April 2011 – Likely Impossibilities

Parsifal unredeemed for the Viennese

April 25, 2011 9 Comments

Dontcha know what day it is? Perhaps Easter is a small step downwards in holiness from Good Friday, but I still didn’t expect the staid Staatsoper audience to make their Easter Parsifal into a circus of boos, incomprehensible yelling at inappropriate times, and no fewer than three cell phones in Act 1. Oh, throw in the usual clapping/aggressive shushing fiasco at the end of Act 1.

The actual performance was rather good. Ingo Metzmacher and Waltraud Meier are great news for Wagner, the orchestra was in solid form, and the cast had a few other standouts as well. Christine Mielitz’s production is a mess, but occasionally an interesting one. Too bad about the sideshow.

Wagner, Parsifal. Wiener Staatsoper, 4/24/2011. Production by Christine Mielitz (revival), conducted by Ingo Metzmacher with Christopher Ventris (Parsifal), Waltraud Meier (Kundry), Franz-Josef Selig (Grunemanz), Falk Struckmann (Amfortas), Wolfgang Bankl (Klingsor), Ain Anger (Titurel).

This production was yet another of the Holender regime’s attempts at Regietheater, one of the less fortunate ones. Here, an underdeveloped dramatic idea meets iffy design and, now, poorly rehearsed revival performances. Like in her Fliegende Holländer, which was also designed by Stefan Mayer, the set contains a confusing network of moving parts that seem far more fussy than helpful.

Mielitz’s greatest interest is gender issues. Act 1 appears to take place in some kind of school or mental institution, with students in fencing uniforms doing drills and Parsifal intruding in modern street clothes. Kundry appears robed entirely in black and is harassed and threatened by the knights. Parsifal comes from outside the knight’s insulated masculine world. In the production’s smartest bit of staging, we see the climax of the Act 1 Grail ritual from his point of view. He stands outside the main proscenium, lights point out at us in the auditorium, and the circle of knights slowly rises into darkness, revealing a crowd of women and children robed like Kundry, a literal underclass in the cellar below the knights. We, like them and Parsifal, are not initiates and cannot see or understand the ritual. But the women and children still sing, forced to go along.

Klingsor is a scheming schemer whose sleek modern lair, gold lamé suit, and large video screen suggest nothing so much as a James Bond villain (or, for the less mature among us, Dr. Evil). He drugs Kundry in some way, and also has his herd of red-dressed flower maiden slaves. Mielitz seems to be poking cheap fun at the languid quality of their music when a giant disco ball descends and spins for a bit, casting light around the auditorium suggesting that we are also being seduced. Or something. The spear is a bright neon rod that looks like it’s straight out of an Achim Freyer production.

In Act 3, we see an empty stage with a few projections (did they run out of money?) and are again enlightened or implicated by the shining of blinding light into our eyes. Parsifal’s Mitleid seems to consist of bringing Kundry-acquired feminine wisdom to the knights. Kundry gets to hang out with Amfortas, and Parsifal exposes the artifice of the knight’s ceremony as the set collapses and lighting fixtures and set supports become visible. Finally, the knights are revealed weaponless, Kundry rises angelically upwards, either saved or just blowing the joint, and the golden box that was implied to be holding the Grail falls to the ground, no longer needed.

Unfortunately, despite some scattered interesting bits the production lacks an overarching narrative and dramatic focus. Where are the knights in Act 1 and what does it have to do with Klingsor’s place in Act 3? If women are wise, what is the deal with wound? This is an impossible opera, but too much is just left unexplored. It is badly cluttered with action that seems to have little to do with anything (I have left a lot out in the above summary that didn’t seem to fit in thematically), and I really wish it had just been better. Blocking and technical direction were not the most polished.

The musical performance, however, was the best Wagner I’ve heard in Vienna this season with the exception of the season-opening Tannhäuser. Ingo Metzmacher led with transparent textures, monumentality when needed, and little sense of urgency despite fairly brisk tempos (I timed: Act 1 in 1:42; Act 2 1:04, Act 3 in 1:15 for a total of 4:01, closer to Boulez’s 3:39 than Toscanini’s 4:48). Details, coordination, and pacing were excellent and balances solid, which is something considering that I heard Metzmacher got all of two rehearsals with the orchestra (more than some productions get). I could have used with a little more stillness in Act 3, but the clarity was excellent. Why he was loudly booed by about three people on his entrance at the beginnings of Act 2, 3 and at the end completely mystifies me. It was good and uncontroversial work. Is there something I’m missing here?*

The singing was a somewhat mixed lot, but on the strong side. Waltraud Meier’s intensity and dramatic precision are captivating. She is vocally still very impressive and her attention to the text never flags. Somehow her Kundry is the same driven, compulsive woman in all three acts, despite the enormous differences in the drama. No one groans at the opening of Act 3 like she does. However, I did not find this performance to be as astonishingly demented as the last time I saw her as Kundry (in New York in 2007). In Act Two she seemed to find Parsifal a relatively easy lay.

Taking musical honors was Franz-Josef Selig’s Gurnemanz, in a vocally warm and dramatically perceptive performance. Christopher Ventris was a stronger Parsifal than he was a Siegmund. If only the clear, shining power he mustered at some points had been more consistently deployed. He had an unfortunate knack for coming up short at the biggest dramatic moments (both “Nur eine Waffe taugt” and “Amfortas! Die Wunde!” started off underpowered), and didn’t quite, um, redeem himself by singing well elsewhere. Acting was OK but unremarkable. Falk Struckmann also lacks a certain amount of vocal smoothness, but Amfortas doesn’t really require that too much of that, and his anguish was suitably emphatic and vividly expressive. Wolfgang Bankl, however, sounded sung out as Klingsor.

The supporting players were an unusually uneven lot. The flower maidens were disappointingly shrill and harsh, and the nasal Mime voice of Herwig Peccoraro stuck out among the Knappen in a very bad way. The male chorus sounded fantastically good, but the children were unforgivably squeaky and the women a bit uneven.

For Noises Off! Staaatsoper rep, though, not bad. Not bad at all.

*After the applause and boos died down at the start of Act 3, there was also some indistinct yelling from the orchestra section, the only words of which I caught were “raus” (out) and “Staatsoper.” I suspect this had to do with the production, which is extraordinarily unpopular. But such hollering is both rude and unusual. There was something at the end of Act 1 as well. Really, it was a weird spectacle.

Update: Apparently the end of Act 1 it was something about the clapping rule, and at the start of Act 2 it was Nazis who are to be evicted from the Staaatsoper. I should have known that audiences are far more interested in their own reactions than seeing what was happening onstage. Congrats, Staatsoper Publikum, you just Godwined yourselves.

There were also a good number of tourists in the standing room. In Act 1, at least. Very few made it through to the end. They should put a warning label on the standing room for this one.

Photos copyright Wiener Staatsoper
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Review

Faust and the ukulele of Satan

April 24, 2011 7 Comments

Opera can be a rather silly art form, but I’m usually good at suspending disbelief. I wrote an earnest review of a Turandot about insects, you know. But I find Gounod’s sappy Faust to be difficult to take seriously in the best of circumstances. At some point a few minutes into last night’s revival of the Wiener Staatsoper’s so-called “production,” after Roberto Alagna had trundled around for a while wearing a bad Halloween old person mask, after Erwin Schrott un-Velcroed part of a curtain with a resounding pshhhhht to reveal himself in scowling demonic form, which apparently means looking like a shirtless member of Green Day circa 1993, while I was watching a distracted bass player in the orchestra dreamily sway along with the music, my companion nudged me to look at the translated titles:

[Roberto Alagna:] Give it to me now.
[Erwin Schrott:] So now you want it!

And I gave up. Musically it was fine and not too memorable, but dramatically this performance occasionally achieved a level of campiness that wasn’t the awkward and trying-too-hard kind you often get from opera, but rather rare, transcendent, La Puma ridiculousness. Excuse me, but I was unable to take any of it remotely seriously. I’m in the midst of my Easter marathon, between Dialogues des carmélites and Parsifal, cut me some slack here. I had a great time, but maybe not in the way that I was supposed to.

Gounod, Faust. Wiener Staatsoper, 4/23/2011. Production after an idea by Nicolas Joël and Stéphane Roche, conducted by Alain Altinoglu with Roberto Alagna (Faust), Erwin Schrott (Méphistophélès), Alexandra Reinprecht (Marguerite), Adrian Eröd (Valentin), Sophie Marilley (Siébel).

The Staatsoper’s Faust was in its 17th performance since its 2008 premiere. It is unquestionably a disaster. No director’s name appears on it, it is “after an idea by Nicolas Joël and Stéphane Roche.” What idea that would be escapes me. The deal was that partway through the production process original director Joël had a stroke, the set designer died, and what constituted the production went onstage anyway. This means crowds of dimly lit people dressed in gray period costumes standing still in front of a group of rotating translucent walls, a few trees, a bench and some barrels. Méphistophélès’s party is some red light. The hulking pipe organ in the church scene perhaps ate up a good deal of the budget, but to little effect. This is the kind of production where the lights compliantly brighten on the line “O nuit d’amour, ciel radieux.” If you think Gounod’s opera already has something of a problem with dramatic stature, this dinky, empty staging doesn’t help. The text is complete with the exception of no ballet.

I maintain an inexplicable affection for wobbly ham Roberto Alagna, and was happy to see his Faust. The voice is past its best, with a nasal, raw quality and a restricted dynamic range of mezzo forte and forte, not suited to the delicacy of this music. He does have a high C, though it is not that pretty nor is it piano. But he knows the style, is quite musical, and sometimes can get it together for some excellent phrases. Vocally this was good if not overpowering. He also offered a cartwheel at the end of Act I (!). Acting-wise his Faust was disappointingly generic and low-key. Alagna tends to play everything with boyish charm, which doesn’t help this production raise the stakes, particularly because he was oddly lacking in intensity. He premiered this production (with Angela!), but in this case I doubt that made a difference, rehearsal-wise. In a better production, he probably would have done more for me.

Single-handedly attempting to spice things up was Erwin Schrott’s Mephistophélès. Vocally he did nothing to disgrace himself, sounding solid, loud enough, and moderately dark but smooth of tone. I could not understand his French well. But mostly he offered theatrical entertainment as a very fey devil, prone to moonwalking and doing the Robot. The production inexplicably equips him with a bright red fan (maybe that was Joël’s idea?), which Schrott used for such highlights as feeling up Marthe’s boobs while fanning himself to the orchestra’s tremolos (though it must be added that there was a lot of one-sided Mephistophélès/Faust homoeroticism going on here as well). For serenading Margeurite, he swapped the fan out for a ukulele, strumming and cackling manically. It was a self-conscious performance, and more or less the same performance Schrott always gives, but I somehow don’t think he intended it to be quite as hilariously ridiculous as I found it. I may have set a record for suppressed inappropriate giggling during this evening.

Yes, that’s Angela in the prima, as a blonde.

I mean, anything to keep you interested in something like this, right? Alexandra Reinprecht’s Marguerite was a respectable effort with some nice piano singing, her tone wavering between shimmery and unfocussed and shrill. Adrian Eröd’s Valentin also lacked tonal allure and legato despite musical refinement. Sophie Marilley’s slightly grainy Siébel was pretty good. Alain Altinoglu’s conducting was also good, not too sweet or overly dramatic and well-paced. But honestly, despite a good amount of talent I found myself mostly there for the LOLs, of which there were an alarming quantity.

It can’t be Parsifal every night–though it is in fact Parsifal tonight for me. One performance of Faust remains, on Tuesday.

Photos copyright Wiener Staatsoper

Review

Zurück vom Ring!

April 13, 2011 2 Comments

Valhalla will still fall in the finale of the Staatsoper’s Ring tonight (probably in a video projection), but without me. I was looking forward to some of the orchestral and vocal bits. Dramatically speaking I feel no regrets about jumping ship, or even much curiosity about how it turns out. But I am still a little curious. If you went, please share your thoughts below.

As for my absence, I am otherwise engaged. Some more on this later, though only such that can be fairly written of dress rehearsals. Did you know you can get to Salzburg, see an opera, and return to Vienna in roughly the same amount of time it takes to wait for and occupy a good standing room spot for Götterdämmerung? OK, you get home an hour or so later but you were in Salzburg (approx. 317 kilometers from Vienna).

Review

Siegfried: Have sword, will travel

April 11, 2011 No Comments

Maybe the Wiener Staatsoper as a secret plan. Each installment of the Ring has been better than the last. At last night’s Siegfried, the orchestra was finally sounding good and there was some remarkable singing as well, namely in Energizer Bunny Heldentenor Stephen Gould’s assumption of the title role. On the other hand, the production continued to suck and there was some painfully bad singing as well, so it was probably just your usual Staatsoper mishmash.

Wagner, Siegfried. Wiener Staatsoper, 4/10/2011. Production by Sven-Eric Bechtolf, conducted by Adam Fischer with Stephen Gould (Siegfried), Eva Johansson (Brünnhilde), Juha Uusitalo (Der Wanderer), Tomasz Konieczny (Alberich), Wolfgang Schmidt (Mime), Ain Anger (Fafner), Anna Larsson (Erda), Ileana Tonca (Stimme des Waldvogels)

No corners escape uncut in Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s production. The look for this installment is more explicitly modern than the earlier ones, but no more profound. The Ring contains many set pieces that have to make, in some way, an impression that lives up to the music. In Bechtolf’s production, every one of these is an empty anticlimax. I do not mean to imply that budget correlates with staging quality, resourceful directors can do a lot with little money and infinite sums only abet the bad ones. Here, it is irrelevant whether it was a paucity of Euros or of vision that led to such clumsy use of video, trapdoors, and simply vacant spaces, but the production feels dashed off and sketched in. It continues to be the Seinfeld of Rings–about nothing–only with fewer jokes.

We open in a very large forging room with many small tables in front of a looming brick wall (pictured below). In Act 2 this wall is crawling with stuffed deer and other animals (echoing the horse statues of Walküre to no clear symbolic effect), and in Act 3 is replaced with a giant glass wall. The final scene’s backdrop is the brick wall tilted backwards. Siegfried’s fight with the dragon is carried out entirely on video, involving a giant lizard eye (pictured above), and is very cheesy. Siegfried’s bear in the opening is also a giant projection silhouette. That’s about all I got because much of it has already drained from my head.

Blocking remains action-packed but devoid of interest, though there were some awkward moments in this one as well, including Mime recognizing Wotan as soon as he came in (which maybe could have been made to work but he then recognized him again in the usual spot), Alberich having some sort of seizure, and various other large physical actions that have to be carried off with aplomb to not look silly, and did not work here.

Musically speaking this Ring is not one for the history books, but it is becoming one worth hearing. The orchestra seemed to be trying to live up to their name last night, and much of the playing was characterful, expressive, and clear despite minor ensemble problems. Adam Fischer paced things well and the balance was for the most part good. I would appreciate a stronger interpretive hand but that is too much to ask from an Einspringer. It’s a funny thing about the Staatsoper: at first the orchestra’s sheer sound is so good that you just overlook the sloppiness. But once you get used to them you hear the untidiness and uneveness that often lurks beneath the golden tone and blending. How much this bothers you is a personal thing. When they try and when they rehearse, they can reach amazing heights, but they often don’t seem to put in much of an effort and, considering the Staatsoper’s schedule, are sight-reading. This was respectable.

Stephen Gould was the hero the evening as Siegfried. His baritonal Heldentenor does not have a great deal of tonal allure but he hit all the notes with a power that just wouldn’t quit. You may hear more thrilling renditions of the Forging Song but never before have I heard a Siegfried who I didn’t worry for at some point or another. Gould always seemed in control. This may not seem like high praise but in this role it actually is. To this he added an engaging, energetic performance with good attention to the text (despite some pronunciation errors) and humor. He will be singing this role at the Met next year; he is a fine choice. Perhaps the Met can find him a Nothung that doesn’t have a giant bend in it.

The other mostly good news: Ain Anger’s Fafner remained offstage until after the fight, present only in cheesy video, but he made up for his lack of physical presence and relatively lyric (though very beautiful) voice by having a consonant party with his music. He made you believe that offstage somewhere he was probably twirling his mustache. Anna Larsson brought resonance and power to Erda, this time with legs, wrapped in a giant white sheet. Juha Uusitalo’s Wanderer was underwhelming but not actively bad, and Tomasz Konieczny’s Alberich continues to have a metallic power, despite more weird dance moves.

Now for the bad news: Wolfgang Schmidt deputized for Herwig Peccararo as Mime, and I really have to wonder why the Staatsoper hired him. Surely there was time to find someone in Budapest or Prague or anywhere in Germany who could actually sing the role? My erudite companion accurately pinned his vocal stylings as those of DDR hero Ernst Busch while I thought of Kermit the Frog (yes, I’m cultured!). Either way, this was painfully nasal Sprechstimme and while he was occasionally kind of funny, having to listen to that for that long is agony. Though considering his dress in a white Bedazzled jumpsuit, leopardskin coat, knit cap, and aviator goggles, perhaps tackiness is appropriate. (I am very sorry there are no pictures, but, no, you should probably be grateful for that.)

Is this the first time Siegfried has outsung Brünnhilde in the final scene? Gould managed it amazingly well, and Eva Johansson’s Brünnhilde played a poor game of darts with her pitch and remained wobbly and shrill. After emerging from a sequined white cocoon dressed in yet more metallic taffeta, I kind of wished she would go to sleep again. She does not make me look forward to Götterdämmerung.

Speaking of Götterdämmerung, it is Wednesday and at least according to the Staatsoper’s website right now will be conducted by music director Welser-Möst as originally planned.

Photos copyright Wiener Staatsoper.

Review

Die Walküre: Put a Ring on it

April 8, 2011 7 Comments

After a very disappointing Rheingold, the Wiener Staatsoper’s Ring picked up a bit for last night’s Walküre. Adam Fischer’s conducting was more exciting, and Edith Haller and Christopher Ventris made an acceptable pair of Wälsungs. The rest, uh, I’m still worried.

Wagner, Die Walküre. Wiener Staatsoper, 3/7/2011. Production by Sven-Eric Bechtolf, conducted by Adam Fischer with Juha Uusitalo (Wotan), Eva Johansson (Brünnhilde), Edith Haller (Sieglinde), Christopher Ventris (Siegmund), Michaela Schuster (Fricka), Günther Groissböck (Hunding).

Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s Walküre isn’t quite so bare-bones as the Rheingold, with a few more enigmatic symbols scattered about, but it still doesn’t work. The Ring is too complex and epic to reduce to minimal character work, particularly when the direction is as generic and unilluminating as it is here. I’ve seen many productions at the Staatsoper that have been more desperately static than this one–actually, the blocking keeps things moving pretty well. But the determined lack of vision and meaning is fatal. It’s not a political Ring, it’s not a mythic Ring, it’s not even a look-at-this-fancy-stage-tech-shit Ring. It’s not an anything Ring. Seriously, if you’re not going to be ambitious when you put on the Ring, when the hell are you going to be?

The unit set is slightly different from that of Rheingold, this time consisting of looming white art deco-ish walls. These eventually serve as a giant projection screen for the expected leaping flames. Chez Hunding is adorned with a single ash tree trunk going through the simple dining room table; these trees multiply for the second act (which otherwise features the same styrofoam rocks as the mountaintop of Rheingold). For Act Three, we get a lot of horse statues. Dress continues to be vaguely early-twentieth century, but not strong enough to make a point. The Valkyries are wrapped in tinfoil prom dresses as they manhandle various heroes, and Brünnhilde’s glittery taffeta gown–with a drop waist and pleats, words cannot do this dress justice–recalls the faded fashions of Viennese ballgoers. Between this and Anna Bolena, I suspect some fabric baron left a giant bequest of iridescent taffeta to the Staatsoper.

Beyond the looks, there’s not a lot to talk about, staging-wise. A dead wolf is hanging out in Act Two and the scattered golden heads seem to suggest bits of the remaining Rheingold (huh?). The Valkyries’ excited swarming around Sieglinde as soon as her pregnancy was announced (OMG babyz!) really ticked me off. Much of the action is too dimly lit, particularly the end of Act Two, where we can barely see the Todesverkündigung and fight (the latter is also placed awkwardly far upstage). Also, note to Siegmunds who wish to dramatically reach over their heads and behind them to pull swords from trees: it kind of ruins the effect when you look up.

I’m sorry about the shortage of pictures in this post, but the Staatsoper website didn’t provide any others. I assure you that you aren’t missing much.

Adam Fischer again stood in for ill music director Franz Welser-Möst, and his conducting had greater tension and more drama this time around. Unfortunately, a lot of ensemble problems remained, and the clarity was still less than optimal. Putting the two halves of the brass section on the extreme opposite ends of the pit (horns are house left, trumpets and trombone and tuba house right) can produce a great enveloping effect, but they seemed to have issues playing together, particularly in the prelude. But pit-wise it was adequate, if not top rank.

Edith Haller was a bit of a puzzle as Sieglinde. She has a white, old-fashioned sort of sound that is interesting and distinctive, but can turn opaque and seem short on overtones, particularly on her thin high notes. Her production was uneven and nervous at times, but she’s a good and natural actress in this most impassioned of Wagner roles. Christopher Ventris made an alright Siegmund, with consistent, clear tone that while powerful was short on heroic weight. I can imagine why he is better known for singing Parsifal, which he will be doing at the Staatsoper later this month. His performance was also marred by a number of pronunciation mistakes. His first “Wälse!” seemed to acquire an “r” at the end, leading my companion in the peanut gallery to quip, “I was sure he was going to add ‘-Möst.’”

Among the godly, things were shakier. Eva Johansson’s Brünnhilde suffered from faulty intonation, a giant wobble and screamed high notes. She did seem to be giving it her best, and was physically convincing onstage (though her collapse at the end was cringe-inducing), but the singing was often painful to hear. Juha Uusitalo’s Wotan ran out of gas before the end of some of the long monologues and was often overpowered by the orchestra, and he remains a blank as an interpreter. Yet this was still a more alert and nuanced performance than is his norm.

The supporting singers suggested a higher standard than was sustained by the leads, as can happen at the Staatsoper. The Valkyries were a solid, wobble-free yet loud bunch. Günther Groissböck again stood in for Ain Anger, this time as Hunding, and while healthy of voice he read a bit youthful and vocally compact for the role. Michaela Schuster’s vicious Fricka was again great fun, despite her sometimes blowsy singing.

Without great conducting and a more coherent production, this Ring continues to be less than the sum of its not very impressive parts.

Review

There’s gold in that Rhein

April 7, 2011 2 Comments

Like a tired god who hasn’t had his apple a day, Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s bargain-basement Ring trudged back onto the Wiener Staatsoper’s stage last night. You could say it’s devoid of cheap effects, but the problem is that it’s basically devoid of any other kind of effect as well. A last-minute conductor swap from ailing music director Franz Welser-Möst to Adam Fischer also did the evening no favors, and a few overacting singers couldn’t salvage it single-handedly. This is the start of a cycle I’m planning on going to all of. I’m worried.

Wagner, Das Rheingold. Wiener Staatsoper, 4/6/2011. Production by Sven-Erik Bechtolf (revival), conducted by Adam Fischer with Juha Uusitalo (Wotan), Adrian Eröd (Loge), Tomasz Konieczny (Alberich), Michaela Schuster (Fricka), Anna Larsson (Erda), Günter Groissböck (Fafner)

This Ring got off to an inauspicious start, with loud and out-of-tune horn entrances in a heavy-handed Vorspiel. More like the Donaukanal than the Rhine. Despite the orchestra’s ever-impressive sound, the mushy textures, poor balance, and general shapelessness made this evening a trial. Things improved a bit over the course of the performance but this was really uninspiring stuff. I don’t want to blame last-minute substitute Fischer too harshly; it was surely the orchestra’s fault as well. Some individual moments worked, but just as many fell flat, and momentum was lacking. Earth to the anvil folks doing the dotted rhythm part: you were totally out of sync with the others.

Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s production, designed by Rolf and Maria [sic in the program, it’s Marianne] Glittenberg, is minimalist to the point of being a void. Some static images are starkly striking, but there is no vision of the drama. A bare stage is adorned with some styrofoam rocks, and at least at this revived point there’s little characterization to fill in the story. This production caused conflict between Bechtolf and former intendant Ioan Holender, and Bechtolf at one point asked his name be removed from a revival due to the amount of rehearsals it was getting. His name did appear on the program last night, but I don’t think a whole lot of rehearsals were a factor now, either.

The dress is Bechtolf’s pet early twentieth-century period, though what this means is never clear. A few other Bechtolf trademarks are present: Fricka’s glittery art deco gown, scattered female body parts (this time the Rheingold itself, previously he stuck these into Lulu). Alberich’s um, action with the gold and later casting of it into said female body parts suggests that his renouncing of love thing had major Freudian effects, but that’s all I got for meaning. The big set pieces are disappointing and anticlimactic, with only vague video projections providing Alberich as a serpent and a rainbow bridge. The interpersonal stuff comes across a little better. Though the interpretation is all utterly conventional, it is at least less static than last week’s Anna Bolena. The white suits and occasionally unintentionally comic blocking give it the feeling of a fin-de-siècle sitcom, which I’m going to dub Oh My Gods!. Also, Donner carries his hammer in a glittery hammer-shaped case. Just saying.

As often happens in these sorts of evenings, a few canny singers noted the vacuum and attempted to fill it. Most notable was Adrian Eröd as Loge in the required Oh My Gods! sitcom role of Wotan’s Gay Best Friend, a shamelessly campy and over the top performance but still the most fun thing going on. Hearing his light baritone in this role was strange and while he managed it well I think I prefer a brighter tenor sound. Michaela Schuster is not vocally memorable but made an interesting Fricka with great attention to the text and acting details.

Günther Groissböck was a last-minute substitute for ill Ain Anger as Fafner and while the two identical giants covered in black foam balls do not allow for much in the way of charismatic performance, he sounded excellent. Tomasz Konieczny offered a solid, loud, reliable Alberich with an excellent Curse. He tore into the role with gusto (including his Rhine swimming, which seemed to involve an invisible Hula Hoop), more sleazy than sinister but vocally more commanding than Juha Uusitalo’s bland and underpowered Wotan. Nevertheless, Uusitalo gave a somewhat more dynamic and insightful portrayal than I have seen from him in the past. Anna Larsson sounded good in her signature role of Erda, and the supporting roles were filled well enough. However, a general musical slackness pervaded the evening.

I hope things improve for tonight’s Walküre, which is my favorite of the Ring operas music dramas.

Photos copyright Alex Zenninger/Wiener Staatsoper

Review

Theater an der Wien, 2011/12

April 5, 2011 7 Comments

This morning the Theater an der Wien announced their 2011/12 season in a press conference in their lovely Theatercafé. Season subscriptions and individual tickets through December 2011 are already on sale on their website.

Highlights include a world premiere of a new opera by Lera Auerbach, the beginning of a Monteverdi “cycle” directed by Claus Guth, and a lot more. It’s an exciting and wide-ranging season that expands beyond their usual specialties of Baroque, Classical, and modern opera. Meaning: let’s conquer the nineteenth century.

The announcement highlighted the Theater an der Wien’s continuing success as a stagione house that mounts unusual, challenging works on a high level. Using a word that the Staatsoper has been throwing around a lot recently, intendant Roland Geyer proclaimed the theater “einzigartig” (unique). Well, aren’t we all special in some way. Their 2011/12 season’s new explorations include several Slavic works and steps into bel canto and 19th-century France. Staatsoper faves Puccini, Verdi, and Wagner seem to be the only area that remains off limits. It’s a little scattered, but it looks awesome. Here’s what we got:

The opening concert will be on 13 September with Michael Boder and the Klangforum Wien, the program is L’histoire du soldat and Pierrot Lunaire (the latter with Christine Schäfer).
Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, with the RSO Wien conducted by Cornelius Meister, cast includes Nikolai Schukoff and Sally Matthews, new production by Robert Carsen (September)
Handel, Serse, with Jean-Christophe Spinosi conducting his Ensemble Matheus, new production by Adrian Noble with this year’s Rodelinda cast members Bejun Mehta, Malena Ernman, and Danielle De Niese (October)
World premiere of Gogol, a new opera by Russian composer Lera Auerbach, the RSO Wien conducted by Vladimir Fedoseyev with Bo Skovhus and Natalya Ushakova, production by Christine Mielitz (November)
Monteverdi, L’Orfeo, new production by Claus Guth (the first part of a so-called Monteverdi cycle*, to continue in following seasons, all three of which will be performed in a festival in 2015), the Freiburger Barockorchester conducted by Ivor Bolton with John Mark Ainsley in the title role (December)
Double bill of Chaikovsky, Iolanta and Rachmaninov, Francesca da Rimini, the RSO Wien conducted by Kirill Petrenko, new production by Stephen Lawless, cast includes Olga Mykytenko, David Pittsinger, and Saimir Pirgu (January)
Gluck, Telemaco, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin conducted by René Jacobs, new production by Torsten Fischer with Rainer Trost, Bejun Mehta, Alexandrina Pendatchanska (February)
Offenbach, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Wiener Symphoniker conducted by Riccardo Frizza, new production by William Friedkin, cast includes Kurt Streit as Hoffmann and two different casts: in March Aris Argiris sings the villains and in July Alex Esposito, when Marlis Petersen will sing all four ladies. The production will supposedly be centered on the villains instead of Hoffmann. ???
Thomas, Hamlet, Wiener Symphoniker conducted by Marc Minkowski, new production by Olivier Py with Stéphane Degout and Christine Schäfer (April)
Rossini, La donna del lago, RSO Wien conducted by Leo Hussain, Christof Loy’s production previously seen in Geneva, here with Malena Ernman and Gregory Kunde (August)

Operas in concert include Street Scene, Orlando Furioso, Jephtha, Giulio Cesare, Vivaldi’s Catone in Utica, Aperghis’s Les Boulingrin (a new work but not a premiere), Handel’s Deidamia, Vivaldi’s Il Giustino, The Fairy Queen, Ariodante, Theodora, Dvorak’s Svatební Kosile (!!!), with the usual HIP and new music suspects, and a few newcomers. Note that the Ariodante will star Joyce DiDonato.

Concerts include Beethoven’s rare Chirstus am Ölberge with the Philharmoniker conducted by Philippe Jordan and with Johan Botha as Jesus (no snickering, please, it’s in concert).

Check out the full listings here.

Intendant Roland Geyer was upbeat about the house’s position. He has right to be; the theater is definitely the most consistently progressive and adventurous of Vienna’s major music theater venues. When asked about his relationship with the Meyers (Staatsoper intendant Dominque and, no relation, Volksoper intendant Robert), he said that the relationship was good, because the three houses have clearly defined and different artistic missions (this is true, it’s nothing like Berlin). They do coordinate premiere dates and repertoire to some extent, though some repeats like Mozart are to be expected. He also proclaimed himself, in the face of the Meyers, “very proud of my G.” Ha.

In all likelihood, I’m not going to be around for any of these performances, but if you are you should go to them!

*EDITORIAL COMMENT: OK, this is B.S. Proclaiming L’Orfeo, Ulisse, and Poppea to be a cycle implies that they were conceived as some kind of group. This ignores that decades and major aesthetic changes that transpired between the first one and second two, as well as the fact Monteverdi wrote several other operas that are now lost. It is entirely arbitrary, it’s a cycle because they are the three full Monte operas that we’ve got. A more legitimate cycle would be comprised of the three operas he wrote for Venetian public theaters, Ulisse, Poppea, and Le nozze d’Enea con Lavinia. It would be hard to produce, though, because the score for the latter has been lost. There’s a great book to read about this if you want to know more.

Review

Anna Netrebko sings Anna Bolena, keeps her head

April 3, 2011 22 Comments

It must not be easy to be Anna Netrebko. The hype surrounding her role debut as Anna Bolena last night was enormous, complete with absurdly priced scalped tickets and no fewer than three camera crews checking out the standing room line. Bless her heart, she delivered, and how! But the Wiener Staatsoper, the beneficiary of her fame and accomplice in all this hoopla, had the temerity to make her do all the work herself. Strong voices in the supporting roles failed to catch fire as Netrebko did, and Eric Génovèse’s life-suckingly dreary concert of a staging is something that any house in the world should be ashamed of.

Donizetti, Anna Bolena. Wiener Staatsoper, 4/2/2011. New production premiere by Eric Génovèse, sets by Jacques Gabel and Claire Sternberg, costumes by Luisa Spinatelli, lights by Bertrand Couderc. Conducted by Evelino Pidò with Anna Netrebko (Anna Bolena), Elina Garanca (Giovanni Seymour), Ildebrando D’Arcangelo (Enrico VIII), Francesco Meli (Percy), Elisabeth Kulman (Smeton).

It’s hard to believe that this listless production is actually new. The static poses and stock gestures are straight out of your standard minimally rehearsed rep night. Actually, some of it is worse. What did they do for four weeks of rehearsal? And the drab visuals don’t help either. But let’s talk singing first, because that’s what this thing has going for it.

Anna Netrebko was in beautiful voice for her big debut, her ever-growing sound luscious, luminous, and possessed of a rare, unfakeable inner drama. Her efforts in bel canto repertoire are often described as sloppy and unrefined. I am perhaps a poor judge of this because I am not a particular fan of bel canto singing as an abstract musical art, and what is described as wonderful I often find studious and emotionally detached. None of that for Netrebko, who has remarkable presence and dramatic honesty, and tears into the music with abandon. She can go from the delicate, deep despair of the “Al dolce guardami” to sing “Coppia iniqua” in a way that makes you think that if she did decide to take vengeance, no one in the theater would be left alive. I love it. (Listen to her “Coppia iniqua” at the bottom of this post.)

But I think even diehard bel cantanistas would find rewards in her singing here, particularly her wide range of dynamics and gorgeously floated high notes. That plus dramatic intensity? Magic. The coloratura was mostly clean if not typewriter-mechanical and she showed a respectable if slightly unreliable trill and judicious use of chest voice. I can’t give you a rundown of acuti and cadenzas but she sang a good high D at the end of the first act and the cadenzas sounded like advanced level bel canto to me, not simplified. Sometimes her phrasing could be more immaculate, her sound a little more even, her coloratura clearer (her weakest point is descending scales). But slight imperfections are a small price to pay for her passion and commitment. I expect she will grow in the role with more experience and a stage director who is competent and can help her develop the character a little more, but she’s already very good, and a real star in an opera that requires one.

By the way, I do not mean to set up a false dichotomy between bel canto with perfect technique and bel canto with passion. But that’s sort of how it turned out at this performance.

Namely, if you prefer Elina Garanca’s Giovanna Seymour to Netrebko’s Bolena, you would be in the technique department of the School of Bel Canto Appreciation. I found Garanca a well-sung bore. The notes were all there, sung very cleanly and evenly with apparent enthusiasm, but her voice is too metallic and chilly for this repertoire. She lacks roundness, and sounded more like a soprano than a mezzo. She appeared to be doing the right things, musically and theatrically, but it was always that, an appearance, while Netrebko seemed to be living it. For all her considerable talent–she has a wonderful voice and is in all technical respects an extremely accomplished singer–she lacked any sign of personality or individuality. In pure decibels and accuracy she outsang Netrebko in the duet, but theatrically the scene did not ignite because the emotion seemed to be only on one side.

Local favorite Elisabeth Kulman also does not have the most individual timbre, but in the pants role of Smeton her chocolatey tone and stylish phrasing impressed me more than Garanca. A former soprano, she also sometimes sounds sounds like a soprano with low notes, but the considerable range of the role offered her no difficulties from low to high. And she did much more with the text and got the straightforward intensity right.

On the male side of things: As Percy, Francesco Meli gave an uneven performance. There were moments of liquid Italianate beauty in his singing, but they were mixed with too many ones of strained and wobbly tone above the passaggio, though he improved as the opera went on. He has a good idea of the style and tried to match Netrebko for passion (though he is a stiff actor), but the voice is coming apart a bit, I fear. As Enrico VIII Ildebrando D’Arcangelo was well cast and sang in a perfectly fine and correct way, but failed to impress me one way or another, which is probably more due to my general bel canto indifference than him (note that the picture below shows Giacomo Prestia as Enrico VIII, who sang the dress rehearsal).

Evelino Pidò’s conducting was acceptable. The large-scale pacing was good, but sometimes it was inflexible and lacked nuance. The orchestra is notorious for not liking bel canto, but generally did a good job, with the exception of an overloud and sometimes ill-timed brass section. The trombones in the overture sounded like they were ushering us up to Valhalla, not through Donizetti. The chorus sounded very good, though their staging was awkward.

Eric Génovèse’s production is frankly a disgrace, so static and dramatically ineffective as to drag some excellent singing into its mud. Not even the most basic actions have been taken to stage the drama, to an extent that drained energy from the entire evening. The set is a rotating room of flat black walls with many doors or windows that open and close with vertically sliding panels that resemble garage doors. Occasionally a cyclorama of trees in the background is revealed. The costumes are abstract period with reduced ornamentation, volume, and structure. The women are dressed mostly in metallic taffeta, which often gets rumpled, making them look like they are all wrapped in tinfoil, or in the curtains of a hotel with more money than taste. Netrebko wears a different dress in almost every scene, though, so there’s that. It looks unfinished, particularly the set, and gives no atmosphere whatsoever.

No direction of the singers could be seen. Everyone stood stiffly in place, singing auf die Rampe, as they say here, the kind of dramatic downstage park and bark that should be reserved for a few dramatic solo moments or occasional big ensembles, but here was the only show in town. Occasionally they spin around dramatically, or wave their arms* and cover their faces with their hands (I didn’t always want to watch either). Netrebko visibly struggled against the static tableaux, swaying back and forth, leaning, and stretching her neck, attempting to do something, anything to establish a character. The lack of drama in the staging seemed to only magnify Garanca’s lack of engagement with the text, and she proclaimed to Enrico that she wanted love and renown as if she were asking him to pass the salt. The staging also failed to establish relationships between the characters, who often didn’t even look at each other at key moments. Oh, Anna does get to kiss Smeton, which could make sense, but here it really doesn’t. And there’s a cascading curtain effect that seems to be borrowed directly from last week’s Elektra, where it fit the music better.

The only bit of creativity was at the very end, where Anna gets to hug her kid (Elizabeth I) and finally beheads herself with a big red robe and one of those descending garage doors. It’s not exactly a masterstroke of staging but rather better than anything else found in this reactionary sung concert. Far be it from me to suggest that they would have been better off with borrowing from The Tudors miniseries (on the record as an Anna Netrebko favorite!), but, well, actually, no. I am going to suggest that. This production is dramatically moribund. Every bodice is left unripped. Something trashy and sleazy would have been infinitely preferable. Adultery and forbidden desire shouldn’t resemble an assembly of a mourning if shinier than average Puritans. Where’s the sexiness? You’ve got Anna Netrebko, for goodness’s sake. That’s a major opportunity, sexiness-wise.

Needless to say, I am now quite looking forward to David McVicar’s production at the Met in the fall, which will also star Netrebko and Garanca. Should I send him some Tudors DVDs? No, I really don’t think he needs them.

You can catch this Viennese production on ORF and Arte on Tuesday, April 5 at 7:00 p.m. Viennese time, and at various movie theaters. If you are in Vienna but can’t get a ticket, it will also be broadcast onto the big screen on the side of the Staatsoper at almost every performance.

As for the media circus, its most memorable exemplars were the visits to the standing room line of both current intendant Dominique Meyer (friendly and bringing coffee and pastry, a very nice gesture, and recorded by a film crew making a documentary about standing room) and later former intendant Ioan Holender, orangish in complexion and magisterial in bearing, uninterested in chat and accompanied by his own TV crew (and no pastry). The third film crew was from state network ORF and was surveying the relative popularity of Netrebko and Garanca among standing room waitees. (Most people seemed to reply “what a stupid question!” but I said I prefer Netrebko, actually. It’s the truth.)

If you want to stand, be aware that the capacity of the Parterre standing room section has been considerably reduced by the presence of several giant video cameras. So you will have to arrive even earlier than the usual ridiculous times required by Netrebko appearances if you want a good spot. The cameras are located on the left side, so the right line may be a better idea.

*This gesture seems to have a formula tied to the bel canto favorite IV-V-I harmonic progression: hand up (IV), out (V), and down (I, or in towards chest in case of a deceptive cadence).

Bows:

Audio from last night, “Coppia iniqua,” iffy quality, sorry:

Photos copyright by Wiener Staatsoper/Pöhl? From Kurier, no credit given.

Review

The Wiener Staatsoper’s artistic revolution

April 1, 2011 7 Comments

Today in a press conference in the Mahler-Saal, Wiener Staatsoper intendant Dominique Meyer and music director Franz Welser-Möst announced that the opera house will be switching to a so-called stagione system next season, following the model of Meyer’s erstwhile home the Théatre des Champs-Elysées. “We talked about it,” Welser-Möst said, “and Dominique and I agreed, like we usually do. Quantity isn’t everything. Being able to see a slapped-together production Il barbiere di Siviglia every week with a mezzo who can’t find the right door because she hadn’t seen the set until that night might be some Viennese music lovers’ idea of a privilege, but we call those people idiots.”

“Imbéciles!” agreed Meyer, slapping Welser-Möst on the back.

Since the house will only perform 14 different operas next season, tech rehearsals are planned and productions older than Welser-Möst have been recommended for eventual retirement. The program includes a revival of Anna Bolena, again with Anna Netrebko, to be followed by Anna di Cleva starring Edita Gruberova, Caterina d’Owardo with Julia Novikova, and finally Caterina Parrà with Agnes Baltsa. Erwin Schrott will play Enrico VIII in all four operas, “because my wife calls him the Jonathan Rhys-Meyers of opera anyway,” Welser-Möst said. Boleslaw Barlog will direct the new productions. Meyer brushed aside objections that this would be complicated by Barlog’s 1999 death. “That hasn’t been stopping him for the last decade, I don’t see why it would now. Besides, aren’t you just glad it isn’t another French director?”

There has also been talk that the Bayerische Staatsoper’s new Hans Neuenfels production of Im weissen Rössl will be coming to the Staatsoper. When this was mentioned, Volksoper intendant Robert Meyer appeared and proclaimed, “It’s MINE! All MINE! The name ‘Meyer’ is also mine and I want it back!”

On nights when the theater is empty due to the new schedule, the new “Wiener Schule” Orchestra will perform for tourists in period costume. Unlike other similar groups, their Viennese school will be the second one, and their rousing renditions of local favorite Webern’s symphony will be sure to draw crowds. To balance the other nights, the orchestra will be comprised entirely of women.

Several other changes were announced. In an attempt to attract new audiences, the Staatsoper’s posters will now feature pictures as well as text, and the slogan: “The Wiener Staatsoper: It’s where it’s at!” (The slogan will be in English.) However, the house denied plans to improve their website to include pictures as well. “Now, now, let’s not let this get out of hand,” Meyer said.

“We are so happy you joined us on this 1st of April to hear about this!” Welser-Möst said in closing. “I gotta go, what opera am I conducting tonight again? Das Rheingold? Oh, I better look at that real quick. Starts in the Rhine, doesn’t it? In it.”