“Octavia” brings Armenian royal intrigue to Boston opera stage
It’s not every day that an event from ancient Armenian history is played out on stage, let alone in an opera. But that’s exactly what you can expect from the Boston Early Music Festival’s upcoming staging of “Octavia.”
In Reinhard Keiser’s 1705 opera, Tiridates, the king of Armenia, travels to Rome to pledge allegiance to the empire. Emperor Nero officially restores him to the throne while growing infatuated with Tiridates’ wife, Ormœna—much to the dismay of Empress Octavia. Tensions rise as Roman citizens grow restless over Nero’s lavish attempts to court the Armenian queen and rid himself of his own bride. Rome erupts in open rebellion, and in the chaos, Octavia must find a way to persevere.
Ahead of the opera’s four-performance run, we caught up with stage director and historian Gilbert Blin to learn more about the history behind “Octavia” and how they’re capturing Armenian culture on stage.
Rosie Nisanyan (R.N.): Why was “Octavia” chosen for the Boston Early Music Festival?
Gilbert Blin (G.B.): The Boston Early Music Festival has been exploring the repertoire of the Hamburg Opera for a few years, and the interest of our co-artistic directors was prompted by the abundance of musical life in Hamburg at the end of the 17th and early 18th century. After doing an opera by Mattheson in 2005 and “Almira” by Handel in 2013, we thought it was time to explore the operatic works of Reinhard Keiser, who was not only the artistic manager of the Opera House, but a prolific opera composer. Among the pieces by Keiser, “Octavia” seemed to be the most interesting and compelling show for today.
R.N.: In staging an opera from 1705, did you make any updates to help contemporary audiences better understand the context or plot?
G.B.: We try to apply to the stage productions the same historically informed approach which has dominated the musical work already for decades. We believe that if we present the piece with the utmost care for the original intention of the composers and the librettist [Barthold Feind], the audience of today will have a fantastic glimpse at not only history, but the highest artistic ambition.
But yes, there is something different: the length of the opera. When it was performed then, the opera was more than five hours long, and there was no intermission. The relation with the show at the time was very different from today—the auditorium stayed lit; people were coming in and out, a little today like in a rock concert or sports event; and they were not confined to a seat or to stay still in the darkness without a peep for hours. So, we reduced the length to make it manageable for our audience today.
Artistically speaking, we believe that if we present the thing as the closest to what it was, people will be engaged. In operas, the emotions are very strong, and the affects displayed are human affects, which don’t change through the centuries. My work is really about history, and I am absolutely fascinated by the lessons we can take from history, so it’s not an updated staging. People are not smoking cigarettes or drinking whiskey on stage. They are really characters of the historical context presented as close as we can to the way they were presented in 1705.
R.N.: “Octavia” is in the German language and would have been performed in Germany. Do you think that having to read supertitles of the English translation impacts the experience for today’s audiences?
G.B.: You are very right in your perception. This opera, which was specifically from Hamburg, actually mixes German and Italian, so that’s the most strange thing. Hamburg was a very cosmopolitan town and, as German opera was just starting to emerge at the time, they very soon realized that German was not the most lyrical language.
For the audience of today, we indeed have supertitles, but it’s also my job and the work of the cast to make the events understandable. The intrigue is not that complicated, despite the amount of characters and scenes. It’s based on historical characters, with a twist. The librettist was a scholar, but he is doing a dramaturgy which I call “What if?” What if someone saves Octavia? What if Nero came back to his senses and stopped his craziness? So, it’s a very surprising plot.
In the beginning, everything is more or less like you think it would be—Nero is a despot, slightly crazy, and he gets more and more crazy during the first part. In the second part, there is a moment—purely artistic invention—where Seneca the philosopher stages a kind of psychodrama to shock Nero and bring him back to his senses. It is the most surprising thing, but the action is rather simple to follow.
R.N.: I love that exploration of what could happen. It sounds like a similar technique used in the Broadway musical “& Juliet,” which explores what could have happened if Juliet didn’t kill herself after Romeo died.
G.B.: Yes, you’re right on. That’s exactly the way the librettist and Keiser himself treated Roman history.
Blin further elaborates on this artistic interpretation in his essay included in the Festival Program (available for purchase): “Drawing on ancient sources but treating them with creative liberty, Feind constructs a text tailored to the culturally diverse and intellectually curious audiences of early eighteenth-century Hamburg. In doing so, he repositions antiquity as a realm of interpretive play, accessible to both connoisseurs of classical learning and spectators in search of vivid theatrical spectacle.”
R.N.: The relationship between Armenia and Rome is a particularly interesting story—and one I only recently learned about while visiting Armenia. The history of ancient Armenia as a whole isn’t widely known. Given your experience in historically informed staging, what kind of research did your team do to better understand the history and geopolitical dynamics of the time?
G.B.: The main historical event here is this amazing diplomatic operation that Nero commands. In the first century, after a difficult war between the Roman Empire and Armenia, Nero commanded a diplomatic operation by inviting the Armenian Prince Tiridates to Rome. The trip took six months from Armenia to Rome, with a group estimated to be more than 600 people. The logistics of such a diplomatic embassy must have been outstanding for the time—and that was the idea. The Roman Empire at the time was very keen to absorb culture and bring them into the scope of the empire.
But Nero and his adviser Seneca felt that it was more interesting to give Armenia a form of independence. Nero therefore gave Armenia back to Prince Tiridates and in Rome, officially crowned him King of Armenia. It’s a strange thing, but that day is still called the “Golden Day” by historians.
It was a day which, in our imagination, is a little like the arrival of Elizabeth Taylor in the movie “Cleopatra.” It must have been an amazing spectacle, but also an amazing expression of the new form of power developing with Nero.
Nero had a vision of what this young empire could be and tried to treat the Armenian king and his large delegation with the utmost respect and really created a bond. This was very surprising at the time, in an imperialist politic, to have this kind of respect.
R.N.: Yeah, it seems the Roman Senators didn’t really approve of Nero’s actions.
G.B.: Nero was in constant opposition with the elite of the Roman Empire, which was mostly represented by the Senators who held the wealth and had years and years of power. These patrician families were not keen on Nero’s centralization of power—and we are living in a time today where this is also eminently relevant. But at that time, the people who wrote about Nero were from this class. Therefore, the first written pieces on him were not very objective about the ambition and politics of Nero. It’s only recently that new evidence has been brought to the surface by American and English historians who argue that there were plenty of wonderful things that this emperor did—specifically, his relationship with Armenia.
R.N.: In terms of the Armenian characters, how did your team learn about what would have been the proper clothing, interpersonal relationships, societal norms and so on?
G.B.: As you said yourself, sources from the first century–especially visual sources about Armenian culture—are very scarce. And this is a problem. We tried to find as many things as possible, but it was not conclusive. We also thought that if it’s not easy for us with all our technology and centuries of scholarship, it must have been even harder for the 1705 people in Hamburg, which was an international city, but may have never seen an Armenian or spoken with an Armenian.
In the mind of the people in the beginning of the century, this whole part of the globe was all under the influence of the Turkish people. The Turks had been invading Greece and the Middle East, and they were spreading their culture. In their mind that was–let’s be honest—”exotic.” People may not have been to Armenia, and even today, if you try to ask people to place it on the globe, they need to think twice. In 1705, it was even more like that.
Because we are obviously trying to be respectful and we know it’s important, we consulted Armenian scholars, specifically Dr. Isabel Bayrakdarian, a musicologist working on ancient Armenian songs, about certain options we could take for costuming.
But again, it’s a historically informed production, so that doesn’t mean we are compelled to display the fashion or the knowledge of the first century, but we are compelled to display and tell the story from the early 18th century perspective.
R.N.: There aren’t many Armenian characters in operas, besides operas written by Armenians. How did your team tackle that challenge, in terms of representation?
G.B.: I have staged an opera by Scarlatti, also from the 18th century, called “Tigrane.” We have much more information about Tigran than we have about Tiridates. Obviously, they are different, but it helps as we try to get as close as possible to what they knew at the time.
When you do a historically informed production for opera, people don’t understand that a lot of things have changed since the first century. When you go to a museum, you wouldn’t look at a painting by Leonardo da Vinci and say, “Well, people don’t dress like that.” Leonardo da Vinci was painting from his time and with his knowledge. This relationship between art and history is a very complex one.
R.N.: Is there anything in particular that Armenian audiences should look out for in the production?
G.B.: When Tiridates and his wife arrive in Rome, for some reason, she is totally seduced by Roman culture and the way the Roman women are more free than in Armenia. In the original libretto, the stage direction says that when they come in, they are also surrounded by a lot of Armenian courtiers and even children, since they travelled to Rome with a big group. We cannot do that obviously [on stage]; we don’t have the means or time to give them a large entourage.
But I thought that it would be interesting to have a third Armenian character besides the king and queen, so I created a matriarchal character. She’s firm, has a certain pride in her culture and displays the values connected to the Armenian delegation. In Rome, she is also very skeptical of what she understood right away to be a façade. It seems that everything’s fine and everybody loves the emperor, but she knows it’s not like that. The subtitle of the opera is “The Roman Rebellion”—the senators are plotting constantly, they’re even trying to kill Nero, and there is civil unrest from all layers of society.
R.N.: She sounds very much like a strong Armenian mother!
G.B.: When you do a stage production, you have the facts, the libretto, the music. Even when you’re doing a historical production, you know about the period, what was on their mind, what books they had at their disposal.
But it’s still, as I said earlier, all about human people and emotions. All that we have to deal with during our life is very present. If my work is based on scholarship, I myself am human and, along with wonderful singers, need to bring this form of humanity in the show, so it’s relatable for the audience and they can feel the emotion and what the characters are going through. This libretto is very close to a very good Shakespeare play—it has this very large, deep connection with all human emotion. It brings up this kind of aspiration to touch the core of humanity.
R.N.: Any final thoughts about “Octavia” for our readers?
G.B.: It’s a beautiful show. It’s not the type of opera where you think, “Oh my God, it’s beautiful, but I’m a little bored.” It’s a huge company of soloists, choirs and dancers. It is extremely entertaining! There is a dynamism in the show which I think is enjoyable for the audience of today.
Performances of the Boston Early Music Festival’s production of “Octavia” will be on June 8, 11, 13 and 15 at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston. Tickets can be purchased at BEMF.org or by calling 617-661-1812.
Rosie (Toumanian) Nisanyan
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