Franciscan virtues for a modern age: a multimedia Messiaen remix in Hamburg

Bachtrack readers may or may not be aware of double-decker TikTok streams. They divide the screen in two, presenting pairs of 30-second videos for subscribers terminally addicted to dopamine hits and whose attention spans have been wrecked by cat videos and celeb stunts. The four hours of Saint François d’Assise make stiffer demands on the attention than a scroll through the socials, but the focus of ear and eye was similarly challenged by this triple-layer concert staging, given by the combined forces of the Staatsoper Hamburg and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg. 

Spreading expansively across the main stage of the Elbphilharmonie, Messiaen’s supersized orchestra had space to fill every corner of the hall. Direct sightlines (impossible in an opera house) allowed for polished coordination of the keyed percussion battery – marimba, xylorimba, xylophone, vibraphone, glockenspiel and trio of ondes martenots – with the choir of woodwind and brass (three tubas!) and full complement of strings. At this first performance of three, some blurring of lines could be excused, though every passing imprecision was mercilessly magnified by the Elbphilharmonie’s hyper-analytical acoustic, along with page-turns, phone alarms and the occasional ship’s horn (I presume) from tankers on the Elbe.

One level up, metal gantries connected the choir to a small circular platform. Here stood Jacques Imbrailo in front of his music-stand, while the rest of the cast came and went, singing off book. Announced in early April as a replacement for Johannes Martin Kränzle, Imbrailo had understandably not yet memorised the huge title role. His Francis was noble and self-contained, sometimes drowned by the orchestra in his lower register despite his elevated placing, a blueprint for a sympathetically poetic and inward interpretation.

The disconnection between Imbrailo and his colleagues was only amplified by Georges Delnon’s “scenic design”, which did away with dialogue between characters, along with any suggestion of mise-en-scène or the richly coloured lighting scheme which the composer had fondly imagined would fill the theatre. Instead, above the singers, specially made films played out (mostly in black and white) on a gallery-level circular screen. Relating obliquely to the themes of the opera’s first seven scenes, they invited us to “be more like Francis” – to identify the potential for his generosity of spirit and selflessness within ourselves, and recognise it in our fellow men and women.

The narrative nature of these films inevitably pulled attention away from both the notional action playing out below, and the endlessly absorbing complexities of Messiaen’s score. A gift in poverty, a devotion to the outcast, a dedication to music: all worthy subjects, sensitively treated by Delnon and his colleagues as secular homilies. I question, though, whether Francis’ willed submission to the pain of the Crucifixion, in the Stigmata scene of Act 3, is the right place for a debate about assisted dying. At any rate, the chromatic infusion of pain and light and ecstasy at this point became the dissonant soundtrack to a visit to a hospice, and it was a relief when the screen went dark for the final scene. Here too, though, bathos intervened when Imbrailo finished his dying speech, stepped back from the music-stand, lay down on the platform and “died”.

Perhaps the nature of the space made more than such symbolic presentation impossible. A straightforward concert performance might at least have conveyed more of the sense of community which lies at the heart of the opera’s story. The appearances of Anna Prohaska’s Angel injected some dramatic tension, especially sung with her characteristically edgy blend of pure tone and light vibrato. Anthony Gregory sang the Leper with the quasi-liturgical restraint that also deprived the lesser brothers of their individuality. Kent Nagano has conducted Saint François more often than anyone else, but on this occasion it was hard to feel that he was leading more than a carefully prepared rehearsal for the real thing: sonically overwhelming, dramatically inert.