The Silver Bell was Saint-Saëns’s first opera, composed in 1864, but it turned out to have a protracted gestation to its first performance in 1877 (the theatre originally expected to host the premiere went bankrupt, and then the Franco-Prussian War intervened). He then revised it several further times for different revivals up until the last run during his lifetime, in 1914. It therefore spans a good part of his creative career. Despite repeated productions in France, New Sussex Opera’s production is claimed to be the UK premiere.
Somewhat like the composer’s compulsive reworkings of the opera, its central character, Conrad, is also a preoccupied artist, though driven less edifyingly by money and his desire for a scandalous dancer called Fiametta who is to take on the role of Circé for his latest production. His doctor, Spiridion, gives him a magical silver bell which, when struck, will bring him great riches but at the cost of the death of somebody he knows. Despite that grave sacrifice, he is willing to use its supernatural power. The scenario by Barbier and Carré is an intriguing combination of Charles Dickens’s mercenary character Harold Skimpole with a similar idea of the transference of responsibility represented by Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. The dubious influence of Dr Spiridion over Conrad, while adopting different disguises to lure him on and satisfy his whims, also recalls the malign role of Mephistopheles in Faust, whose libretto Barbier and Carré had written for Gounod not so long before this one. There’s a happy ending in the scenario for The Silver Bell when Conrad’s feverish behaviour is revealed simply to be a dream and he comes to his senses.
Paul Higgins’s production for NSO brings the action within the realm of psychoanalysis, however, which makes the case history of Conrad a more charged and poignant story which can’t just be flung aside as an inconsequential mental fantasy. Instead, his mania has brought him to the state of a patient of Freud’s, in whose guise Spiridion appears. There’s no easy way out for Conrad, as he’s put in a straitjacket, metaphorically imprisoned by his illusory fixations, even if the psychoanalytic paradigm to which he is subject is little more than psychiatric quackery.
Dramaturg Benjamin Poore’s insightful programme notes trace the logical connections that can be made between the opera and his and Higgins’s concept – Saint-Saëns’s living into the era of Freud; the opera’s setting in Vienna; the deeper psychological forces which can offer an interpretation of Conrad’s dream; and the Freudian era as the one in which film was pioneered as an art form, whose early masterpieces gave vivid visual expression to the psychologist’s ideas. There is a neat correspondence with the fact that Saint-Saëns was probably the first major composer to write an original film score (for L’Assassinat du duc de Guise in 1908). But turning Conrad into a film producer is a telling strategy as it underlines his obsession with Fiametta by concentrating his voyeuristic gaze upon her through the medium of the movie camera. The composer and librettists had already made her an uncanny object of desire within the drama by casting her as a silent ballerina, rather than a sung part. Together with Namiko Gahier-Ogawa’s energetic and provocative choreography, as though possessed, in the role of Circé, the camera also draws our attention to the eerie hold which this modern siren might have in relation to the Freudian notion of the libido.
An enthusiastic cast brings the work to life with, often, a cheery vigour, especially from the NSO Chorus. Anthony Flaum evinces commendable vocal control even as Conrad increasingly loses his mind to unobtainable desire. By contrast, Arshak Kuzikyan offers a steady, lithe gravitas in the ambiguous role of Spiridion, skilfully navigating the different personas he adopts. There are crisp, carefree performances of Conrad’s friend Bénédict (later to fall victim to Conrad’s covetousness) and fiancée Rosa by Harun Tekin and Lucy Farrimond, while Sky Ingram gives a more urgent account of Rosa’s sister, Hélène, who harbours her own, calmer love for Conrad.
Toby Purser brings a light touch with St Paul’s Sinfonia in Saint-Saens’s never less than competent score, yielding nothing in liveliness and spontaneity, particularly during the two sequences which accompany Fiametta’s dancing where the dramatic action otherwise comes to a halt. (The dance interludes would hold their own as independent items in the concert hall.) This is another invaluable and enjoyable addition to NSO’s enterprising repertoire of little-known and forgotten works.
Further performances at different locations to June 8
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