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| Antony McDonald |
It is McDonald’s first time working on Queen of Spades though he has designed both Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and Prokofiev’s The
Gambler. Prokofiev’s opera has much common with Queen of Spades and McDonald feels that Tchaikovsky’s compulsive
music re-occurs in the Prokofiev. For McDonald, Queen of Spades is an powerful opera, one he feels might be finer
than Eugene Onegin. Tchaikovsky wrote
it very quickly, McDonald describes the rich score as a masterpiece, full
of driven undercurrents and with the leitmotif of fate.
A lover of Russian culture, McDonald first saw Queen of Spades at Welsh National Opera
in the 1970’s and loved it, finding the piece incredible. He feels that there
is an element of Tchaikovsky and his brother Modest (who wrote the libretto) in
each of the characters. Each character in the opera is damaged in some way,
each on a destructive course. It is a tragic piece and whilst none of the
characters is completely likeable, McDonald would hope that we empathise with
them; that we feel for them, for the pain that they suffer. It is this which
gives us a link to the piece.
McDonald talks of Hermann’s outsider status as being
comparable to that of Peter Grimes. Hermann is of German extraction in Russia.
He has few friends and the ones that he has tease and torture him. The role of
Hermann is a particularly taxing one, as the character is in every scene. But,
as McDonald puts it, the Hermann goes on a hell of a journey. The difficulty is
to make sure that the character does not go too crazy, too soon; to ensure that
we, the audience, empathise with him.
We talked about the language of the opera and the difference
between singing in Russian and in English. McDonald’s love of Russian culture
means that he feels that it is a great language which is beautiful to sing in.
He worries that the opera loses something when sung in English and is glad that the
Grange Park Opera performances are in Russian.
Pushkin’s original novella, on which Modest based his
libretto, is very different to the opera. Modest made many changes, there is no
Yeletsky, Lisa marries at the end to someone quite conventional, Tomsky is the
grandson of the Countess and Hermann end up in an asylum at the end. In fact
Modest originally wrote the libretto for someone else and Tchaikovsky only came
to the project later.
McDonald’s great love of Russian culture extends to an
enormous collection of books on Russia. This love of Russian culture has fed
into the design and direction process for Queen
of Spades. One name that crops up in our conversation is that of Chekov. He
has designed one Chekov play and would love to do more. He cites the interesting
fact that Chekov met Tchaikovsky and in fact the two wanted to work together. He
finds that he arrives at the direction through the design. When he enters the
studio he already has a clear idea of the basics of the design in his head, knows
what the scene should be and where the entrances and exits will be.
McDonald is both designing and directing Queen of Spades. He has worked in these
dual roles at Grange Park before on Dvorak’s Rusalka, a profoundly beautiful and thought provoking production;
as well as being in the middle of a Ring cycle for Nationale Reisopera. But he
continues to design for other directors. He says that he has been lucky to work
with some great directors (regular collaborators include Richard Jones and Tim Albery). McDonald finds working with another director
stimulating, that he is constantly learning. The problem is to find a balance
between designing his own projects and designing for others, time constraints
can be difficult and it is a delicate balancing act; but one which McDonald
finds worthwhile.
McDonald has designed and directed both opera, spoken
theatre and musicals as well as designing for ballet. He enjoys working in the
different mediums, but especially likes designing for dance. He has designed
both Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker for Scottish Ballet and
would love to work on Swan Lake. McDonald
doesn’t differentiate between opera, spoken theatre and dance, for him each
piece is different with a different set of demands.
When asked what works he would like to work on he
immediately cites Chekov. In opera he finds that he is not drawn to Italian
opera, though does love Verdi’s Don
Carlos and Puccini’s Fanciulla de
West. He has done quite a lot of Janacek and would love to do more. He has
directed one Lehar operetta and finds the idea of directing more of these
appealing. He also mentions Reynaldo Hahn, particularly his opera Merchant of Venice as well as Massenet’s
Thais.
After Queen of Spades
at Grange Park Opera, his attention turns to Götterdämmerung
which he is designing and directing for Nationale Reisopera in the Netherlands
in the autumn. He is also designing Martinu’s Julietta for Richard Jones’s production at English National Opera
and Makropoulos Case, also with
Jones for Frankfurt Opera. Further ahead
he will be designing and directing Lohengrin
for Welsh National Opera next summer.
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| Grange Park Opera (photo Claire Routh) |
Queen of Spades
opens on 13 June at Grange Park Opera and runs in repertory until 30 June.
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