It’s debatable whether the marriage of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal really rates as “the greatest love story never told”. But it’s indisputably the one which has left us the most spectacular artefact: the “jewel of Islamic art in India” that is the Taj Mahal, the white marble mausoleum built by Shaj Jahan for Mumtaz after she died in 1631 during the birth of the couple’s fourteenth child (she must have almost continuously pregnant or post-natal for the whole of their 19 year marriage). Shah Jahan himself was deposed by his son Aurangzeb and spent his latter years under house arrest in Agra Fort – in an uncharacteristic gesture of kindness from Aurangzeb, in quarters within sight of the Taj.
If the story needs telling, what better medium to tell it than opera, and who better to tell it than Nishat Khan? He is one of the world’s greatest sitar players and the scion of generations of musicians, perhaps (at least, that’s the story told on stage) tracing his ancestry to the court musicians of Shah Jahan himself. He is a consummate collaborator with musicians of other genres – flamenco, jazz, classical. And opening proceedings on the stage of Grange Park Opera, Khan was a magnetic storyteller.
The surprise package turns out to be how beautifully Khan can write in the Western classical tradition. His choral writing is breathtaking, no more so than in the delicate off-stage introduction to Act 2. Some of the arias and duets come close, with many moments of delicious lyrical beauty – there is a particularly lovely duet in which Shah Jahan asks Mumtaz how she can possibly be happy spending her life trailing around after him in a campaign tent, one of many impressive examples of vocal writing. Khan weaves Indian scales into the orchestral music so naturally that you have to pinch yourself, and the louder, faster music in the military and dramatic passages is filmic and effective.
The two life stories would be far too long to tell in their entirety, so the opera is by necessity episodic, moving freely backwards and forwards in time in a way that works surprisingly well. The focus is on key moments in the fratricidal succession struggles that seem to have pervaded Mughal history. There is a telling scene between the emperor and his architect in which they hammer out the architectural principles of the Taj Mahal. Woven into it all is a (mildly dubious) portrait of Shah Jahan as a man of fundamental barbarity, turned into an enlightened monarch by the moderating influence of Mumtaz. Most of the storytelling is compelling, although there’s a toe-curling attempt at putting a message of 21st-century gender equality into Shah Jahan’s mouth.
It’s not the only occasion where Kit Hesketh-Harvey’s libretto misses the mark. Hesketh-Harvey is a fine humorist and creator of rhymes which work just fine in comic relief scenes like the gaggle of women praising jewellery as the most potent of seduction aids. But he can’t resist throwing in a clever rhyme in places where it really breaks the dramatic impact – something which happened on many occasions in Act 1. After the interval, things tightened up.
Yannis Thavoris’ designs are superb. Costumes draw on themes familiar from recent Mughal art exhibitions. The set is formed of three giant cloth screens onto which video is projected; I can honestly say that Hayley Egan has produced the most jaw-dropping video I have ever seen in an opera house: exquisite trompe-l’œil interiors of Mughal palaces, growing tendrils of Islamic plant depiction, a stunning moonlit Taj Mahal at the end. Director Stephen Medcalf and movement director Seeta Patel create an extraordinary stylised battle scene in which archers and elephants projected in profile combine with real chorus members (whose singing was excellent throughout).
Solo singing was mostly strong, with Caspar Singh a lyrical tenor with pleasant timbre at the top and plenty of oomph at the bottom. Ross Ramgobin gave good baritone brutality as the bloodthirsty Jahangir (Shah Jahan’s father and predecessor) and as the implacable Aurangzeb. As Mumtaz, Julia Sitkovetsky seemed to struggle, not sounding confident in reaching towards some of the (admittedly challenging) high notes and with her timbre often going harsh.
But the most charismatic performer on stage was unquestionably Khan himself, extraordinary musician and brilliant storyteller that he is. But I would have wanted to hear so much more of his sitar playing: he kept it very restrained and only once did he let himself rip at his full thrilling ability. For opera fans not previously familiar with his genre, that feels like a missed opportunity.
