This contribution to Arcola’s Grimeborn season by Green Opera is a re-telling of part of the tragic story of the great French poet, Paul Verlaine. It uses his poetry, some pieces performed in song settings by counter tenor Logan Lopez Gonzalez and others spoken by Anna Sideris, who plays various characters in Verlaine’s story. The title refers to the 555 days he spent in prison for shooting his lover Arthur Rimbaud in the hand. Rimbaud insisted it was not the drunken Verlaine’s intention to injure him but the judge decided to make an example of him, presumably influenced by the “scandal” of their homosexual affair. The short piece is really a dramatised song recital rather than an opera and, though the three performers are excellent, the story might benefit from a little more detail about the poet and the cultural world in which he moved.
The poems and the dialogue are, of course, in French. The songs are by Faure, Debussy and Hahn. The poems come from various periods of Verlaine’s life, and nearly all capture moments and moods that are at odds with the sadness of the story being told. Verlaine’s ability to recreate calmness and find beauty, even when surrounded by squalor, is remarkable. Later in life, he even recalled Mons Prison, where he was so cruelly incarcerated, with affection.
The setting could not be simpler – contemporary clothes, a single chair and lighting effects, including a telling moment when the stage is covered with shadow prison bars. Logan Lopez Gonzalez, an accomplished counter-tenor from Belgium, has a stillness that dominates the stage of the Arcola studio. His voice is expressive – ranging from serene beauty to harsh despair – and this is clearly a labour of love for him. The piece has been developed with Eleanor Burke (who, as a director, already has an impressive list of productions under her belt) and had been seen before in London and Brussels. The other performers, Anna Sideris and pianist Stella Marie Lorenz are entirely in tune with the mood and shape of the piece – Sideris, voicing the words of Verlaine’s rejected wife, captures both her early love for the poet and her fury about his relationship with Rimbaud – and with absinthe.
This is the sort of evening that helps the listener to understand and appreciate the poems and songs with a fresh perspective and a helpful sense of context. The interplay between voices and piano is finely judged and the performances reach high standards of expressive beauty. But, despite the lurid events it portrays, it fails to bring a sense of drama to the stage and it remains a recital rather that an opera.
Writer/performer: Logan Lopez Gonzalez
Writer/director: Eleanor Burke
Performer: Anna Sideris
Pianist: Stella Marie Lorenz
Running time: 60 Mins (no interval)
Until 7 September 2024
Photographer: Laurent Compagnon