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Verdi had no great love for the French people, but he adored Paris. He complained about their soloists (in his opinion, the worst he had heard in his entire life), about the inferior choruses and at best average orchestras – but despite this, he spent more time in the French capital than in Rome, not only to keep an eye on production of his operas, but also to take advantage of the great city’s charms and abundant theatrical offerings. He grumbled about audience tastes and compared the operations of Parisian opera houses to soulless factories; nonetheless, he dreamed of being able to surpass Meyerbeer himself in the peculiarly French grand opéra genre. He began in the golden age of this ultra-bourgeois variant of the art: with Jérusalem, presented in 1847 in Le Peletier and constituting an adaptation of a dramma lirico from four years earlier entitled I Lombardi alla prima crociata. He made another attempt, after the February Revolution of 1848, when the monarchy under the sceptre of Louis Philippe I was replaced with a republican system. Les vêpres siciliennes, born amid suffering, reached the stage of the Paris Opera only in June 1855, during a transitory crisis in the genre. It attained great, but short-lived success. After a revival in 1863, the opera saw a mere few dozen performances in Paris, after which it disappeared from the repertoire for nearly a century. Furthermore, it returned in a somewhat later ‘export’ version with a libretto poorly translated into Italian, which premièred in December 1855 at the Teatro Regio di Parma (at that time, under the title Giovanna di Guzman). Despite sometimes superb casts and the efforts of the greatest masters of the baton, it did not enter the standard opera repertoire. A revival of the original French version took place only in 2003 at Opéra Bastille.

Since then, the Vêpres have been laboriously paving their way into the hearts of Verdi enthusiasts. Well-received in Geneva, Bilbao and Frankfurt, it met with a cool reaction after the Covent Garden première in 2013 from critics who considered it to be an internally incoherent work, full of long drawn-out bits and none-too-inspired in comparison with the masterpieces from the middle period of the composer’s œuvre. In Poland, the opera has never enjoyed popularity: presented a mere two times – in the 1870s in Warsaw and just before World War II in Poznań – it flitted briefly across the stage of Opera Nova in Bydgoszcz in 2006, in a terrible production by the Státní Opera from Prague, which quickly disappeared from music lovers’ memory. For this reason, it was without hesitation that I took off to Cardiff for the third performance after the première of the most recent staging of David Pountney, who – after productions of La forza del destino and Un ballo in maschera – decided to close off his ‘Verdi trilogy’ with Les vêpres siciliennes.

However, I did not deny myself the pleasure of acquainting myself a day earlier with a revival of Le nozze di Figaro in Tobias Richter’s staging, which had returned to the Welsh National Opera after four years – this time prepared by Max Hoehn, a young British-Swiss stage director, librettist and translator (among other things, he is working on a new translation of Così fan tutte). Judging from the progress of his career thus far, Hoehn really loves opera. Judging from what I saw in Cardiff, he has an exceptional talent for working with singing actors. Richter’s production – with its economical stage design by Ralph Koltai and, for a change of pace, splendid quasi-historical costumes by Sue Blane – hits the bull’s eye in terms of both the tastes of the local audience (which considers Le nozze – in my opinion rightly – to be one of the most wonderful, if not the greatest operatic masterpiece of all time), and the character of the work itself: a proper opera buffa with two distinctly-drawn pairs of protagonists; an array of subplots; the comic figure of the hormonally-challenged Cherubino, who is prepared to fall in love with any woman that crosses his path (OK, except maybe for Marcellina); the obligatory happy ending; and a discreet Enlightenment message about the victory of reason over the arbitrariness of authority. A message – let us add – considerably more discreet than in Beaumarchais’ work, for in Mozart’s time, opera owed its raison d’être above all to the generosity of aristocratic patrons. Hoehn brilliantly refreshed the 2016 staging, focusing all of his attention on precision of acting and clear presentation of the libretto text, from which he drew out often-omitted flavours: to this day, I burst out laughing whenever I recall the facial expression of Antonio (Laurence Cole) at the words ‘ché il cavallo io non vidi saltare di là’.

Le nozze di Figaro. Soraya Mafi (Susanna) and David Ireland (Figaro). Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

Most of the cast carried out the tasks entrusted to them faultlessly, though in purely vocal terms, the one who ‘stole’ the evening from her colleagues was Soraya Mafi, a Susanna with a voice radiant as the sun, softness in the upper register and impeccable intonation. David Ireland, debuting as Figaro, gradually gained in power of conviction: his resonant and comely, but still stiffly-handled bass-baritone did not permit him to convey all the nuances of this role. Despite this, compared to them, Count and Countess Almaviva came out decidedly worse: Anita Watson, endowed with a soprano of pretty, silky timbre, had considerable difficulty with phrasing and accentuation of syllables in the recitatives; in the otherwise beautiful singing of Jonathan McGovern, there was a lack of self-confidence and perfidy-laced authority. Similar problems were encountered by Anna Harvey, who – despite possessing a sensual, distinctive mezzo-soprano simply ideal for a pants role – was unconvincing as a teenager high on testosterone. The remaining soloists displayed a superb feel for their characters and an exceptional vis comica: chief among them Harriet Eyley, a Barbarina with a voice like crystal; as well as Leah Marian Jones and Henry Waddington – a pair of experienced artists who were able to not only play Marcellina and Bartolo, but also sing them properly. A big round of applause for the choristers of the WNO – all of them together and each one individually – as well as for the dependable orchestra, which obediently realized the conductor’s concept. There is no way to deny the lightness and charm of Carlo Rizzi’s interpretation; the tempi, however, were excessively brisk, sometimes at the expense of precision in articulation, especially in the strings.

The performance of Les vêpres siciliennes the day after, under the same baton, will no doubt go down in WNO history. At the beginning, it didn’t occur to me why the audience – in this country, generally well-disciplined – did not finish up their conversations after the lights went out, and continued to check the screens of their smartphones. The first phone rang during the overture. Rizzi interrupted and shouted angrily over his shoulder, ‘Telefono!’ The next one coincided with the beginning of Vaudemont’s recitative. Before we found out ‘quelle est cette beauté’, the conductor again halted the musicians and kindly, though firmly explained to the audience why one should turn off electronic devices before the performance begins. He received a hurricane of applause. Even though a fierce match was playing out between Wales and France at the Six Nations Cup in the nearby Millennium Stadium, from this moment onward nothing interrupted the progress of the performance. No one disappeared at intermission either.

Les vêpres siciliennes. Anush Hovhannisyan (Hélène). Photo: Johan Person

The credit for this goes, among other things, to David Pountney’s coherent concept – even if regular attenders bridled at the director’s yet again shamelessly recycling his own earlier ideas, this time from the two previous parts of the ‘trilogy’. I had not seen either of them live, so I did not feel wearied by the re-utilization of elements from Raimund Bauer’s minimalist stage design – mobile black frames, alternatingly organizing the space and giving it the status of a metaphor. Pountney rightly discerned that Scribe and Duveyrier’s dramaturgically lame text does not so much tell the story of the protagonists, as evoke the ideas that occupied Verdi’s mind throughout his artistic career: the complex relations between father and son, the loneliness of the high and mighty of this world, the impossibility of reconciling human dreams of happiness with duty toward one’s people and one’s native land.

The simple scenery and props – superbly lit by Fabrice Kebour – are of strongly symbolic character, and effectively stimulate the viewer’s imagination. The costumes drawn from various eras reflect the figurative nature of the libretto: an adaptation of Le duc d’Albe, in the case of the French version transporting the action from the original 16^th-century Flanders back to the 13^th century; in the later Italian version, again transporting the original action to another reality – this time, that of 17^th-century Portugal under Spanish rule. In Pountney’s take, the French occupation forces look down upon the oppressed Sicilians from the heights of ladders that move about the stage. Hélène – dressed in a black gown – rides onstage in a frame, like a portrait of a widow from the insurrection. Procida, returning from exile, clambers onto the shore from a non-existent boat, laboriously passing through the next of the three mobile frames. The ballet from Act III, originally intended as an allegory of the four seasons, turns into a drastic tale about the fortunes of Henri – starting with the seduction of his mother by Montfort – conveyed in the expressive language of modern dance mixed with pantomime (spectacular choreography by Caroline Finn). This theatre-within-a-theatre is observed by viewers hidden behind the silhouettes of characters from the Sicilian Opera dei Pupi. In Act IV, the wired walls of the prison slide together from both sides, almost crushing the conspirators held within. Confusion ensues only in the finale, which is even less clear than in the opera libretto – this is probably the only unsuccessful element of Pountney’s concept. In this case, I agree with the critics that a stage director of this standing should not lack for ideas to sum up the narrative.

Giorgio Caoduro (Guy de Montfort) with Marine Tournet (dancer). Photo: Johan Person

That evening, Carlo Rizzi found himself in his element. He skillfully highlighted the greatest strengths of this score – the bizarrely orchestrated collection of themes and motifs from the work in the terrifying overture, the spatial effects in the truly Meyerbeerian choruses, the clear diversification of compositional language in the emotion-laden arias, the intimate duets and the overwhelmingly enormous sound of the ensemble scenes. He also brought out the musical best in the scenes that were ‘miscarried’ in dramaturgical terms: chief among them the brilliant quartet from Act I, full of unearthly harmonies. With the soloists, the results were varying. Just as Susanna took over the foreground in Le nozze di Figaro, so the rest of the cast in the Vêpres was dominated by Giorgio Caoduro (Guy de Montfort), an Italian baritone endowed with a bright, passionate voice and, at the same time, superb in terms of character, the type of singer who rivets the audience’s attention from his first entrance onstage. In terms of acting, he was fully equaled by Anush Hovhannisyan (Hélène), whose very expressive soprano was – unfortunately – not yet mature enough for this role, and therefore marred by insecure intonation and a dull sound in the low register. Her partner Jung Soo Yun did what he could in the thankless role of Henri: technically, he was exemplary; however, he aroused mixed feelings, for nature has punished him with a tenor of extraordinarily unpleasant, indeed repulsive timbre. If someone were to attempt a studio recording of Les vêpres, the velvet-voiced Wojtek Gierlach would be the Procida of one’s dreams; onstage, however, he was lacking in the charisma that is an inseparable part of this fanatic patriot’s character. Among the supporting roles, particularly noteworthy were Christine Byrne (Ninette) and Robyn Lyn Evans (Danieli) – for instance, even just for their contribution to the tremendous quartet ‘Quel horreur m’environne’.

In the aforementioned rugby match, the French beat the Welsh by four points. I don’t know if it will comfort Cardiff sports fans, but at the same time, the Welsh National Opera ensemble effectively routed opponents of Verdi’s forgotten work.

Translated by: Karol Thornton-Remiszewski

Exactly three years have passed since my last visit to Athens. For the Lohengrin staging prepared by Antony McDonald, I was prepared to go anywhere – and I still am, if this extraordinary production sees more revivals. At that time, I happened upon a crucial moment in the history of the Greek National Opera: it was the last première under the directorship of Myron Michailidis, who was removed from his artistic position by the Minister of Culture at that time, Lydia Koniordou. A few months later, the ensemble moved to its new headquarters on the premises of the Kéntro Politismoú Ídryma Stávros Niárchos, a complex built by a foundation named after one of the most powerful Greek shipping magnates. Plunged into an economic crisis, Greece – the ‘sick man of Europe’ with debt exceeding 180% of GDP – struggled to realize this endeavour, whose final cost came out to EUR 566 million. The enormous complex, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, included the new headquarters of the Opera and the Greek National Library, as well as a park over 20 hectares in surface area, which for the moment resembles a just barely regenerated forest nursery.

Michailidis’ legacy was taken over by composer Giorgos Koumendakis, who had previously directed the Opera’s alternative stage. The ensemble’s operations at the new headquarters were begun by Vassilis Christopoulos, one of the most interesting Greek conductors of the younger generation, who chose Strauss’ Elektra, not previously presented in this country, for the inauguration in 2017. The première was accepted enthusiastically, as was the production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk that took place almost two years later under the same baton. This year, the GNO management decided to raise the theatre’s prestige to a yet higher level, inviting French stage director, actor and dramaturg Olivier Py to collaborate in the first Greek production of Wozzeck. Py is the current director of the Avignon Festival, an ardent advocate of political theatre and a suggestive scandalmonger who loves to combine hard-core sex and nudity with religious subtexts in his stagings. With iron consistency. But not always with good results.

Panagiotis Priftis (Madman) and Tassis Christoyannis (Wozzeck). Photo: Andreas Simopoulos

We have more and more directors in opera theatre who prioritize their original ‘signature’ over the more or less obvious message of the work. By the laws of probability, sometimes they do succeed in getting to the heart of the matter. This time, not so much. In the Athens production, the revolving stage again spun with an illusion of a soulless metropolis designed by Pierre-André Weitz. Props and symbols played to exhaustion in Olivier Py’s previous stagings appeared on the stage of Stavros Niarchos Hall: a skull, a circus clown, unbridled orgies in disco lighting. To make the matter worse, there was no lack of ideas familiar from other malapropos takes on Wozzeck, chief among them the Warsaw concept of Krzysztof Warlikowski, repeated with certain modifications at De Nationale Opera in Amsterdam – among others, transvestite Apprentices and a Captain transported to ‘civilian life’, who comes out in Olivier Py’s vision as an ordinary Herr Hauptmann.

Nadine Lehner (Marie) and Peter Wedd (Drum Major). Photo: Andreas Simopoulos

I have written many times now that Wozzeck can be modernized, but this opera should not be removed from a military context: the only one where the opera’s dilemma of power and dependence fully reaches the viewer; the only one that permits one to fully understand why the Doctor and the Captain treat the title character like swine and speak to him in the third person. Py went even further: he tangled up the two orders. There is no stuffy barracks atmosphere here, there are no direct references to cruel experiments on conscripts; on the other hand, there is a pot of peas upon which not only Wozzeck gorges, as well as medical examinations that consist mainly in removing the protagonist’s trousers and underpants. In place of the operetta-ish Drum Major, we see a sadist in uniform who torments his own sub-unit. We do not know who Wozzeck really is, and why he puts up with all of the humiliation. His insanity appears to have nothing to do with wrongs done to him – the figure of the Madman (in the form of a clown) accompanies him almost from the beginning, excluding anyone’s causative contribution to the final tragedy. There are houses of concrete, there is no free love, there are marital relations and acts of fornication – just as in Martyna Jakubowicz’s immortal ballad – and nothing comes of it. In this concept, Marie’s red slip disappears, her red earrings do not shine, there is neither blood nor a red moon. There is a gray wall, a gray staircase and gray windows – as in all of Olivier Py’s stagings to date.

Tassis Christoyannis. Photo: Andreas Simopoulos

A pity all the greater that Vassilis Christopoulos drew out of this score everything that could possibly be drawn from it: its merciless moto perpetuo, the luminous texture of the polyphony, the precision of the insistently-recurring micro-motifs. All the more admiration for Tassis Christoyannis in the title role – who, making masterful use of his delicate, shockingly lyrical baritone, managed to supply Wozzeck with the characteristics that the staging’s creator had skimped on giving him. In terms of vocal technique, he was fully equaled by Peter Hoare in the role of the Captain – a tenor going far beyond the ‘character’ requirements of this role, endowed with a bright, intonationally secure and superbly-placed voice. Nadine Lehner, in the role of Marie, did not always manage well with Stavros Niarchos Hall’s difficult acoustics – her soft soprano, beautifully developed in the lower register, sometimes sounded too dry and harsh in the upper notes of her range. Peter Wedd gave the impression of not completely entering into the role given him by the stage director: his beautiful, rounded, truly heroic singing did not fit with the repulsive vision of the Drum Major – let us add: a vision not in accordance with the concept of Berg, who saw a grotesque figure in Marie’s lover rather than a terrifying psychopath. Among the creators of the supporting roles, a sympathetic mention is certainly deserved by Vassilis Kavayas – who, despite having been neglected by the stage director, tried to build a convincing character of Wozzeck’s friend Andres.

I don’t know how the further fortunes of the Greek National Opera will play out. For various reasons, I wish them all the best. Bringing Olivier Py to Athens was certainly a smooth marketing move; but in the longer term, nonetheless, it would be worthwhile to initiate collaborations with artists who have something truly essential to say in this peculiar theatrical form. I still have in memory an interview that Py gave a dozen or so years ago to the French monthly Diapason. At the time, he said he would not rest as an opera stage director until he had tackled a production of Wagner’s Parsifal or Der Ring des Nibelungen. Perhaps some other theatre will summon up the courage, and we will be able to finally close that subject?

Translated by: Karol Thornton-Remiszewski

Comparing events and aesthetic trends in the history of opera is both interesting and instructive. This time I tackled two works seemingly separated by a huge gulf: Tristan und Isolde and The Bartered Bride. Wagner finished working on his drama in 1859. Smetana got around to composing his comic opera four years later. However, the two works were premiered within less than a year. After failed attempts to stage it in Strasbourg, Paris, Karlsruhe, Vienna, and even Rio de Janeiro, Tristan eventually found its way on to the stage of the Königliches Hof- und National Theater in Munich, but it was not until June 1865. The Bartered Bride was premiered in May 1866 at Prague’s Provisional Theatre, next to which today’s National Theatre was later erected. Neither Tristan nor The Bartered Bride was a runaway success. The two operas began their triumphant march across international stages after the death of their composers – again, more or less at the same time, at the turn of the 1880s. Gustav Mahler admired both operas and conducted both at the Metropolitan Opera – he presented The Bartered Bride to the New York audience in 1909, precisely one year after performances of Tristan he had conducted to rapturous applause.

Although this might sound like a heresy, the strange parallelism in the life of the two masterpieces may have similar causes. Contrary to the unjust opinion of many music lovers – especially those in Poland, who to this day regard Smetana as a Czech Moniuszko but with more luck with sponsors and publicity specialists – both composers were modernists and keen reformers, although in different fields. Wagner sought to put into practice the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk in the form of a modern music drama, while Smetana came up with a vision of a modern comic opera. The unique “Czechness” of Smetana’s mature oeuvre does not in any way diminish its progressive nature. The inspirations behind the musical language of the author of The Bartered Bride were similar to those behind Wagner’s style: it is as full of novelty as it is of sophisticated references to the classics of the Italian bel canto and Meyerbeer’s oeuvre. The apparent simplicity of the first Czech national opera lies solely in its melodic layer – in which, it should be noted, the composer almost never resorted to literal quotations from folklore. Mastery of the orchestra, unconventional harmonic solutions and the internal pulse of the work inextricably interwoven with the prosody of the language contributed to the creation of a completely new operatic idiom. Unfortunately, for a long time Smetana’s was the fate of other pioneers whose ideas were mercilessly juxtaposed with the style of their later continuators. Accused of “Wagnerism” by his contemporaries, snubbed by many of his successors, Smetana still falls victim to dismissive remarks of musicologists who look for “Smetanisms” in works by his less inspired imitators.

The Bartered Bride in Munich. Pavlo Breslik (Hans) and Selene Zanetti (Marie). Photo: Wilfried Hösl

Personally, I love The Bartered Bride in all its language versions, primarily the German version by Max Kalbeck, which for decades was more effective in conquering international stages than Karel Sabina’s Czech original. This is why I couldn’t miss an opportunity to see, literally on two consecutive nights, modern productions of the two masterpieces in German theatres: the last performance of the season of The Bartered Bride at the Bavarian State Opera and the premiere of Tristan at the Frankfurt Opera. Especially given that the two directors have a lot in common: both are fairly young, were born in Germany, have a solid musical background and quite considerable experience in opera, acquired also outside their homeland.

A few years ago I wrote rather critically about David Bösch’s Die tote Stadt for Dresden’s Semperoper. For a long time the director has tried to shed the image of a theatrical “Brother Merry” who is in his element only in comedy. Judging by his take on Korngold’s opera, he has not been very successful in this. In The Bartered Bride he was able to give free rein to his imagination and go for a rather unique, at times quite risky, sense of humour. He sets the crazy story of the two suitors of the beautiful Marie (Mařenka’s name in the German version) on a neglected farm in one of the poorest German Länder, probably in the former GDR – much to the delight of the obscenely wealthy residents of Munich, I suspect. The action takes place between a privy, a stack of scalded hay and dung, and a worn-out conveyor belt (Patrick Bannwart’s brilliant sets). Class divisions between the protagonists are aptly replaced by Bösch with social inequalities in today’s Germany (costumes by Falko Herald). Marie’s indebted parents look as if they have come straight from an intervention TV documentary, while Micha and Agnes – as if they have been plunged into this pandemonium straight from a nouveau riche villa in Bavaria. Kezal owns a marriage bureau specialising in matching partners ready to pay a lot of money for their wedding to be as tasteless as possible. The people living in the village are divided into dirty farm workers (older generation), and dyed brunettes and blondes accompanied by long-haired metal fans dancing “Seht am Strauch die Knospen springen” (“Proč bychom se netěšili”) with their hands making the characteristic devil horn gestures. The circus artists arrive in the village in a Trabant and mix with the participants of a village fête during which beer flows from a makeshift beer cart, and physiological urges are satisfied in one stack of hay.

Mirjam Mesak (Esmeralda) and Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke (Wenzel). Photo: Wilfried Hösl

The action is a fast-flowing coarse farce which may make the more sophisticated music lovers flush with embarrassment. Fortunately, I am not subtle and so I greeted each new coarse gag with increasing amusement – especially that the gags suited the narrative perfectly and the artists threw themselves into them unsparingly with full conviction. It would be difficult to imagine a better cast for The Bartered Bride: with splendid voices, excellent acting skills and extraordinary sense of comedy. The phenomenal Hans of Pavol Breslik, singing with an open, crystal clear, typically “Czech” tenor, worked brilliantly with Marie as portrayed by Selene Zanetti, who has a soprano which is rather dark for the role, but sensual and touchingly soft (she was magnificent in her Act III aria). Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke (Wenzel) and Mirjam Mesak (Esmeralda) were perfect in their character roles – with Ablinger-Sperrhacke proving to be a much better singer of the part than most performers of the role today, and Mesak displaying great ballet and acrobatic skills (which enabled her to do a bit of rope-dancing as well!). No one doubts Günther Groissböck’s comic talent, but there were moments when he even outshone himself as Kezal – I couldn’t decide what to admire more in the famous duet with Hans in Act II: the singing of the two gentlemen or the acting of Groissböck praising a girl “who’s got the money”. The whole performance was conducted very stylishly and in daring tempi by Tomáš Hanus, the current Music Director of the Welsh National Opera.

Tristan und Isolde in Frankfurt. Vincent Wolfsteiner (Tristan) and Rachel Nicholls (Isolde). Photo: Barbara Aumüller

I’ll begin my report on Tristan und Isolde from the singers this time, because I admit I went to see the premiere of the new production in Frankfurt primarily because of Rachel Nicholls, who made her debut as Isolde five years ago in Longborough. Since then her soprano has become firmer, has developed at both ends of the range and grown in dramatic strength. Nicholls sings with a tireless voice – irresistible like an elementary force and shimmering like light reflected by snow – emphatically stressing the nuances of her protagonist’s inner transformation. Vincent Wolfsteiner, whose tenor is rather fragile and without much depth, was not even half as intense in his expression, but I have to admit that he did know how to pace himself and survived without harm until the end of the performance. In the duet “O sink’ hernieder, Nacht der Liebe” he even rose to a higher level of musical rhetoric, at times bordering on ecstasy. Christoph Poll’s handsome although a bit fragile baritone (Kurwenal) did not reach the height of expression until Act III. On the other hand admirable performances came from Claudia Mahnke, velvety-voiced and beautifully nuanced in her rendition of Brangäne, and, above all Andreas Bauer Kanabas, who sang the bitterness and pain of King Marke with a ringing bass, even and resplendent in its colour, combined with an impressive stage presence and excellent acting. However, Sebastian Weigle’s overall musical concept was less convincing than in the case of last year’s Walküre – the conductor has a penchant for sharp tempi and, in my opinion, excessive lightening of textures, which does not always suit the score of Tristan, pulsating, as it is, like a living organism and moving inexorably forward.

Christoph Pohl (Kurwenal), Andreas Bauer Kanabas (King Marke), Vincent Wolfsteiner (Tristan), Rachel Nicholls (Isolde), Claudia Mahnke (Brangäne) and Tianji Lin (Shepherd). Photo: Barbara Aumüller

Yet with all these reservations the Frankfurt Opera’s Tristan has proved to be one of the best Wagner productions of recent seasons. This is also thanks to Katharina Thoma’s staging – understated, visually sophisticated (sets by Johannes Leiacker, costumes by Irina Bartels, lighting by Olaf Winter) and trying to get to the essence of this mysterious narrative. The director places the action of her Tristan is a sterile space in which transitions from the reality of phenomena to the reality beyond cognition – from the world of the Day to the world of the Night – occur through symbolic gestures and abstract props (a simple boat, black in Acts I and III, white in Act II; a black wall marking a moving boundary between the two worlds in Act II; bright sunshine coming through the door left ajar during Isolde’s final arrival). At several points in the action Thoma introduced discreet biographical tropes, linking the figure of Tristan to Wagner’s complicated childhood (for example, the black spectres of the parents during Tristan’s agony – wearing white featureless masks bringing to mind the Japanese noppera-bō demons, which torment the living with an illusory resemblance to their beloved dead). If there is anything jarring in this concept for me, it is only the finale, in which Isolde sends Tristan deep into the long-for Night of death and is left alone on the side of the Day – on an empty, blindingly white stage. But it will take me a long time to forget the mysterious expression on Nicholls’ face, slowly cut off from the audience by the curtain flowing from above.

So there is some hope yet. Thoroughly modern directors tackle masterpieces of reformers and delve into their meanings instead of imposing their own meanings on them. Let us hope we will not miss another revolution in the theatre.

Translated by: Anna Kijak

Psychiatrists compare the state of being in love with acute sexual psychosis. The prefrontal cortex begins to play tricks on us, the thyroid goes nuts, the body – even if exhausted – dips into its deepest energy reserves. The heart pounds like a hammer, the pulse accelerates, the blood pressure rises. Love activates centers in the brain associated with the so-called reward system. One never knows when it will happen and what hole in our life it will try to fill up. Longing for a non-existent sibling? For an equal intellectual partner? For a potential parent of our future children together? Or perhaps just someone who will drown out our fear of the world?

In the case of rejected, unfulfilled or disappointed love, the reward system ceases to function properly. Suffering appears that is comparable to acute mourning upon the death of someone truly close. Sadness, anger and a feeling of hurt sometimes turn into aggression – directed at oneself or against one’s surroundings. People who have not managed to satisfy their hunger for love, or feed it with something else, begin to fear their own feelings. This is well known to mature and experienced people, among them Israeli-American composer Chaya Czernowin, who has devoted her most recent opera – ambiguously entitled Heart Chamber – to one of the plagues of our time: fear of unexpectedly falling in love.

Heart Chamber at Deutsche Oper Berlin. Patrizia Ciofi (She) and Dietrich Henschel (He). Photo: Michael Trippel

The story is apparently simple. A woman drops a jar of honey on the stairs. A man picks it up and gives it to the woman. Their hands touch for a moment. Something sparks between the two strangers. The narrative develops kaleidoscopically. We view the successive scenes as if in a quickly put-together film, in close-ups and at a distance, in dreams and retrospections, illustrating similar dreams, dilemmas and frustrations, but playing out separately: in the two realities of two frightfully lonely people.

There are two protagonists, and infinitely many voices. The sentences that the baritone He and the soprano She (Patrizia Ciofi and Dietrich Henschel, captivating in their subtlety and lyricism) articulate are accompanied by their inner voices, which often contradict the words spoken aloud (contralto Noa Frenkel and countertenor Terry Wey); a solo voice from offstage (Frauke Aulbert); and the voices of a 16-person chorus. Woven into the main vocal fabric of the composition, which is partially amplified and processed, is a searing double bass solo (Uli Fussenegger); the parts of the four instrumentalists comprising Ensemble Nikel and the orchestra, and complex live electronics superbly distributed in space (all under the baton of the dependable Johannes Kalitzke). The rich musical material has a slightly different structure than in Czernowin’s earlier works. The composer has called it Fluid Form/Fluid Identity – a fluid sonic identity that basically forms as unexpectedly as the feeling that arises between the two people. And indeed, the individual sonic threads alternatingly connect and disentangle, running backwards and across the narrative, sometimes disappearing into the background, only to again imperceptibly emerge from it.

Czernowin wrote the libretto of Heart Chamber herself and dedicated it to her husband, composer Steven Kazuo Takasugi. She broke it up into pieces like the voices in a polyphonic fabric, creating peculiar semantic clouds that speak to the hearer not so much in an ordered sequence of meanings, as in an arrangement of sonorities evoking the mood of the moment. An immeasurably interesting procedure, masterfully executed from a technical standpoint – but it would have gained in expressive power if the composer had decided to collaborate with an experienced librettist, or taken on some really good poetry. Because it is the text that has turned out to be the weakest link of Heart Chamber: full of tiresome repetitions, sometimes pretentious, sometimes glaringly pompous.

Heart Chamber. Patrizia Ciofi and Dietrich Henschel. Photo: Michael Trippel

Maybe this is why I had the impression that Czernowin’s opera is a bit verbose. There was no way to avoid dramaturgical shortcomings – despite the superb performance and brilliant staging. I wrote about the recent première of Rusalka at Theater an der Wien, with Christian Schmidt (a regular collaborator of Claus Guth) responsible for the stage design, which in Vienna was unfortunately ‘married’ to the staging ideas of Amélie Niermeyer. In Berlin, I had the opportunity to find out how those ubiquitous steps, clumps of grass and Modernist spaces would play together with Guth’s concept. And I still cannot stop marveling: the video projections (authored by rocafilm) harmonised ideally with the music, every element of the stage gesture was literally breathtaking. Especially memorable for me was the scene in which She finally realised that she will not escape from her love – when Guth ‘played out’ the episode of picking up the dropped honey jar with another actor and no sparks flew. From that moment onward, viewers were sure that She would finally confess her love to Him. They did not expect that her declaration would fall into a theatrical void – that it would leave the narrative open, elliptical, confronted with the fears of viewers themselves.

I thought about all of these fears and frustrations before setting out for the new production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at Oper Frankfurt. Shostakovich’s anathematised opera is treated today in terms of a ghastly harbinger of the Great Purge’s cruelty, ignoring the historical context of the libretto’s prototype – a short story published in 1865 by Nikolai Leskov, a detention officer in the city of Oryol on the Oka River, who wove personal experiences with prisoners and the circumstances of their inhuman transport to Siberian hell into his narrative. Stage director Anselm Weber – since two years ago intendant of Schauspiel Frankfurt, housed in the same building – has realised two excellently-received productions for the opera ensemble: Korngold’s Die tote Stadt and Wajnberg’s The Passenger.

In the case of The Passenger, he did not dare to go outside the context. In the case of Korngold’s opera, he gave his interpretation a distinct touch of German Expressionism, also visible in his concept of Lady Macbeth. Stage designer Kaspar Glarner set the whole in scenery bringing to mind associations here with the imagery of Fritz Lang’s films, there with some later dystopia – perhaps a post-apocalyptic vision of a new Russia that has had to go underground after a nuclear or environmental catastrophe. The narrative plays out in a stuffy, claustrophobic space – inside a closed dam? In the sarcophagus holding the fourth nuclear reactor at Chernobyl? In an atomic bomb shelter? It is difficult to determine, all the more to that the production team – clearly attached to their vision – decided to ignore the character drama playing out in the strictly-defined and characteristic circumstances.

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at Oper Frankfurt. Dmitry Golovnin (Sergei) and Anja Kampe (Katerina Izmailova). Photo: Barbara Aumüller

In Weber’s rendition, Katerina Izmailova is the empty, completely intellectually unattractive wife of an oligarch’s son. She is so bored that despite having Internet access, she finds comfort only in virtual reality. As is often the case with Russian oligarchs’ partners, she experiences her spleen in a peignoir, silver wig and high-heeled shoes. We don’t really know what she longs for: a clean natural environment that is no longer there, or a closeness that she has never experienced with anyone.

Despite everything, Weber’s staging draws attention: intriguing, though often at odds with the logic of character treatment; amazing in its attachment to minor details of the libretto (e.g. the rolling of the unfortunate Aksinya in a barrel), while also ignoring key elements of the text (above all, how did mushrooms, of all things, find their way into this bunker?). The stage director deftly set up a few gags, among others the little scene with the Village Drunk (the vocally and theatrically splendid Peter Marsh), who instead of his longed-for bottle finds the corpse of Zinovy. He was unable, however, to go beyond the trite metaphor of oppression and impossibility of escape. And that, literally: the procession of exiles trudges through the same space where Sergei seduced Katerina, in which Boris cruelly whipped the workman, in which policemen tormented the Local Nihilist teacher, who had been trying to find out whether a frog has a soul.

What suffered the most was the characterisation of the female protagonist. Katerina in the rendition of Anja Kampe does indeed inspire awe with her vocal artistry – the singer treats her cold, intonationally-secure soprano with equal intensity throughout the entire narrative. But she is disappointing in the one-dimensionality of her character: Izmailova is, after all, one of the most complex characters in the 20^th-century opera literature, evolving from the naïve innocence of a village girl to the passion and determination of an erotically aroused woman, to the complete moral decay of a serial murderess whose perfidy, in the end, will even so be all in vain. Against this background, a better impression was made by Evgeny Akimov (Zinovy), and especially by Dmitry Golovnin in the role of Sergei – an egoistic compulsive seducer, endowed with an equally authoritative and repulsive-sounding spinto tenor. They were, however, decidedly eclipsed by Dmitry Belosselsky in the dual role of Boris and the Old Convict – a true Russian bass with a wide-open high register, dense in sound and phenomenal in terms of articulation. Also deserving of favourable mention were the performers of the secondary female roles: Anna Lapkovskaya (Sonyetka), making her Frankfurt debut with a sonorous, voluminous mezzo-soprano; and the velvet-voiced Julia Dawson in the sad role of Aksinya.

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Peter Marsh (Village Drunk), Julia Dawson (Aksinya), and Dmitry Golovnin. Photo: Barbara Aumüller

All of the deficiencies of Weber’s staging were recompensed with interest by Sebastian Weigle on the conductor’s podium. At least he fully understood the tragedy and grotesquery of this story – encapsulated in the heartbreakingly sensual role of Katerina, the vulgar tackiness of the episodes featuring the policemen, the ear-splitting crudeness of the sex and violence scenes, the paralyzing terror of the choruses from Act IV that bring to mind the most pessimistic passages from Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina. And he had at his disposal his dependable ensemble, in which I don’t know what to admire more: the sonorous, sparkling brass, or the strings sobbing with a human voice in the interludes.

And so less than a week apart, I treated myself to two liminal experiences. Two operas that destroy one’s sense of security. Two operas about love that arouses panic-stricken fear. Maybe it’s a good thing that both production teams didn’t entirely succeed. Maybe the world is better than Shostakovich and Czernowin paint it.

Translated by: Karol Thornton-Remiszewski

As the Germans began to lose the war, RAF and US Air Force bombers intensified their raids on Hanover in Lower Saxony – an city of half a million inhabitants, an important railway hub and headquarters of companies like Continental AG, Hanomag and AFA producing tyres for military equipment, tracked  armoured personnel carriers and batteries for submarines. In nearly ninety air raids the allies dropped one thousand parachute mines, thirty-four thousand aerial bombs and nearly one million incendiary bombs. The last raid took place in March 1945. The historic city centre practically ceased to exist. After the war eight million cubic metres of rubble were removed from Hanover. Like in many over destroyed German cities, plans to painstakingly rebuild the old town were abandoned; what was created instead was an “American” metropolis cut through by arterial streets with some buildings of historic significance reconstructed here and there, immersed in a sea of new, modernist edifices.

Among them was a classicist building of Staatstheater Hannover, erected in the mid-19th century after a design by Georg Ludwig Friedrich Laves, one of the most outstanding architects of the Hanoverian court. The opera house opened in 1852 with a performance of The Marriage of Figaro. In 1918 the building passed into the hands of the Prussian government. On 26 July 1943 it burnt down during a mass air raid by the Allies on the centre of Hanover. It was reconstructed after the war under the guidance of the Hamburg-based architect Werner Kallmorgen and reopened in 1950. It underwent alterations – primarily in the auditorium and the vast foyer – made by Dieter Oesterlen in the mid-1980s. The impressive frontage of the edifice now hides a simple and elegant, though quite impersonal interior, which neither interferes with the audience’s reception of performances, nor brings anything special into the atmosphere of this theatrical temple.

Rachel Nicholls as Salome. Photo: Clemens Heidrich

I was lucky, in a way, that during my first visit to the Hanover Opera I encountered the work of Ingo Kerkhof, a young director, and not another example of Regieoper, which sometimes can be truly grotesque in German theatres. Kerkhof made his debut in Hanover two and a half years ago with a production of the same Marriage of Figaro that launched the Laves-Oper. A few months later he staged Strauss’ Salome, with sets by Anne Neuser and costumes by Inge Medert, choreographed by Mathias Brühlmann and lit by Elana Siberski. The production, presided over by Ivan Repušić, the company’s newly appointed Music Director, was quite coldly received – primarily because of Kerkhof’s static and not quite developed concept.

This season Salome returned to the stage with a fresh cast and a different conductor. I don’t know to what extent Kerkhof had polished his original vision – not a great extent, I suspect, if this time, too, he failed to avoid several inconsistencies, rightly pointed out by the critics after the premiere. I have to admit, however, that his staging is as harmless and as inessential as Oesterlen’s impersonal design of the theatre’s interior – neutral with regard to the music and bringing nothing new to the production history of Strauss’ one-act opera. In various interviews he stressed (like most directors do today) that the action of the opera took place everywhere and nowhere, in some unspecified period, and the narrative focused on the eponymous heroine’s rebellion against patriarchal oppression. He conveyed the indeterminacy of time by contemporary costumes, and of place – by minimalistic sets, which proved to be the production’s greatest asset. Herodes’ palace was completely empty, closed upstage by a string curtain, which quivered in a blue light like a night-time landscape in bright moonlight. The barrier separating Jochanaan from the external world was symbolised by a golden glowing metal curtain. The space was clean and, theoretically, provided a lot of room for manoeuvre for the director. Unfortunately, Kerkhof managed to deliver relatively precise portrayals of only three characters: of Salome, spoiled and cruel, but truly fascinated by Jochanaan; of a prophet blinded by his faith and struggling to resist the princess’ designs; and a grotesque Herodes, driven not so much by unbridled lust but an overwhelming desire to control those around him. Narraboth committed suicide as if in passing, Herodias kept passing her daughter on stage, and the other characters made up a chaotic crowd bringing to mind very inebriated participants in a carnival party that is petering out. Salome danced (entrancingly) the Dance of the Seven Veils accompanied by men wearing women’s clothes. She unveiled Jochanaan’s head brought in a bundle on a platter like a horrifying warning from the mafia. It was only in the finale that a bloodcurdling drama unfolded – when Salome, in ecstasy, spoke to the prophet’s remains, smeared his blood on herself and at the end kissed the corpse’s lips, as all gathered around watched in horror. At the end, however, instead of being killed by soldiers, she slowly walked away upstage into the rocking night.

Robert Künzli (Herodes) and Rachel Nicholls. Photo: Clemens Heidrich

Despite the oddities and failed ideas, the whole thing was not bad to watch and brilliant to listen to, thanks to nearly all performers. Rachel Nicholls, in a guest performance as Salome, created a portrayal that was memorable both acting- and singing-wise. Her cool, at times even inhuman and yet surprisingly sensual soprano shone like a knife across the range, from a precisely hit high B to an uncannily vivid pianissimo G flat in the lower register – a note desperately barked out by most performers of this gruelling part. The slightly wooden Kostas Smoriginas (Jochanaan) made up for his stage shortcomings with a beautifully rounded and very well placed baritone. Herodes was brilliantly portrayed by Robert Künzli – a tenor a class above the character singers usually cast in the role, with a ringing voice with a distinctive “steel” in the middle register, perfectly controlled both in legato sections and in faster passages requiring crystal clear diction and lucid articulation. Big applause was due to Rupert Charlesworth, an ardent, youthful-sounding Narraboth. Among the rest of the cast a singer deserving a particularly warm mention was Nina van Essen (The Page of Herodias) with her perfectly focused, warm and soft mezzo-soprano.

Salome’s final monologue. Photo: Clemens Heidrich

I have to admit I did not expect such a wealth of colours and such clear contrasts from the local orchestra, conducted by Stephan Zilias making his Hanover debut. The young German conductor has demonstrated several times that he is a true operatic animal. In the case of Salome he worked with an orchestra smaller than the one intended by the composer, and yet he managed to elicit a full sound from it, maintain an obsessive, relentless pulse of the whole narrative and skilfully emphasise the most delicious details, from the lustful passage of the clarinet in the introduction to the ominous murmur of the double basses during the preparations for Jochanaan’s execution.

In the final monologue Salome wonders for a moment whether the bitterness in her mouth after kissing Jochanaan’s lips comes from the taste of blood. The sensual and, at the same time, cruel interpretation presented by Zilias, under whose baton everyone performed at their absolute best, demonstrated from the very beginning how bitter love tasted. And how easily it could be turned into death.

Translated by: Anna Kijak

It is time to take the medieval epic poem The Song of the Nibelungs off the shelf, and put the libretto of Wagner’s Ring in among the other fairy tales. The protagonist of this tale, one of the bloodiest in the history of European literature, is the Germanic princess Kriemhild, who dreamed of a falcon killed by two eagles. Her mother explained to her daughter the meaning of the ominous dream, which augured the death of her future husband at the hands of assassins. The frightened princess decided to remain a virgin forever, but fate decided otherwise. Siegfried the valiant dragon-slayer arrived at the castle of the House of Burgundy and asked King Gunther for the hand of his virgin sister. The king agreed, on the condition that the warrior would help him win the affection of the beautiful Brünhild, Queen of Iceland. Siegfried impersonated Gunther and fulfilled the king’s wish. He himself married Kriemhild. The continuation of the epic poem is a long and convoluted story of betrayal, intrigue and corruption which leads first to the fulfillment of the prediction in Kriemhild’s dream, and then to bloody revenge of catastrophic effect on her husband’s murderers.

In the Icelandic Saga of the Völsungs, alluding to the earlier Poetic Edda, the dragon-slayer’s name is Sigurd; during one of his wanderings, he awakens Brynhild from an enchanted sleep and falls in love with her; she, however, foretells him death and marriage to another woman. In the background of all medieval tales of the fortunes of Siegfried/Sigurd are invasions of the Roman Empire by the Huns and Germans, as well as the slow formation process of the Frankish tribal state, on whose foundation the empire of Charlemagne arose over time. Interwoven with references to history is fairy-tale reality – tales of dragons, dwarves and werewolves, spells and love potions, invisibility helmets and shattered swords. This treasury was drawn upon by Wagner and by Friedrich Hebbel, the author of a stage trilogy entitled Die Nibelungen; in 1862, it was used by French dramaturg and librettist Alfred Blau, who was inspired by the French translation of the Edda from nearly a quarter century earlier, and by the quite fresh translation of The Song of the Nibelungs. It was at this time that the first sketches were made for the libretto of Sigurd, which another librettist and influential theatrical personality – Camille du Locle – put into versified form. The two librettists were friendly with Ernest Reyer, before whom the doors had just opened to a great career, as a result of his recent success with the three-act opera La statue, esteemed by Massenet himself and performed at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris nearly 60 times in its first season.

In the opinion of some musicologists, a draft of the score of Sigurd was ready even before the première of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, not to mention the staging of the entire tetralogy in Bayreuth five years later. So it is difficult to speak of a French ‘answer’ to Der Ring des Nibelungen, of which Reyer had an otherwise quite vague idea. He carried out the first negotiations with the Paris Opera already in 1866; later, he undertook further negotiations, rejected because of the work’s supposed ‘unperformability’, though at the beginning of the 1870s, the composer presented fragments of Acts I and III as part of the Concerts Populaires under the baton of Jules Pasdeloup. It is not out of the question that the Opera’s management was afraid of a disaster after the cool reception of Érostrate at Le Peletier in 1871. Finally, the world première of Sigurd took place at La Monnaie in 1884, and ended in enormous success. In the next season, the opera conquered stages in London, Lyon and Monte Carlo, after which it arrived in triumph – though in an abridged version – on the stage of the… Paris Opera. For many years, Sigurd drew crowds: Edgar Degas reportedly saw it no less than 37 times.

Nancy, 1914: the new stage under construction. Photo: opera-national-lorraine.fr

The Théâtre de la Comédie in Nancy, once located at the rear of the Musée des beaux-arts on the western frontage of the Place Stanislas, burnt to the ground on the night of 4–5 October 1906, after a rehearsal of Thomas’ Mignon. A decision to rebuild was made immediately after the fire. The competition for the design was won by local architect Joseph Hornecker. The building was erected on the eastern frontage, behind the surviving façade of the former bishop’s palace. The grand opening took place in October 1919 – the theatre’s operations were inaugurated with Reyer’s opera. A hundred years later, the Opéra national de Lorraine decided to open its jubilee year with two concert performances of Sigurd.

Not only the occasion, but also the place was appropriate to resurrect the memory of the four-act opera on motifs from The Song of the Nibelungs: the titular protagonist fell with a stroke from Gunther in the nearby Vosges Mountains, and a substantial portion of the plot plays out in Worms, just under 200 km away. It is all the more regrettable that they were not able to present the work in a fully-staged version, especially since Sigurd is in certain respects more dramaturgically concise than Wagner’s Ring, and abounds in episodes that just beg for the participation of an imaginative stage director. But it would not be right to complain, since the theatre’s management was able to engage a choice cast of soloists and, above all, a conductor who knew the material well.

For Sigurd is a thoroughly French opera – with its rich orchestration and epic panache, the score reminds one of Berlioz’ Les Troyens; with its references to declamatory style and Classical division into scenes, with clearly-indicated participation of chorus and orchestra, it resembles Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride; and with its picturesque contrasts, it brings to mind the grands opéras of Meyerbeer. In addition, Reyer intended for the cast to include singers with voices of exceptional values: a truly heroic tenor, two full-blooded dramatic sopranos, a powerful baritone with a sonorous and open, almost tenor-like high register, several ‘French’ basses and a true contralto. The difficulty of putting this all together into a convincing whole rested on the shoulders of a conductor well acquainted with this idiom – in this case, Frédéric Chaslin, who had dealt with Sigurd before and whose interpretation of this work is impressive not only in its feel for pulse and tempo, but also for its logical handling of the narrative and, above all, ideal collaboration with the singers.

The dress rehearsal of Sigurd at the Opéra national de Lorraine. Photo: @frederic.chaslin FB Official Page

In the large title role bristling with difficulties, Peter Wedd – the only foreigner in a cast otherwise comprised only of Francophones – put forth an amazing performance. His ardent, slightly nasal tenor sounded a tad brighter than usual, but without any loss of richness in overtones. Only at moments could one get the impression that the singer was moving in a stylistic language foreign to him: for most of the narrative, as usual, he was impressive in his splendid messa di voce technique and sonorous squillo, with beautiful phrasing in the expansive monologues (superb ‘Le bruit des chants s’éteint dans la forêt immense’ in Act II) and sensitive music-making in the ensemble numbers. Decidedly ‘at home’ was Gunther in the person of Jean-Sébastien Bou – phenomenally balanced in all registers of his baryton-martin, flawless in intonation, very flexible and brilliant in clarity of articulation, supported – of course – by superb diction. Jérôme Boutillier displayed very good technique as well as vocal beauty, though with slightly less vocal culture – but then again, a certain dose of vulgarity is consistent with the repulsive character of Hagen. In the smaller male roles, Nicolas Cavallier (the High Priest of Odin), Eric Martin-Bonnet (the Bard) and Olivier Brunel (Rudiger) put in decent performances.

Two wonderful sopranos dueled in a manner completely befitting rivals for the love of the valiant Sigurd. Catherine Hunold (Brunehild) is enchanting, above all, in her extraordinary musicality and intelligent phrasing. Compared by French critics with Régine Crespin, she has a softer, warmer voice, not so dense in the middle register – at the concert in Nancy, it blossomed into its full brilliance only in Act IV and, to a certain extent in accordance with the narrative, eclipsed the voice of Camille Schnoor in the role of Hilda. The German-French singer’s strength flagged in the finale – a pity, because her velvety, dark soprano displays certain predispositions toward a dramatic voice; but for the moment, she is still closer to the aesthetic of Puccini’s operas. Marie-Ange Todorovitch came across quite convincingly in the role of Uta, though she did sometimes have to cover up vocal deficiencies with sincerity and wisdom of interpretation.

Separate words of praise are due to the enthusiastic chorus (rousing finale of Act III!) and the orchestra, alert and obedient to Chaslin’s baton, deftly highlighting all of the expressive and textural values of this extraordinary score. Ernest Reyer, by later musicologists patronizingly called ‘the Wagner of La Canebière’, had terrible luck. He composed perhaps not a masterpiece, but with all certainty a work that does not deserve a place in the operatic junk pile. Sometimes it is worthwhile to follow the activities of one’s competition, especially one gifted with such talent as the master of Bayreuth.

Translated by: Karol Thornton-Remiszewski

Magic was present in the theatre on the banks of the Wien River from the very beginning. Emanuel Schikaneder’s troupe moved to a new building on the other bank of the river – almost exactly opposite the Freihaustheater – ten years after the premiere of The Magic Flute. The opening of the Empire-style building, erected in 1801 after a design by Franz Jäger, was celebrated with an allegory Thespis Traum by Schikaneder and Franz Teyber’s heroic opera Alexander. Schikaneder’s dream theatre boasted the biggest and best equipped stage in the entire Habsburg realm. The high-spending impresario spared no expense, putting his wild ideas into practice, as a result of which he had to get rid of the Theater an der Wien less than three years later. However, he did retain the position of its artistic director for a while. The premiere of Leonora, the original version of Beethoven’s Fidelio, took place in 1805, when Schikaneder was already in deep financial trouble. He died impoverished and lonely seven years later. The theatre changed hands many times, with successive owners carrying out alterations and presenting all kinds of works – from operas and operettas, through ballets and pantomimes, to plays. Yet Schikaneder’s mad ghost hovered over the building for decades, watching over the premiere of Schiller’s The Maid of Orleans – featuring eighty horses and four hundred human performers – and the golden age of Viennese operetta marked by the triumphs of Johann Strauss’ Die Fledermaus and The Gypsy Baron. After WWII the Theater an der Wien served for a while as a venue for performances of the damaged Staatsoper; in the 1960s – having miraculously avoided a conversion into a municipal car park – it switched to musicals, occasionally making its stage available for Wiener Festwochen events. In 2006, after an extensive renovation, it reopened its doors as an opera house.

Today this historicising-modernist jewel, hidden in the Linke Wienzeile frontage almost as effectively as the Wien River hidden under the Naschmarkt, presents nearly thirty works per season – this season its repertoire includes thirteen new productions and two world premieres (Egmont by Christian Jost and Genia by Tscho Theissing).  In December the Viennese theatre will present Halka directed by Mariusz Treliński and featuring the Arnold Schoenberg Chor and ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien conducted by Łukasz Borowicz. I glanced at the cast of Rusalka, opening the new season, and decided to visit Vienna already in September – to see the interior, hear the acoustics and enjoy a potentially excellent performance of one of my beloved operas. And, if fate would have it, to feast my eyes and ears on an inspired staging of Dvořák’s masterpiece.

Maria Bengtsson (Rusalka) and Ladislav Elgr (Prince). Photo: Herwig Prammer

Fate wouldn’t have it. The German Amélie Niermeyer took on opera directing in 2007, at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, where she staged Wozzeck, La clemenza di Tito and Rigoletto, among others. Since then she has shown many times that she likes to ride roughshod over the queen of musical forms, picking out individual threads and twisting them to fit her own, often one-dimensional concept. In her recent staging of Otello at the Bayerische Staatsoper she managed to reduce the opera to an analysis of marital problems between Desdemona and the eponymous hero, leaving aside the rest of the complicated narrative, which, incidentally, in Verdi and Boito’s version differs substantially from the Shakespeare’s original. When working on Otello, Niermeyer was accompanied by the set designer Christian Schmidt, a regular theatrical partner of Claus Guth. She invited Schmidt to Vienna as well, relying completely on the German artist’s talent – like many other contemporary directors guided by a wholly mistaken premise that what the audiences look for at the opera are, above all, visual thrills.

Unfortunately, Schmidt limited himself to shamelessly recycling his earlier ideas from Guth’s productions. He arranged the entire space – bringing to mind neither a forest lake, nor the Prince’s castle, nor any other fairy tale reality – using the tried and tested model from the Salzburger Festspiele Così fan tutte, complementing the quarter-turn staircase and white wall panels with elements from the Paris Rigoletto (a club-style cubicle behind a curtain, a roller door covering the interior of the sets). The rustling rushes were borrowed from the La Scala Lohengrin and the Glyndebourne La clemenza di Tito. The huge crystal chandelier, the presence of which was to mark a passage from the world of forest spirits to the world of humans, was brought straight from the Salzburg Fidelio; literally – I bet any sum it was the same stage prop. The shallow pool in lieu of a lake – in which for some reason the wedding guests in Act II splash around as well – was tested for the first time in the Dresden staging of Salome directed by Peter Mussbach.

In this universal Kunstkammer of postmodernist theatre Niermeyer presented just one narrative thread, justifying all inconsistencies with an equally universal interpretative device – that everything was going on in the protagonist’s mind. Her Rusalka is quite a modern girl who is terribly scared of her own femininity and falls victim to complex manipulation on the part of the other protagonists forcing her to become a sexual object. The transformation of a demonic creature into a woman consists in her deflowering by Ježibaba. Vodnik turns out to be a bastard who loses power over his own daughter and, frustrated, pushes her into the arms of another man, fully aware of the suffering that will result from his impulsive decision. In the finale Rusalka must forgive not only the Prince, but also her father, who will realise too late the consequences of his patriarchal attitude. Gone is the whole symbolism of Kvapil’s story, but what is missing above all is a reversal of the fairy tale order of things: a bloodcurdling story of a nymph who lets herself be fatally beguiled by a man.

Günther Groissböck (Vodnik) and Maria Bengtsson. Photo: Herwig Prammer

Fortunately, wonderful musical thrills were there. The acoustics of the Theater ad der Wien provide singers with an opportunity to subtly play with voice colour, dynamics and expression, which was fully taken advantage of by Maria Bengtsson as Rusalka – she sang in a crystal clear and beautifully sounding soprano, successfully avoiding the temptation of forcing the volume at the expense of the logic and flow of phrasing. She found an excellent partner in Günther Groissböck as Vodnik – the artist combines a phenomenal technique and extraordinary beauty of a supple, velvety bass with exceptional sensitivity and intelligence in constructing his character (the stunning monologue “Celý svět nedá ti, nedá” in Act II and the triple “Běda!” in the finale: the first sung neutrally, the second in a faltering voice, the third in a helpless fury). Ladislav Elgr (the Prince) was disappointing. He has a lovely tenor with a clear spinto “steel” in it, but he does not know how to handle it: all the missed top notes and sudden changes of colour in the registers result from a complete lack of breath control, which may soon lead to serious vocal problems. On the other hand the three Wood Sprites (Ilona Revolskaya, Mirella Hagen and Tatiana Kuryatnikova) were phenomenal, dazzling in the ensembles not only with their perfect harmony but also beauty of their voices. Casting the rather spiritless Kate Aldrich as the Foreign Princess and Natascha Petrinsky – with her ugly, worn out mezzo-soprano – as Ježibaba destroyed the symmetry between the two characters, indented as two sides of the same sinister force.

Günther Groissböck. Photo: Herwig Prammer

The Arnold Schoenberg Chor emerged as a collective hero of the evening, using the limited possibilities to shine provided by the score to the full, impressive in its excellent diction, perfect voice production and masterful use of dynamics. The orchestra had its moments of weakness, especially in the brass, but it made up for them with its ability to differentiate the texture – this was largely thanks to David Afkham, a young German conductor, who led the performance, using quite slow tempi, but without losing the pulse for a moment and bringing out unexpected “modernist” touches, which usually disappear in too heavily played chords.

Grumblers whinge that the allegedly conservative music of Rusalka cannot compare to Kvapil’s inventive libretto full of hidden meanings as it is. Yet Niermayer’s derivative, dramaturgically botched production was saved primarily by its musical layer. It was only in the finale that I felt the atmosphere of real theatre: when Rusalka had left and the devastated Vodnik remained alone on stage, rocking a memory of his daughter in his empty arms.

Translated by: Anna Kijak

It’s been nearly twenty years since the autumn review of cultural highlights, organised under the aegis of Berliner Festspiele, grew so much that it had to be divided into several separate strands. The new music festival, under a working name of Konzerte/Oper, was launched in 2004, still in the HBF building, which hosted the concerts, alternating as the festival venue with the chamber hall of the Philhamonie. One year later the event acquired its current name, Musikfest Berlin. In 2006 it underwent another metamorphosis: into a three-week marathon organised in close collaboration with the Berlin Philharmonic Foundation and focused primarily on orchestral music. The man appointed new director of the festival was Winrich Hopp – historian of philosophy, musicologist specialising in Stockhausen’s oeuvre, member of the Nordrhein-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künste, since 2011 also in charge of the Munich cycle Musica Viva, organised under the auspices of Bayerischer Rundfunk.

From the very beginning Hopp did not hide his fascination with the orchestra, alongside theatre and opera – and then also cinema – one of the most powerful and most complex “cultural machineries” of the modern West. The programmes of the Berlin festivals are still constructed in defiance of the Philharmonie regulars, but the director strives to keep up with the tendencies to be found on the world music scene. He moves the boundaries very carefully in order not to put off “ordinary” music lovers. This year he focused on, among others, the anniversary of Berlioz’s death, and among ensembles traditionally invited to the Musikfest from outside Berlin he evidently favoured British orchestras – with a clear intention of stressing that the musical heritage of the United Kingdom had been an integral part of European culture and could not be squandered in the brouhaha surrounding Brexit. Both these strands were harmoniously combined in the inaugural evening featuring Benvenuto Cellini performed by the soloists, Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. I could not have missed such a treat and as it was followed by a few other operatic-theatrical rarities, I decided to stay in Berlin a little longer.

John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Photo: Adam Janisch

Berlioz’s first opera has not had an easy life on stage. The libretto by Léon de Wailly and Auguste Barbier, initially written for an opéra comique, was rejected on the spot by the company based in Paris’ Salle Favart. After removing the spoken dialogues and making numerous corrections that were to make the text more coherent dramatically, the librettists transformed Benvenuto Cellini into an opéra semi-sérieux and submitted it for approval to Henri Duponchel, the then director of the Paris Opera. One year later, in 1836, Berlioz began composing. The censors intervened already during rehearsals, demanding that Pope Clement VII be replaced with Cardinal Salviati (although both Salviati brothers were made cardinals long after the period in which the action of the opera takes place, this must have been regarded as a mere trifle given the general inconsistency of the libretto). The premiere in September 1838 was a fiasco – despite the fact that the title role was sung by the famous Gilbert Duprez and the conductor was no less a figure than François Habeneck. The work – brimming with melodic invention and original orchestration ideas like the goldsmith’s crucible in Act II – was greeted by the audience with hissing and general commotion. In 1852, on Liszt’s initiative and after a thorough revision of the score by the composer, Cellini was staged in Weimar – without much success, just as in London some time later. Interest in this masterpiece began to rise gradually, although still tentatively, more or less half a century ago.  Benvenuto Cellini returned to the stage of Covent Garden in 1966 – together with the now uncensored Pope Clement. Perhaps the opera would have been completely forgotten, if it had not been for the overture, performed as a stand-alone piece, and Le carnaval romain, a work composed six years later in which Berlioz used some material from Act I.

Two years after the famous tour with three Monteverdi operas Gardiner returned to the Philharmonie in better form than ever. The huge orchestra – with an expanded percussion section, four harps, four bassoons, two guitars, cor anglais and ophicleide, included in the source text – wowed the listeners with the richness of its colours and abruptness of rhythmic changes from the very first bars of the overture. Every ensemble, every chorus scene heralded the future greatness of Les Troyens. In all respects and in the best sense of the word, the music of Benvenuto Cellini turned out to be “excessive”: glittering, brimming with energy, striking with its typically Berliozian harmonic turns, especially in the truly revolutionary and romantic take by the British musicians presenting a version edited by Gardiner himself.

Yet all their efforts would have been in vain, if it had not been for the sensational cast. Michael Spyres shone like a jewel as Cellini. He is a truly “French” heroic tenor with an incredibly wide range, boasting an almost baritonal bottom register and a light, very resonant top. His ardour in “Ma dague en main” and dazzling lyricism in “Sur les monts les plus sauvages” in Act II were something Duprez himself could have envied – after all, he essentially failed in his take on the fiendishly difficult part of the Florentine goldsmith and withdrew already from the third performance after the premiere. It would be hard to decide which of the female voices deserved the highest praise: the passionate and very musical Sophia Burgos in the soprano role of Teresa or the velvety-voiced and beautifully phrasing mezzo-soprano Adèle Charvet in the trouser role of Ascanio – all the more so that both singers were impressive in their perfect mutual understanding in the inspired duet “Rosa purpurea”. The Belgian baritone Lionel Lhote as the jealous Fieramosca demonstrated not only his acting skills but also phenomenal technique. The same could be said of Tareq Nazmi, a highly cultured singer with a beautiful bass voice, who was brilliant as the pretentious pope, clearly confused by the sudden move from carnival to Lent. In fact, each role was a gem – and as there were many of them, let me just mention the splendid and very stylish Maurizio Muraro, who at the last minute stepped in for Matthew Rose in the demanding part of Balducci.

Huge praise should also go to the creative team, headed by the Israeli Noa Naamat, Jette Parker Young Artist at Covent Garden. I cannot imagine a better school for talented young opera directors than working with Gardiner, who demands from the creative teams of his staged concerts at least as much precision and care as from his musicians. Naamat entrusted complex but at the same time logical acting tasks not just to soloists and every member of the chorus, but also to individual orchestral musicians and… the conductor himself.  Instead of heavy antics on the proscenium we saw a lively, witty performance – in simple but clear costumes (Sarah Denise Cordery) and lighting (Rick Fisher) that aptly highlighted the narrative. This production of Benvenuto Cellini went straight from Berlin to the Proms and then to the Royal Opera of Versailles. I did not think I would see the day when semi-staged evenings would bring me more joy than “true” opera performances.

Die Frau ohne Schatten. Ildikó Komlósi (Nurse). Photo: Monika Karczmarczyk

Completely different emotions were generated by a concert performance of Die Frau ohne Schatten by the Rundfunkchor, Staatsoper’s children’s chorus, RSB orchestra and a large group of soloists conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. This time the loudest applause was earned by the various ensembles and the conductor. As I have already written elsewhere, Richard Strauss’ beloved operatic child of woe, to which he fondly referred using the acronym “Frosch” (“Frog”), deserves the title of the most convoluted narrative in the history of the composer’s collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal.  It has literally everything, from loose inspiration by Wilhelm Hauff’s fairy tale Das kalte Herz and fragments of Goethe’s The Conversations of German Refugees, through references to his other works, including Wilhelm Meister, part two of Faust and Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil, to One Thousand and One Nights and the Grimm brothers’ Fairy Tales. And all this can be heard in the music, as erudite as it is ethereally beautiful. In order to cope with the demands of this masterpiece, we need an experienced and very imaginative kapellmeister, disciplined choirs, very capable orchestra and at least six outstanding soloists.

Unfortunately, the most important among the protagonists: the Emperor, the Empress and (to a lesser extent) the Nurse were disappointing. Anne Schwanewilms never commanded a beautiful soprano voice – as years went by, the ugly timbre began to be compounded by problems with voice production, “thinning” of the middle register and shrill top notes, particularly difficult to endure in Act III, when the singing has to cut through a very dense orchestral texture. Torsten Kerl sang his role merely correctly and with no imagination – what is worse, he wavered at “Falke, Falke, die Wiedergefundener”, destroying one of the most magical moments in the history of opera. Ildikó Komlósi’s mezzo-soprano had betrayed signs of serious wear and tear already two years before in Bluebeard’s Castle in Katowice – but like then, this time, too, the singer masked an imprecise intonation and uncontrolled vibrato by excellent phrasing and brilliant acting. Judging by the audience’s reaction – quite effectively.

In such a situation – paradoxically – beautiful voices and subtle interpretation were to be found in “ordinary” characters of the Dyer’s Wife (superb Ricarda Merbeth) and Barak (even better Thomas J. Mayer), not to mention the finely sung roles of the One-Eyed Man, the One-Armed Man and the Hunchback (Jens Larsen, Christian Oldenburg and Tom Erik Lie). Another memorable performance came from Yasushi Hirano (Messenger of Keikobad), a full sounding baritone with an excellent lower register. The performances of the other soloists varied. I also have to admit that I doubts about casting a countertenor to sing the Guardian of the Threshold – even if his voice is as ringing and well-placed as Andrey Nemzer’s.

To put together a good cast for Die Frau ohne Schatten verges on the impossible, so perhaps I should not complain, although in my opinion more courageous casting choices would not have been amiss. Fortunately, Strauss’ work resembles at times a very complex symphonic poem, which Jurowski conducted with incredible panache, using surprisingly sharp tempi, with the intricate orchestral texture pulsating with a lively rhythm of two interpenetrating worlds – the land of human beings and the tonally unstable sphere of fairy tale creatures. The reactions of the Berlin audience were beyond belief – the listeners followed the complex narrative perched on the edge of their seats, accompanied the soloists singing along voicelessly and at the end exploded in rapturous applause. Strauss’ Sorgenkind finally grew to become a beautiful swan.

I have devoted more room to operatic events from the first few days of the Musikfest, which does not mean that there was nothing to enthuse about during a recital by Alexander Melnikov, who presented a programme of Rossini’s charming ditties and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique in Liszt’s transcription, playing a finely restored concert Érard from the 1880s. The Russian pianist impresses with his musicality and plays with a very light hand, “above” the keyboard, as it were, which irritates the purists, but which most listeners, including myself, find absolutely inoffensive. His wonderful ability to shape musical landscapes more than made up for a few missed notes.

What proved to be a rather nice surprise was an evening with one of my favourite orchestras (Concertgebouw) under one of my least favourite conductors (Tugan Sokhiev). It turned out that in a programme featuring a composition well known to the musicians (German premiere of Andriessen’s Mysteriën) and a piece quite close to the kapellmeister (Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1) Sokhiev was much better than Daniele Gatti, who two years before, conducting the same orchestra, horribly massacred Bruckner’s Ninth. On top of that Sokhiev was amazingly good in the encore, an excerpt from Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1. Another proof that one has to fight one’s prejudices.

Okutsu Kentarō as the Thunder God in Kaminari. Photo: Adam Janisch

As a farewell to Muskfest I treated myself to an evening with the Japanese Nō theatre by the Tokyo company Umewaka Kennōkai led by Manzaburō Umewaka III called Makio – representing the fourteenth generation of a family of actors continuing the tradition of the Kanze school, founded in the 14th century by Master Kan’ami Kiyotsugu. The artists presented three plays: The Ghost of the Rice Wine (Shōjō – Midare/Sō no mai), a ceremonial dance show with elements of the kyōgen farce; The Thunder God (Kaminari), or a comic kyōgen intermezzo; and The Deadweight of Love (Koi no Omoni) – one of the most famous works by Motokiyo Zeami, 14th-century playwright and Nō theorist – featuring Makio himself as the spirit of a dead gardener, who fell unhappily in love with a lady-in-waiting and was cruelly humiliated by her. I have always been fascinated by Nō theatre as “sung” drama – in the characteristic septuple metre of classical Japanese poetry, with a chorus and four-member instrumental ensemble, hayashi, comprising three percussionists and a musician playing the nokhan flute. However, its most intriguing element is the invariability of the convention, cultivated for nearly six hundred years – which naturally encourages comparisons with the convention of European opera, frequently said to be doomed, which for young spectators with no links to the tradition may prove as hermetic as the plays by Kan’ami and Zeami.

I last talked to Winrich Hopp six years ago, when Musikfest focused on the oeuvre of Lutosławski and Britten. He told at the time that he believed both in the young and in tradition. That no matter what happened to music, he would accompany it. It is nice to see that there are still people who can keep their promises.

Translated by: Anna Kijak

I read the first part of Arthur Rubinstein’s memoirs – My Young Years – shortly after they were published in Poland, that is more or less at the height of my own “Wagnerian fever”. This may be the reason why I have such a vivid recollection of Rubinstein’s youthful fascination with Emmy Destinn, the debacle of his collaboration – perhaps even love affair – with the Czech soprano, lean days in Berlin and failed suicide attempt, when he tried to hang himself on a belt from a hotel dressing gown. After all these disasters Rubinstein was taken under the wings of Józef Jaroszyński, a rich landowner, bon vivant and amateur musician, whom Rubinstein had met earlier through the Wertheim family. Jaroszyński generously gave the pianist four thousand roubles, which Rubinstein decided to splurge on a tour of Europe in the company of Paweł Kochański and his benefactor. When they were staying in Karlsbad, Józef imprudently boasted to Arthur that he had got a ticket to a performance of Parsifal in Bayreuth. When Rubinstein realised that his friend had not the slightest intention of relinquishing this treasure to him, he flew into a rage. The following pages of the memoirs are taken up with a dramatic tale of his attempts to get a ticket for himself ending with the purchase of an admission card confiscated by the police from the local “touts”. A few days later Rubinstein behaved exactly like Jaroszyński: instead of giving a ticket to another performance of Parsifal to a desperate “Basia”, i.e. Joanna Wertheim, he kept her in suspense until he finally managed to get one more card – this time free, in Cosima Wagner’s box, for a fictitious Otto Schultz, a name assigned to a small reserve pool of tickets to be used “in emergency”.

This was in 1908, in the first season of Siegfried Wagner’s reign. Parsifal was conducted by Karl Muck, whose recordings, made twenty years later, still constitute a point of reference for most lovers of this masterpiece, myself included. A lot has changed since then on the Green Hill: Bayreuth has lost its monopoly on staging Parsifal, the shrine of Wagnerian tradition has turned into an experimental lab for luminaries of Regieoper, and ardent music lovers are increasingly replaced by rich snobs. What has remained is the cavernous orchestra pit, almost completely hidden under the stage, the famous wooden tip-up seats on which it is hard to sit through a performance – all the more so given that the auditorium is neither ventilated nor air-conditioned – and the aura of inaccessibility still surrounding the Festival. It was cultivated in the editorial team of Ruch Muzyczny by Józef Kański – the only regular at the proud Festspielhaus among us. For many years I did not have the courage to follow in his footsteps. I changed my mind, when I saw the cast of this year Parsifal, nearly identical and just as encouraging as in the previous season. Having looked at my calendar, I also decided to apply for accreditation for the second performance of Lohengrin. A confirmation soon came and I felt almost like Rubinstein with a free ticket for the non-existent Otto Schultz.

Tannhäuser, Act 3. Stephen Gould in the title role, and Lise Davidsen as Elisabeth. Photo: Enrico Nawrath

Shortly before my departure for Bayreuth I presented two broadcasts on the Polish Radio 2 with Marcin Majchrowski: of this year’s premiere of  Tannhäuser and first performance of Lohengrin. After the inaugural evening I was left astonished that Tannhäuser could be conducted as gracelessly, sloppily and without a sense of style as it was done by Valery Gergiev, and genuinely delighted with the performance of Lise Davidsen, making her Bayreuth debut as Elisabeth. I also have a vague feeling that I want to see Tobias Kratzer’s staging live – despite the fact that his Götterdämmerung in Karlsruhe really enraged me and his La forza del destino in Frankfurt irritated me with its contrived interpretation made to suit a preconceived thesis. In Lohengrin the chorus and the orchestra underwent a sudden, though expected, change under Christian Thielemann’s baton. The soloists were a mixed bag: the otherwise excellent Camilla Nylund, stepping in for Krassimira Stoyanova as Elsa at a short notice, was disappointing, and listening to Klaus Florian Vogt in the title role was like Chinese torture. I have been wondering for years about the source of admiration for this Wagnerian tenor, who, against all performance traditions, sings most of the role using voce mista and falsetto, without proper support, with a voice that is harmonically poor and quite simply tired. I had seen Yuval Sharon’s production on video, so I had my doubts whether I really wanted to experience all this in Bayreuth and with the same cast at that.

As it turned out, I should not have worried. Nylund withdrew after the first performance and was replaced by Anette Dasch, Jonas Kaufmann’s partner in several productions of Lohengrin, a singer with a soprano which is fairly small in size but beautiful in colour and “fragile” enough for Elsa. Much to my surprise I found that the volume of Vogt’s voice was much bigger than the recordings suggested; the singer is also a very efficient actor. Which does not change the fact that his voice is a screaming (sometimes also literally) antithesis of the Wagnerian Heldentenor – especially when combined with the singer’s penchant for rigid, strangely chanted phrasing which could not in no way be compensated by his excellent diction. The ever reliable Georg Zeppenfeld created a very convincing portrayal of Henry the Fowler, while Elena Pankratova – whom I had had an opportunity to admire as Leonora in Fidelio in Bilbao – coped brilliantly with the fiendishly difficult role of Ortrud, this time avoiding occasional lapses in intonation on the highest notes, which had marred her performance a bit during the first evening. I continue to have a problem with Telramund as portrayed by Tomasz Konieczny: our fine bass-baritone is increasingly prone to booming singing, devoid of dynamic nuances, and forced – which often affects the beauty of his sound. Nor was I enraptured by the voice, rather “short” at the bottom, of Egils Siliņš in the quite substantial part of Herald. The whole thing was brilliantly controlled by Thielemann, although, as I have said on other occasions, I prefer interpretations of Wagner that are less expansive, pulsate more lively and seek internal variety of texture rather than overwhelming beauty of chords.

The hybrid staging by Sharon, who had to adapt his vision to the already made sets and costumes by Neo Rauch and Rosa Loy, still remains fractured – despite some directorial corrections in comparison with last year’s version. Its greatest asset is the overall visual concept, clearly dominated by Rauch, who breaks fairy tale, sometimes even expressionistic, landscapes with “industrial” elements bringing to mind the aesthetics of socialist realism. The grotesque costumes, lights and extraordinary colours of the sets suggest that the source of inspiration was the famous Delft pottery – with its refined palette of subdued shades of blue, blurred greys and warm violets, against which the bright orange stands out all the more strongly in the wedding night scene. The surrealist beauty of these ideas cannot be conveyed by any video recording: the beginning of Act II, with a blurred outline of a transformer which emerges from gloomy mists and fumes like the Thrushcross Grange from some post-apocalyptic vision of Wuthering Heights, literally takes your breath away. Sharon loses his way in this landscape, trying to put together two incompatible elements: a mysterious visitor restoring energy to a community plunged into darkness, and female force opposing patriarchy.  To be honest, not much comes from all this, but there are a few very memorable scenes; for example, adding ordinary brushwood to a pyre meant for Elsa and constructed out of useless transformer coils – a clear symbol of losing control over a world that has ceased to be understood. I still believe that new successive corrections will enable Sharon to put this staging on the right track: to make it even more unreal, clear it of any unnecessary journalistic appendages, focus on the ambiguous relations between the characters.

Klaus Florian Vogt as Lohengrin. Photo: Enrico Nawrath

The preparations for the premiere of Parsifal in 2016 (the production will close after this season) were marked by a scandal. The director Uwe Eric Laufenberg was a last-minute replacement for the Berlin-based performer Jonathan Meese – whose contract was terminated apparently because of budgetary considerations – and he brought with him a stage concept initially devised for the Cologne Opera. The production aroused mixed feelings. Laufenberg, known for his penchant for referring to pressing problems of the present in his productions, was accused on the one hand of Islamophobia and on the other – of scandalous offence against religious feelings of Christians. Fans of the previous vision, by Herheim, who in his Parsifal took apart Germany’s history, found it too conventional, traditionalists – too extravagant.

Yet it is an exceptionally successful Regietheater production. In Laufenberg’s vision Parsifal is paradoxically spot-on when it comes to the intentions of Richard Wagner, who decided to create a musical treatise on redemption and liberation from suffering. This sometimes requires – to invoke the words of Schopenhauer – that the existing order of the world be overcome and annihilated.  Laufenberg has noticed that in his Parsifal Wagner explores the experience of all religiosity and thus goes beyond the narrow framework of worship. In order for faith to be saved, ritual must be annihilated. The director is very consistent in putting his idea into practice and his production is technically masterful. Act I of Parsifal is set in a ruined church which, despite clear references to the present, bears a strange resemblance to the ornamentless sets of the Grail Castle in Paul von Joukowsky’s premiere stage design (sets by Gisbert Jäkel, costumes by Jessica Karge, lighting by Reinhard Traub, video by Gérard Naziri). The image brings to mind both the theatre of war in the Middle East and the Trapist monastery in Tibhirine, where in 1996 seven monks were murdered, a crime that still remains a mystery (the “Algerian” theme is highlighted by Gurnemanz made to look like Brother Luc, a doctor who ran a clinic in Tibhirine open to patients of all denominations). Into this space, nearly completely abandoned years later and slowly reclaimed by nature, the director introduced the narrative of Act III. He placed Klingsor’s castle in Act II – like in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s epos – in the “Kingdom of Persis”: a residence of a contemporary Oriental magnate dripping with ornaments and full of women.

All these locations are temples of distorted rituals: the Grail Knights deliberately open up Amfortas’ wound in order to receive the body and blood of a “substitute” Christ. Titurel watches over the ceremony like a cruel God the Father, as it were.  Klingsor is a figure of all fanaticism: he prays ardently towards Mecca, only to flagellate himself in a room full of crucifixes a moment later. Longing for salvation, Kundry vacillates among various incarnations, but in each on them she shows more compassion than those whom she desperately leads into temptation. Parsifal really arrives out of nowhere, lugging a swan pierced with an arrow; the swan – although dead – seems to be more alive than members of the brotherhood closed in their doctrine.  Redemption by the transformed Parsifal occurs through the death of ritual: not religion but its paraphernalia, placed by all believers in Titurel’s coffin in the finale. Parsifal slams them shut with a stone – so that they would not resurrect, so that they would allow true faith to be reborn: into a world without unnecessary suffering and needless pain.

Parsifal, Act 3. Andreas Schager (Parsifal), Elena Pankratova (Kundry), and Günther Groissböck (Gurnemanz). Photo: Enrico Nawrath

Laufenberg has created a coherent modern mystery play, brilliantly combined with music under Semyon Bychkov’s assured and sensitive baton. The eponymous hero was portrayed very expressively by Andreas Schager, a singer with a ringing and powerful tenor, with a clearly defined Wagnerian “steel”, although occasionally with a too wide vibrato in the middle register. What I missed a bit in the performance of Derek Welton (Klingsor) was demonic element, which should be an essential quality of a fallen angel tormented by temptation. On the other hand, the delicate, plaintive bass-baritone of Ryan McKinny was very well suited to the figure of Amfortas, and the imperious, mature bass of Wilhelm Schwinghammer – to the ominous figure of his father Titurel. I do not know whether there is another singer in the world capable of revealing the changeable faces of the tormented Kundry with the sensitivity and passion of Elena Pankratova – an artist with a voice of quite extraordinary beauty, perfectly controlled across all registers, shimmering with the colours of all the incarnations of the sinner condemned to eternal wandering. What I heard in the singing of Günther Groissböck as Gurnemanz – who evolves from a detached narrator in Act I into an ecstatic harbinger of redemption in Act III – will be hard to put into words. Something strange was happening to me – as it was the case with Rubinstein, who cried through most of the 1908 performance. It’s been years since I encountered such a cultured performance, such a beautiful voice – bringing to mind Hans Hotter’s velvety bass-baritone – and such a feeling for the stage. The decision to entrust the role of Wotan/Wanderer to this artist in a new production of Der Ring des Nibelungen next year will probably turned out to be one the best decisions in the post-war history of the Festival.

I left Bayreuth in a mood similar to that of Rubinstein and Kochański over one hundred years earlier: “shaken by this genius, this Wagner”. After what I experienced there I am inclined to forgive his descendants everything – even the hard wooden seats and lack of ventilation.

Translated by: Anna Kijak