New Otello premiered in Berlin: Kriegenburg and Harteros rocked -- Cura and Lucic were great too!

Otello, Deutsche Oper Berlin, May 30 2010

Conductor Patrick Summers

Director Andreas Kriegenburg

Otello José Cura

Iago Zeljko Lucic

Cassio Yosep Kang

Roderigo Gregory Warren

Lodovico Hyung-Wook Lee

Montano Jörn Schümann

Desdemona Anja Harteros

Emilia Liane Keegan

The expectations were high, i.e. proportional to the standards by which this project --new production of Otello-- has been initiated.  To find a director who proved to be excellent and yet someone who didn't produce zillions of shows to make his micro-universe recognizable in all corners of the Globe, it is hard. You may take a risk and confide a job to a young director but the stakes were really high:  economy is tight,  you need someone fresh in the world of opera, yet experimented enough & capable to create an event.


Andreas Kriegenburg is a rare director to satisfy all these constraints. Even if he's very well known in theatrical circles, he exercised his talent in an opera only three times thus far: twice in his native Magdeburg, and once in Munich -- last year when he slammed the opera-world by delivering one of the most memorable productions of Wozzeck ever. That last success eventually earned him a flattering proposal by the Bayrische Staatsoper to stage their new production of The Ring of the Niebelung, which is scheduled to begin in 2012 [obviously in Munich].

So, Kriegenburg was a cherry-picked director, and with a very good DOB (Deutsche Oper Berlin) orchestra, plus arguably the world's best chorus, the artistic direction of the DOB provided a good conditions for their second big production this year [Rienzi being the first one].  To me  Otello is by far the most accomplished work by Verdi (modulo Falstaff!). The action is not annoyingly suspended and the recitatives are reduced to minimum. Musically it's excellent and the maturity of Verdi shows -- he didn't have to go for cheap effects and loads of tunes to seduce the public -- he was famous and his every opera was bound to be a success.

To me this is one of the best shows I've seen at the DOB. I'd put it up there, together with the Aegyptische Helena [dir Marelli] and Rienzi [dir Stolzl]. Everything was simply excellent: the stage, the action/theater, the orchestra was exceptionally inspired, all the singers were brilliant, and the chorus was mind-blowing.

Anja Harteros confirms once again that she is the best soprano in this spectrum of roles. I would even go beyond that statement and claim that right now Anja Harteros is the best singer, all categories combined.
Her voice is round and beautiful. She sings everything with such a disarming easiness which makes you admire her more and more with each time you listen to her live-singing again. Her smashing Elsa [Lohengrin] is nowadays a reference -- she's set that standard in Munich, where she stole the show that was otherwise ultra-focused on Jonas Kaufmann (who was brilliant too, but far-far below Anja's degree of  awesomeness)!
This Desdemona is at that level too. Jaw-dropping, brilliant, fantastic, freakincredible... [I run out of compliments.] Every sound that woman produced last night was distinctly beautiful. You have an impression that she's never pushing her voice. Just amazing!
Her recordings are never as good as her live singing, most probably because her voice is richer than the bidimensional --even if edited-- recording could capture. I say that to encourage you to --if you ever get a chance to listen to Anja singing live-- go and feel that uniqueness by yourselves. You may not appreciate her standard immediately, but after you listened to her once, all the other singers will sound to you less good than they did before, and when you listen to Anja again you'll realize how wonderful she is...

Last night she was scenically and vocally perfect. The crowd went nuts shouting BRAVA!
Her major moment was of course during The Willow Song and Ave Maria -- in short, a historical performance by this mighty lady.  

José Cura had ups and downs in his career, but when he puts his heart and his soul in the character he's supposed to incarnate,  he indeed does it with all his heart and guts, without retaining anything. His voice was at his best last night, and didn't get tired at any point of the evening. I usually complain about his tendency to overact, which never worked with me outside of the verismo repertoire [which, obviously, is not my favorite repertoire ;)]. I don't know if Kriegenburg toned him down, but even scenically he was superb last night. I never saw him neither vocally nor scenically that good. A huge BRAVO-BRAVISSIMO to him too!  

Zeljko Lucic is only getting better with age. A big guy who can sing big, who possesses a vocal tenderness,  but who's a perfect operatic villain character. His voice is rich, still sounding youngish (!) but very powerful. Listen to him for 10 minutes or so and you gotta develop some kind of spontaneous respect to that man. His acting was very good, his singing awesome -- BRAVISSIMO!  

Patrick Summers is quite a famous conductor in the US [by the way, he's Music director of the Houston Grand Opera], but not as much in Europe, where he performs only rarely. Last night he showed how good he really is. The DOB Orchestra is tuned to perfection for the premiere and the chorus is at its usual best, but Patrick should be credited for making the whole package sound wonderfully homogenous and compact, yet emphasizing  all the nuances of the score.

Yosep Kang and Liane Keegan were very good too.

Now what about the staging? Kriegenburg in his interview said he believes the love provides disorder (both privately and socially) whereas jealousy and irrational destructive behavior tend to return the things to the "ordered" state at the origin [before the changes occurred], which - of course - is impossible [it's thermodynamics ;) ]. 

So, Kriegenburg decided to focus onto the love-story of Otello but did not neglect the social dimension of libretto. He clearly refused to play the racial card: Otello is not the only black guy on the stage. This is because Kriegenburg and his team placed the action in a refugee camp [c.f. photo above] which hosts many refugees including many Africans who fled violence and civil wars on their continent to come to the shores of Cyprus. Life in a refugee camp is violent, degrading, hard -- the war is not only about the warriors and casualties, it's also about refugees who're deprived of humanistic dimension... In that environment Kriegenburg unfold the story of Otello as you know it. There are very many details, many stories happening in the background, in the scaffolding structure [c.f. pic above] where the refugees live; you could see the facilities that they all share (sinks and mirrors),  women who must cope with lack of privacy at every level... one of them begins to dance/daydream, and a parallel story/dance to that between Desdemona and Otello happens right in front of that sink/mirror: when Otello threatens Desdemona, that woman's husband --who used to "tango" with her-- shows up and strangles her by putting a plastic bag over her head...

To hide Otello before Cassio came (in the last part of the show), Iago throws a handful of coins on the ground near Otello and the children from the camp came to pick up the coins but also to surround Otello, making him invisible to Cassio. At that distance Otello could listen to what Iago and Cassio were saying.

The intimate moments between Otello and Desdemona --including the opera's finale-- happens in their bedroom, totally opposite to the atmosphere of the refugee camp.

So how the folks present at the premiere  reacted last night? Split in two: there were many boos, but as many bravos (count my huge voice contributing substantially the second camp).
Why boos? I can see three reasons: (1) the action is transposed and the traditionalists reject it by definition [they are always the most vocal about their disapproval!]; (2) the night of the premiere is very special and it is a social happening: many peops show up to be seen and not really to enjoy opera ---> those folks do not like to be challenged. They want to be entertained, and if they're not they jeer; (3) in Germany, all the good shows are booed.
Andreas and his team looked a bit surprised by the boos. They are not used to the level of conservatism in the world of opera, so it's part of a learning process to them.
I believe the boos after a show like this should be taken as compliments: if nobody was disturbed that would mean your theater was tepid, irrelevant or "dead".

All in all, I loved the show. Contrary to my habits, this time I stayed at the after-premiere party. I took some pics there which I'll post sometimes during the week.

Ed: Just noticed that a set of 20 pics from the show appeared on the DOB web site. See here!

Cura, Herteros and Summers

Cura, Herteros and Lucic

entire crew: chorus, producers, singers

Andreas Kriegenburg

Schumann, Kang, Curra, Harteros, Lucic, Keegan, Lee

DOB chorus is a star!

Chorus of children were excellent too [some of them were pickpockets ;)]

William Spaulding -- responsible for such a great level of quality of the DOB chorus

Spaulding, Anja and a girl from the DOB Chorus