s utopia, love is a threat to the simple innocence of the Arcadian populace, the greatest and only evil and therefore considered a crime punishable by death. It falls on the priest of Apollo, Narete (Kenneth Tarver), to punish Aristeo for his transgression against the god. However, unbeknownst to both, Aristeo (Leucippo) is really Narete’s son, which is why at first, out of affection for the boy, he seems content to let Aristeo live and send him into exile instead. But Dafne’s enduring protestations of love for the shepherd finally convince Narete that the blasphemer must die. Torn between his inexplicable affection for the boy and duty to his god, he has him followed, arrested, and condemned anew. Neither his daughter Climene (Klara Ek), nor her lover, Aristeo’s friend Nunte (Luke Stoker), nor, after much prevarication, Delio/Apollo can persuade Narete to stay his sword. However, unable to endure the prospect of her beloved’s death, Dafne pre-empts Arcadia’s laws and kills herself in her lover’s place. Aristeo, at last revealed as Narete’s long-lost son Leucippo, follows suit. The lovers are united in death – a happy ending of sorts – but the survivors stare at each other in shock. Innocence is gone. What remains is the knowledge of Love and Death, Eros and Thanatos. Arcadia is no more.
Leucippo is neither a comedy nor a tragedy, but combines elements of both. Indeed, as conductor Gianluca Capuano, who directed the wonderfully supple Concerto Köln and vocal ensemble Barock vokal Mainz, reminds us in the programme notes, Hasse defies common musicological categories. Neither baroque nor classical, he is what has been termed an ‘Arcadian composer’ through and through, espousing the revolutionary anti-baroque ideals of simplicity, elegance, and regularity first advocated by the Roman Accademia dell’Arcadia in 1690, to which Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782), a frequent collaborator, also belonged. As Capuano has it, Hasse bridges the gap between Handel and Mozart, whose first opera, Ascanio in Alba, the ageing German witnessed in Milan in 1771. However, by the time he composed Leucippo in 1747, Hasse had been happily married for seventeen years to the celebrated Italian mezzo soprano Faustina Bordoni, with whom he collaborated frequently; as early as 1730 he had worked with Farinelli, with Vittoria Tesi and Francesca Cuzzoni. In other words, he was well accustomed to accommodating the contemporary taste – of both performers and audiences – for virtuoso displays of vocal skill.
Leucippo does not disappoint. At its heart lies what Capuano calls a dialectic of unity and diversity that translates into a careful balance between Pasquini’s written text and Hasse’s score, its unostentatious melodies giving the performers ample opportunity to display their skill in dizzying cadenzas and ornamentations. There was not a single performance that didn’t live up to the challenges of Hasse’s music. Countertenor Valer Sabadus in the title role did amazing things with his arias, giving us a Leucippo full of youthful élan and, later, world-weary pathos, ranging effortlessly across the entire spectrum of an unforgettable voice. His soprano sparkled in the most brilliant colours especially in the cadenzas, making a performance of great delicacy seem effortless. American tenor Kenneth Tarver as the priest Narete carried the brunt of the evening’s expository work. His voice is strong, clear, and agile and was superbly matched to the difficult role, his undeniable stage presence lending the character of the priest gravitas and authority. Both Regina Richter and Klara Ek gave wonderful turns as the love-sick Dafne and Narete’s daughter Climene respectively, the latter of whom slowly awakens to the joys – and dangers – of love as the action progresses. While Richter understood to use her remarkably clear voice to tragic effect throughout, building up to a beautifully crafted and touching portrait of a lover who has no hope, Ek convinced by virtue of her comic talent. Her entirely innocent Climene is easily the most loveable of Hasse’s characters, a happy-go-lucky kind of presence that provided much needed reprieve from the tragic pathos of the Aristeo/Dafne/Narete triangle. She was well matched by Australian bass Luke Stoker as her lover-in-spe Nunte, a smaller role rendered noteworthy by Stoker’s fearless performance. The same is true of Claudia Rohrbach’s Delio/Apollo, Arcadia’s eternal outsider who slowly reveals himself as a powerful influence on its close-knit community. Rohrbach gave us a mischievous sprite, whose intentions remained in question throughout – a wonderfully disquieting presence to remind us that even in Arcadia not everything is as it seems.
Given the sheer quality of the musical performance, Tatjana Gürbaca’s ill-advised directorial interventions, made infinitely worse by Barbara Drosihn’s ugly pastel costumes, seemed all the more jarring. The main conceit of the production was to transform Arcadia’s innocent shepherds and nymphs into a group of pubescent teenagers in the first throes of hormonally-driven lust, whom Narete, here something of a cross between father figure and surly head teacher, can barely manage. Per se, this set-up was not a bad idea, the uncouth gyrations of the lanky youngsters giving rise to tumultuous scenes that had the audience in laughter more than once. However, the problem was that throughout what was going on on stage had little to do with Hasse’s music or Pasquini’s words. Such was the case with the often serious moments in the libretto where the latter reflects on the painful dichotomies of affect and self-control, of love and duty, of life and death that dominate his Arcadian fantasy. Many were ruined or rendered trivial by the juvenile, cringe-inducing physical comedy. Imagine Robert de Niro and Ben Stiller’s antics in Meet the Fockers (2004). There is nothing wrong with this kind of humour, but it felt entirely out of place here. I suspect it was because of this sense of being talked-down to that not the entire audience reconvened after the long-desired interval after the second act.
One doesn’t have to be a fan of historically-informed performance practice in order to appreciate a semblance of purpose behind the performers’ movements and gestures. For some time now, Gürbaca’s main strategy has been to fill the stage with bodies early on – here the woefully underused but brilliant choir, Barock vokal Mainz – and then keep them in constant, mindless, and distracting motion for the rest of the performance. Some of the evening’s most beautiful arias were marred by snapping fingers, whistling, the banging of shoes, and the ceaseless and entirely unnecessary dressing / undressing that went on right until the very end. Whatever Gürbaca thought she was doing, baring the body – or rather, flaunting shabby-looking fine-ribbed underwear – has never equated to the revelation of profound philosophical truths.
Critics have suggested that Leucippo isn’t worth the effort. That the work is plain boring, unappealing, its subject matter too far removed from our own experience. And sadly, thinking especially of Drosihn’s nondescript costumes, an orgy in mismatched shades of pink, yellow, and beige, one is inclined to agree. However, this would be unfair. The music, right from the overture, is animated and full of surprises, the drama convincing. What a shame that the production in its entirety did not live up to the music, to the superior standards of the performers, or indeed to the long and varied history of the Arcadia topos. What, this unsatisfactory state of affairs prompts one to ask, can this particular utopia mean to us? Watching Gürbaca’s take on the myth one is tempted to conclude: nothing beyond a vague desire for “deceleration”, as Tanja Fasching notes in her introductory essay. But perhaps it merely takes a different director to bring Arcadia back to life.
Image © Paul Leclaire: Leucippo (Valer Sabadus), Narete (Kenneth Tarver), Climene (Klara Ek), Nunte (Luke Stoker), Barock Vokal.
Hasse’s Leucippo was performed at the Palladium in Cologne between October 2nd and October 11th 2014.