Review: Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Hadrian’ Is a Step Forward, but Still Frustrating

TORONTO — Even Rufus Wainwright now concedes that “Prima Donna,” his first opera, which received mixed to negative reviews at its 2009 premiere, was dramatically bland. But if the experience was a “nightmare” on many levels, as he said in a recent interview, he has tried to channel what he learned from it into his second opera, “Hadrian,” which had its premiere Saturday here at the Canadian Opera Company in an elaborate, colorfully costumed production directed by Peter Hinton.

Alas, “Hadrian,” which tells of this first-century Roman emperor’s love affair with Antinous, a beautiful young Greek man, is an exasperating opera, all the more so because whole stretches of Wainwright’s music are beguiling, inventive and unabashedly romantic. It’s a stronger, darker and certainly more ambitious work than “Prima Donna,” for which Wainwright co-wrote a weak French libretto.

This time he collaborated with Daniel MacIvor, an award-winning Canadian playwright, who wrote a libretto that, if a little poetically stiff (“This night with you from here unspools forever”), boldly blends Hadrian’s history, as we know it, with dramatic fabrication to create a gay love story that speaks to our time. Both creators admit that their working relationship was difficult. The dramaturge Cori Ellison had to provide counseling along with professional guidance. But the new opera, even at nearly three hours long (it’s written in four acts with one intermission), is paced effectively as the story mixes elements of intimacy, grandeur, political intrigue and the supernatural.

As in “Prima Donna,” Wainwright, an immensely gifted pop singer and songwriter, brings a deep love of opera to “Hadrian.” For him opera is an emotive and sweeping art form, something he never lets you forget here. Passage after passage came across as excessively frenetic, overheated, not to mention over-orchestrated. Every time there was a subdued, tender or quietly suspenseful episode in the score, you sensed the musical subtleties, wistful lyricism and ear for keen detail that have made Wainwright such a fine songwriter.

In a way, the dramatic climax of “Hadrian” comes in the fraught opening scene, which takes place in 138 A.D., the last night of Hadrian’s life. Antinous has been dead for a year, and the circumstances of his death are still unclear to the emperor. (The historical record remains unclear as well.)

Hadrian (veteran baritone Thomas Hampson in a courageous performance) is gravely ill. His attendants, especially Turbo (bass David Leigh), an old friend and military leader, harangue Hadrian to order action against enemies of the state, particularly those leading an uprising in Judea. Hadrian leans mournfully against the sarcophagus containing Antinous’ body as five male dancers in G-strings stand statuesque in the background. As the orchestra roils, with restless spiraling figures, bursts of percussion and slashing brass, the characters asking the emperor for action intone their lines in stentorian, almost monotone declamations, enforced by a large chorus. Conductor Johannes Debus manages the traffic ably and draws brassy intensity from the orchestra. But it’s too much.

At one point, urged by Turbo to issue commands before it is too late, Hadrian calls out to his dead lover in pleading phrases. It’s a rich moment in the score. Below his aching lines, calm strings play strands of counterpoint that overlap into pungently mellow sonorities. I wanted more such moments.

One comes later in the act. Two deities only Hadrian can see, emperor Trajan (tenor Roger Honeywell) and his wife, Plotina (renowned soprano Karita Mattila in good voice), have come with a mission for him. Plotina has a wonderful aria, my favorite piece in the score. “You may see me cold,” she says, but “I am a woman first.” Her melodic lines are at once regretful and wily, supported by slightly jazzy harmonies dominated by woodwinds that reminded me of Ellington’s orchestra writing.

But soon we were back to the brassy busyness. Plotina proposes to allow Hadrian to relive two crucial days in his life: the day he met Antinous, and the day Antinous died (which, in this telling, results from a strategic murder by Turbo). In return, the emperor must sign the order to crush all enemies who believe in monotheism, a creed that threatens Plotina’s status as a god.

The next two acts are mostly flashbacks. The story shifts seven years earlier to Greece, when Hadrian meets Antinous, who, during a hunt, killed a boar charging at the emperor. Young Canadian tenor Isaiah Bell brings a sweetly lyrical, if sometimes strained, voice and an innocently handsome look to Antinous. Here, a rarity in opera, we have an absolute ruler and a smitten young man portrayed as defiantly and passionately in love. Their true devotion is something Hadrian’s long-suffering wife, Sabina (the compelling soprano Ambur Braid), comes to understand.

That love is made explicit at the start of Act III, which takes place on a barge on the Nile six years later. Hadrian’s travels though his realm have finally landed his entourage in Egypt. In a dreamy sequence, he and Antinous are seen embracing, kissing and climbing into bed. The strings play ethereal tones, long-lingering as bits of melodic lines weave into the sonority and build slowly into radiant passages jostled with twitchy rhythms.

The company is alerting the audience that this scene dares to portray two men engaged in sex. Antinous is presented as the dominant partner, as the orchestra swells and blares like a Hollywood costume drama’s film score. Though the bare-chested singers wear shorts during their lovemaking and cover themselves with robes, this staging nevertheless took some daring. Still, I found the post-passion moments of affection more moving and resonant.

Though the historic Hadrian did put down the rebellion in Judea and kill many Jews, this Hadrian is depicted as tormented about it. And before his murder, Antinous, defending the Jews against attacks from sniping Roman senators, sings a paean to inclusion: “We are each in all, all in each.” It could have been cloying, but here again Wainwright drew upon the subtleties he is capable of as a composer to beguiling effect. If only this score had fewer moments of all-out, frenzied, melodramatic excess.

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Event Information:

‘Hadrian’

At the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto through Oct. 27; coc.ca