Opera Cake

Don Carlo di Monaco

2012-01-22T16:46:00.009+01:00

... not to be mistaken for Gian Carlo del Monaco. Latter is the name of a talentless opera producer who every year presents one of his lamentable productions at the Paris Opera.

Don Carlo di Monaco instead is a not-very-good production of Verdi's Don Carlo presented at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, that will be live-streamed today January 22 2012, at 17:00 (CET) on this website.

If the production is not really worth spending over 3 hours in front of your computer, the cast is exquisite and you'll most probably love our dearest Anja Harteros, the majestic René Pape, and always reliable super-Jonas Kaufmann. I bet Anna Smirnova sounds perfect as Eboli in the auditorium of the BSO.
Mariusz Kwiecien was supposed to sing the role of Marquis de Posa, but had to cancel a few weeks before the show, and is replaced by Boaz Daniel, who I recently listened in the same role [in the new production of Don Carlo at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin (much better production than the one in Munich, which I also saw a few years ago)].

Enjoy!

René Pape rulz!

This production is subpar for the Munich standards but it is nevertheless infinitely better than the abysmal new productions presented at the Paris Opera this year (Faust, Manon, La Forza del Destino -- it is hard to pick the worst of the three)
Time for Anja Harteros to rock the house -- Tu che le vanità
She did it again ;) Seriously guys, if you didn't get a chance to listen to Anja Harteros singing live in a good opera house you should book your next opera-trip and go to wherever she sings. It's 5 times better than recorded.

Etta James, 1938-2012

2012-01-20T20:50:00.004+01:00

One of the rare great genuine artists of our time left us today. :(

Rest in peace big lady!

Don Giovanni - Alert

2012-01-08T19:50:00.003+01:00

Six years after its premiere, one of the most poignant opera productions -- Don Giovanni directed by Michael Haneke-- will be back at the Paris Opera next March/April.

Peter Mattei and Luca Pisaroni in the Michael Haneke production of Don Giovanni

As I suggested at the beginning of the 2011-2012 season, this is one of the two truly recommendable productions this year in Paris --the other being Carsen's Tannhäuser-- and actually worth a trip.

While the quality of most of the new productions in Paris oscillates between bad and dreadful, the revival of the old stuff is usually very well done, with great care (Lulu and La clemenza di Tito, are this season's notable examples.)

Cnd- Philippe Jordan/Marius Stieghorst; Cast: Peter Mattei, Paata Burchuladze, Patricia Petibon, Bernard Richter/Saimir Pirgu, Véronique Gens, David Bizic, Nahuel Di Pierro, Gaële Arquez.

The online ticket sale opens tomorrow, Monday January 9th, at 9 am (CET)!

Art of Interpretation and Expression

2012-01-08T14:43:00.001+01:00

Last December 19, Emmanuele Haïm and her orchestra Le Concert d'Astrée celebrated 10 years of collaboration/activity, and for the occasion a Gala Concert took place at Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris.

Happily, for us who could not attend the concert, Arte concocted 1 hour of excerpts and broadcast it last week.

Christopher Purves (L) and Anne Sofie von Otter & Philippe Jarousky (R)

I will not comment on the concert that I didn't attend but I thought I could share a couple of excerpts that are good illustration of utmost importance of the interpretative skills in making the beautiful voices reaching the spectators' hearts.

Enjoy!

Anne Sofie von Otter and Philippe Jarousky sing Son nata a lagrimar from Handel's Giulio Cesare

Christopher Purves sings The Cold Song from Purcell's King Arthur

The third one is a Gala thing -- you will know to appreciate it for what it is:
Philippe Jarousky and Pascal Bertin sing Sound the trumpet by Henry Purcell

Mathematics, A Beautiful Elsewhere

2012-01-08T11:26:00.002+01:00

Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain is a medium-sized exhibition space in Paris that regularly surprises us by proposing delightful small-scaled exhibitions of whatever appears to be a new trend in the world of contemporary art. The events are not huge, but very carefully chosen as to let you in on the artistic wave of the moment, and to leave you enough time to process and contemplate on the exposed pieces [which is to be contrasted to the large scale exhibitions where one is often rushing to (pointlessly) see everything -- our brains cannot absorb too much art and saturates after an hour or so.]

I don't blog here on the exhibitions but this time I must make an exception. Fondation Cartier surpassed themselves and proposed something intellectually enriching, very creative, and totally new...

They assembled some of the world's leading mathematicians from different branches of mathematics together with some of the most curious and open-minded (popular) artists of our time to explore the possibilities to open the fascinating field of mathematics to a wider audience.

On the mathematics side they invited: Michael Atiyah, Jean-Pierre Bourgignon, Alain Connes, Nicole El Karoui, Misha Gromov, Giancarlo Lucchini, Cédric Villani and Don Zagier, while for the artistic views on mathematics and its impact on science and philosophy they invited: Jean-Michel Alberola, Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret, Takeshi Kitano, David Lynch, Beatriz Milhazes, Patti Smith, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Tandori Yokoo.

Mathematics is not only a set of rules or a logical framework that makes clean, irrefutable statements. It actually paved the way to modern physics and modern technology that radically changed our lives -- especially in the past 20 years or so. Its impact on philosophy and modern thinking is tremendous. Even among top philosophers and social scientists it is very little known about new corners of human thinking that are being currently tackled by mathematics.

To make the genesis of the 20th century science --whose development is so tightly connected to mathematics-- there is a large circular white room, with cleverly positioned projectors showing images both on the screen and on the ceiling (with sound effects concocted by Patti Smith) talking about the system of scientific thinking, empirical and rational that dispels superstitious and ignorant [several sofas are at visitors' disposal as well as the small spongy pieces that you can use to sit or lay down on the floor -- and let yourself embark into the contemplating mode].
Another room explains the relation between mathematics and advances of both the modern particle physics and cosmology, that are currently searching the explanation about the origin of Dark Matter but from two opposite (complementary) ends, i.e. by exploring the physics at infinitesimally small distances and those that are cosmologically large.
There is a room with robots showing how the newly developed algorithms (also mathematics!) --offspin of neural networks-- allow the robots to communicate with each other, and how the learning process of communication between them is controlled.
There is a pure math section with an interesting sculpture obtained from the mathematical expression that designates infinity. In another large dark room on a huge screen placed on one of the walls, famous mathematicians are discussing --in laymen terms-- the fascinating features of their respective branches of mathematics, each focalizing on the epistemological impact, rather than dwelling on too many details.

If you are in Paris or around, don't miss this experience that is so much more enriching than the usual exhibitions you might see.

Talking about David Bösch...

2012-01-06T18:12:00.001+01:00

I should remind you that tomorrow, Saturday, January 7 2012, at 6:45 pm (CET) the Bavarian State Opera will live broadcast, on their website, a very good production of L'elisir d'amore directed by David Bösch.

Dan Ettinger will conduct and the cast includes Adriana Kučerová, Pavol Breslik, Levente Molnár, Ambrogio Maestri, and Tara Erraught.

From the David Bösch production of L'elisir d'amore at BSO in Munich

It is close to my favorite production of this opera (by Richard Brunel), and shows that some of the belcanto operas can be produced intelligently, by introducing a little idea, and rely on the theatrical tools to hide the triviality of the libretto. It is not easy but here is proof that it is possible!

See trailer below...

Mitridate, Rè di Bavaria

2012-01-06T13:50:00.006+01:00

Mitridate, rè di Ponto, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, July 25 2011

Extraordinary Lawrence Zazzo as Farnace in the David Bösch production of Mitridate, rè di Ponto

Director ..... David Bösch

Conductor ..... Ivor Bolton

Mitridate ..... Barry Banks

Aspasia ..... Patricia Petibon

Sifare ..... Anna Bonitatibus

Farnace ..... Lawrence Zazzo

Ismene ..... Lisette Oropesa

Marzio ..... Alexey Kudrya

Arbate ..... Eri Nakamura

The Bavarian State Orchestra

Contrary to Der Rosenkavalier --that I lived like on a rollercoaster (the most unbearable snootiness I've ever experienced at the Opera, and the over-perfumed crowd cheering the old Schenk production Vs. superb singing by all 4 protagonists + tenor) but ultimately was a lesson for me never to succumb to temptation to go and see the shows because of the star singers in it-- here is a true example of the greatness of The Bavarian State Opera (BSO) in Munich: they took the arguably most challenging of the Mozart operas and made it one of the overall best shows in 2011.

Take the score and you'll see how tremendously difficult it is to sing -- with impossible passages for Aspasia, or Mitridate, and the most energy consuming Farnace -- and assembling a homogeneous, high quality, cast is very difficult. As the score exhibit the fact that Mozart was only 14 when he composed this opera, you need a conductor who can be careful enough to underline the delicacy of the numerous Idomeneo-like parts, while avoiding to indulge into specific fractions of the score and leave the rest sounding amorphous.
Finally the libretto is baroquesque, again typical for the early Mozart operas, and you need a talented and competent director, capable to give life to the metaphors in the story, instead of dumbly narrating the plot [which is what we often get from the operatic charlatans who nowadays 'produce' the early Mozart operas or those from the baroque repertoire.]

And the result after the show I saw?! Win, win, win! Big win for the BSO, and I was more than surprised to realize that they did not plan more shows during the current operatic season (2011-2012), but rather opted to present the next run of 5 shows during the Festspiele in late July 2012.

This is a rarely performed opera, extremely difficult to sing, and I'll first throw in several lines about singing. To me the most wonderful singing came from Anna Bonitatibus. She was clearly on her turf in this opera: it is close enough to baroque where she excels, and so she could have employed her incomparable interpretative skills, and yet the role was stretching her voice from the lowest to the extreme top notes, and unveiled the equal beauty of her timbre in all registers. Barry Banks impressed by his vocal capabilities and his stamina. His very tough role became practically heroic when one adds everything he had to do on the stage to incarnate Mitridate in the Bösch production [At one point he was hitting high C's while doing push-ups, and I am not kidding you!] Although better on CD than in live performances, Patricia Petibon should be celebrated for her courage to sing the full role of Aspasia in one night, without humming anything, attacking every high note directly and in full voice. She started a bit tentatively but as the show progressed she was brilliant. Respect! Lawrence Zazzo was my favorite performer on the night I saw the show: either he was having a particularly good evening, or the story is organized to bring the best acting and singing from him, but the truth is that he had the most remarkable scenic presence in the show, that he supported by a full command of his voice that actually exacerbated the crucial moments in the drama. It was a true pleasure to see this kind of "total performance" in an opera that is not from the Da Ponte Cycle, or from the Wagner or Berg repertoire. I would be unfair if I didn't mention other, maybe less dominant but non-negligible roles: Lisette Oropesa, Alexey Kudrya, Eri Nakamura - top singers of their generation.
Huge bravo to all the singers, who sounded perfect in the auditorium of the Prinzregententheater.

Besides Adam Fischer, Peter Minkowski, and Thomas Hengelbrock, a true magician in the Mozart repertoire is Ivor Bolton. This opera is a relative rarity and despite his big experience it must have been a thrill for him to prepare it, to go through long episodes and figure out the way to avoid sounding routinely. Clearly him and Bösch worked together and the tempi he chose were perfectly in sync with what was happening on the stage, while the stage action was organized to reflect the moods and main threads of the libretto, without ever being decoupled from the score. Winning formula!

If you do not know the story of Mitridate, please read the synopsis here.

Since a good chunk of the story happens on the shore of Nymphæaum, the sea-gulls made of plaster are put everywhere in auditorium which prepares you for the show that follows. On the cavity looking stage you can see the painted sea-gulls too. The colors are brownish which brings the obscurity but also a necessary intimacy to the Mozart opera. The same set are later easily converted to the court-room once a large chandelier descends from above the stage.

David Bösch immediately gives us the hint of his take on this drama: during the overture a short cartoon featuring Le Petit Prince by Saint-Exupéry, is a kid who learns, learns, and suddenly unleashes his own imagination, creativity and explore the possibilities other than those he was taught.

The story is about the young sons of the King who fall in love with Aspasia, who used to be the promised Queen before the King disappeared. She was a young female figure in the life of two adolescents, and the news that their father was dead encouraged them to take extra step from their fantasies and make advances to Aspasia.
One of the sons (Sifare) is sensitive and shy in expressing his love for Aspasia, whereas the other (Farnace) is outgoing, rebellious, and defiant.

David Bösch astutely focalizes his drama on the battle of generations. Old Vs. New, Father Vs. Son.

On one hand we have the young Farnace who goes through his rebellion age and wants to outdo his father in everything. He dismisses Ismene because his father wanted him to marry her. He plots against his father (with Marcio) because his father is the exponent of the upper (older) class [Marcio and Farnace draw a huge encircled A on the wall -- for "anarchist".] His awkward advances to Aspasia are guided by his desire to take his father's spot, rather than his actual desire for Aspasia.

On the other hand we have Mitridate who cannot accept the fact that he's getting old and he uses everything to show that he is still able and has enough power to outdo his sons: he uses his social authority and tries to exercise (in vain) his paternal authority, and he even physically demonstrates that he's not yet pas his prime (above mentioned episode with push-ups.) The more he learns about his sons' "betrayal"/defiance, the more ferocious his battle to stay on power is.

In the end, Mitridate realizes that the loss in that battle is inexorable, and incapable to accept the defeat he prepares to die. Farnace instead grows out his rebellion/anarchist age, return to his father and expresses his love for him.

The generational struggle happens on emotional, political, and personal level. It's life! It's a constant battle between old that wouldn't go away and new that boldly push its way to take the spot. The New that, at first, wants to radically change The Old, eventually embraces the Old in its own way.

Remember well this name opera-freaks: David Bösch!
Production photos [©Wilfried Hösl]:

Sifare and Aspasia

Sifare Bonitatibus and Aspasia Petibon

Barry Banks -- Mitridate

Abusive Mitridate is furious, realizing Aspasia is not in love with him anymore

Marzio helps Farnace showing his rage against his father -- Rè di Ponte

My cc pics:

Kudrya, Nakamura, Oropesa, Banks, Zazzp, Bonitatibus, and Petibon

Maestro Bolton -- Anna Bonitatibus applauding

Enormous performance by Lawrence Zazzo & Patricia Petibon

The orchestra joined the protagonists for the last calls

Trailer:

BSO Opera-TV [~10min film]:

Occupy Bayreuth!

2012-01-05T19:07:00.002+01:00

Remember that Siemens was sponsoring the popular Siemens Festspielnacht in Bayreuth, and each year one opera would be live broadcast on a big screen in front of thousands of people from Northern Bavaria who otherwise wouldn't be able to experience one of the Festival operas.

The screenings were cherished by everyone for many different reasons, and it was compatible with the Wagner's original idea to organize the festival that would make his Gesamtkunstwerk accessible to all the people.

The webcast --also sponsored by Siemens-- helped many Wagnerites around the world, who either weren't lucky to score a ticket for the festival or simply couldn't afford all the expenses, to see one opera every year.

Bad news, last September, was that Siemens would stop sponsoring these popular events, and without their 1 million € no more webcast, nor "Siemens Festival Nights", could be ensured.

This week Welt reports that the trade unions in Bayreuth were not happy at all about the cancellation of the public screenings, insisting that it was against the Richard Wagner's idea, the access to the culture that closes to the rich few... They go on by saying that the rich 10%, not only own 60% of the country's assets, but also 100% of the Festspiel tickets.

And so the unionists are in negotiations with the Festival's management, and threaten to mobilize and occupy the Green Hill next July 25.

Read more here.

Passions around and about Wagner & his heritage never end...

Amadis de Gaule by J.C.Bach at Opéra Comique in Paris

2012-01-03T11:19:00.009+01:00

Amadis de Gaule, Opéra Comique in Paris, January 2 2012

Conductor ..... Jérémie Rhorer
Director ..... Marcel Bozonnet

Amadis ..... Philippe Do
Oriane ..... Hélène Guilmette
Arcabonne ..... Allyson McHardy
Arcalaüs ..... Franco Pomponi
Urgande, 1st Coryphaeus ..... Julie Fuchs
La Discorde, 2nd Coryphaeus ..... Alix Le Saux
La Haine, L’Ombre d’Ardan Canil ..... Peter Martinčič*
Soprano solo ..... Ana Dežman*
Tenor solo ..... Martin Sušnik*
*soloistes of the Chorus of SNG Ljubljana (Slovenia)

Compagnie de danse Les Cavatines (Natalie van Parys)
Le Cercle de l’Harmonie

Amadis de Gaule is an opera by Johann Christian Bach, a composer who was the Mozart's contemporary and who Mozart reputedly admired (they even met twice -- once in London and once in Paris.) J.C. Bach was one of many sons of Johann Sebastian Bach, converted to catholicism and lived in Italy, married to Italian. He composed operas in Italian, English, and only one in French which is one of his most significant works. That information alone makes it surprising that Amadis de Gaule has never been staged in France since its creation in 1779. I liked the idea that Opéra Comique in Paris decided to produce this opera and start 2012 on a good note.

Amadis de Gaule was in a sense an update of Lully's opera Amadis -- both operas are based on the libretto written by Philippe Quinault. While the music by J.C. Bach contains some elements of baroque, it is much more melodic, less long, and the style is clearly the early Classical -- very much like early Mozart, or late Jommelli. Listen to this example (one of the few highlights of Amadis de Gaule)

The artistic management of the Opéra Comique had a good idea to invite Jérémie Rhorer and his orchestra to revive this score. They are always brilliant in performing Mozart, and this music is very close to early Mozart -- the result could not be bad. Last night, at the premiere, they sounded impeccable, even if with a few 'dry moments.' (this may be a false impression -- it's maybe the score?!)

Now the far fetched libretto is filled with metaphors and therefore a fertile ground for astute stage directors who could use them to tell the story in a way closer to the people who live in the 3rd millennium (Just like Jan Philipp Glogger did with Alcina in Dresden.)

The plot is less messy than in most of the famous baroque operas, there are less characters and and there are not too many impossible twists. Since there is no synopsis available on the Internet, I'll write it here for you.

Act-1: In a dark forest, the magician/sorceress Arcabonne weeps as she fell in love with an unknown knight who saved her life. Her brother, the sorcerer Arcalaus, reminds her of their mission to avenge the death of their brother Ardan, killed by Amadis the paladin. By black magic they generate a conflict between Amadis and his princess Oriane, call the help from Demons and abduct the princess. Amadis courageously comes to rescue his fiancée, but stopped by a magic spell he and his soldiers eventually surrender to Arcalaus and Demons.

Act-2: Arcabonne prepares for the ritual of torturing the prisoners that should culminate by the death of Amadis. The Shadow of Death suddenly appears and warns her [Arcabonne] that she would betray her brother and join him in Hell. Arcabonne understands the threat only after recognizing that Amadis is actually the unknown knight who saved her life. Tormented, she succumbs to the 'good', liberates Amadis and all other captives.

Act-3: Arcabonne explains to her brother why she liberated Amadis, which only inflames the rage and jealousy in Arcalaus. Oriane, still imprisoned, is desperate but believes that Amadis would come and save her. Arcalaus tricks her by his black magic and shows her the image of the dead Amadis. Believing in the hopelessness of her situation Oriane wants to die too.
At this point of the story it is revealed that Amadis and Oriane are in fact asleep and possessed by evil spirits. The good fairy Urgande appears and rescues them. Arcalaus wanders away to burn in his own rage and hatred on the road to Hell to join Arcabonne. Urgande reanimates Amadis and Oriane who are back in love again, and Amadis is back in his noble paladin mission: fight for the freedom and justice.

Marcel Bozonnet was not trying to make this plot closer to us, or to play with metaphors to make his take on the story peculiar... His production looks as if taken from the museum shelves, narrated the libretto with no wit nor any interpretative input, but with a very cheesy finale of "celebration of love."
Very nice costumes were unfortunately combined with sets consisting of printed curtains in the backgrounds, painted pillars on the cardboard paper... The arrival of Urgande was 'ghastly' -- a fairy descending from the sky, standing in the center of the Sun (also painted cardboard paper, c.f. photo above) -- kitscherei par excellence!
However, thanks to Natalie van Parys (choreographer) and to the relative shortness of the piece (2 hrs with no intermission), boredom actually never sets in and you spend a moderately pleasant evening -- if you like Mozart and the early Classic style, that is.
After some Internet research, I found that a more modern approach to this story was attempted a couple of years ago by Nicolas Brieger in Mannheim. That production will be rerun this January/February too. Here is a short clip from that production:

Back to the last night's premiere. I should stress once again that Jérémie Rhorer and his orchestra saved the night. As for the singing, I thought was OK(ish) overall. Hélène Guilmette was the most expressive singer, her voice sounds good, and the small size of the Opéra Comique helped her. Allyson McHardy had a tough job because her role was long and requires all the registers of her voice to be employed. Although I heard her singing better than last night, she was good in the important parts. Philippe Do is a fine tenor who tried too much to make his voice sound big, occasionally sacrificing his vocal line (half a tone here and there.)

So, all in all, I was glad to discover an opera that exemplifies the overlapping era between baroque and classicism. If only the show and sets didn't look like a revival of the production premiered in 1779, and the director had any ground idea for his show...

A few production photos [©Pierre Grosbois]:

I forgot my camera and the only pic I took was with my iPhone:

Trailer:

and a short segment shown on France3-TV:

New Year's Concert from La Fenice

2012-01-01T22:23:00.008+01:00

Young and talented conductors often bring freshness and audacity to the interpretation of known (and less known) music, they are less 'hampered' by the constraints of experience... On the other hand, the more experienced conductors often build on their experience to bring new subtleties of the score, to play with the orchestral texture and make the known music sound different/fresh...

Diego Matheuz

Diego Matheuz was appointed the chief conductor of the large and prestigious Orchestra Filarmonica della Fenice, at the age of 27. Despite his undeniable talent, and after having listened to the New Year's concert from Venice, I began to think that this appointment might go against his own artistic development, and even his career.

A young conductor needs some years of experience: touring, learning from great senior conductors, working with various orchestras, trying different repertoires, different styles...

For everyone who loves music and is altruistic about it, it is impossible not to be fascinated by the Venezuelan El Sistema. It is, however, irrational not to acknowledge the valley between that fascination and the baffling glorification of Matheuz and/or Dudamel. Diego Matheuz is clearly very talented, but so are David Afkham, Clemens Schuldt, Lionel Bringuier, Kazuki Yamada, Andris Poga...

In other words, PR is fine as long as there's space for a minimum of objectivity. Otherwise we might slide to the situation in which the talented --and "so cute!"-- children conduct big philharmonic orchestra...

Ah yes.... the New Year's concert from La Fenice --live broadcast today (January 1st 2012) on Arte-TV-- is appended below.

Diego Matheuz conducts, and the soloists are: Jessica Pratt, Alex Esposito, and Walter Fraccaro.

Of you cannot see the above video immediately, it will be available in a few hours or so. If you're impatient try http://videos.arte.tv/fr/videos/concert_du_nouvel_an_a_la_fenice-6299412.html

For starters...

2012-01-01T13:54:00.011+01:00

Wish you all a very Happy New Year 2012!

2011 was exciting with many-many wonderful productions. I could see the monumental productions such as Les Troyens in Karlsruhe, Les Huguenots and Parsifal in Brussels, War and Peace in Cologne, Götterdämmerung in Strasbourg, Parsifal in Basel, and many less grand spectacles but equally exciting events: Wozzeck in Berlin and Basel, Lulu in Paris, Mitridate in Munich, Idomeneo in Berlin, La Clemenza in Paris, Turandot in Dijon, Mahagonny in Antwerp, Macbeth in Lille and Leipzig, Atys in Paris, Alcina in Dresden, Hérodiade in Ghent, Carmen in Berlin, Walküre in Berlin, Siegfried in Paris, Tristan in Lyon, Berlin and Weimar, Rusalka in Dresden, Berlin and Basel, Les Carmélites in Berlin, Kat'a Kabanova in Paris, Lear in Berlin, Médée in Brussels, L'elisir d'amore in Lille, Parsifal in Zurich, Onegin in Amsterdam, Tannhäuser in Paris and Dresden...

I will make my Best of 2011 later in January, but off the top of my head, the most memorable operatic performances will remain those by Anna Larsson (Kundry/Parsifal), Svetlana Ignatovich (Rusalka), Heidi Melton (Didon/Les Troyens), and Nina Stemme (Elisabeth/Tannhäuser), as well as fantastic Krassimira Stoyanova, Anja Harteros, Marlis Petersen, Stéphanie d'Oustrac, Angela Denoke, and many many many more. Young Erika Roos, Sonya Yoncheva, Lucrezia Garcia were my delightful discoveries.

Men were great too with several outstanding performances: Thomas Johannes Mayer (Wozzeck), René Pape (Wotan/Walküre), Stephen Gould (Tannhäuser), Hans-Peter König (Hagen/Götterdämmerung), as well as Lance Ryan, John Daszak, Stephen Miling, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Georg Zeppenfeld, Richard Croft, Christophe Dumaux, Thomas Piffka, Kwangchul Youn, Bernard Richter, Andrey Dunaev and many, many more.

Musically, I will never forget the shock after Wozzeck with Daniel Barenboim and his Staatskapelle, elation after Donald Runnicles' conducting of Don Carlo at the Deutsche in Berlin, or after Marko Letonja's stunning reading of Götterdämmerung in Strasbourg, the enchantment during Tristan und Isolde with Kirill Petrenko in Lyon... The strongest moment --and my biggest surprise in 2011-- was however Justin Brown and his monumental yet delicate reading of Les Troyens in Karlsruhe.

In 2012 we will celebrate 150th birthday of Claude Debussy, mark the 100th anniversary since the death of Jules Massenet, and the 50th since the death of Hanns Eisler.

For starters, here is a video of the concert at La Salle Pleyel in Paris, recorded in December 2011.

Beethoven's 9th with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Myung-Whun Chung, and with Sally Matthews (soprano), Karen Cargill (alto), Steve Davislim (tenor), Matthias Goerne (~~bass~~ baritone)

or check out this page.

Alcina at Semperoper: birth of a great opera director -- Jan Philipp Gloger

2011-12-31T18:09:00.004+01:00

Alcina, Semperoper Dresden, November 4th 2011

Director ..... Jan Philipp Gloger

Conductor ..... Rainer Mühlbach

Alcina ..... Amanda Majeski

Ruggiero ..... Barbara Senator

Bradamante ..... Christa Mayer

Morgana ..... Nadja Mchantaf

Melisso ..... Markus Butter
Oronte ..... Simeon Esper

Oberto ..... Elena Gorshunova

Chorista 1 ..... Manuel Günther

Chorista 2 ..... Michael Kranebitter

Staatskapelle Dresden

Jan Philipp Gloger (JPG) is a very young German director that we will be talking about in 2012 around the premiere of The Flying Dutchman that he is preparing for the opening of the next Festival in Bayreuth. The only other opera he's produced so far is Le nozze di Figaro in Augsburg, earlier this year -- the production that the fellow blogger Musica Sola saw and liked a lot.

Alcina is a totally different kind of `beast' and it was interesting to see how Jan Philipp would cope with a far-fetched libretto, if he would be able to sustain the attention of the crowd in a long opera, and in a repertoire that the Semperoper public is less familiar with.

I should stop here for a few lines and express my admiration for Ulrike Hessler and her exemplary way to run Semperoper. Besides a tricky production of the Paris version of Tannhäuser, presented on Good Friday, and Stefan Herheim shows (everything phenomenally sung!), she took a huge risk with this Alcina: this was to be the first baroque opera performed on the main stage of this prestigious house, which they mounted without engaging any big star of the baroque repertoire. Instead, they wanted to make it all new and confided a job to a 30 year old hyper-talented director who never produced a baroque opera before, and let Rainer Mühlbach --Dresden native-- take charge of the musical side of the production. Rainer is experienced in the Mozart operas but not in baroque. Add to that the astonishing Semperoper troupe, who took responsibility to bring this opera to life in the best of ways, and you have an almost futuristic production. This is what the opera will look like in this or next decade, I believe.
Knowing that the Semperoper is a rather "tradition rules" kind of house, this was a very audacious initiative on so many levels. But hey -- it worked! It was one of the most enjoyable opera evenings for me in 2011, and if you scroll back you will see that I attended way too many opera shows in 2011. You could've sensed in auditorium that everyone involved in this show was focused, desired to do well, gave 100%, and enjoyed the moment to be there and perform.

To situate the theatrical profile of JPG in one sentence, I'd say he has elements of the crystal-clearness of Bieito, and the sensibility close to that of Warlikowski (without cinematographic references), but it eventually is something else -- a new quality.

Let me briefly take you through the show, so you can see the way Gloger interpreted the libretto, the synopsis of which you can read here.

His Alcina is a glamorous femme fatale. She is aware of her beauty and her irresistible attractiveness and use it to a full potential to seduce as many men as possible. This feeds her ego and makes her ever more cruel towards all these men who lost their mind for her: some of them are obsessed by her, the others are ruined. Oberto comes and looks for his father [one of those men who got deadly in love with Alcina, and are now in her possession; on the stage he is indeed there but like a ghost... Oberto cannot find him even though he feels his presence.] Ruggero comes and he too falls for Alcina. She plays with him through the labyrinth of love, and he falls desperately in love with her. Even the warnings by Oronte that Alcina manipulates her men to destroy them more easily, only make his love for her stronger. Bradamante comes to look for her men, and there we understand that Bradamante is Ruggero's wife, and that she came with her friend/lawyer Melisso to look for her husband who left her and their children for another woman. She is a woman who fights for her man, for the father of her children. In parallel happens the drama with Alcina: Alcina sees her reflection in the mirror and fears the inexorable aging might soon diminish her charms and beauty, her power. This is why she gets obsessed by the idea of keeping Ruggero close to her. He is proof of her power and letting him go would be a confirmation that she is not as beautiful and seductive as she used to be. Bradamante and Melisso will convince Ruggero to leave Alcina, and come back to his family; in fact Melisso will remind him of his legal duties to his family, and Bradamante will try to bring him to his senses by reminding him of their children.
Alcina is devastated by the loss of Ruggero and ends in a psychiatric ward. Ruggero instead cannot live tormented between his love for Alcina and his duty as pater familias and commits suicide. Alcina, years later, remains totally alone, alone with her memories... there is nobody around her, only an old painting reminding her how young, beautiful and loved she once was.

The success of this passionate interpretation is very much due to creative intelligence of the set designer -- Ben Baur. The stage is organized in three layers filling the depth of the stage, and they are in almost constant movement showing various chambers of a big Alcina's house. Soon it starts feeling like a labyrinth populated by lost souls of all those men who fatally fell in love with her. As the drama progresses Alcina in fact gets trapped in her own labyrinth. In the end, the sets dissolve (in a way similar to what Malgorzata Szczesniak does in the Warlikowski productions) and disappear from the stage, leaving the empty space with Alcina sitting alone in the background -- with a painting and a clump of her old things.

Baur is under 30 too, and it is astonishing how beautifully the stage movements follow the music and let the drama progress emphasizing the poetry of it while being very straightforward at the same time. Glogger masterfully guide the actors to make the whole show clear, yet poetic and stylish -- including the non-trivial, surprising albeit plausible ending. As I said above, to me this is how I believe the intelligent opera productions will look like in 2010-2020... when the opera houses start hiring younger and/or more intelligent directors.

The cast is composed entirely of the members of the Semperoper ensemble. They do a very good job. Nobody is really great-great, but they are all powerful to easily fill up the large auditorium of the Semperoper. They are scenically magnificent -- you could see the complicity among them in the stage action.

Amanda Majeski incarnates Alcina with passion and even if her medium is a bit too bright for Alcina, she is more comfortable in the higher range of her voice where she brings all the nuances of the character. Barbara Senator is excellent as Ruggero even if she gets a bit tired towards the end. She carried the show together with Amanda and invested all their charisma in their respective characters. It took me a bit to get used to the timbre of Morgana, Nadja Mchantaf, but her vocal engagement is so big that I ended up shouting bravo after her Torna Mi A Vagheggiar [in this production she tries to seduce Melisso --the lawyer and Bradamante's friend-- and thereby help Alcina]

Christa Mayer is well known as Erda, as a lieder-singer, but baroque?! I was saying naah before the show, and cringed a bit at the beginning but she manages to vocally sculpt a compelling portrait of Bradamante -- of a woman determined to who fight for her man, no matter what... Finally, Markus Butter, Simeon Esper, and Elena Gorshunova complete the main roles by being totally in command of their respective roles.

Rainer Mühlbach conducted his orchestra with modesty --without a new reading of the score-- and with great precision.

I'll be back to Dresden!

Production photos ©Matthias Creutziger

Jan Philipp Gloger, geboren 1981 in Hagen, studierte Angewandte Theaterwissenschaft in Gießen und Regie in Zürich. Seit 2007 arbeitet er als freischaffender Schauspielregisseur unter anderem am Bayerischen Staatsschauspiel München, am Theater Augsburg, am Staatstheater Mainz und am Deutschen Theater Berlin. Er zeigte Inszenierungen bei der Ruhrtriennale und beim Heidelberger Stückemarkt und erhielt den Regiepreis der Bayerischen Theatertage 2008. In der Spielzeit 2011/12 wird er Leitender Regisseur am Staatstheater Mainz und setzt seine Beschäftigung mit Oper, die er mit Mozarts »Le nozze di Figaro« am Theater Augsburg begonnen hat, an der Semperoper Dresden fort, wo er 2011/12 Händels »Alcina« inszeniert.

My photos:

Amanda Majeski, Christa Mayer, Simeon Esper, and Markus Butter

Bradamante, Alcina, and Ruggero

Barbara Senator, Amanda Majeski, and Rainer Mühlbach

Trailer:

Cinderella for the people!

2011-12-30T15:44:00.006+01:00

Laurent Pelly knows how to make the festive shows fly -- fun, witty, fast... and it is not surprising that his productions are celebrated at this time of the year.

The Lyon Opera reran this month his highly entertaining production of La Vie parisienne, and was once again met a great success with the crowd in Lyon (that show is available on DVD.)

I told you the other day that his terrific staging of Hänsel und Gretel from Glyndebourne is this week available for free viewing on The Guardian website.

Starting from today, and for the next few weeks, also his Cendrillon [by J. Massenet] can be seen for free on the website of La Monnaie/De Munt. This should be entertaining for children.

Alain Altinoglu, always strong in the French repertoire, conducts and the cast includes Rinat Shaham, Sophie Marilley, Eglise Gutierrez, Angélique Noldus, Nora Gubisch, Ilse Eerens, Lionel Lhote...

You can read a review by the fellow blogger NPW who saw the second show at La Monnaie.

Enjoy!

Juan

2011-12-29T22:37:00.011+01:00

I am pretty sure we can all agree that the old film-operas are garbage and we all prefer DVDs of the actual theatrical performances. This is probably due to the fact that all these film-operas were HORRIBLY produced, with very creepy and/or cheesy acting, lip-synching...

But the things have changed since and the clever-talented directors make better productions and know how to make interesting operas and films. Kasper Holten --author of the best Ring on DVD to date-- and his team did a superb job: they shortened Don Giovanni to 105 minutes, freely translated it into English, lined up a fantastic cast of singers who can act and who actually do sing throughout the whole film.

Cleverly, they call it Juan and not Don Giovanni. In this way the traditionalists who might be... let me guess... who might be outraged, will calm down soon knowing that this is not Don Giovanni -- this is Juan.

I was offered DVD of this film as a Christmas present, reluctantly started watching it and... and in the end LOVED IT.

I guess many of you saw it already but if you didn't you should!

Cast:

Juan ..... Christopher Maltman (England)
Leporello ..... Mikhail Petrenko (Russia)
Politichefen ..... Eric Halfvarson (USA)
Anna ..... Maria Bengtsson (Sweden)
Ottavio ..... Peter Lodahl (Denmark)
Elvira ..... Elizabeth Futral (USA)
Zerlina ..... Katija Dragojevic (Sweden)
Masetto ..... Ludvig Lindström (Sweden)

Director ..... Kasper Holten

Wholeheartedly recommended. It's good to offer either to an opera freak or to someone who you would like to hook up on opera.

Links to Amazon: fra, uk, ger, ita [didn't find a link to the US/Can-Amazon, guess it's not yet released across the pond...]

This and that...

2011-12-28T18:52:00.010+01:00

First of all, important news is that the 2008 Glyndebourne Festival production of Hänsel und Gretel directed by Laurent Pelly and conducted by Kazushi Ono, with Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke (!), Jennifer Holloway, Adriana Kučerová, Irmgard Vilsmaier, is available for free viewing on The Guardian website (c.f. here).
Videos will be available during the week of Christmas holidays only, so try not to miss it because the show is terrific.
If you cannot see it this week, the only alternative is DVD of the same production.

Other important and less important news worth sharing -- below...

Big news in France is that for the first time a manager of one big opera house, or of any large cultural institution for that matter, speaks about the finances. General public opinion in France is that the opera houses are too costly & over-subsidized, and then --afraid not to induce too much ess-stirring from the media-- the authorities never talk about money in Opera openly.
Serge Dorny --brilliant manager of the Opéra National de Lyon [ONL]-- decided to break the taboo, called the press conference a week ago, and came up with numbers, i.e. results of the study carried by Nova Consulting on a sample of 5,000 randomly polled visitors to ONL.

Surprisingly, the results suggest that every euro of public subsidies to ONL generates: (1) 0.8€ of benefits to local hotels and restaurants, through visits by the ONL spectators, and (2) 2€ that via various contracts between ONL and local businesses, workshops... return to the local economy.

We also learn that the total budget of ONL amounts to 38 million euros (to be compared with 196 millions of the Paris Opera - sic!), of which 28 million comes from subsidies [17 mil from the municipal authorities, 5.5 mil from the regional government, and the remaining 5.5 mil from the State] More numbers here
New Opera House for Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence was inaugurated last week, with the big concert that included the Beethoven's 9th [Iréne Theorin, Stella Grigorian, Michael Schade, Juha Uusitalo] with Zubin Mehta conducting. See video promotion of their beautiful new house.
Lucy Crowe has new CD [Il caro Sassone], a well as Christine Schäfer [Arias], while the first solo CD by Klaus Florian Vogt [Helden] will appear later in January 2012.
Silly, yet irresistible, GOAT rankings continue and the Italian Magazine Classic Voice conducted a poll among 100 conductors worldwide to come up with the following Top-10 Greatest Conductors of All Time:
1. Carlos Kleiber
2. Leonard Bernstein
3. Herbert von Karajan
4. Arturo Toscanini
5. Wilhelm Furtwängler
6. Claudio Abbado
7. Dimitri Mitropoulos
8. Nikolaus Harnoncourt
9. Bruno Walter
10. Gustav Mahler
which made my lower jaw feel particularly heavy for a minute or two...
Mariss Jansons could not resist the temptation and he too will conduct the Neujahrskonzerts mit cheese-balls from Vienna.
In his recent interview to La Stampa Roberto Alagna said he will sing his first Otello in 2013, and later (after 2013) he will make his role debuts in Les Troyens and L’Africaine. In the same interview he says he feels betrayed by the Italian press [following his walkout at La Scala a few years back] and so he will never sing in Italy again [no less!]
Bad news from the East Coast of the US: Opera Boston is closing its doors because of... of the total of $0.5 million of budget deficit
Wagner Museum in Bayreuth will not be opened for the composer's 200th birthday in 2013, as initially planned, but in 2014.

The Magic Flute by William Kentridge finally came to Paris

2011-12-28T13:07:00.002+01:00

Die Zauberflöte/La Flûte enchantée, Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris, December 26 2011

Director ..... William Kentridge

Conductor ..... Jean-Christophe Spinosi

Tamino ..... Topi Lehtipuu

Pamina ..... Sandrine Piau

Papageno ..... Markus Werba

Papagena ..... Emmanuelle De Negri

The Queen of the Night ..... Jeanette Vecchione

First Lady ..... Claire Debono

Second Lady ..... Juliette Mars

Third Lady ..... Elodie Méchain

Sarastro ..... Ain Anger

Monostatos ..... Steven Cole

Priests and Armored Men ..... Renaud Delaigue, Alexandre Swan

Speaker of the Temple ..... Robert Gleadow

Ensemble Matheus

Chorus of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées

It was too bad that Laurent Pelly had to cancel his new production of Die Zauberflöte, initially announced in the program for 2011-2012 at Théâtre des Champs Élysées (TCE). I always feel like I pump the energy out of the creative sparkle that the new production of any given opera brings up, especially when it's non-trivially and intelligently made. Why Pelly decided to cancel it is not clear? Fatigue, or the TCE realized the money was tight and they preferred to purchase a good production that was not shown in Paris yet... remains unclear.

If there was a production of The Magic Flute that I really wanted to see live, in a theater, then this was the one that I thought would be the most fascinating. William Kentridge staged this opera for the first time 6 years ago at La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels [with the most brilliant Sophie Karthäuser and Topi Lehtipuu as Pamina and Tamino (was it the first big role for Sophie?).] Since then his show travelled to many places, with invariable fascination and success, before landing to La Scala in Milan last year, where it was hugely acclaimed and filmed. Before its DVD release the production came to Paris, and was greatly embraced by the Parisian crowd hungry for a decent 'new' production that the Opéra National de Paris is failing to offer for several years already.

It is clear that Kentridge is not a theater director and guiding the actors is not his main worry. He nevertheless does even that better than many "opera directors" who decorate the stages at the Met, in Covent Garden, at the Viennese Staatsoper, the Paris Opera and many more. So, this production is not primarily built one the interaction among characters of this story. Kentridge has a ground idea that brings the story a philosophical character, requires an intellectual engagement from spectators (if they want to), without ever hindering the basic plot.

Mozart wrote this opera at the time when the Age of Enlightenment was at its zenith, when the ideas were clearly formulated, the whole humanistic philosophy constructed, and the works by Christian Wolff already embraced by intellectuals and artists in Germany. It was an inspiration and new vision of life. Humanism, science and progress, became a viable alternative to the obscurity, superstition and dogma of the Middle Age. As a South African, Kentridge astutely saw that the off-spin --if not the culmination-- of the Age of Enlightenment was colonialism and its initial mission to spread progress, science, technology, culture... to the people who live in obscurity, ignorance and superstition. And indeed it was! It's just that no one saw the glitch, i.e. the negative side of colonialism -- occupation and atrocities that it regularly entails (especially when the idea of assimilation is in the game), as well as the dictators that are always born out out of any larger colonial endeavor [OK, Kant probably saw the glitch immediately but his Critiques became en vogue much-much later.]

So, what Kentridge does in this production, he uses his drawings that are very dynamically organized and projected on the stage throughout the show, to elaborate on that idea: colonialism as a practical realization the Age of Reason. The references are numerous: black chamber, birth of the moving image, expansion of architecture, scientific discoveries, scientific ways to see the world around -- that lead to numerous benefits for humans, collecting the animals for research and study... Three boys come on the blackboard and they find "magic" solutions to the problems of Tamino and/or Papageno -- carrying the message that education is a path to 'better life'...

Tamino will learn the lessons of life, embrace science and philosophy... and after all the exams/trials he and Pamina will be 'illuminated'/educated and enter the class of brave new men.

The imagery is so greatly used: to introduce the character, to put the background, to draw the towers, or to depict the images that run through the heads of protagonists.

Once this idea is placed intelligently, everything in the show starts working brilliantly. The psychology of Monostatos is exactly of a local high ranked servant who feels very important and uses his power to harass Pamina. The fact that Sarastro comes to rescue her is very astute too... It is actually the way how Kentridge treats Sarastro that makes this production the best Zauberflöte in business. Mozart obviously could not suppose what would happen and that the strong men who were supposed to mark the history for spreading progress and humanism, would also be the ruthless dictators, commit numerous atrocities, butcher the ecosystem... This is where Kentridge is slipping his idea. His Sarastro is a colonial overlord who brings progress, science, the justice system... but who at the same time is a monster (there is a 20 second movie filmed during the colonial era showing the killing of animals.) Importantly Sarastro remains ambiguous, and that's why I loved the show the most. Good and bad sides of colonialism --or any occupation for that matter-- are easy to differentiate, but the main point is that they are intimately intertwined and one is impossible to work without another. This is Sarastro indeed!

To make the things better the top musical quality of the show made the evening extra enjoyable (despite the overcrowded auditorium.) Jean-Christophe Spinosi came with his orchestra and they really respected everything: the score, the singers, and nicely self-tuned for the auditorium of the TCE. Topi Lehtipuu and Sandrine Piau sang the roles of Tamino and Pamina so many times and they both brought the warmth and depth to their respective characters. Sandrine was particularly ovationed in the end.
I particularly liked Markus Werba whose Papageno is not a dumb comic character, but a sincere simple man who sings beautifully. Sarastro was particularly important a character in this production and Ain Anger was particularly good at it.
The soprano firework role of The Queen of the Night was sung by Jeanette Vecchione whose voice is not huge but very well fitting the TCE auditorium. O Zittre nicht contains several lower notes that she probably like less, but her interpretation of Der Hölle Rache was brilliant (she even added extra high notes at four places of that aria, especially the amazing final - see this) and she, of course, got the biggest ovation of the evening.

Very pleasant and inspiring operatic evening in Paris, and this is a BIG change for a new production since long time. The revivals in Paris are regularly fantastic but the new productions are often bad or plain awful. So even though this was not a new production, it was new in Paris, it was superbly organized, staged, and performed. Bravo to ALL the musicians and to Mr. Kentridge! [it is easy to extend his idea of two sides of colonialism, to the spread of democracy and discuss both sides of the coin in relation to the characters from Die Zauberflöte, which poor Stéphane and Nicole had to endure from me for like 2 hours after the show ;)]

Production Photos:

My pics:

Papagena (Emanuelle De Negri) and Three Boys

Markus Werba, Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Sandrine Piau, and Topi Lehtipuu

Queen of the Night (Jeanette Vecchione) and two of the Three Ladies

This is the only pic where I managed to get Sarastro (Ain Anger)

Trailer:

Trailer of the show at La Scala is interesting because Kentridge talks about his production:

This is how Papageno enters the story [also the trailer for DVD ]:

Peter Konwitschny affair (updated...)

2011-12-27T11:51:00.004+01:00

Just when we thought the Oper Leipzig became a new exciting place where the creativity meets excellence, we learned that Peter Konwitschny submitted his resignation letter to the house's intendant Ulf Schirmer. This is bad news for the Leipzig Oper and for all of us.

The news broke out on December 24, containing just a few dry lines, from which we could understand that Big Pete wanted to resign from his job as the house's chief director immediately -- starting from January 2012. Normally the contract would run until 2014.

Yesterday, Schirmer came up with a conventional statement in which he "thanked the artist for his many years of work with the Leipzig Oper and his unusual and exciting evening of theater"

The press speculates on a nagging depression that the famous workaholic Konwitschny has been occasionally suffering from (more like a mid-life crisis, I guess), and points out that the famous opera director was absent for several weeks just before The Queen of Spades and Macbeth were about to be premiered in Graz and Leipzig respectively.
In particular, all the newspapers stress that he did not attend the premiere of Macbeth in Leipzig. Unfortunately, none of them --including the excellent paper that you can find here-- mentions that Peter Konwitschny WAS in fact present at the Oper Leipzig for the second show (December 15), where I personally saw him sitting next to Bettina Bartz.

Witches from Macbeth by Peter Konwitschny, premiered in December 2011 at Oper Leipzig

The house's press-person Heike Neumann said that the season 2011-2012 will continue as scheduled, which would mean that the new production of Iphigénie en Tauride will be premiered next June.

Something that should almost naturally have happened in Paris, was actually happening in Leipzig. Instead of trying to mount a bigger, greater,... Ring des Nibelungen as to celebrate Richard Wagner's 200th birthday in 2013, Peter Konwitschny cleverly saw an opening and opted for producing The Leipzig Gluck Ring. Gluck's operas were groundbreaking for the era in which they were composed and are a constant source of inspiration today... and yes, The Leipzig Gluck Ring would celebrate the composer's 300th birthday in 2014.

Peter already directed the new productions of Iphigénie en Aulide and Alceste. The new Iphigénie en Tauride is supposed to be premiered next June, and Armide next year which would complete this original Ring.

Below are the video trailers of the first two operas of The Leipzig Gluck Ring:

[ed: if you cannot see the second video, try this link]

What to say?! I truly hope that our Big Pete will not retire completely but will just slow it down a few notches and keep doing what only a very few directors are capable to do: producing highly intelligent, unconventional, and musically the most respectful opera shows in business. Maybe he does not want to be tied up with any specific house and prefers to have a change of air... In any case, the best of luck to the operatic Peter The Great!

UPDATE: After various speculations, it's Peter himself who explains the reasons for his resignation in an interview to the radio MDR-Figaro. He talks about his disagreement with Ulf Schirmer about the way how the house should be run. The idea of the Leipzig authorities that these concepts of how to run an opera-house should co-exist was fine, except that Schrimer jumped in later, and was given the position of 'super-intendant' --thus more authority-- which is why Konwitschny felt it was time to resign, as the new policy seems to hinder the work achieved since 2009... and so it gets ugly ;(

Let us hope the problem will be solved sooner rather than later, with Peter Konwitschny remaining at the position of the chief director of Oper Leipzig.

Fellow blogger Gesamtkunstwerk is following this affair too.

We will barock you: L-Orlando, or Alexander Mørk-Eidem revisiting Handel's Orlando

2011-12-24T15:34:00.000+01:00

Orlando, Komische Oper Berlin, December 21 2011

Director ..... Alexander Mørk-Eidem

Conductor ... Alessandro De Marchi

Orlando ..... Mariselle Martinez

Angelica ..... Brigitte Geller

Medoro ..... Susanne Kreusch

Dorinda ..... Ingrid Frøseth

Zoroastro ..... Andreas Wolf

Isabella, Zoroastro's Assistant ..... Bernd Stempel

We all know that Stefan Herheim has a special talent to deconstructing the libretto of any given opera,as to revitalize the opera with a new intelligently constructed and irresistible story, that is always presented spectacularly and, in essence, remains close to the original libretto -- it's just that way how the essence is projected that is very different. Usually the leaks leading to the premiere of a Herheim production are misleading as to exacerbate the effect of surprise on the public. This approach requires more cervical involvement on the spectator's end. The spectacular side of the show seduces the open-minded traditionalists (no, it is not an oxymoron -- open minded traditionalists do exist.)

In his hugely entertaining, intelligently constructed and "humanizing" production of Orlando, another Norwegian genius-director, Alexander Mørk-Eidem, gives the regie-theater yet another flavor. His show was premiered a couple of years ago and is back on the program this month at the Komische Oper -- all the memorable productions mounted during the Homoki era at the top of the Komishe are being rerun during this operatoc season, before Barrie Kosky takes the top spot in October 2012.

If you are not familiar with the content of this opera, have a look at the synopsis here.

We all remember our first experiences with baroque operas and the puzzles we've had when figuring out who's supposed to be the male and who the female character in the story, who's human, and who's divine or wizard or... It is not only in baroque that girls incarnate the male characters, but it's particularly striking in baroque. Once you overcome the early frustrations and you decode that you should imagine the girl singing Rinaldo, Orlando, Cesare... is a strong man who then fights counter-tenor for a hand of a cute little soprano -- you're good, and then start exploring the content of invariably far-fetched stories that can be read super-intelligently thanks to the crop of talented, and intelligent young directors.

Now, if you believed your early frustrations are passé, Alexander Mørk-Eidem uses first 10-15 minutes of his show to prove you wrong. 15 minutes later it all becomes clear and the story unfolds in a new way. Deep down it is an opera that celebrates love, and dwells on frustrations/jealousy/pain caused by nonreciprocal love -- and this is what Alex certainly managed to do, only differently.

Isabella pushing the stage after the show ;)

Where to begin?! We all know that Orlando and Medoro are male, while Dorinda, Angelica, and Isabella are female -- even if all of them are sung by (mezzo)soprani. Mørk-Eidem says no: Medoro has long hairs, wears nice female underwear, heels and a robe with flower patterns. Angelica, instead, wears a black suit, her/his hair is short and neatly combed. Isabella... Isabella is [most probably asexual] man indulged in cross-dressing. Very womanly Orlando, instead, while preparing for a fight, is correcting his/her make-up, wears a shirt that emphasizes his/her boobs... Very ordinary looking Dorinda wears a yellow rain coat, does not care about her looks, wanders around the tent in rubber boots, and takes care the van... So it's all messed up at first: Mezzos are supposed to be male characters but they look womanly, while sopranos look and behave like men. Soon it becomes clear that they are all women in passionate love with one another, with Orlando being incapable to get over the fact that Angelica is not in love with him anymore. While Orlando was gone, she spends time with Medoro and Dorinda (who are couple.) The story actually starts one morning with three of them getting out from the tent, after the night spent somewehere in woods camping. And you could tell from the outset that Dorinda felt something has happened that changed her relationship with Medoro. At the same time Medoro and Angelica are attracted to each other and can hardly disguise the passion they feel for each other. And so, we are in the L-world. Love and passion is human, no matter which genders are involved. I absolutely loved this take!

Wait a minute! It does not stop there. Zoroastro is a conman, a guy who smokes pot, hookah,... and "solves" problems to all these girls by offering them hallucinogenic mushrooms, pills... Isabella is helping him all the time -- remember, Isabella is cross-dressed man who putting away the things on the stage, who pushes the stage to turn around its vertical axis, who serves Zoroastro and is most probably asexual. Isabella is the most hilarious character in the story. He's friend with all of them and help the Zoroastro's "magic" to work on them. Another very funny part is when Zoroastro realizes the size of the mess all these girls found themselves in: Orlando is enraged because he's desperately in love with Angelica who fells in love with Medoro, who had to break up with Dorinda who is heartbroken and still in love with Medoro... He [Zoroastro] realizes why all revolves around Medoro and at feels attracted to her/him... at one moment he even tries to make out with Medoro. I was laughing to tears!

But in all that hilarious action, the message of love and passion passes through very clearly and beautifully. Who cares if they are men and women, all women, or all men. It's about love, its intensity in joys, its way to make you do all kinds of irrational things that elate you or break your heart.

I am way too much exposed to the world's best baroque orchestra and the best singers in this genre, and I guess that partly explains why I was not very impressed by the singing, although it was overall good. Always good Brigitte Geller, who can sing everything and is scenically steadily impeccable, is not really in her best fach here. Ingrid Frøseth has a smallish voice that is however at ease with all the top notes, which always seduces the crowd. Andreas Wolf and Susanne Kreusch have the most appropriate voices for this repertoire and sing beautifully, but you cannot not being impressed by Orlando, a Chilean mezzo Mariselle Martinez, who must have lost 3 pounds during this show. She sings everything, she digs in the gravi with no trouble and reaches all the top notes in full voice, while engaged in a complex stage action. Her voice is not among the most beautiful in business, but she gives her soul and heart and the public loved her Orlando.

Two thumbs up to formidable Bernd Stempel, a German comedian, who sets the tone to the show and the whole auditorium was applauding his performance even though he didn't sing at all.

The orchestra was good, did the job very well, and managed to follow the stage action by splitting in two and sometimes in three parts. The moments when Orlando is hallucinating are musically depicted by a chunk of the orchestra placed in the theater gallery, so the sound that was coming was clearly distinguishing that part from the rest of the action. Good job Alessandro De Marchi!

Isabella, Medoro, Angelica, Maestro De Franchi, Orlando, Dorinda, and Zoroastro

Great, great, GREAT show, and a huge THANK YOU to all the artists involved in this --to me-- unforgettable production.

Production photos:

My pics:

Bernd Stempel, Susanne Kreusch, and Brigitte Geller

Brigitte Geller and Mariselle Martinez

Ingrid Frøseth and Andreas Wolf (blurred pic - sorry)

Mariselle Martinez as Super Spice Orlando

Again Isabella, Dorinda, Zoroastro, Orlando, Medoro, and Angelica

Maestro Alessandro De Marchi

Trailer:

PC TV Holidays

2011-12-23T19:51:00.006+01:00

If you miss or you cannot see the Mozart Concert with Detlef Roth and Sandrine Piau on Arte, December 25, at 19:15 (cet) it's OK. It was recorded by La Cité de la Musique and it is available on this link
December 29, at 22:20 (cet) on Arte: Les contes d'Hoffmann from BSO in Munich [dir- Richard Jones, cnd- Constantinos Carydis, cast: Diana Damrau, Rolando Villazón, John Relyea, Angela Brower...]
December 30 free Webcast: the best Opera house in 2010-2011 --La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels-- will open for free viewing Cendrillon by Massenet that is finishing its run these days [dir- Laurent Pelly, cnd- Alain Altonoglu, cast: Anne-Catherine Gillet (!), Sophie Marilley, Nora Gubisch, Eglise Gutiérrez, Angélique Noldus (!), Lionel Lhote...]
December 31 at 18:30 (cet) on Mezzo TV: live from Philharmonia in Berlin, Berliner Philharmoniker, lead by Sir Simon Rattle, will give their New Year's Concert with a very eclectic program that you can consult on their website. This year the soloist to perform with them will be Evgeny Kissin.
December 31, at 20:15 (cet) on Arte: live broadcast, from the Staatsoper in Vienna, of the 2nd Act of Die Fledermaus [dir- Otto Schenk, cnd- Franz Welser-Möst, cast: Kurt Streit, Reiner Trost, Michaela Kaune, Daniela Fally, Markus Eiche...]
January 1st at 12:25 (cet) on Arte: live broadcast the New Year's Concert from La Fenice in Venice [dir- Diego Matheuz, singers: Jessica Pratt, Walter Fraccaro, Alex Esposito] Diego Matheuz musically grew up in Venezuelan Sistema; he's only 27 and is already the Chief Conductor of the Fenice Orch. -- since September 2011.
On January 7 at 19:00 (cet) BSO in Munich will provide us with a live webcast of their excellent production of L'elisir d'amore, directed by talented David Bösch [cnd- Dan Ettinger, cast: Pavol Breslik, Adriana Kucerova, Ambrogio Maestri, Levente Molnar, Tara Erraught]
January 22 at 17:00 (cet) Bavarian State Opera will let us see their least good production, which is Don Carlo, but with a perfect cast [dir- Jürgen Rose, cnd- Asher Fisch, cast: René Pape, Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros, Mariusz Kwiecien, Anna Smirnova,...]
Probably the most important information of this entry is that next January 24 at 20:00 (cet) Mezzo-TV will live broadcast from Teatro Real in Madrid the new Peter Sellars production of Iolanta [cast: Ekaterina Scherbachenko, Pavel Cernoch, Alexey Markov, Willard White...], followed by Stravinsky's Persephone [cast: Paul Groves, Dominique Blanc], all conducted by grandly talented Teodor Currentzis. Teatro Real is currently one of the most exciting operatic places in Europe, so every new production from Madrid is an event.
Otherwise, you might wish to see Grandissimo Verdi, a concert that took place at Palais des Congrès in Paris on December 17, 2011, and is now available on Medici.tv. Daniele Gatti conducts Orchestre National de France and the Radio France Chorus. Program: Luisa Miller (Ouverture), I Lombardi alla prima crociata ["Gerusalem… ", "O signor , che dal tetto natio"], Macbeth ["Ballabili", "Patria oppressa !"], Don Carlo ["Spuntato ecco il di d’esultanza"], Nabucco (Ouverture) ["Gli arredi festivi...", "Va’, pensiero"], I vespri siciliani (Ouverture), Otello ["Ballabili"], Aida ["Gloria all’Egitto"]

A few potentially tempting videos available for free viewing on Rai-TV:
- Rheingold from the Guy Cassier production of the Ring filmed at La Scala [cnd- Daniel Barenboim, cast: René Paper, Johannes Martin Kränzle, Jan Buchwald, Marco Jentzsch, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Kwangchul Youn, Doris Soffel, Ekaterina Gubanova, Anna Samuil, Anna Larsson...]
- Salomé from Teatro Communale di Bologna [dir- Gabriele Levia, cnd- Nicola Luisotti, cast: Erica Sunnegardh (!), Robert Brubaker...]
- Medea (in Italian) from Teatro Regio di Torino [dir- Hugo de Ana, cnd- Evelino Pidò, cast: Anna Caterina Antonacci, Giuseppe Filianoti, Cinzia Forte, Sara Mingardo...]

...

edit:

Les contes d'Hoffmann:
This production is just an example of why Richard Jones is our "English Rose." You can recognize his sense for comedy, for drama, and his ginormous talent in this production.
Villazon excellent so far and since we already love Diana Damrau this is a pure pleasure... Surprise, surprise -- Angela Brower is fantastic!

Gift to Bartók fans

2011-12-23T15:55:00.005+01:00

The other day I blogged about the Bluebeard Castle, one of the most fascinating of all the operas.
I said that the Philharmonia was magnificent, even if Iván Fischer and Budapest Festival Orchestra [BFO] remain unsurpassed as far as the music by Bartók is concerned.
Bartók is their home specialty, and they really bring it to a new level of skills and interpretation.

If you get a chance to listen to their live performance (Bartók or anything else), it's not to be missed.

I thought I'd share two `Bartóky' videos in this post that I found particularly interesting:

The best possible Bluebeard Castle happens always in the concert hall or an opera house. Videos cannot compensate the intensity and the connection one gets in the live performance. Looking for the stuff you can find on the Internet, I found a video on YT of the concert performance from Amsterdam last year by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (excuse me!) conducted by Iván Fischer, with Ildikó Komlósi (Judith) and Balint Szabo (brilliant Bluebeard)
A concert by Orchestre de Paris conducted by Pierre Boulez that took place at Salle Pleyel two nights ago (December 22, 2011) has been recorded and it's available on the Internet via Arte Live Web (embedded below.) Program naturally included Schönberg (Verklärte Nacht, or La Nuit transfigurée), continued with the Piano Concerto No.2 by Bartók [Bertrand Chamayou, piano], and ended by the cherry on the cake: Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra (starts from 1:42:00 in the video below.)

This video is available on Arte Live Web, and on citedelamusiquelive.tv

An interesting detail concerning this 2nd video is that La Salle Pleyel was packed with people, in spite of the fact that almost identical concert took place a night before, but under the Louvre Pyramid, in front of the crowd of 2,500. Popular concert with pieces by Bartók and Schönberg! Ask me again why I love Paris! ;)

Opera meets Theater: Superb Neuenfels production of Reimann's Lear

2011-12-22T13:14:00.004+01:00

Lear, Komische Oper Berlin, December 20 2011

Tómas Tómasson

Director ..... Hans Neuenfels
Conductor ..... Friedemann Layer
Co-director ... Henry Arnold

King Lear ..... Tómas Tómasson
King of France ..... Tilmann Rönnebeck
Duke of Albany ..... Hans Gröning
Duke of Cornwall ..... Christoph Späth
Earl of Kent ..... Thomas Ebenstein
Earl of Gloucester ..... Jens Larsen
Edgar, son of Gloucester ..... Martin Wölfel
Edmund, illegitimate son of Gloucester ..... Andreas Conrad
Goneril. daughter of Lear ..... Irmgard Vilsmaier
Regan, daughter of Lear ..... Erika Roos
Cordelia, daughter of Lear ..... Caroline Melzer
Fool ..... Elisabeth Trissenaar
Servant ..... Volker Herden
Knight ..... Michel Podwojski

Quite strange that there is no famous pre-20th century opera made after the Shakespeare tragedy King Lear. It was a very good idea to make one, especially when including the sparkling sonorities that Aribert Reimann juggles so brilliantly with.

Seeing this show was almost like a cultural shock for me. I have never listened to this opera before, and only sporadically to the Reimann's music in general. And here, I was almost instantly soaked in a musical vortex, that combined with the impressive staging, made a hugely passionate opera night for me. This is an example of what keeps me loving opera actually.

It took 10 years for Reimann to compose this chef d'oeuvre that finally was premiered in Munich 1979, in a production created by the top director at that time, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, and --on the explicit composer's request-- with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the title role. The initial cast and the orchestra then recorded this opera (CD available), which is probably one of the reason why the opera survived the test of time. A couple of dozens of productions have been mounted worldwide since the premiere, and even an extra recording appeared recently (from Oper Frankfurt).

Nearly 30 years later, Komische Oper in Berlin asked Hans Neuenfels to bring his take on this passionate story and wonderfully composed opera to the stage of the Behrendstrasse house. This production was premiered in 2009-2010, that I unfortunately could not see. I was delighted when I saw that the Artistic Direction of the Komische decided to revive the production this season --farewell season for the house's director, Andreas Homoki-- and so I arranged my plans to be in Berlin during this run of Lear.

SUPERB CAST (Jens Larsen unfortunately out of bounds)

Needless to say that the Hans Neuenfels production is brilliant -- that goes without saying. It is so good that the show as it is would have been fitting any theater even without music and singing. Music and singing, in fact, add that extra dimensions, extra quality, that makes opera a unique art-form.

The actors are masterfully guided, and they all throw themselves into their respective roles giving it all they have. All three King's daughters are superbly acted and sung by three formidable sopranos: Caroline Melzer (whose Leonore at the Komische I loved dearly), Erika Roos (a stunning Elettra in Idomeneo last summer), and Irmgard Vilsmaier (astonishing Mère Marie in Carmélites last summer too.) All three deserve 5 stars for their scenic performance, while delivering in parallel a fascinating soprano-fest -- all three have big and 'dense' voices exposed in all their richness by this score that is filled with demanding passages situated at the top of the upper vocal register of all three of them.

To that add Tómas Tómasson who not only vocally excels in anything he sings, but also manages to delicately incarnate the King Lear's despair, which then progressively turn into full madness that will end with Lear joining his daughter in the tomb. It is, of course, not clear if he was lucid enough at that moment to realize that Cordelia was the only daughter who really loved and cared for him.

In the end of the first part he [Lear] kills his Fool -- that in this production is a narrator, a German actress, Elisabeth Trissenaar. Fool does not disappear. Neuenfels keeps her on stage all the way, but as a mute ghost in the second part. During the first part she spoke with Lear, while in the second only King spoke -- that obviously help portraying the Lear's descent to madness.

Always superb Andreas Conrad employed his impressively luminous voice to incarnate the frustrated, vindictive and vicious Edmund, who eventually --and after all the dreadful things he did-- gets killed by Edgar. Edgar, another tragic character, after going through tunnels of despair (the most poignant lyrical moments of the score, sung by Martin Wölfel) is saved by Lear, and then saves his own blind father from suicide. That gave him strength to go after Edmund and in this way avenge his own and his father's fate. The role of his father --Earl of Gloucester-- is sung and acted by the immense singer and actor of the Komische Oper, Jens Larsen.

The show opens with all protagonists on the stage -- all three daughters and their respective companions, in addition to the tired King Lear who decided to transfer power to his daughters. That and the following scene --in which Regan and Goneril express "love" for their father and enjoy seeing Cordelia being disinherited-- are happening with a giant projection of worms and maggots on the background wall. You may write an essay on that detail only... What is the meaning of worms and maggots in the background?

The way Neuenfels presents two evil sisters is particularly brilliant. They are shown symmetrically: on one side of the stage is Goneril, dressed in a gray wearing a tie too, dreams of having children, but has four dolls at the kitchen table instead. Her husband, Duke of Albany, wears a skirt-looking garment made of tulle. That is enough to define the relation between the two: she orders, he executes... But that's a trap, of course: one should never take the initial impression as definite. Indeed, in the end Albany will be the only direct survivor directly involved in the story, and he remains the only comparably positive character in this bloodthirstiest of all tragedies.

On the other side of the stage is egocentric Regan, in a pink skirt, and with a small black hat on the top. She has four dogs and a husband to take care of them. She needs unreserved admiration and unquestionable loyalty that only dogs are capable of. Later on in the show, her dogs will help her 'handling' Gloucester. That is one of the dramatically and emotionally most extraordinary scenes in the show. It is musically stunning and the way Erika Roos acts it out is simply genius: she first incites her dogs to attack the old man, then is annoyed at her weak husband who cannot finish the job and gouge Gloucester's eyes out. Then she jumps on a helpless Gloucester and plunges her own fingers in his eye-hole. While the old man is screaming in agony, she's running around the stage... she laughs hysterically -- celebrating her victory, or of contentment for having punished a 'traitor'... but then she looks in the human eye in her hand and she starts screaming of horror, the dogs then turn as if ready to attack her... To me, the way Neuenfels and Reimann penetrate the psychology of this horrific scene is the highlight of whatever opera was ever able to achieve! Musically these unbearable scenes are accompanied with impulses of music, repetitive motives, orchestral sparkles from which the high soprano notes jump out. Stunning is the right word to describe this!

How banal is then the death of Regan after all this?! Inadvertently poisoned by her own sister... This is a drama in which everyone can kill anyone else, and that fear from death is slowly transferred to public. Whenever two characters meet up on the stage you start fearing something might happen that will inadvertently end up in one of the two killed. Knowing that Neuenfels could alter the Shakespearean storyline if he wanted to, you're literally sitting on the edge of your seat for more than 2 hours.

The only aria (if you can call it that way) in this opera is the King's lament, that I thought perfectly captured King's despair.

If you can possibly come to Berlin to see AND listen to this opera with this cast don't even think twice: it is a ginormous must-see.

I noticed that the Frankfurt Oper recently premiered their new production of this opera that will be on in March/April 2012, so if you cannot make it to Berlin, you can catch the Keith Warner production in Frankfurt.

If you saw King Lear the play, you know that it is always interesting to figure out the director's take-home message. Neuenfels seems to suggest that the winners of the bloodiest of battles are not their protagonists but the "auxiliaries" -- supporting roles.

As I mentioned above, I was not familiar with the score, nor I remember to have listened an opera conducted by Friedemann Layer, but I absolutely loved every second of what I could hear coming from the pit the other night at the Komische Oper.

Assorted production photos:

One extra photo found on the Internet:

Apparently Aribert Reimann and Hans Neuenfels met only once to discuss about King Lear at length

A few curtain call pics:

Friedmann Layer in front of Irmgard Vilsmaier, Andreas Conrad, Caroline Melzer and Tomás Tomásson

King Lear, Elisabeth Trissenaar, and Erika Roos

Martin Wölfel, Andreas Conrad, Irmgard Vilsmaier, Hans Gröning, Caroline Melzer

Trailer:

Vasily Petrenko in Paris

2011-12-21T22:53:00.001+01:00

Wallin-Sibelius-Tchaikovsky, Salle Pleyel in Paris, November 30 2011

Vass Petrenko

Conductor ..... Vasily Petrenko

Soloist/Violin ..... Joshua Bell

Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra

After the best conducted Eugene Onegin I was ever given to listen to in my life [tha was at the Paris Opera last year, and with the orchestra that Petrenko was able to work with only for a very short period of time!] I was waiting for an opportunity to listen to a concert with Vasily Petrenko conducting. He was with his orchestra at Théâtre des Champs Elysées in December 2010 but that was when I was not in Paris. This time around I couldn't miss his concert no matter what...

Vasily must be one of the best conductors in the world today. His boyish looks add to his presence something insolent, something out of ordinary, and in the end of performance it feels as if he just landed from his trip and asks "What the heck has just happened!?" He definitely knows how to convey the message to the orchestra, to produce the sounds that make the usual scores sound different, refreshing, surprising. A true artist! If you ever get the chance to listen to this man conducting one of the orchestras he's collaborating with, then rush to get your ticket.

The Oslo Philharmonics had their best days under Mariss Jansons, and starting from 2013 Vas Petrenko will be the chief director of this orchestra, and I believe that orchestra will soon rise to the level of the Royal Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonics, or the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra -- the three arguably most solid orchestra right now, together with the Philharmonia, Staatskapelle, and the Chicago Symphony. It is of course ridiculous to be implicitly dismissive to other orchestra, but these that I mentioned are the ones that are invariably excellent, while the others have their good and sometimes a bit less good moments.
Vasily is the current chief conductor of the Liverpool Philharmonic [and will occupy that position until at least 2015] with whom he recorded a series of SUPERBLY performed Symphonies by Shostakovich. OK, I should stop gushing and write about this concert...

The ONLY blurred person in this photo is the composer Rolf Wallin -- and that was a single photo I took. Man...

To make the concert less predictable and more exciting, they opened with a piece called "Act" by Rolf Wallin, a Norwegian composer, who finished this comparably short [about 10 minutes] work in 2003. This was its first performance in France, and the composer himself came up on the stage to greet the appreciative crowd. As usual, the contemporary music is huge fun to listen to in a concert hall, and you appreciate it totally differently than listening to it on your iPod. This piece is rather easy on your ear but it is not something you could listen to and do something else. It needs and it captures your attention fully. There is tension, eroticism, and a network of motives that actually converges/culminates relatively fast. I hope Oslo Philharmonics will come back soon with some more stuff from Wallin's opus.

Then came the Sibelius part. Joshua Bell is one of the most well known violinists today. It must be hard for him to carry a burden of celebrity because this kind of serious concerts are regularly a big test for him. There is always a fraction of public who come with intention to diminish the celebrity status of a give artist, look for tiny imprecisions in execution, searching the elements to call the performance dis-engaging, or the interpretation "dry". Sibelius Violin Concerto was like a carpet for Joshua to express his virtuosity, his elegance, his expressivity, even if too exuberant at times. A cascade of bravos came almost naturally in the end, and with 2 encores Joshua entertained his love affair with the Paris crowd. Needless to say that Petrenko and the orchestra were excellent company. I did not find a YT video with Joshua playing the Violin Concerto by Sibelius, but I did find the one with a very passionate and very young Valeriy Sokolov who performed it 3 years ago at Cité de la Musique in Paris (you can start from here.)

Always brilliant Joshua Bell

And the final part of this very pleasant concert was the Symphony No.4 by Tchaikovsky. I am not really a fan of all Symphonies by Tchaikovsky. Not that I don't like them. I do, I do, but not as passionately as I admire the Symphonies by Mahler, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Beethoven, and even Bruckner, or the gems by Haydn... The Symphonies No.4 and 5 are exceptions [thanks to my Barenboim-mania! ;)], and I never managed to fully get into the swing of The Six (that most people prefer)

In short, I loved the 4th as performed by the Oslo Philharmonics and the formidable Vas Petrenko! I guess it is a sign that I'm getting old, but I most enjoyed the second movement. It was delicately tempered, and every note was flying with purpose. The third movement was the less interesting but the fourth compensated it greatly. That was where Vasily Petrenko played his major role and tamed the orchestra not to get overboard, and yet relate the music to the emotional urgency that this movement supports so wonderfully.

I found a YT video with Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra performing the Symphony No.5 by Tchaikovsky, with Vasily Petrenko conducting. Enjoy!

Ô petite étoile du destin... Simon Rattle, Magdalena Kozena

2011-12-21T15:43:00.001+01:00

L'étoile, Staatsoper Unter den Linden im Schiller Theater, Berlin, December 19 2011

Conductor ..... Simon Rattle
Director ..... Dale Duesing

King Ouf I ..... Jean-Paul Fouchécourt
Lazuli ..... Magdalena Kožená
Princess Laoula ..... Juanita Lascarro
Siroco ..... Giovanni Furlanetto
Prince Herisson de Porc-Epic ..... Douglas Nasrawi
Aloès ..... Stella Doufexis
Tapioca ..... Florian Hoffmann

Staatsopernchor
Staatskapelle Berlin

Opéra-bouffe in three acts by Emmanuel Chabrier is very 19th century bourgeois piece, that --despite its underlying lightness-- L'étoile is not an easy score to pull out properly. It is pretty, stylish, fun to play on piano -- full of little twists and turns that keep you alert. With an orchestra it can be delicious too if the conductor succeeds to weave through the score and translate the mood and lightness of the story -- despite a few details that are potentially outrageous for the 21st century public [read a well & succinctly written synopsis here.]

I saw the same show when it was premiered and I remember thinking it was too sweet, and that the director didn't care or dare to alternate those few details, to scratch beneath the surface, and make the drama fitting better the audience today. Now, after second watching, I stand by what I've said before -- it is sweet and lazy entertainment. This option is more adequate now --with the Christmassy atmosphere in the city-- than it was at the first time I saw it.

I know that another production of this opera has been premiered a month ago in Frankfurt [see trailer here]. I am sure David Alden made a show much less `straightforward'... Anyways, if you adhere to the Dale Duesing's way of staging this opera, you will definitely like the dynamics of the stage action, that certainly marries well with music.

Simon Rattle and Magdalena Kozena

Since I'm in Berlin and I saw this opera was on the program, and since the similar quality of a French opera rarely comes to Paris, I thought I'd go to listen to the Staatskapelle once again, conducted by always amazing Simon Rattle. To my surprise --and maybe because the current Staatsoper auditorium is smaller than the one in their real house-- all the singers sounded very-very good too. Magdalena Kozena was particularly brilliant. She definitely broke the formula of how to sing this kind of the French repertoire. Her spoken French was almost perfect during the show, but it was her singing with properly shortened legato and all the notes nicely held, that impressed me a lot. To me this was the best I've heard from Mme Rattle so far. Her uncommon musicality and a gift to sing known arias in her own way served her well in the baroque repertoire, but here --in Chabrier-- she scores it big too. Brava! I am not sure if I would remain as praiseful if the show took place in a larger auditorium, but why bother thinking about that now?! She was great here. ;)

Juanita Lascarro apparently sang the same role in Frankfurt too [Là-et-là] and becomes totally familiar with Princess Laoula [Là-ou-là] Very convincing performance by her, as well as by my new fave Stella Doufexis.
Men were all invariably excellent. It was hard to believe that the only native francophone in the cast was Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, who apparently is the Roi Ouf these days either in Europe or in the US. Knowing that the French is always hard to pronounce properly and that there are many spoken dialogs in this piece, this was more than impressive performance by all the singers/actors.

Simon Rattle quite obviously was having fun with steadily brilliant Staatskapelle Berlin. To make it extra fun, between the Act 1 and 2 of L'étoile, they filled in by a musical intermezzo which was a Chabrier-esque improvisation of an excerpt from the Act 2 of Tristan und Isolde. I was laughing to tears: the orchestra known to be the world best performers of Tristan, see a fragment of it through the Chabrier glasses. That was the highest point of the evening for me.

So, all in all, this was an example how a lesser known opera of a decent musical content can be made musically attractive and appeal to the public of our time. If only the staging was less rigid, this would have been a memorable show.

Several production photos ©Monika Ritterhaus:

My pics:

Irrecognizable Florian Hoffmann, Stella Doufexis, and Douglas Nasrawi

Jean-Paul Fauchécourt, Magdalena Kozená, Juanita Lascarro, and Douglas Nasrawi

Giovanni Furlanetto

Simon Rattle and Magdalena Lazuli Kozena

and the official trailer

Macbeth in Leipzig: The Great Dictator by Peter Konwitschny

2011-12-20T15:30:00.000+01:00

Macbeth, Oper Leipzig, December 15 2011

Conductor ..... William Lacey

Director ..... Peter Konwitschny

Duncan ..... Bert Franzke

Macbeth ..... Marco di Felice

Banquo ..... James Moellenhoff

Lady Macbeth ..... Amarilli Nizza

Macduff ..... Giuseppe Varano

Malcolm ..... Norman Reinhardt

Kammerfrau der Lady .... Jean Broekhuizen

Chorus of the Oper Leipzig (Alessandro Zuppardo)

Gewandhausorchester

Macbeth by Konwitschny is exactly the opposite to what Peter Stein did in his no-brainer production premiered in Salzburg last summer and then reran this month in Rome, where I actually saw it. Konwitschny peeled off the story, found a way to spice it up with derision, and to mock the people who are obsessed with power no matter what. He made it funny, witty, and staged it brilliantly. He has that particular talent to turn the grave issues less serious, but less serious only superficially -- the essence of the story remains intact, and maybe just because of his approach the dramatic impact on you is even stronger. For the similar reasons I praised the Richard Jones production of Macbeth that I could see this year at Opéra de Lille.

This show opens with a scene of a big kitchen and the witches coming in and out from all the possible holes you can imagine: from the ventilation system, oven, from the washing machine, cupboards, the fridge, windows... from everywhere! The witches in this productions are your favorite desperate housewives, who --out of their boredom-- are cooking up the stories, nosing into other people's lives, create rumors, build the heroes only for the joy of destroying them... It is hilarious most of the time with the stage design and costumes definitely helping to define the tone.

Each time when a murder occurs on the stage one of the witches approaches the blackboard (placed on the side of the stage) picks up the chalk and marks an extra tally, while the other two rush to visit the murder scene with a vacuum cleaner -- to clean up the mess and puff a handful of red confetti. This works as a perfect antidote to the seriousness of the underlying story, while emphasizing the banality of evil. Whenever blood or wine is spilled out, instead of liquid there is a heap or red confetti.

The scene with King Duncan was the funniest part of the evening. Konwitschny decided to show us the King's room and the King himself getting ready for sleep: you see a hefty man taking the layers of his ceremonial cloths off, and finally --after being liberated of the bulk-- he bird-falls onto his bed [belly-wise.] And then, his two security guys come close, get rid of their hats and jackets and fall theatrically on the bed to join the King --one on each side-- and then a huge blanket covers them all.
That's when Macbeth and his wife --who we saw hiding behind and waiting-- come to murder the King and his "security". They actually jump in the bed, under the cover, and re-appear later on, with red gloves (blood) on their hands. While Lady Macbeth knows how to get rid of the gloves, Macbeth is terrified and paralyzed -- the paranoia sets in immediately. It's there where the complicity with his wife becomes concrete-strong.

Later in the show there is a scene that I thought was of extraordinary quality too. It's when the King Macbeth is at his zenith, but in constant need for self-aggrandizement, fearing someone would notice his weaknesses or snatch the throne away from him. This is how Konwitschny shapes the moment: While on the curtains behind Macbeth we see a play with shadows by which the witches are warning the King that his power wasn't going to last, his throne starts rising way up so that anyone who wants to talk to him needs stepladder. He becomes detached from the commons, and at the same time afraid to leave the chair. This is so brilliantly constructed -- it is again grotesque and funny [at first the chair starts rising in the kitchen, but soon the kitchen disappears leaving the King hysterical, scared, mad -- alone on a super-high chair], but again this is cut by an abrupt change of situation and as abrupt mood swing. Lady Macbeth is the only one standing next to him (on the stepladder), he's afraid of the fate the witches foretold him, he's paranoid, afraid of the height of his throne -- and that's when him and Lady Macbeth take the machine guns and start randomly killing their own people. The birth of a dictator is so banal, but so terrifyingly human. We saw it so many time in history, in the news... and in everyday life, just rescaled.

A number of details in this production is enormous and I could spend days writing about them. The death of Banco is particularly cleverly constructed, and the game with coffins was great. My only small objection would be the part leading to the Lady Macbeth's somnambulism scene. Witches are the working force who build the forest. Why? What's the point? They do it purposefully as to make Lady Macbeth even more terrified than she would be otherwise?! If so, was that really necessary?! That was the only detail that somehow stuck out of what should otherwise be one of the best opera shows this year.

The stage is organized in two layers: the front one is where the kitchen is quickly composed and as quickly decomposed when necessary to uncover the vast back part of the stage, organized in a semicircle, with the action taking place on and around the inclined platform, while in the background you can see large windows with a view on the Scottish Highlands. Big compliments to Jörg Kossdorff for the stage sets and to Michaela Mayer-Michnay for costumes. Spot on!

The whole show is really superbly structured, brilliantly directed, and perfectly executed -- but it must have been hard to rehearse!

Musically the evening is surprisingly good. OK, I didn't have doubt that the Gewandhausorchester would be excellent, but I was totally impressed that William Lacey was capable to make them play so wonderfully. Again the overture was a tad too fast for my ears, but the rest of it was fantastic.

Marco di Felice is a very good singer and despite the obvious fatigue in the last parts of the show he delivered a fantastic vocal portrait of the King going mad. Amarilli Nizza is better actress than Marco, which is a welcome fact for this opera. She leads the show, and does it really wonderfully. Her voice is not as big as Tatiana Serjan's --for example-- but her scenic presence compensates hugely the difference and makes her performance even more remarkable. Brava! In this series of Macbeth I got to hear some excellent young Italian tenors, and Giuseppe Varano is one of them. Even the very reserved crowd was weeping during his "Ah, la paterna mano" [Saxony thing?! -- in Dresden and in Leipzig the crowd is very reserved!]
James Moellenhoff was saving his forces for his big moment in this opera "Come dal ciel precipta."

Great great show, and the Leipzig folks have the Opera House with artistic qualities to be proud of!
Hope to be able to come back soon and see some more Leipzig Oper productions!

Production photos:

My pics:

Marco di Felice and Amarilli Nizza

William Lacey

Wonderful desperate witches and the tally marks on the blackboard

Norman Reinhardt and Giuseppe Varano

Jean Broekhuizen and Milcho Borovinov

(too bad I didn't take the photo of Banco...)

This is one of the two photos I liked inside the theater...

... and --like in Karlsruhe-- the atrium is filled with pictures of the members of their ensemble. I like that!

I also learned that this production is not really new-new. It is actually a revised/revisited version of the previous Macbeth that Konwitschny presented 12 years ago in Graz.

Trailer:

Infernal Dance by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen

2011-12-20T11:08:00.001+01:00

Bluebeard Castle/Le Château de Barbe-Bleue (in concert), Théâtre des Champs Elysées, November 15 2011

Esa-Pekka Salonen, Carole Bouquet, Michelle DeYoung, John Tomlinson

Conductor ..... Esa-Pekka Salonen

Judith ..... Michelle DeYoung
Kékszakállú ..... John Tomlinson

Prologue ..... Carole Bouquet

And here was my absolutely favorite English orchestra coming to Paris, with a special program, and there was no way for me to miss this concert. There is always something special about them, something that makes their concerts stand out: be it a peculiar interpretation of a given score, something passionate in execution, or Salonen bringing up his passion for modern and contemporary music -- the result is invariably great.
The Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen are touring across Europe, celebrating Bartók and his music, presenting the cycle called Infernal Dance, revolving around music by Béla Bartók. Here is your example of why they are special. The meaningfully composed and structured program that digs deep into the opus of this phenomenal composer. Do check their web-site (Bartók section, in particular)

Back to their Paris concert. It actually started with Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, that I realized to have never listened to before. I may have caught a few excerpts here and there but this was my first listening to this piece. It always makes you feel good to discover something new, trying to get into the depth of this intricate music, and feeling richer for that experience... Plus I was in the mood for Bartók! Man was an absolute genius and when you're in the right mood, try and listen to Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta with Pierre Boulez conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker in 2007

Second part was Bluebeard's Castle, the phenomenal opera by Bartok (one of my absolute favorites), with Esa-Pekka in his best form and the orchestra responding wonderfully. The whole thing was unfortunately spoiled by the organizers' idea to bring Carole Bouquet --a gorgeous French actress-- to pronounce two sentences of Prologue, while showing off her wonderful dress, which would be fine everywhere except at the Bartók concert. It killed the mood so brilliantly defined by the first part of the evening.

After that appeared barefooted Michelle DeYoung, who apparently replaced the initially programmed (and often barefooted too) Measha Bruggergossman. She sang her part fantastically. Michelle has a big voice and is able to bend it any way she wants, which is of fundamental importance for this role -- Judith had countless faces, and the mood swings are so frequent that there is no time for loosing it up and refocusing later. It takes a big voice to cope with huge harmonic waves of Bartók's music and Michelle's perfectly suited for the part. Her truly excellent performance was loudly cheered by the very enthusiastic Parisian crowd.

I like John Tomlinson and was very glad to hear him in this part. It's maybe not the best role for him at this time of his career as it is too tough to sustain in expressiveness and intensity. He did his best in spite of the fatigue that settled in in the last 10 minutes. His experience showed and all the moods, expectations, disappointment, gentlemanly behavior, and despair... were magnificently shaped by his voice.

The harmonic explosion when the 5th door is opened is one of my favorite musical moments in general and here it was coming up gloriously --the effect was probably exacerbated by the size of this auditorium-- with Michelle surfing on that sound by her opulent voice. Fantastic evening at TCE! The Philharmonia and Salonen will be back there soon, for some more Bartók. Check out here!

Here is a little film with Salonen discussing the music by Bartok, including the Bluebeard.

One more Christmas gift to traditionalists: La Forza del Destino from Paris

2011-12-19T18:19:00.011+01:00

I said I would not blog about the sad-sad production of La Forza del Destino, recently premiered at the Paris Opera, but since the video-links of the show appeared and the run of this appalling production is over, I'll just put in my two sentences and let you enjoy or "enjoy" this thing.

Curtain calls after the show on November 17 2011 at Opéra Bastille: Vladimir Stoyanov, Philippe Jordan, Patrick Marie Aubert, Violeta Urmana, Zoran Todorovich, Kwangchul Youn, Nadia Krasteva [the best soloist, Nicola Alaimo, not in the photo]

In all honesty, I went to see this show hoping it would change my too strong opinion about this opera --one of the dumbest operas of all times-- and that I'd find a way to convince myself that, musically, this opera was indeed one of the greatest works done by Giuseppe, as the numerous Verdi aficionados often suggest.

While I knew nothing would change the incongruities of the libretto, and that this kind of staging would only emphasize them, I thought the performers would make this giant snoozer miraculously enjoyable. Hélas, hélas!

Kwangchul Youn was obviously fantastic and Nicola Alaimo excellent, but all in all I spent 5 very long hours [2 intermissions] fighting the snooze-balloons, survived them all, only to hear "Pace, pace mio Dio!" and say -- Never Again!

This is, of course, just my opinion and even though the entire French press trashed this production, there were many people who actually liked it. So, who knows?! You may like it too.
If you have four hours to sink, here are your links [provided by Medici.tv]

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

From the Jean-Claude Auvray production of La Forza del Destino at Opéra Bastille in Paris

Definitely, I have this love-and-hate affair with Verdi operas: while I love Otello, Don Carlo(s), Macbeth, Falstaff, La Traviata, and even enjoy Simon Boccanegra, I really dislike La Forza del Destino, Luisa Miller, Un Ballo in Maschera, Stiffelio... I can sit through Il Trovatore, I Vespri Siciliani, Aida, or Nabucco if and only if the show is mounted non-trivially.

Around the same time that La Forza del Destino opened at the Paris Opera, the Théâtre des Champs Elysées organized two concert performances of Oberto -- the very first opera composed by Verdi. Curiosity killed the cat, and Oberto achieved me. In spite of the good cast --lead by our dear Ekaterina Gubanova-- the opera sounded like a bel-canto soup gone bad.

Anyways, I should stick and write about good stuff only... Next post will be about good Verdi -- Macbeth in Leipzig.

Premiere of Orpheus in der Unterwelt: Stölzl meets Offenbach backstage

2011-12-19T14:14:00.001+01:00

Orphée aux enfers, Staatsoper Unter den Linden im Schiller Theater, Berlin, December 16 2011

Conductor ..... Julien Salemkour
Director ..... Philipp Stölzl

Eurydice ..... Evelin Novak
Public opinion ..... Cornelius Obonya
Orpheus ..... Stefan Kurt
Pluto ..... Ben Becker
Jupiter ..... Gustav Peter Wöhler
Styx ..... Hans-Michael Rehberg
Juno ..... Irene Rindje

Staatskapelle Berlin
Staatsopernchor (Frank Flade)

This is a creative take on the Offenbach famous operetta that those who saw this piece mounted before might find disturbing. Those who have as a reference the production of Orphée aux enfers presented in Lyon almost 15 years ago --that boosted the career to both Natalie Dessay and Laurent Pelly-- will be most probably baffled by this production.

Of course we were not that naive to believe that Philipp Stölzl would come up with yet another production of Orphée aux enfers without seriously shaking the piece, and adapting it as to resonate with people today. In short, Stölzl and his team completely reworked the piece, translated it into German, rewrote a big chunk of the text and musically converted it to the Kurt Weill kind of the Berliner style of sound. OK, the ground story is the same one, by Ludovic Halévy, just set up differently, and the music often sounds very different from what you're used to, even if the score is the one by Jacques Offenbach. More importantly, the satiric character was perfectly hitting the cord with the crowd and the eventual success for the whole team was absolutely deserved. To make the satirical side of the storyline vibrant, Stölzl employed his talent and made the comedy very fast paced, burlesque, and invited the real theater actors to make the magic work. The only true singer in the cast was Evelin Novak who sang wonderfully in addition to her excellent acting. Orpheus was incarnated by a popular German/Swiss actor, Stefan Kurt, and the crowd was delighted.

So the stage, before the beginning of the show, looked bare-naked, with only a few wooden cases posed on the floor. No pit, no orchestra, no decor except for a set of cords hanging from the ceiling and touching the floor (c.f. photo above.) You could see the folks entering auditorium looking puzzled. Well, this delightfully written libretto would be next-to-impossible to put on stage if you don't have a sense of humor and put a grain of salt in the story. Public Opinion --a man in this production-- appeared at the very beginning, threw a few jokes to make contact with public and then reminded us of the heartbreaking story about Orphée and Eurydice, ending his intro with a natural question "What could have happened to them in real life -- after several years of marriage!?" And then the story begins... If you did not see this operetta before, do have a look at the Pelly production on DVD, and read the synopsis.

Evelin Novak

In this production the actors sing, the singers act and they all do it wonderfully to support the comedy without ruining the fun part. The demanding part sung by Eurydice is wonderfully interpreted by Evelin Novak. The chorus girls are perfectly at ease with a rather complicated stage action that they support abundantly.

Stölzl had his idea of what "Underwelt" means here. It is the second life for actors. One that they live in the theater, and the difficulties to discern it from the real life they live with their families. Eurydice is unhappily married to Orpheus who happens to be a performer too, but not an actor like her. He is a musician who incessantly annoys her with his violin. To show how neglected in their marriage she really feels, she breaks his Stradivarius to pieces and leaves. Later Eurydice will fall in love with Jupiter (an actor) whose jealous wife, Juno, regularly calls in to check if her husband cheats on her with one of the pretty girls in the crew of dancers -- that are in fact crazy about him.

Public Opinion is the connection between the regular and the life in the theater, and at the same time he [Public Opinion] is the one who keeps the two worlds apart by constantly reminding the protagonists of what they are supposed to do -- even if that is not what they want to be doing. This is how Public Opinion presses on Orpheus to take a hilarious flight to "Hell" (Underworld) to look for Eurydice whom he's not in love anymore, but whom he's married to...

Scenically it is lively, with lots of self deprecating humor, and burlesque all the time. The sets pop up from the cases I mentioned above -- like from the pop-up books: the cords attached to them are linked to the wheels on the ceiling and then fixed to the spool on the side-wall of the stage that is then pulled or released by the girls/dancers (actually the chorus members.) And so the cases open up and the cardboardish but witty decors pop up. This way to organize the stage action is clever on several levels, and more importantly it never slows down the comedy that requires many sets changes. It all happens on the fly.

The first surprise happens at the very beginning when one of the hardly visible frames opens up in the backstage to unveil the orchestra (Kurt Weill like orchestra, with a banjo - of course.) Like from the music box the sound is released [good job from Julien Salemkour] and the whole story begins.

In the end, Eurydice is of course delighted to remain in the back of the backstage (Hell) where a disco-ball is suspended on the ceiling, the actors have lots of fun, and she's there with her beloved Jupiter.

Stefan Kurt, Gustav Peter Wöhler, and Ben Becker

It is difficult not to admire the acting and personality of Gustav Peter Wöhler, who at first suffers from hangover after the night spent in theater with a bunch of pretty dancers, but sobers up quickly after his wife Juno calls in. He fears Juno but overcomes his fears by his love for Eurydice. His role as a King is hilarious, as a God of Thunder he's "incompetent" at best.
His transformation into a fly is funny and touching at the same time.

If you're in Berlin or near the city, do go and see this show. It's festive, it's uplifting, and it's very well done.

I shouldn't finish this post without saying that something occasionally bugged me during the show even if I was fully aware that the production was made for the Berliners, not for me.... Orphée aux enfers in German, really!? ... but that's just me.

Mara Kurotschka and Philipp Stölzl

... and Julien Salemkour

Production photos ©Matthias Baus

Trailer:

Edit: I just saw on YT that there is a full video of the Laurent Pelly production I mentioned above. It's not subtitled, so if you're French speaking... here is your link.

La Traviata in Berlin: Omer Meir Wellber, Christine Schäfer, and Francesco Demuro - Bravi Tutti!

2011-12-18T20:19:00.002+01:00

La Traviata, Staatsoper Unter den Linden im Schiller Theater - Berlin, December 17 2011

Conductor ..... Omer Meir Wellber
Director ..... Peter Mussbach

Violetta Valéry ..... Christine Schäfer
Flora Bervoix ..... Maraike Schröter
Annina ..... Rowan Hellier
Alfredo Germont ..... Francesco Demuro
Giorgio Germont ..... Alfredo Daza
Gaston ..... Paul O’Neill
Baron Douphol ..... Bernd Zettisch
Marquis d'Obigny ..... Arttu Kataja
Dr. Grenvil ..... Andreas Bauer

Staatsopernchor
Staatskapelle Berlin

This is a relatively old production. It was premiered in 2004 at the Festival in Aix-en-Provence, and it is today one of the reference Traviata's. Peter Mussbach was clever to explore the minimalist approach in a rather innovative way for the time when the production was made. Today this would not be met with the same enthusiasm as in 2004, but it was nevertheless a clean way to depict a peculiar atmosphere that goes with the emotional journey of the main character of the drama.

Violetta Valéry is a celebrity. She's Marilyn Monroe, or any other bleached blonde --platinette-- of your choice, imprisoned in her image that is just an object of sexual desire. Beneath that image of glamor and beauty is a paradoxically unhappy character, emotionally ruined woman who craves love and attention. This story never gets old. It's just the angle that changes the look and brings the story perpetual life.

Always intense and passionate Christine Schäfer

We saw this production on DVD, and I must say that in theater it looks very different. The stage and the pit are covered by a transparent fabric on which is projected an artsy grayish film, made by someone who was driving very fast in the night. The rain drops bring extra roughness to the picture we see, and behind the fabric is an interminable road, and a lonely young glamorous girl, whirled in the speed of things that happens around her, that she cannot control. She follows the life that she cannot fully understand, looks more and more disoriented, desperate, loses the strength to cope and falls on her knees, as if begging for help...

Love will help her to stand up but only to realize that her image does not let her to live an ordinary life: she is an object of desire, she is not a kind of girl a father would see his son spend his life with. So Mussbach stripped all the prostitute and party-girl part off the story and focused on the emotional journey of Violetta Valéry. And strangely, despite its slowness, it works really well! For that to be the case you definitely need a very strong soprano because Violetta Valéry in this production spends 100% of the time on the stage, in the middle of the road. The series of arias, duets... without ever rinsing the throat, it takes a courageous singer such as Christine Schäfer who not only sang every note from the score, she vocally sculpted the emotional trip of Violetta.

It is easy to nitpicking on Christine's lack of Italianità, but you cannot complain about any note skipped or fastly jumped over. She sings everything in her own way, and this is one of many examples why she's the world's leading Lieder singer. She lives the verses she sings. Not a single word is pronounced with pathos or conveying a cheap emotion. Every word is emphasized as to build the emotional portrait of a desperately lonely woman. The full house was breathlessly with Christine and loved what she had to show that night (I spotted Wolfgang Rihm in the crowd. I wouldn't be surprised if he came for Christine too.) The small size of the auditorium of this theater helped this kind of highly emotional interpretation, and I am more than glad to have been there.

My surprise was the tenor. Alfredo Germont is one of the most famous tenor roles that exposes both good and bad sides of one's voice. Even if his timbre is not very broad (the thickness of the timbre will develop with age), Francesco Demuro has everything for this role and sings it really beautifully. Luminous high notes, sung with great style, with ease that deserves respect. He will soon be performing in Paris, in Don Pasquale at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées. I can only hope he will confirm this excellent impression he's made last night in Berlin.

WONDERFUL Omer Meir Wellber -- Francesco Demuro clapping behind

Alfredo Daza, a reliable baritone, completes the strong cast, but my other heap of praises goes to Omer Meir Wellber, who started as a young Barenboim's protegé, but who grew up and is now one of the world best conductors as far as the Italian repertoire is concerned. He knows well this wonderful orchestra and the chemistry worked brilliantly last night. I also believe he's worked with Christine Schäfer before because the level of complicity between the soprano and the conductor was astounding.

This was a kind of opera nights I like from time to time!

Winning trio: Demuro, Meir Wellber, and Christine Schäfer (pics look blurred because of the tulle that covers the stage. It gives a misty imagery that helps the show even it does not help the photos...

Production photos:

Here is one of the most compelling operatic scenes ever, with Christine Schäfer and Jonas Kaufmann, recorded in Paris 2007 (when the Paris Opera produced meaningful and artistically exciting shows)

This is why we LOVE Christine and Jonas!

The full video of this most memorable Christoph Marthaler production is available on YouTube (arguably the best Traviata ever -- with all respect due to Decker, Neuenfels, Mussbach... -- I am yet to see the DVD of the Konwitschny production)

Last night I was told that very recently Benedikt von Peter produced a monumental Traviata in Hannover. See trailer here

Macbeth in Muti's house: When in Rome do as the Romans do

2011-12-18T10:41:00.001+01:00

Macbeth, Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, December 9 2011

Director ..... Peter Stein
Conductor ..... Riccardo Muti

Macbeth ..... Dario Solari
Banco ..... Riccardo Zanellato
Lady Macbeth ..... Tatiana Serjan
Dama di Lady Macbeth ..... Anna Malavasi
Macduff ..... Antonio Poli
Malcolm ..... Antonio Corianò

Orchestra e Coro del Teatro dell’Opera
(Roberto Gabbiani)

I have quite mixed feelings about this show. Yes, it is always wonderful to visit the Rome Opera Theater. It's been a number of years since the last time I was there and, after all the refurbishing, the theater looks delightfully elegant and beautiful inside, even if rather ordinary from the outside. To that add a peculiar charm of the exuberant and yet laid-back Roman crowd, the 'unbearable' amount of charm carried by the Roman women (their posture, the way they carry themselves and the way they speak is theater on its own), then you can say the evening was quite memorable. The house was full on the night I was there, and that was not a surprise since Riccardo Muti was conducting an opera by Verdi -- it was a must-see show for the Roman crème, the buzz was huge, and the electricity in the air was quite obvious.

And so I come to the delicate part in which I should say something about the show itself. In one sentence, scenically, the Peter Stein production is plain awful. It is stylistically outdated, dramatically slow and pale, the actors are only loosely directed, and practically zero idea was breath into this piece. Directing MacBeth is like a gift on the platter for any talented director. For the operatic purposes of his time, Verdi pretty much butchered the eponymous play, and that actually gives lots of space to a director to let his/her creativity fly. The theme of the greed for power is universal and to play along is almost straightforward.
In this show, despite its two intermissions (why two?!), the long shadows of boredom were too frequent to be ignored even when the musical parts are more than enjoyable. This kind of ceremonial stagings nowadays only exist on the DVD recordings from the Met in the 70's or 80's.

This very same production has been premiered last summer in Salzburg, with a somewhat different cast, and with the different orchestra, but his star-ness, Riccardo Muti, was the main attraction both in Salzburg and in Rome.

Even if Muti and his autocratic conducting are not my cup of tea, I must admit the evening was musically brilliant. The orchestra --that normally does not sound this great-- was outdoing themselves. They all had their eyes set on the Maestro, who was using his "wand" purposefully and the magic worked -- he was pulling the sounds exactly the way he wanted and filled up the large Roman house with magnificent music. In spite of the too-fast overture, the tempi were impeccable, he was never even near to drowning the singers, and yet the orchestra never sounded subdued. Great stuff!

What can be slightly annoying during the Muti nights at the opera is that he knows how to emphasize his importance: before each of his entrance to the pit he keeps the crowd waiting in the dark for 2-3 very long minutes. "Dickish" by some, "Gradioso" by many, "Who cares?!" for the others.

Muti is known for his insisting that the music should totally dominate opera, and the stage action should be reduced to the static hands-waving characters that either simper or make annoying tragic facial expressions. I speculated that Stein delivered the show he was asked to by Muti. I refuse to believe the master of the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz was unable to produce anything better than this...

I like this photo because it combines the palm tree with the Christmas tree, with the Rome Opera House in the background, and it was like +20C outside, and loud Romans with big smiles meeting in front of the theater

But let me focus on the good stuff. Musically the evening was a treat and Muti did a fantastic job. He rarely comes up with big singing stars. He usually brings new singers, those who do what he asks them to -- and the formula is regularly the winning one. Tatiana Serjan is a superb Lady Macbeth. If the show was better I guess I would have been totally conquered. While I loved her singing, her scenic presence was not particularly captivating. Ah yes, at the very beginning, when she was supposed to read the letter, her voice started inadvertently cracking, and you could tell the drama was happening on the stage, in the pit, and spilling over to the crowd -- will she be able to sing?! The moment she started to actually sing, her voice beamed gloriously showing no strain whatsoever. I also believe that thanks to two intermissions her voice didn't tire at all, which is almost always the case with Lady Macbeth in the final parts of the show. I don't believe anybody can sing and act the title role of this opera the way Scott Hendricks can, but you have to praise Dario Solari for what he was able to do. He clearly spills his guts out there to keep his voice voluminous and authoritative enough to fill up the big Roman Opera House, and even if he was struggling in the last part of the show, this was a magnificent performance. Bravo!

Riccardo Zanellato is "baritoning" most of the time but is managing to bring the emotional side of Banco that the Roman crowd welcomed warmly. Antonio Poli is a brilliant young Italian tenor and is definitely the one to keep an eye on. Macduff is a relatively short role -- practically the one aria role in this opera -- but exposes the talent, the interpretative skills, and the quality of the voice. If he can sustain this level of singing in a longer role, then here is your big tenor for tomorrow!

In the end Muti of course reaped all the cheers, and a big part of them he definitely deserved. However, I kept wondering why nobody booed the staging. One reason, I believe, is that the public could not focus on what's going on on the stage because they were busy reading the libretto. For whatever the reason the Rome Opera decided not to provide the super-titles, which --in my opinion-- is a killer for the opera. You need help from time to time and the super-titles is what keeps you hang in there when the incomprehensible patches occur. In Rome, very many folks had their iPhones turned on and pointed down at the libretto, to follow the text. You may be conservative and protective of the tradition, but rational at the same time!

I learned from the program that the version we were given that night in Rome was actually revision that Verdi made prior to the Paris premiere in 1865, although Muti picked bits and pieces to attach it to the original score too [Yours Truly did not notice the difference though.] It appears also that this is the Verdi opera that Muti has conducted the most in his life.

This is the first thing you see when you enter the Rome Opera

My camera died before the curtain calls, so just a few photos of the show/theater:

One of the most beautiful theaters today!

Nested in a very solid-strong full-of-marble building is this beautiful auditorium

Many folks take photos during the show. To me that would be fine if it is quiet and with NO FLASH -- for God's sake! Ah yes, this was one of the colorful --albeit very static-- scenes, after the murder of King Duncan

Riccardo Zanellato

Tatiana Serjan and Dario Solari

Riccardo Muti

There are no video excerpts of this show, as far as I know (I would not be surprised if they'd scheduled a DVD release...) but to get a vague idea of how it actually looks see this:

Tagesschau vom 02.08.2011

Peter Konwitschny is doing fine

2011-12-17T19:06:00.001+01:00

I saw his new production of Macbeth two nights ago in Leipzig [and LOVED it!] Konwitschny himself was watching the show. I was too close to take photos, but I'm happy to share this good news with you.

CC pic taken after the Thursday show

Christmas gift to traditionalists: The Flying Dutchman -- free only this weekend

2011-12-17T18:56:00.001+01:00

Recently premiered production of The Flying Dutchman with a superb Manuela Uhl is available for free ONLY this weekend (December 17 and 18, 2011)

Mark Rucker (Dutchman) and Manuela Uhl (Senta)

The show has been recorded on November 29 at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège

Dir- Petrika Ionesco, Cnd- Paolo Arrivabeni, Cast: Mark Rucker, Manuela Uhl, Alistair Miles, Corby Welch, Joëlle Charlier, and Yuri Gorodetski

Video is embedded below:

If it doesn't work for you, go directly onto Daily Motion

You're welcome! ;)

Ausgebrannt...

2011-12-08T14:43:00.003+01:00

Apparently the rehearsals leading to the premiere of The Queen of Spades in Graz [trailer here] were very intense and Peter Konwitschny (one of the rare true artists among opera producers) simply burned out. He was hospitalized for exhaustion before the premiere, and he's been staying at that same hospital in Graz for more than six weeks already -- which obviously means that his health problems were very serious.

Konwitschny is the artistic director of Oper Leipzig, where the preparations of his new production of Macbeth are underway. The premiere is scheduled for December 10, and will most probably happen without Big Pete.
Get well soon, big man! We need you!

Incidentally DVD of his production of La Traviata --with always wonderful Marlis Petersen-- premiered this year in Graz too, is about to be released worldwide. You can already order your copy from Amazon-uk, or Amazon-us.

Trailer appended below:

Are you ready for la bellezza scaligera?!!

2011-12-07T19:13:00.059+01:00

I am just too busy to blog and there would be many things to blog about: Rusalka and Wozzeck from Basel (great!), a few superb shows from Berlin, a couple of excellent concerts from Paris, great Alcina from Dresden... I will NOT blog about the tragically bad new productions from Paris, such as Faust or/and La Forza del destino.

BUT, tonite is the night of La Prima della Prima: Don Giovanni from La Scala. I was told it was not inventive (after Calixto Bieito, Martin Kusej, and Dmitri Tcherniakov it is hard to keep up the quality level) but Robert Carsen shows are always intelligent and pleasant to see. Plus a superb cast will make us forget one of the biggest let-downs in recent years -- the live broadcast of Don Giovanni from The Met.

Tonight's cast should be great: beside our faves, Peter Mattei, Anna Netrebko, Kwangchul Youn, we will enjoy the wonderful Anna Prohaska, Bryn Terfel, Barbara Frittoli, Giuseppe Filianoti. Daniel Barenboim will conduct.

Arte @ 20:15 et on ouvre une boutelle de Chinon (my new fave French wine)
Radio live broadcast here

Edit: I am speechless: 2400 €/seat for la prima of Don Giovanni! Mann

_________________________________________

Boy do I love this opera!!!

Peter the Great

Apparently the Loggionisti are ready to boo two singers on the curtain calls tonight (just heard on the Rai radio -- no name was mentioned)! Tradition oblige... I guess?!

EXCELLENT Leporello!

Weirdly enraged Masetto...

Always beautifully singing Anna Prohaska -- I wonder if she has enough power to fill up La Scala...

Donna Netrebko and Don Filianoti

Filianoti has become a great actor. Spontaneous and remarkable in every sense of the word -- although this role is not exactly fitting his voice.

HUGE Or sai chi l'onore! Anna Netrebko!

Anna Великая Netrebko! -- Or sai chi l'onore to remember

Peter's effortless wonderful singing -- a real treat!

Anna dominates... She deserves every bit of the global praise she receives... and more!

Pleasant show so far, with the party scene cleverly staged. I guess the constraint of having to please the La Scala crowd weighed quite a bit in what Carsen did here. Zero risk, no audacity, rehashing his old formulas... that invariably work with crowd

Or sai chi l'onore to keep for future generations...

Act-2

And just when Barenboim was about to start Act-2, the crowd was finishing clapping, and someone objected "Lento!" What standard does he have in mind?! Even if it was slow, how uncouth do you have to be to say that out loud at that very moment?!

Donna Elvira Frittoli

This is where the innate musicality makes difference...

It seems like Filianoti might the one to soak a pile of boos from la loggione tonight...

Ah mio tesoro -- this is definitely not a role for you

Mi tradì quell'alma ingrata... - Brava Barbara!

LOL @ Carsen: Il commendatore is singing from the presidential box -- right between Napolitano and Mario Monti! Ha

Left upper angle is a mirror reflection of Commendatore who sings omenously from the prez box

Brava!

Brilliant duo!

Yes, the game with mirrors help helps Carsen emphasizing his usual statement: theater is life, and life is theater. Warlikowski was the first to play with that as far as I know -- Just saying! ;)

Donna Elvira joins in for a meal...

Always great - Kwangchul Youn... You noticed maestro's hand, didn't you?!

I liked Claus Guth Don Giovanni for its numerous qualities, including the fact that the epilogue was cut off. To me this is simply redundant. What's the point?! To moralize? To make sure everyone gets the story the "right way"?! The show would be more efficient without it... BUT Carsen cleverly steps in and makes the final twist... and saves his show ;)

Ovations for Frittoli, and especially for Anna Netrebko (flower showered), Peter Mattei and Bryn Terfel.

Only a few boos for Carsen and I don't understand why for such a tamed (yet pleasant) show... None of the singers was booed. Good!

Second show and a much better night for Filianoti

One more proof of greatness: Ruslan and Lyudmila directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov

2011-11-21T11:18:00.002+01:00

Dmitri Tcherniakov is one of the five best opera directors today, and this new production of Ruslan and Lyudmila --by which the new Bolshoi Theater in Moscow reopened its gates to the opera lovers-- is one of numerous proofs that this man is uncommonly gifted, clever, audacious (in any sets of circumstances) -- in short, a genius.

You should keep in mind that the Moscow opera goers are far more conservative than those filling up the seats at the Paris Opera, and that the Bolshoi is even more conservative than The Met. With that in mind one starts watching this fascinating production and realizes how smoothly Tcherniakov leads his public to make them open up and start thinking about this opera as of something that is not taken out from the shelves and unfolded for their entertainment, but of something that is close to them, talks to them.

From the production photos alone, the show seemed to be one of those tired historic opulent productions, but 10 minutes in the show and you understand it's just the costumes that have been used to appropriately depict a traditional wedding in contemporary Russia...

Notice that Tcherniakov started using video in a way similar to what Denis Guéguin does in Krzysztof Warlikowski productions. Also the photos leaked prior to the premiere resembles the trick Stefan Herheim used before unveiling his Lohengrin in Berlin [when the photos mislead us to believe that the show was going to be traditionalist.]

And so, while the new productions at the Paris Opera look like tired copies of already notoriously stale productions broadcast from the Met, The Bolshoi here makes a quick leapfrog by rethinking through this Pushkin inspired opera that Tcherniakov prepared together with Vladimir Jurowski who made the score sound refreshing, and with a superb line up of singers: Mikhail Petrenko, Albina Shagimuratova, Charles Workman, Yuriy Mynenko (!), Alexandrina Pendatchanska, Almas Svilpa, Vladimir Ognovenko, and Elena Zaremba.
Tcherniakov and Jurowski are this new creative and open Russia.

Now, do read the synopsis before watching Ruslan and Lyudmila in the video attached below. Enjoy :)

Oh là là !

2011-11-20T18:10:00.016+01:00

I don't know if there is anything even remotely positive to say about "Celles qui aimaient Richard Wagner", a recently released film by Jean-Louis Guillermou about... well, about Richard Wagner -- I guess.

The story conveyors are certain Judith (young) and Brigitte (aged), diehard Wagner fans, both socially rather inapt, living stuck between their own lives and the life of fantasies built on a biography of Richard Wagner [OK, it's more about Judith, but the episode with Brigitte helped highlighting the Wagnerites' weirdness... or so I understood!]

As for the horny Richard, he had a magic formula: just approach any attractive woman, whisper on her ear that she's your new muse, and she's instantly blinking with 'green lights' (oh yes, there's a background-sound from the prelude to Tristan each time he's about to knock one)... and so on... aren't you yawning already?!

100% of dialogs sound annoyingly artificial [Aaah Richard! Je vous appartiens!], and occasionally unintentionally hilarious [HE: "Vous me semblez toute chavirée ma chère!" SHE: "Ce ne sont que ces chaleurs trop vives qui m’indisposent."]

The director often lets Roberto Alagna (alias Joseph Tichatschek) act on his own, without proper guidance, and since Roberto has next-to-zero naturalness in his acting the result is very far from flattering (see a tiny excerpt here.) Even worse is Stéphane Bern (a well known French TV/radio talk show presenter) who impersonates a spoiled but grotesque King Ludwig II.

And so, with a few decent actors and with these personalities unsuccessfully trying to do the acting job, with evidently not enough money invested in the project to back the director's ambitions (costumes and makeup from a second rate theater), in addition to the impossible dialogs, somewhere half-way through the movie you start doubting if the whole thing isn't just a big fat parody. Then you start taking it all lightly and chuckle more and more often... but soon it all becomes more serious and you realize that it's just that -- a horribly bad movie.

Below is a trailer and there are a few theaters in France and another few elsewhere in Europe where you can still catch this thing.

Una Notte di Bel Canto: Théâtre des Champs Élysées Re-Opens

2011-11-13T14:24:00.004+01:00

I Capuleti e i Montecchi (in concert), Théâtre des Champs Élysées, November 11 2011 [11/11/11]

Olga Peretyatko - Giulietta

Evelino Pidò ..... Conductor

Anna Caterina Antonacci ..... Romeo

Olga Peretyatko ..... Giulietta

Juan Francisco Gatell ..... Tebaldo

Carlo Cigni ..... Lorenzo

Giovanni Battista Parodi ..... Capellio

Orchestra et Chorus of the Opéra de Lyon

Théâtre des Champs Élysées (TCE) started their 2011-2012 season with a delay that was necessary to finish the summer works of refurbishing the stage and the backstage space. This was also a demonstration to the classical musics lover how important is this house for the city. We missed TCE and were very happy to see it re-open in big style -- with Belini's Romeo and Juliet, a.k.a. I Capuleti e i Montecchi.

As you may have already noticed, I am not really a bel-canto fan, which does not mean I don't like it -- I do, I do. The yearly bel-canto opera-concert at TCE --offered to Paris by Opéra National de Lyon (ONL)-- is something I try not to miss. Every November the whole crew from Opéra National de Lyon [undoubtedly the best run opera house in France (Serge Dorny)] come to TCE and offers to Paris a delightful bel-canto present. Remember how I was raving about the Rossini's Otello a year ago?! [A year ago... sigh... it feels like yesterday! Time flies mercilessly!]

Friday night we were blessed to have the most wonderful Olga Peretyatko singing the role of Giulietta in which she demonstrated the very meaning of bel-canto. Olga already marvels the public across the continent with her Lucias, Adinas, a palette of the Rossini heroines that propelled her to the top of the bel-canto hierarchy today. This Giulietta, her role debut, was her way to win the Parisian public too. Her Italian is impeccable, her trills are terrific, her piani are wonderful and she effortlessly goes for a spinto when it's stylistically suitable. Her top notes are crystal clear and are all approached from above. Her medium will further gain in broadness with age, but the way she projects her voice and trills is truly remarkable. Added value to her beautiful singing is that her presence communicaa kindness and la joie de vivre that she radiates during and immediately after the concert. It is the kind of energy you get from Joyce DiDonato, or early Cecilia Bartoli. In the end, the full house exploded with "Brava!" to cheer Olga the Bolshoya.

Anna Caterina Antonacci - Romeo

Anna Caterina Antonacci is one of the Paris darling singers and her presence was obviously loudly Bravo-ed too. Although she was a bit hesitant in the first act, her Romeo was beautifully sung in the second act. She managed to make the public connect with the heart wrenching drama of her character. She lived every verse she sangs without ever leaning toward verismo, and in fact demonstrated that having all the notes is necessary but not a sufficient condition to sing this repertoire really good.

Juan Francisco Gatell (Tebaldo) and Anna Caterina Antonacci (Romeo)

This opera is of course all about Romeo and Giulietta, but Tebaldo too has its important moments. I read about the "new Argentine lyric tenor" but never had really a chance to listen to Juan Francisco Gatell singing live. His voice is pleasant, not big but at ease with the top notes. Definitely good for an auditorium of the size of the one at Théâtre des Champs Elysées. One to follow...

Evelino Pido, Olga Peretyatko, and Carlo Cigni

A few years ago a big bel-canto moment at Opéra Bastille was the Robert Carsen production of I Capuletti e i Montechi with Anna Netrebko and Joyce DiDonato singing the two main roles. That was so huge a success that I thought any other singer trying to sing Romeo or Giulietta would have hard time with a fraction of bel-canto aficionados who would not hesitate to boo if a slightest detail wasn't done 'properly.' But since Olga was this brilliant and Anna Caterina pulled the second act with such a brio - the evening was a big success for all the performers, including --obviously-- the chorus and orchestra of the Opéra National de Lyon, conducted by particularly attentive Evelino Pidò: only twice he was close to the edge of drowning the singers, but other than that this was very good indeed.

As every year, this concert was recorded by the France Musique Radio and it will be broadcast on Saturday, November 26 starting from 19:30 (cet) on this link.

Œdipus gouges out his eyes at the Best Opera House in 2011 - Free video for your eyes only

2011-11-12T16:13:00.000+01:00

Starting from tonight [November 12, 2011] at 20:00 (cet) you can watch the video of the barely finished run of the new production of Oedipe -- a wonderful opera by George Enescu presented at the Best Opera House in 2011, La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels.

The reviews were full of praise for the opera itself, for Peter de-super-Caluwe who lead the project to resuscitating this rarely performed opera, for Leo Hussain and his enthusiastic, passionate albeit accurate conducting, and for the singers/actors who gave this opera new life.
As expected, many negative reviews for Alex Ollé and Valentina Carrasco from La Fura dels Baus, who produced the show, who make the grand scene too grandioso-s for the opera crowd, but I am sure it was "special" [I absolutely LOVED their Le Grand Macabre at La Monnaie a couple of years ago; the same show will be presented next week at Liceu in Barcelona!]

Ah yes, the link is HERE and note that the video will be available for free viewing three weeks only!

Le Nozze di Figaro - Les Noces Liegoises

2011-11-11T16:14:00.005+01:00

After their really bad production of Otello, I stopped mentioning the webcast projects by Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège. However, since Anne-Catherine Gillet --a wonderful Belgian soprano-- sings the role of Susanna in their new production of Le Nozze di Figaro, I cannot but encourage you to give it a try and watch the video of the show that was live webcast less than 2 weeks ago.

ACG is a true Mozartian gem and although she sounds 5 times better in auditorium than on any video or CD, it is a treat anyway. If you get a chance to listen to her singing live, do not miss it!

From Le Nozze di Figaro at ORW in Liège: Cinzia Forte, Anne Catherine Gillet, and Jennifer Rivera

Another good reason to see this show is that Jennifer Rivera --a superb American mezzo-- is quite obviously enjoying herself in the role of Cherubino. Other cast members are good too: Mario Cassi, Cinzia Forte, Wiard Withold...

Le Nozze are always fun to see, especially when the cast is this cool.

Directed by Philippe Sireuil and conducted by Christian Zacharias, the video of the full performance can be found on this link (embedded below is only a trailer)
Enjoy!

Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart) LIVE on Dailymotion par operaliege

Lulu in Paris: Talented Mr. Decker (2)

2011-11-11T15:34:00.001+01:00

Lulu, Opéra Bastille in Paris, October 28 2011

Conductor ..... Michael Schønwandt

Director ..... Willy Decker

Lulu ..... Laura Aikin

Gräfin Geschwitz ..... Jennifer Larmore

Eine Theatergarderobiere, Ein Gymnasiast, Ein Groom ..... Andrea Hill

Der Maler, Der Neger ..... Marlin Miller

Dr Schön, Jack ..... Wolfgang Schöne

Alwa ..... Kurt Streit

Der Tierbändiger, Ein Athlet ..... Scott Wilde

Schigolch ..... Franz Grundheber

Der Prinz, Der Kammerdiener, Der Marquis ..... Robert Wörle

Der Theaterdirektor, Der Bankier ..... Victor Von Halem

Eine Fünfzehnjährige ..... Julie Mathevet

Ihre Mutter ..... Marie-Thérèse Keller

Die Kunstgewerblerin ..... Marianne Crebassa

Der Journalist ..... Damien Pass

Ein Diener ..... Ugo Rabec

Paris Opera Orchestra and Chorus

After two truly bad productions (Salomé and Faust) the Paris Opera managed to bend the quality curve thanks to the three wonderfully revamped productions -- prepared with great care, with formidable cast in each of the three, and with the orchestra showing its best colors. Apart from the superb Tannhäuser, two excellent revivals were the Willy Decker creations. Since I already discussed La Clemenza di Tito here, now it's time to throw a few lines about Lulu.

I should first say that I was among admirers of Decker's La Traviata, of his Boris Godunov, and I loved his Death in Venice, but was somewhat less enthusiastic about Die tote Stadt, or Der Fliegende Holländer, or even Eugene Onegin. Although good, these latter shows --recently rerun at the Paris Opera-- could not match the level of the first three and so, before the beginning of the 2011-2012 operatic season, I had great respect for Willy Decker's work and his 'purified theater' but was not really a fan. Now, after these two autumnal shows (namely, La Clemenza di Tito and Lulu) I'm hopping back on the bandwagon: Willy Decker is a brilliant opera director! Even though his productions lacks audacity, the know-how is all there. None of his shows is trivial, they always contain a few good and clearly presented ideas that make his basically narrative style; they are distinguishable and certainly memorable.

His Lulu is a particularly good piece of work. Its simplicity and its clarity are seductive, but it is the underlying idea that propels the already fascinating story about Lulu and makes this show work marvelously well, catching the subtleties in spite of the enormous stage of Opéra Bastille. The sets are a vertical cross-section of an arena where all the story will unravel. The shape remains the same in all three acts (there were two intermissions), but the colors will change. In the stands (of that arena) we see a bunch of male characters, all wearing black trench-coats and hats (à la Humphrey Bogart.) Before the show begins, this is how the stage looks like: Lulu is sitting on the top of a step-ladder, face to the stands (back turned to us), watching the stands filling up with people.

In parallel, at the same time, we --the real public-- are filling up the theater. This symmetry is important for the director's message.

As it turns out, the sinister all-in-black characters represent the men from Lulu's past, her and her present life evolve in the arena. Only at the beginning there is no contact between her past and her present (c.f. pic above.) She is able to live the present moment without dwelling on her past. However, as soon as the story begins, her past will start to follow her like a black cloud, it will play a crucial role in her social interaction, and it will tailor her fate.
A physical contact between her present and her past will be established too: two ladders will connect the arena with the stands, which is how Schigolch enters the stage (from the stands -- from her past.)
Lulu's past will progressively play a bigger role in her life, it will (directly and indirectly) deteriorate her life, ruin her future, and eventually send her to death.

In the latter parts of the show there are more and more ladders connecting the stands with the arena, they become thicker and darker (on the pale background) and in the last parts of the show the line between her present and her past progressively disappear and all the male characters from her past will descend to the arena, surround her like a mob, and stab her to death. The idea is simple, but it works impeccably throughout the show, and allows to Decker to emphasize several interesting subtleties (especially in Act 2.) The rest is what you can find in this extraordinary libretto [c.f. synopsis here.]

The symmetry between us and the sinister male characters in the stands seems to be Decker's way to warn us not to rush and judge Lulu. That would be disappointingly simple thing to do. It is very easy to despise Lulu after her first flirt with the Painter. Most (all) of the male characters are greedy, possessive, sleazy, evil... It is easy to dislike them too. But since all the characters are three-dimensional you cannot dislike one more than another, even if the overall taste/atmosphere is Berg-ianly dark.

Most importantly, this simple/efficient idea to organize the stage action allowed Decker to avoid the clichés. He does not take sides with any of the characters, except probably Geschwitz for whom he clearly had a soft spot. That is quite an achievement actually.
Lulu is far too often portrayed as a vile, obnoxious, "easy" woman, and her tragic end acquires a logical side -- which is a moralistic, and arguably "misogynist", interpretation of the Wedekind's play. Contrary to that, another --as often encountered-- way to stage Lulu is the one in which she is portrayed as a heroine, as a victim of the judgmental world she lives in, bound to end tragically because the society is run by men. Clearly, either of the two options is simplistic. Decker rightly focuses on the social impact and the interplay between Lulu's past on her present life. The past of a seductive woman [real or invented by jealous or rejected men] is too heavy a burden, and Lulu had no chance to escape it or live freely. In that respect Lulu as a woman indeed appears as a victim. And yet she is manipulative, greedy, jealous... not exactly the qualities easily associated with a victim. This is the why Lulu is not a usual one-dimensional operatic character. She is a seductive woman craving love and affection. She's an object of lust but she is not loved by none of all her men. That defines her actions. The only person who truly loved her was actually Countess Geschwitz, and this is why Decker portrayed her [Geschwitz] as the only totally positive character in the drama.

The social aspect of Lulu's beauty and the impact of her past lead to her death. This is the nucleus of this drama and Decker recognized it wonderfully. He succeeded in preserving the ambiguity of this play/opera: it is never clear whether it is a tragedy, or an ode to the freedom of women.

To make this show a total treat, the music was at the highest level imaginable in the world today. The Paris Opera orchestra performed this Berg in a highly lyric way and, just like in Tannhäuser, the result is peculiar and to me wonderful. Michael Schønwandt was very focused, and visibly enjoyed himself conducting.
The cast was knock-out. You could hardly imagine any better than this. Laura Aikin is a stunning Lulu. Many thought Christine Schäfer killed Lulu by her smashing performance in the Graham Vick production that you can see on DVD (compulsory viewing!) Laura Aikin is the Lulu of our time. She proves it time and time again (see her Lulu on DVD - Zurich production) In this show, she shows all she's got. She is a superb actress. She incarnates the characters wonderfully (experience shows), and she sings it magnificently, which is not an easy thing to do in a huge hall of the Opéra Bastille. Also wonderful was Jennifer Larmore, one of those singers who is a true artist. She is a superb Rossini mezzo voice who excels in baroque, and who push the boundaries by this riveting Geschwitz, while preparing to sing Lady Macbeth in Geneva. Each role she takes, she makes it special. Among men, the most impressive was Marlin Miller, a phenomenal tenor with that rare combination of beautiful, sunny, and powerful voice, who flies on the stage -- a total vocal and scenic engagement that were eventually rewarded by the loudest rounds applauses from the public. I was glad to see Scott Wilde among performers. He has the power, stamina, and the voice for the role of an Athlete. One of the most famous Wozzeck, Franz Grundheber was brilliant as usual, and Kurt Streit, Robert Wörle, Andrea Hill, and Wolfgang Schöne completed the formidable cast in which every singer was beyond reproach.

Very scarce production photos [all ©Opéra National de Paris]:

Marlin Miller and Wolfgang Schöne

Lulu and the creeps above

Alwa and Lulu

Video excerpt of the final scene can be found on this link.

My post-show photos:

The most amazing Laura Aikin as Lulu

Wonderful chorus members -- this is how the stage looks like in the last act

Johannes Koegel-Dorfs (Doctor/Prof), Robert Wörle (Marquis), and Franz Grundheber (Schigolch)

Marlin Miller (Painter/Blackman), and Andrea Hill (Ein Groom)

Franz Grundheber and Scott Wilde

Jennifer Larmore and Marlin Miller

Laura Aikin, Wolfgang Schöne, and Jennifer Larmore

Lulu and Maestro Schønwandt

It was about the time for the main entrance to Opéra Bastille to be finally opened, and that was a weird experience. Extra weird was to see a group of Cuban people protesting against the Obama Administration, and demanding the liberation of The Cuban Five... That was really weird!

And the Winners of the Concours Régine Crespin are...

2011-11-06T21:06:00.000+01:00

I do not believe in singing competitions, or better, I don't believe their results are realistic. There are so many factors entering the selection process and the selection of the winners, that taking the results seriously is just silly. Importantly, the finalists are all good, they are all under 30, and they will hopefully enjoy some media exposure that they most certainly deserve.

Of 45 selected singers selected for the First Concours Régine Crespin --organized by the Long-Thibaud Foundation-- and after two rounds of competition the jury, chaired by Alexander Pereira (new director of the Salzburger Festspiele), decided the 6 finalists who would sang at the big public concert at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

And so the final concert took place yesterday - Saturday, November 5th 2011, with Betrand de Billy conducting the Orchestre National de France and with Sophie Koch who hosted the evening. Each of the 6 finalists -- Marina Bucciarelli, Marie-Adeline Henry, Julia Lezhneva, Roman Burdenko, Kihwan Sim, Ida Falk Winland -- sang two arias.

Finalists: Marina Bucciarelli, Marie-Adeline Henry, Julia Lezhneva, Roman Burdenko, Kihwan Sim, Ida Falk Winland

Arte-Live-Web (again them!) live broadcast the concert and the video is embedded below.
The Top-3 are:

Kihwan Sim [La calunnia è un venticello (Il barbiere di Siviglia) - 0:34:15, Ombre di mia prosapia (La Gioconda) - 1:40:05]
Roman Burdenko [Si puo? Si puo? (Pagliacci) - 0:12:58, Kto mozhet sravnitzya (Iolanta) - 1:21:30]
Ida Falk Windland [Je marche sur tous les chemins (Manon) - 0:49:40, Glitter and Be Gay (Candide) - 1:55:15 ]

where the numbers indicate the time-mark starting from which you can see/hear the corresponding aria in the video below.

Congratulations to all 6 finalists and to the winners in particular!

I already saw Roman Burdenko last year in Boccanegra in Strasbourg. Whatever we can think about the final results, it is good when some of these impressive young singers receives a special distinction (he was also voted the best singer by the members of the Orchestra.)

I guess the jury did not want to have more than one Korean bass/baritone in the final, which would be the only plausible explanation for not having Lee Eungkwang singing in the final.