julia novikova – Likely Impossibilities

Die Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper

May 28, 2013 3 Comments

I went to see Die Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper Berlin as directed by Suzanne Andrade and Barrie Kosky and I wrote about it for Bachtrack.

Die Zauberflöte is a work whose
outward simplicity masks internal complexity and even contradictions.
Mozart’s music is childishly tuneful and yet reaches for the classically
sublime; Emmanuel Schikaneder’s libretto alternates a magical quest
story out of a German storybook with Masonic claptrap and secondhand
Voltaire. For a children’s opera, its message occasionally goes off the
rails; for Enlightenment philosophy it seems silly (and its treatment of
race and gender hardly progressive). Contemporary stage directors
approaching this piece have many options, as well as challenges.

You can read the whole thing here. It’s a delightful production, colorful enough for kids and sophisticated enough for adults. This is the second Weimar cinema-inspired production I’ve seen, the first being the more chronologically appropriate Cardillac at the Wiener Staatsoper. This Zauberflöte was less literal and far prettier.

I don’t know how the video and musical sides were coordinated or cued. The situation varies here–the Met made a big deal about how the videos of their Damnation de Faust responded to the music rather than the other way around, while I saw a L’enfant et les sortilèges in Munich with some severe coordination problems. In Berlin, everything seemed to function smoothly, but I don’t know to what extent the timing of the video was fixed and to what extent it was being triggered on the spot. It’s amazing to think of how far this technology has advanced in just a few years.

I’ve heard better singing at the Komische Oper, but everyone was perfectly competent. Highly recommended if you’re in Berlin.

More photos below.

All photos copyright Iko Fresse / drama-berlin.de

Review

Ariadne auf Naxos: I’m voting you off the island

March 8, 2011 5 Comments

Around a year ago, I saw Ariadne auf Naxos at the Met, a performance that, while not bad, was mostly worth seeing for Nina Stemme’s powerful Ariadne. The city might have changed in the meantime, but the Ariadne has not. One Nina Stemme as Ariadne in the midst of much mediocrity, coming right up… this time courtesy of the Wiener Staatsoper.

Strauss-Hofmannsthal, Ariadne auf Naxos. Wiener Staatsoper, 3/7/2011. Production by Filippo Sanjust, conducted by Michel Güttler with Nina Stemme (Ariadne), Julia Novikova (Zerbinetta), Stepanie Houtzeel (Der Komponist), Burkhard Fritz (Bacchus), Wolfgang Bankl (Ein Musiklehrer), Alexander Pereira (Der Haushofmeister), Daniel Schmutzhard (Harlekin)

Perhaps the large number of debuts kept everyone on their toes, but this was tidy and engaged, as Staatsoper rep shows go. But other than La Stemme, there’s nothing I will remember about it.

You may have seen Filippo Sanjust’s production on this 1978 DVD. As it is today, it’s fine if dull, attractive but neither witty nor transcendent. The Prologue set is the hideous desert island set seen from the back, and it’s on the cavernous side for such intimate music. The blocking was not bad, but compared to Harry Kupfer’s weird Theater an der Wien production of last October it lacked humor and detail. The lighting is crepuscular, and disconcertingly dark. The mood seems to call for something brighter. The Opera takes place on an elegant Greek amphitheater-style desert island. If we want to be literal, I can point out that the libretto makes it clear that the Richest Man in Vienna does not have a private theater like the one shown here. Just saying that these productions that are seen as ultra-traditional take liberties with the letter of the libretto too.

Conductor Michel Güttler, a late substitute for ailing Jeffrey Tate, was not debuting. But there were issues of coordination, balance, a lack of differentiation, and the whole thing was flat.

Nina Stemme sang Ariadne with powerful, beautiful tone (a little heavy on the vibrato), including wonderful low notes. And she is a fantastic actress, strangely making Ariadne into the only character I cared about in the entire performance (as you can guess, I usually find her a bore). But this time around I doubted the suitability of this role to her at present; sometimes more flexibility would have been nice. I did get the feeling she could have eaten the orchestra for breakfast, though.

Julia Novikova was a poor Zerbinetta (in fact my third disappointing Zerbinetta in a row–and I am raising my opinion of the first, Kathleen Kim, with each successive effort). Her voice is simply far too small for this role in the Staatsoper, and lacks an incisive cutting quality. The higher notes projected more clearly, but were shrill and thin. Her stage business consisted of the matronly coquetry that was created for and should be the sole property of Edita Gruberova, this production’s Zerbinetta of record. With tiny, youthful, enthusiastic Novikova, the miniature straw hat, twirling of a ruffly umbrella, and literal hand gestures (waves, balancing scales) were like a 14-year old dressed up as her dowdy grandmother, and the effect was cloying.

Elsewhere, Stephanie Houtzeel seems to have Straussian style. But her voice, despite considerable volume, lacks substance and depth, all vibrato and no core. I’ve pretty much given up on hearing decent Bacchuses–Botha excepted–and Burkhard Fritz proved no exception, which muffled, underpowered tone. Some smaller roles were better, notably veteran Wolfgang Bankl’s clearly enunciated Musiklehrer and Staatsoper debutant Daniel Schmutzhard’s solid Harlekin. The Nymphs were a bit unblended. They and the Commedia folks hit their blocking marks well enough, but the stretch between Zerbinetta’s aria and Bacchus’s appearance felt interminable.

The presence of incoming Salzburger Festspiele intendant Alexander Pereira in the spoken role of the Haushofmeister was pure stunt casting. He’s no actor, but I actually enjoyed this part played without the usual insufferable archness. His delivery of the dictum that the comedy and tragedy would be combined was rather funny, clearly coming from a dumbass who has convinced himself that this is the best idea in the world.

Maybe I have overly high standards for this opera but I’m pretty sure that this one was not, for the most part, any good. Oh well, kam die neue Ariadne gegangen, hingegeben war ich nie stumm.

Several performances remain: 7, 9, 12 March.

Review

L’elisir d’amore: Your love is my drug

December 22, 2010 10 Comments

Sometimes the Wiener Staatsoper has a Noises Off! quality to it. I’m not talking about onstage mishaps, though those happen also, or middlebrow artistic attitudes, though those are far too common as well. No, I mean cast changes! When ensemble member Benjamin Bruns fell ill and couldn’t sing Nemorino last night, Ramón Vargas, in town for Un ballo in maschera, took it on. I’ve always thought Vargas a likeable guy and these one-off performances can be great fun, so I spent my ~~beer~~ Beerenpunsch money on a gallery standing room spot.

Bonus: it helps me organize my study of the art of Otto Schenk. Because here we have ur-Schenk. It’s CUTE!

Donizetti, L’elisir d’amore. Wiener Staatsoper, 12/21/2010. Production by Otto Schenk, conducted by Guilermo García Calvo with Julia Novikova (Adina), Ramón Vargas (Nemorino), Tae Joong Yang (Belcore), Alfred Sramek (Dulcamara), Elisabeta Marin (Giannetta)

I’ve never found never found Ramón Vargas’s forrays into bigger rep very convincing; he lacks a certain vocal heroism and stage authority (his earlier, more lyric efforts are excellent). But those would be liabilities when you’re Nemorino, and last night he turned in a free-wheeling performance of joyous singing and wonderfully undignified acting. It wasn’t very polished in an acting sense, but come on, it’s Nemorino, the primary task is to be endearing and dumb. And Vargas has that down, much more than Flórez in October. Vocally he sounded better than I’ve heard him in ages, with sweet tone and unbroken legato, though he sings pretty much everything forte and the one time he tried a piano (cadenza of the Lagrima), he immediately went flat. But such are the costs of the spinto years.

Yes, that’s La Netrebka. Only photo I could find.

Julia Novikova was a more vivacious and capricious Adina than Sylvia Schwartz in October. She has a beautiful upper range and easy coloratura, and showed sensitive phrasing in “Prendi.” But in a lyric role her voice is perilously small for the Staatsoper, and her sound got lost in ensembles. Tae Joong Yang’s Belcore has grown in comedy since October and is now quite funny, but he struggled with intonation in the aria and elsewhere sounded blustery. Vienna favorite Alfred Sramek sleep-walked through Dulcamara’s aria and somewhat compensated with tired schtick elsewhere.

I didn’t notice anything distinctive coming out of the pit but Guillermo García Calvo kept things together a lot better than Yves Abel did in October.

Otto Schenk’s production makes a better visual impression from the gallery than it did from the Parterre Stehplatz, because you can appreciate the depth of the stage and don’t see the dopey and wrinkly backdrop that clearly. But it still has the colors and details of a picture postcard and none of the texture that brings something to vivid life, or the ideas that would focus the story in any particular direction beyond a children’s book. People really like skipping around in circles in this production. It’s totally kitsch, and while L’elisir d’amore isn’t exactly an opera of extremes, if can be more touching and human and less old-fashioned cute if you give it a push.

Of course it probably looked better in 1973, when this production premiered. A coat of paint would do wonders, though it wouldn’t make it be about anything. Remember, you can see this production on DVD with Anna and Rolando. But if you’re just looking for an Elisir, I recommend Angie and Roberto in happier days more highly.

This is the first full entry in my series Schenk/Anti-Schenk. The Anti-Schenk counterpart will be David Bösch’s Bayerische Staatsoper production, which I’ll see in early January. Also, I am prepared to take whatever consequences I deserve for this post title. But if L’elisir d’amore were pop music, it wouldn’t be Radiohead in terms of intelligence, would it?