Pfitzner - Palestrina (Vienna, 2024)

Hans Pfitzner - Palestrina

Wiener Staatsoper, 2024

Christian Thielemann, Herbert Wernicke, Michael Spyres, Wolfgang Koch, Wolfgang Bankl, Günther Groissböck, Kathrin Zukowski, Patricia Nolz, Michael Nagy, Michael Laurenz, Michael Kraus, Hiroshi Amako, Jusung Gabriel Park, Clemens Unterreiner, Devin Eatmon, Andrew Turner, Ilja Kazakov, Teresa Sales Rebordão, Marcus Pelz 

Staatsoper Live Streaming - 12th December 2024

It isn't often you get the opportunity to hear Hans Pfitzner's music or operas, which is a shame as Palestrina is a beautifully scored and arranged opera, but there are some valid reasons for this omission. Some composers fall out of fashion, their works no longer attractive to a modern audience and certainly the subject of Palestrina - an opera set around the Pope giving his approval at the Synod of the Council of Trent in 1563 for polyphonic music to be used in the composition of a mass - is not one that sounds like it will draw in big audiences. There are also are considerable challenges for orchestral and choral elements to consider, but perhaps the main reason why Pfitzner is rarely programmed are nothing to do with the quality of his music, but with the legacy of his association with the Nazis and antisemitism.

Whatever the reasons, Palestrina is rarely performed and it's true that the subject is a hard one to sell to a modern opera audience. Although it forms a considerable part of Act II, the opera is not really concerned with discussions between archbishops and cardinals disputing obscure esoteric religious dogma and heresies, but rather there is a clear underlying intent. Make that overt intent, since the opera is called Palestrina, after all, named after the choir master of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, Pierluigi Palestrina, who is tasked with the formidable and momentous task of writing music that will make polyphonic music an acceptable part of the celebration of the Catholic mass. It's then really about celebrating the magnificence of music, about celebrating composers for their art, for how they suffer to create. Through Palestrina, Pfitzner gives due recognition to "the art of masters of many centuries", to those who have contributed significantly to their art. And that includes Richard Wagner, whose Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is a clear reference point for Palestrina.

Still, a word-heavy, long-winded opera about an ancient former papal composer giving thanks to God through music isn't going to appeal to the masses either (not to be confused with appealing to masses in the religious sense) and Palestrina is indeed heavy going but, as with any great opera, you would expect there to be some correspondence with a deeper human experience, or perhaps a more common one, since you don't get much more elevated than striving to reach into the spiritual realm of human experience. Pierluigi Palestrina’s suffering that perhaps inspires such creativity is indeed a human one; sorrow for the loss of his wife. At the beginning of the opera however, still in the depths of grief, all inspiration has deserted him and he is unreachable. Such is the depth of his loss that he has no confidence that he can accept the commission from Cardinal Borromeo to write a new work, an eternal mass, and indeed he no longer even sees the point of value of his metier. He has reached Faustian levels of despair, abandoning himself to the 'Rien'. Evidently though in this case Palestrina doesn't submit to Mephistopheles but to a higher power; music. 

Somewhat appropriately then, Palestrina is far from a 'one-note' opera, but has many levels in its progression through its three acts. Just as Palestrina is the missing a note in the chord, so too pouring all the human contradictions and complexes that arise over the doubts, fears and all other kinds of human experiences - greed and pride come into play between the religious orders in Act II - all feed into the score that Pfitzner uses to construct a foundation and embellish it with beauty and spirituality. Voices, the outward manifestation of human expression is fully involved in this, from the individual grappling with their fears, weaknesses and limitations to the choral togetherness that elevates it and joins it with the rest of the world.

Bringing in the Council of Trent and its aims, its religious and political powerplays is another complication. Can polyphonic church music wrung from a reluctant choir master unite all the reform of ecumenical matters that are subject to discussion, dispute, heresy and schism, fraying tempers, the assertion of dominance of Pope or Emperor, carving up their domains of power and influence? Well, at long as you don't bring the Protestants into it! Despite the apparently elevated subject matter, the opera is not without a sense of humour at the pomposity and entitlement of it all, but there is a sense that power is respected and, where is the will, distinguished leaders can reach agreement and bring about important change. Not sure anyone who was following the outcome of COP29 will agree that this is a valid argument, but Pfitzner makes a compelling case for it here.

Directed by Herbert Wernicke, the production in Vienna matches intent of both sides of the work well, bringing music and majesty, order and elegance to the stage. The effects and sets are basic but effective. For Palestina's grappling with his muse and his human condition, there is an array of tiers for an orchestra with a large church organ, the back of the stage opening to reveal a chorus, heavenly choirs and angelic voices bringing light from darkness. It's almost overwhelming, which is the effect it should be aiming to achieve. Likewise for the Synod, the music stands are removed and the seats rearranged for the chamber, the assembled cardinals and archbishops all arranged in order of importance, stretching back and upwards into the choir gallery. There is none of the elaborate day-glo colour schemes of the Bayerische Staatsoper production from 2009, the only recorded stage production of this opera.

All credit to the Wiener Staatsoper for giving this work another opportunity to confirm that this is truly a magnificent opera. Whatever you think about what history has to say about the human weaknesses and failings of Hans Pfitzner, like Luigi Palestrina he manages to compose music that lives on beyond its creator. If the conservative nature of his writing has proved not to be the work of a master who went on to inspire other masters on a musical level, it nonetheless has an important message to impart - and a challenge to incorporate it - about the transcendental qualities of music, of how an artist can rise above human earthly constraints to aspire to a higher spiritual level.

That's still a challenge to get across in an epic work of this length, and it's clear that it needs the highest level of performance and interpretation here to lift it up to its fullness. With Christian Thielemann at the helm, attention to detail and considered personal interpretation is assured. The casting is also superb with excellent performances throughout. Familiar with Michael Spyres mainly as a lyric tenor who can sing baritone with a sweetness of voice that is ideal for Rossini and Mozart, I was thoroughly impressed with his performance as Pierluigi Palestrina. Considering that he has to embody the spiritual, the artist, the human, there is a lot to take on and a lot of singing for intense though well-dispersed periods of a long opera. Wolfgang Koch is also excellent in the role of Cardinal Borromeo.

External links: Wiener Staatsoper, Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming

Verdi - Don Carlo (Vienna, 2024)

Giuseppe Verdi - Don Carlo

Wiener Staatsoper, 2024

Philippe Jordan, Kirill Serebrennikov, Joshua Guerrero, Asmik Grigorian, Roberto Tagliavini, Eve-Maud Hubeaux, Étienne Dupuis, Dmitry Ulyanov, Ivo Stanchev, Ilia Staple

ARTE Concert - October 2024

The intent of a director to modernise an opera production, particularly a work based (loosely) on historical sources but often dubiously dramatised for the original audience of its time, should in theory be to make it more relatable to a modern audience less in thrall (in theory) to wealth and power being held by a monarch. Some directors admittedly take that to strange places to impose their own vision and concept, but the intent must be to bring out the essential humanity and tragedy between the private lives of such figures and their public face. Don Carlos is just such a work where those matters are to the forefront and given a remarkable musical treatment full of ambition towards Grand Opéra by Verdi, here stripped back to its essentials in the Milan version, so one would hope that a director would confront those issues head-on.

At the raising of the curtain on the 2024 Vienna production directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, opening in a modern laboratory environment, a single person in the audience can be heard on the live ARTE transmission voicing their disapproval before a single note has been played, not even waiting to see what the director's intentions are, presumably since it doesn't look like it is going to correspond with how he personally feels it should be, showing no regard for what anyone else thinks. It's clearly someone either seeking attention or ignorant about the creative team involved at this production at the Wiener Staatsoper and the nature of opera itself as a modern progressive art form. Probably all of the above. Personally, I find Serebrennikov a director of interest from past productions of Wagner (Parsifal in Vienna, Lohengrin in Paris). And if the lone booer has any sense of shame, he ought to be humiliated at the conclusion that reveals itself as a thoughtful challenge to the fetishisation of the past set against the imperatives of the present.

Serebrennikov's version of Don Carlo is undoubtedly convoluted in its treatment, adding additional levels to an opera already filled with contradictions and contrasts. Using mirror images with actors in authentic period costume doubling for their counterparts in the present day, the director actually manages to present the attraction of the historical costume drama element of the work, while making the romantic and emotional content of the personal drama work on a contemporary human level, furthering and deepening those contrasts and contradictions that fire the drama. Despite the contemporary setting appearing to be of lesser significance than the war and political events within the royal court of King Philip II in the mid-16th century, Serebrennikov also successfully finds a way to make this distant and for many, obscure historical period meaningful and contributing to the turmoil faced by the figures in the opera. 

The laboratory that so appalled at least one member of the Vienna audience is a Costume Research Institute, where scientists are studying historical clothing and recreating the dress of the period of Philip II for their research. Elisabetta, a scientist in the laboratory, is troubled over her betrayal of Carlo by her marriage to his father, the chief director of the Institute, who is a bit of a tyrant. Working in such an environment, the workers, scientists and costume designers at the institute perhaps then see their own lives and troubles reflected in the past, and it's interesting to note when seen in this context how much attention is brought to and importance given in the libretto to dress, appearance and elegance. Rodrigo and Eboli in an early scene even have a moment to discuss the beauty and grace of French women, while projections on a screen above the stage show fetishistic images of the costumes detail and fitting. Combined the opera and this production show that there is limited benefit in trying to understand people in the past through the costumes they wear, that the truth about what went on is more likely to be reflected in how people behave now.

What the production doesn't do then is examine the political and historical conflicts of the 16th century, and I think most of us can live with that. For Carlos, Elisabetta, Philip and indeed Rodrigo and Eboli - and through them - we experience human conflict, their stoicism to contain deep feelings and emotions against a world that puts obstacles in their path, obstacles that don't necessarily need to include the conquest of Flanders. The horror of the war there is compared here to an Asian sweatshop being exploited for cheaply made clothing, the associated environmental catastrophe it entails all for the folly of keeping the human mannequins of the western world in the latest fast fashion. Consumerism as oppression. Carlo just wears a plain T-shirt with a 'Liberta' slogan attached with sticky tape. Rodrigo's states 'Save our Land' and those messages are what is really important and it is given real force here. Mainly thanks to Verdi's score of course, but the scenes and imagery are equally as effective, the auto-da-fé enacted here on climate change activists disrupting the historical fashion show in protest against the destruction the environment. The burning here is the burning of the planet.

To be fair to the lone booer (and the few hesitant followers who later join him at the end of Act III) it's a valid question whether an opera like Don Carlo really needs all this directorial intervention to work effectively, or is the director just using the composer's masterpiece to impose his own views? That's a judgement call, but it can be both. Don Carlos/Don Carlo is a difficult opera to make work effectively, in my experience of seeing many productions of it. With Verdi and this work in particular, the true challenge in presenting the work lies more often in how well you can cast singing roles that are technically and dramatically challenging. It's a factor that is just as essential to overcome any perceived weaknesses or flaws in the production or indeed the opera itself. A weak link can be particularly critical in Don Carlos. Saying that, there is little to fault here in either performance or the director's presentation, which is more nuanced than the brief description I've provided above. The historical models, for example, are dressed up in the first half and stripped back in the second as their true selves are revealed. There are many other touches to make the historical converge with the modern, including biographical notes of the real life figures added in projections, and a context that permits a wider examination of the use and abuse of power.

There are, as I said, no real weak links in the singing either. Indeed the roles of Carlo and Elisabetta are as good as you could expect. Asmik Grigorian sings Elisabetta with her usual conviction and skilled dramatic interpretation. Joshua Guerrero's Carlo is also well-characterised and sung, again with the necessary ability and conviction. Eve-Maud Hubeaux's Princess Eboli is excellent, her confession to Elisabetta in Act III intense and tragic. There are deep emotions stirred on all sides, love and betrayal of friendship valued over position is an important aspect of the opera and this carries weight in all the principal roles. As such Rodrigo’s role is important too and Étienne Dupuis brings that out well in his performance. Only Philip II perhaps suffers from the direction. You don't get a sense that he really has anything grand at stake as he would were he genuinely a King under the yoke of the Catholic church's Inquisition while he is also facing a personal humiliation in his love life in his 'Ella giammai m'amò'. Roberto Tagliavini's singing isn't able to bring out the heaviness of the head that wears the crown.

Don Carlos/Don Carlo, in whatever incarnation, is one of Verdi's greatest works, or at least the one I always find that has real meaty issues as well as intriguing flaws and challenges that have to be creatively confronted by a stage director. It is also, despite the many revisions and versions, musically one of the composer's finest works, through composed but incorporating utterly beautiful melodies (although personally I'm less fond of the Spanish flavours) and wonderful attention and attunement to character detail and expression. It sounds absolutely marvellous here under Philippe Jordan and the Vienna Orchestra. If there were any sceptics left in the audience by the time the devastating conclusion was reached, they were drowned out by the deserved applause for a thoughtful and powerful account of this tremendous opera.

External links: ARTE Concert, Wiener Staatsoper

Raskatov - Animal Farm (Vienna, 2024)

Alexander Raskatov - Animal Farm

Wiener Staatsoper, 2024

Alexander Soddy, Damiano Michieletto, Gennady Bezzubenkov, Wolfgang Bankl, Michael Gniffke, Andrei Popov, Stefan Astakov, Karl Laquit, Artem Krutko, Margaret Plummer, Isabel Signoret, Elena Vassilieva, Holly Flack, Daniel Jenz, Aurora Marthens, Clemens Unterreiner

Wiener Staatsoper Streaming - 5th March 2024

There is no question that George Orwell's writing has provided to be a fundamental and premonitory outlook on power, politics and society that stands up today. 1984 continues to have relevance beyond its "sell by date" and may be even more relevant now, but can the same be said for Animal Farm? Has this short but well crafted work really stood the test of time or does it remain an allegory about events around the Russian revolution and the horrors of Stalinism? Some of the aphorisms and observations of course continue to have relevance and remain in daily use, not least the sinister implications of the truth that "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others". We can still see that there are underlying behaviours that remain true today, that reflect the animal side of human nature, or just human nature as we know it.

There is good reason then for a Russian-born composer to try to make something of Animal Farm, something that brings out the contemporary relevance of the work and its application to the world of today. While the idea of a totalitarianism Communist regime posing a threat to the stability of the world and oppression of its people through the kind of language and means employed is by no means far-fetched or indeed unknown even now, there is a danger that even in the "enlightened" western democracies we can be complacent about the messages that are keenly delivered in Animal Farm, or indeed fail to see that they also apply to many aspects of the society many blindly accept or find acceptable.

Alexander Raskatov certainly isn't someone to see this from a detached perspective or as an academic exercise. Born into a Jewish family in Moscow on the day of Stalin's funeral, Raskatov has direct experience of his family being targeted and suffering under Stalin's regime. Never having read Animal Farm before - understandably it was banned in Russia - there would need to be something that resonated with the composer today, something that would speak about abuses of power in our post-Stalin, post-truth world. Looking around the world today, never mind just Russia, there is no shortage of application and relevance in Animal Farm, without the stage director needing to make any specific reference.

Perhaps then because there is no need to specifically target any one regime or political ideology, the Italian director Damiano Michieletto - who was one of the instigators of the project - retains the abstract, allegorical quality of the animal farm setting, but shifts it onto another level entirely. As if to ensure that there is no danger of anthromorphised animals making it seem like a cute fairy-tale, the production emphasises the horror of the real world application of the allegory by setting it not in a farm, but in an abattoir. Likewise the situations, the rebellion of the animals, the setting of seven commandments of the new regime, the building of the windmill and the inevitable corruption of any ideals remain in line with the themes of the book, but are given a much darker complexion by the choice of setting.

And, of course, Raskatov's music also plays a large part in contributing to the darkness of the work's operatic treatment. The libretto by Raskatov and Ian Burton updates the language to be a little more direct and crude, but only in a way that is befitting of the grimness of the situation. That is matched by the aggressive musical attack. Raskatov's closest musical influences are Schnittke and Weinberg with the importance on drawing from Russian folk music, but Animal Farm also reminds me of Shostakovich, maybe because of the subject the horror of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (and possibly because the Krzysztof Warlikowski production of it was also set in a slaughterhouse), with the surreal satire of the animals and the pushed vocalisation of language that takes on some of the characteristics of the animal noises giving it something of the slightly disturbing apocalyptic outlook of Ligeti’s Le grand macabre.

Somehow however the purpose of the work and any real point it might want to make about the world around us today fails to hit home. Part of the problem seems to be that the opera treatment just adds another level of abstraction on top of an already abstract allegorical satire. The setting of the animal farm as a slaughterhouse certainly adds darkness with the suggestion that they are all likely to meet the same fate sooner or later, but the work doesn't really gain any great nuance or detail in translation to opera. Rastakov's score doesn't succeed either in grabbing and holding your attention in order to engage with it fully. It feels detached, an exercise, remaining a fairy-tale fable, despite the best efforts of the composer to invest it with personal and universal significance. As an opera, it also feels episodic, with little opportunity to gain narrative momentum or character development, the ending or moral not at all clear or in line with the original novella.

Although it's intentional of course and part of the whole point of the work, it's also difficult to distinguish the humans from the animals. Or perhaps that's not so much the issue as finding a reason to comprehend the actions of each of them. Despite having distinct vocal ranges written for them they are thinly characterised, which is part of the problem of them being allegorical figures given animal characteristics rather than fleshed out people. It's though no fault of the singing performances, which are exceptional in an opera with a lot of principal roles. All roles are equal of course but some are more equal than others and Isabel Signoret stands out as a character as well as in her delivery of the challenging range of Muriel. Michael Gniffke also makes a strong impression as Snowball. The orchestra of the Vienna State Opera conducted by Alexander Soddy deserve credit for their handling of what is clearly a challenging score.

Despite reservations about the continuing relevance of Orwell's Animal Farm and whether it successfully translates to the stage as an opera with another level of abstraction, I suspect that the opera might have more of an impact in a live environment (I viewed it on the Vienna State Opera streaming service) and more meaningful depending on your experience of living under an oppressive political regime. I daresay, considering the current political climate and the troubling direction of elections and wars in the world today that we might find that Animal Farm still has lessons for us all.

External links: Wiener Staatsoper, Staatsoper Live

Mahler - Von der Liebe Tod (Vienna, 2022)

Gustav Mahler - Von der Liebe Tod

Wiener Staatsoper, 2022

Lorenzo Viotti, Calixto Bieito, Vera-Lotte Boecker, Monika Bohinec, Daniel Jenz, Florian Boesch, Johannes Pietsch, Gabriel Hoeller

Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming - 7th October 2022

To somewhat stretch a metaphor, the idea of a Mahler opera is a bit like waiting for a bus around these parts. It can feel like you are waiting for a hundred and fifty years and then suddenly two of them come along together. Since of course there is no such thing as a Mahler opera that's even more unexpected, and it's perhaps no surprise that the directors daring to stage Mahler's symphonic and lieder works as opera are two of the most ambitious and controversial of contemporary directors; Romeo Castellucci and Calixto Bieito. As strange as it might be to imagine Mahler staged, it's even stranger that such an idea in these times is deemed controversial enough to upset a few sensitive souls who don't even have to watch it or let it impinge upon their favourite Mahler recordings on CD.

While that might not exactly be the primary intention of these directors to upset anyone, there is certainly something of a desire to stir things up - but in a good way, or perhaps a necessary way. Because these are indeed the times we are living in; a time of war in Europe, a time of global pandemic killing millions, a time of looming environmental crisis and climate change that does indeed affect everyone. It's not enough in these times for an artist to remain detached from that, but there should be some recognition that great art is drawn from such dark times and experiences, and it should reflect them and not gloss over them.

In the case of Castellucci's production of Resurrection, for example, it's not enough to just put on a work of such sublime creativity and feeling as Mahler's Sixth Symphony as a concert performance for a wealthy audience at the Aix-en Provence festival. It would almost be an injustice to Mahler to present such a work as a rich indulgence. It's a profound work that has deeper meaning and if it can move an audience - whether to applause or booing - then it ought to provoke such a reaction. Anyone however who boos the imagery of the digging up of a mass war grave while such atrocities are happening for real at that moment not so far away should really think twice about their understanding and purpose of the arts.

The same goes for anyone who manages to work themselves into a state about a creative artist taking a similar approach to this Vienna State Opera stage production of another Mahler's work. Von der Liebe Tod actually consists of two Mahler works brought together, Das Klagende Lied, a cantata from 1879/80 based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, and Kindertotenlieder from 1901/04, based on a poem by Friedrich Rückert. Calixto Bieito employs similar techniques to Romeo Castellucci, the two directors almost crossing over as they progress from what were not ever exactly conventional opera stagings in the first place to rather more abstract presentations of works that were never intended to be fully staged.

I say never meant to be fully staged, but the question that arises immediately when watching the first part of this production, the cantata Das Klagende Lied, is why not? It has a clear fairy tale narrative and powerful accompanying music and singing that is dramatically attuned to the developments and deeper sentiments of the story. It's mostly narrative based admittedly, and doesn't even have clear individual roles that you might find in an oratorio, but it is filled with imagery that deserves to exist more than in the mind of the individual listener. In fact it is the role of a director - much as some would seek to not credit him or her with any importance - to explore a work closely and relate it to universal concerns that any listener will recognise and identify with.

Calixto Bieito then evidently doesn't go in for straightforward naturalism or literal illustration of the story in the way of Otto Schenk's The Cunning Little Vixen at the same opera house, for example. The imagery Bieito devises for this fairy tale opera/cantata however is exactly what a director should do when confronted with a work of great art and that is to dig deeper into the underlying meaning of the fairy tale and relate it to more universal concerns. Using the red flower of the fairy tale, the imagery of the willow and the nightingale, all of them witnessing the killing of one brother by another, the overriding idea - for me at least - appears to be the impact violence has on individuals, on society, on nature. And yes, that is something we can see in many aspects of the times we are living in.

As he is wont to do, Bieto simultaneously makes this beautiful to look at but harrowing at the same time, refusing to prettify the underlying horror at the heart of the tale (see also his response to the not dissimilar fairy tale story of men dying for a cold hearted queen in his version of Turandot). In the story, the minstrel comes across a gleaming bone in the woods that he carves into a flute, but here he hacks off an arm, cuts out a bone from within the flesh and plays on a blood spattered bone. It's not the 'flute' that sings either, but the grim spectacle of the dead boy with a bloody hacked off arm singing of his fate. Evidently, this will not be to everyone's taste, but it is necessary.

The dead boy slayed by his brother over a flower leads beautifully into the second part of Von der Liebe Tod, the ruins of the wedding feast turning into an abandoned playroom for dead children in Kindertotenlieder. Conceptually this is marvellous, the earliest of Mahler works - Das Klagende Lied his Opus 1 composed when he was 19 - brought together with the later, final work of a composer capable of committing all his lived experience in the meantime into it; a fairy tale turned into reality and that reality and horror concentrated and transformed into something beautiful through art. That is the purpose of art, or one of its many purposes. It's that same art in musical performance and interpretation that ensures that such work lives on, remains vital and alive and connected not to past events, but to what people are experiencing today. Sometimes life mirrors art in shocking and unexpected ways. One need only think of another recent tragedy in Thailand to see how deep feelings run in Kindertotenlieder. The idea that anyone could even think of mindlessly heckling artists on a stage after viewing this is unconscionable.

It helps that musically this is a glorious affair. The influence of Wagner on the youthful Mahler is most pronounced in the considerable orchestral forces and choral arrangements employed in the service of emotional and dramatic content of Das Klagende Lied. The conducting of the works by Lorenzo Viotti also comes to the fore in Kindertotenlieder, with intense, heartfelt singing from Florian Boesch and Monika Bohinec. How much more alive does this become when such performances are aligned with visual imagery and artistic direction that meaningfully connects the work with reality, that doesn't sugarcoat it or diminish its sentiments, as some might be tempted to do with these two particular works. Welcome to the opera stage of the 21st century, Gustav Mahler.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live

Wagner - Tristan und Isolde (Vienna, 2022)

Richard Wagner - Tristan und Isolde

Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna - 2022

Philippe Jordan, Calixto Bieito, Andreas Schager, René Pape, Martina Serafin, Iain Paterson, Ekaterina Gubanova, Clemens Unterreiner, Daniel Jenz, Martin Häßler, Josh Lovell

Wiener Staatsoper Live - 27 April 2022

All of Wagner's mature works have their own particular qualities and strengths, and his final work Parsifal may well be the pinnacle of all opera, but nothing matches Tristan und Isolde for sheer sustained intensity. Some will be dismayed at the often controversial - more often baffling - concept and aesthetic of Calixto Bieito's stage productions being imposed upon such a work as Tristan und Isolde under the current administration of the Vienna State Opera directed by Bogdan Roščić. If you are able to get past this however, it's surely possible to recognise that the director has nonetheless found his own way of tapping into and representing the essential inner strength and intensity of a piece that should never fail to challenge.

If you can get the intensity of the inner emotional content of this opera across not just at the love potion conclusion of the first Act, but can even create that intensity from the outset and build it up to that conclusion, you're are definitely in tune with the intent of the work. There may not be a ship at sea but water does play a part throughout. Act I is a fairly sparse affair, looking like it takes place in an Irish fishing market with a couple of shallow pools of water, sluice channels, on the darkened stage while blindfolded children sit on rows of swings. There is evidently a lot of psychopathology to unpack as far as the red-haired Irish princess in her green polka dotted frock is concerned, and Isolde wields her history, her family, her regal position and her Irish heritage as a weapon to unleash against the betraying Tristan and her own self-betrayal.

Not only has she healed and fallen in love with the man she later discovers is responsible for killing her betrothed Morold, but Tristan is now bringing her as a 'tribute' to be married to his uncle King Mark of Cornwall. That outpouring of loathing and self loathing is fully felt on the stage here, with a duffel coated Tristan right there in front of her and subjected to her fury as he rolls around in the shallow waters. Such is the power and intensity of Martina Serafin's Act I performance that you don't need a love potion for it to develop into something dangerous, and indeed - since it's Bieito, there obviously isn't a flask as such. Each drink the frustration, rage, anger, delirium and love out of the hands of the other, while Brangäne walks past carrying a fish in a plastic bag in each hand. There's nothing of elevated medieval royalty about this, the production demonstrating more that it is an exercise in the human capacity to elevate themselves though love, and for love to exceed human boundaries.

Act II similarly avoids any more typical depiction of Isolde and Tristan's ill-advised and not so surreptitious encounter together, the two instead appearing in separate floating rooms - the more earthbound Brangäne scaling and gutting a fish - that they proceed to tear down. It's simple enough symbolism, the lovers rising above the earth, still trying to strip away any physical boundaries and mortal impediments that would prevent them achieving a union of perfect bliss. All the jumping around, tearing books and unbuttoning dresses does distract and impede the singers a little from fully getting across the emotional depths to which they are wrapped in each other.

At this stage however, union is of course not possible, the two of them still in separate rooms, distinct corporeal entities, unable to consummate that union on any physical or earthly plane. The necessary impossible intensity of this situation is still fully felt, and King Mark's arrival almost seems a welcome appearance that prevents them from spontaneous combustion. Much as I still enjoy seeing what René Pape brings to this role, his grave intoning precisely what is needed here, it has to be said that he is no longer the force he once was and it's beginning to show. The dynamic that he brings however is still effective as Tristan is not struck down by Melot in this scene (both Melot and Mark are sidelined as minor figures in this production), but attempts to perish by his own hand, Isolde attempting to join him.

Despite the usual provocation of full-frontal nudity - a wall of naked male and female figures slowly advance and decorate Kareol like statues, many in embrace - Calixto Bieito otherwise plays out Act III without any significant reworking of Wagner's mood and mysticism. Andreas Schager's Tristan is a bloodied, agonised figure, his anxiety and longing matched in intensity only by Iain Paterson's faithful Kurwenal here. Tristan expires on an overturned table, which is righted by Isolde who sinks to her own love-death reaching out across the table to him. It's an affecting moment however you play it.

The part that Philippe Jordan's conducting of the Wiener Staatsoper orchestra plays in this can't be underestimated. It's a perfectly controlled affair, unleashing forces in response to the stage directions, working in accordance with them, ensuring that everything seen or suggested is brought out with full impact. The performance of Andreas Schager should also be acknowledged. Any prior reservations about his singing or acting abilities are quickly dismissed as he makes a huge impression in Act I, conflicted between his heroism, his love and his betrayal. Already everything that needs to be put in place has been firmly established right from the start, the direction working beyond the surface to bring out all the competing, conflicting forces, the love/hate and love/death paradoxes. He carries this through to Act III with complete commitment. Much the same goes for Martina Serafin's performance. It's perhaps not as strong and consistent vocally, but she is utterly engaging and no less impressive alongside Schager as Isolde.

Any reservations put forward by naysayers quick to denounce anything challenging that strays too far from the familiar are also easily countered. Some will still complain at anything Calixto Bieito turns his hands to, but I would be amazed that anyone could fail to be moved by what takes place on stage and in the pit in this production, or seriously believe that the stage direction takes anything away from it. Jordan's conducting finds the rhythms and moods well, and Schager and Serafin's interpretation of Tristan and Isolde is deeply felt. Regardless of what you make of the strangeness of the set designs, there is little doubt that Bieito's direction of the cast/actors has been instrumental in achieving that, and the fact that the Vienna production carries the force of the work entirely should be abundantly clear.

Berg - Wozzeck (Vienna, 2022)

Alban Berg - Wozzeck

Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna - 2022

Philippe Jordan, Simon Stone, Christian Gerhaher, Sean Panikkar, Jörg Schneider, Dmitry Belosselskiy, Anja Kampe, Josh Lovell, Peter Kellner, Stefan Astakhov, Thomas Ebenstein, Christina Bock

Wierner Staatsoper Live - 31 March 2022

Whether it's the inherent power and meaning of Büchner's original unfinished drama or whether it gains something more from Alban Berg's score, Wozzeck is one of the most powerful and enigmatic statements about the human condition in either form. When it comes to staging it then it almost demands a statement from the director, and Simon Stone is a director with things to say or at least a director with a distinctive vision. His production of Wozzeck for Vienna has some impressive stagecraft and singing, but whether it makes a statement or not, or whether it even needs to, there's no question that the essential qualities of the work are there for all to see.

One thing you can expect from Stone, whether directing opera or drama, is that it's necessary to make it contemporary, something that speaks of now and not of a time in the past. You would certainly expect that when dealing with the themes of Wozzeck, and not unexpectedly, the setting of this production is contemporary (in a gym, in the Underground), minimalist and faithful to the content, letting the work and the music express everything that is essential. Nothing is the different from what you would expect and yet it is at the same time unfamiliar.

The first scene is closest to what you expect to see at the opening of Wozzeck, Franz shaving the Captain, although not as a soldier for his bullying commanding officer, but working apparently at a barbershop. We can presume it doesn't need to be in a military setting for the nature of Franz's belittlement at the hands of others to be meaningful. The scene ends with the throat of the other two customers being slit open by the barbers, creating a feeling of a general sense of the absurdity and hopelessness of life, at least as it is experienced by one man, Franz Wozzeck, but also a premonition perhaps of fate of Marie.

Stone uses a tripartite rotating stage that, for the early part at least, flows continuously in a cycle were one scene flows straight through to the next, despite this being a work made up of distinct scenes that in the unfinished original did not even have a set order. The flow of one scene into the next however captures something of the abstraction of Franz's life, the disconnect between reality and how it appears in his mind, already disturbed by the experiments of the doctor, making it seem even more unreal and disorientating.

The flowing rotation is not even a linear or cyclical approach, Stone collapsing time in the scene of Marie's infidelity with the drum major, showing three versions of the scene at different time points almost simultaneously as Wozzeck puts the pieces together in his mind. The technique was used by Stone also in his remarkable Tristan und Isolde for Aix-en-Provence last year. Here there is a sense that Franz is grasping to restore some kind of sense or order upon the randomness of his life going out of control.

If there is a larger purpose to the rotating and constantly shifting scenes, aside from an incredible sense of stagecraft of Robert Cousins to rapidly change the sets with fluid ease, it is this idea of seeking to impose structure while time and life is moving faster than Wozzek can keep up with it. All his interactions as a soldier, as a father, in a military or family unit seem to be a search for something to grasp onto, guide him and show him the way out of his setbacks and troubles. Marie likewise has the Bible and religion to turn to for order and meaning, but what she reads in it seems to offer no comfort.

Stone's approach is effective then, but it's also open enough that any criticism you might have of the stage setting and his direction within it could also be said to work in its favour. Some might see the plain white walls of basic sets as somewhat cold and sterile - in complete contrast for example to William Kentridge's more elaborate approach (Salzburg, 2017) - but the sterility and emptiness of the white rooms, contrasted with the overgrown scenes of disorder in nature - could also be seen to reflect a world that offers no comfort to Franz. As a statement of futility, the final depiction of the dead body of Franz being lifted on a crane out of a cistern is certainly suitably bleak.

The search for order and the failure to find any comfort in any kind of artificial construct is reflected too in Alban Berg's score. Meticulously and tightly constructed, with historical antecedents, it seems to offer a clearly defined structure, but the atonal, unpredictable progression and enigmatic development hints at the difficulties of comprehending the underlying complexities of a world when we are looking for simplicity. It's a source of constant wonder, but there is nothing comforting in Berg's music.

The Wiener Staatsoper production is conducted by Philippe Jordan and he has a good measure of the detail of Berg as well as the overall impact that it strives to achieve. The opera leaves you dissatisfied that it seems to offer no respite and no sense of resolution. It's an unremittingly bleak view of the human condition and yet at the same time it is beyond impressive that this is capable of being expressed in such musical terms. Simon Stone's production matches that, leaving you feeling that it needs something more, yet impressed at what it has been able to say at the same time.

That inevitably places considerable challenges on the two principal roles, but we have two fine performers here in Christian Gerhaher and Anja Kampe. This seems like an ideal role for Gerhaher and sings it well, bringing character and personality to the role, or humanity maybe, since it's essential to see Wozzeck as such, not as some pitiful figure, but one striving to find a place in a world that seems to be conspiring against him. Anja Kampe is also excellent, not just a foil for Wozzeck but a person in her own right with strength of character, just similarly lost and unfortunately not on a wavelength that can help him.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper, Wiener Staatsoper Live

Puccini - Manon Lescaut (Vienna, 2022)

Giacomo Puccini - Manon Lescaut

Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna - 2022

Francesco Ivan Ciampa, Robert Carsen, Asmik Grigorian, Boris Pinkhasovich, Brian Jagde, Josh Lovell, Artyom Wasnetsov, Marcus Pelz, Ilja Kazakov

Wiener Staatsoper Live Stream - 7 February 2022

I'm always hopeful that with the right team it might prove to be a revelation, but thus far I've never been totally convinced by Puccini's Manon Lescaut. The composer never seems to fully invest you in the rather disjointed drama or the opera's emotional journey, nor have I yet seen any director make a convincing case for it on the stage. The opera is not without some of the qualities that would become more refined in La Bohème and beyond, but it's just not quite there. If there's a good reason to make a case for Manon Lescaut, it's got to be in the choice of soprano, as Manon has a fine selection of arias to display her range. Vienna at least have that with Asmik Grigorian, and - for me anyway - that's enough of a reason to give Manon Lescaut another airing, even if the opera still proves unconvincing elsewhere.

Rather disappointingly, if not unexpectedly, the usually capable director Robert Carsen isn't able to find anything new to say about the work or indeed able to find any way of making work as a coherent opera. What he does manage to do is modernise the otherwise old-fashioned Belle Époque setting of the pitfalls that face a young woman of her age looking for fulfillment in life and love. Carsen doesn't vary from the idea that she can have either riches or true love in poverty but not both. As a prototype for Mimi, she rejects her brother's plan to either put her in a convent or marry into a profitable but loveless marriage, and runs away with the handsome but poor Des Grieux. She becomes dissatisfied with her choice however, and discovering that love alone is not enough, she is seduced by the big city glamour of Paris and led into a life of dissolution.

It's perhaps not the most enlightened of views of female emancipation - the third act conclusion makes her pay for it is a drastic way - but there is certainly still some truth in the idea of the seduction of glamour. The emphasis in the set design of the Vienna production is very much aligned to a more modern view of that idea. Manon arrives in Act I against the elegant curve of a mall of designer shops, but rejects all that for the penniless Des Grieux who charms her. Act II takes place in a penthouse city apartment and Act III doesn't end up in the Utah desert either, but back again in the no less soulless location of the mall of designer shops.

As we never see her living in poverty in a room with a tiny table in Puccini's version of the opera, (Massenet has a better choice of scenes from L'Abbé Prévost’s original novel 'L’Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut in his verion, Manon) there is none of the kind of contrasts that would contribute to the Puccinian colour of La Bohème, albeit in a single milieu there. Here, the composer tries to enliven and add variety with choruses of onlookers and dancers in Act I, and with maids and hangers-on a kind of bohemian world in Act II, but he doesn't invest in it to the same emotional charge as you find in his greater works.

That inevitably feeds into the performances, with there being 'little room' for Des Grieux to show how he has been likewise seduced only by the glamour of Manon and the romance of running away to Paris. A good singer who is well directed can perhaps bring more to it, but while it is sung well here by tenor Brian Jagde, it lacks that emotional investment. Carsen tries to bring a rather more realistic contemporary view to Manon's relationship with Geronte as one now more familiar between an aspiring female actor and a possessive powerful man who wants to control her. Rather than being arrested by the police at the end of Act II for moral corruption or theft of jewellery then, neither of which are convincing in a modern context to justify transportation to America, Manon is instead brutally raped by Geronte in front of her lover Des Grieux at the end of Act II. That ought to bring more of an emotional charge and sympathy for her fate, but it lacks edge you might expect.

Perhaps that's because the opera still feels incomplete, as if there is a whole act or a few scenes missing. It never flows in any way that you can relate to the characters and what they are going through. Carsen doesn't manage to improve on that with the minimal set changes to the three acts. The curve of the stage remains at the port in Act III where Manon is due to deported. Why the soft furnishings of the previous act remain on the stage I'm not sure. The parade of women lining up to take to the prison ship walk out with handcuffs but look bruised and beaten but still hold themselves like glamorous models on a catwalk being photographed by bystanders and press on one side and Geronte's high society friends on the the other.

I suspect that Robert Carsen is trying to say something about consumerism and the commodification of women, which is at least something even if it doesn't fit all that neatly with the characterisation or musical content. Act IV, which is always the strangest scene of the opera, feeling out of step with what has come before, doesn't take place in the American desert of course, but back again in an empty mall. With mannequins in the windows of the designer shops and abandoned shopping bags and cash littering the ground, it does emphasise to some extent the commodification of women, dehumanised for the use and mistreatment of men who hold all the power.

If that idea has any validity and works to some extent in this production, it's almost entirely down to the emotionally charged music that Puccini has written for the finale and Asmik Grigorian's singing of it here. Her rise to leading roles in major European opera houses and festivals is well merited, displaying a strength and wide range that is capable of singing Wagner, Strauss and Janáček. She has no trouble with Puccini, which certainly has its own challenges particularly in Act IV, and Grigorian is fairly stunning here.

There is a lively spring to the score under the musical direction of Francesco Ivan Ciampa; a simmering fire always there, the romantic sweep of the Intermezzo, a crash of danger as love and romance turn to horror. Being Puccini, it's hard not to get swept away by the crescendos of the final Act, particularly when it is sung well. Boris Pinkhasovich, Brian Jagde and Artyom Wasnetsov give capable performances as Lescaut, Des Grieux and Geronte, but none of the roles have opportunities for much development. To be honest, I think I had already long ago given up on Manon Lescaut as a successful opera and it was only the opportunity to see Asmik Grigorian sing the role that held any interest. She doesn't disappoint, but the opera and the production do, yet again.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper Live Streaming

Henze - Das verratene Meer (Vienna, 2020)

Hans Werner Henze - Das verratene Meer

Wiener Staatsoper, 2020

Simone Young, Jossi Wieler, Sergio Morabito, Vera-Lotte Böcker, Josh Lovell, Bo Skovhus, Erik Van Heyningen, Kangmin Justin Kim, Stefan Astakhov, Martin Häßler, Jörg Schneider

Wiener Staatsoper Live - 14 December 2020

Yukio Mishima's novella The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea seems like an unusual work to be adapted to opera, but it's a layered work of unusual psychological complexities that must have been of interest to Hans Werner Henze. Mishima was certainly interested in exploring unusual and taboo behaviours in characters seeking to break out from social restrictions and find an inner sense of order, purpose and meaning. In order to achieve that there is a need for dedication to purity, never showing weakness, seeking to find the spiritual in the physical. That conflict can develop into disillusionment or perhaps even something darker and more dangerous.

Short but densely layered, Henze finds a way in his musical treatment of his 1989 opera Das verratene Meer (The Sea Betrayed) to illustrate and probe those lusts, passions and urges and then attempt to align them with a sense of order that topples over into disorder. There are signs of repression of urges and taboo behaviour in the household of Fusako Kuroda, a widow in the Japanese port of Yokohama, the owner of a clothes shop, who still has sexual urges and seeks out company of sailors. Her 13 year old son Noboru has incestuous thoughts about his mother and spies on her when she undresses at night.

Mrs Kuroda is invited by Ryuji Tsukazaki, the second mate on the freighter Rakuyo Maru which has just come into port, to look around the ship, bringing Noboru with her. Ryuji describes himself as a man of the sea, someone who has a close relationship with the sea that is different from those who live on the land. The sea offered him a sense of excitement exploration and adventures, the sense of something else out there, but it hasn't lived up to its promise. He finds one port very much the same as the other, yet is still drawn towards the sea. When Fusako invites him over to get to know him better however, he sees the possibility of settling down there. 

Noboru isn't sure what to make of this new man in his mother's life. He sees a man conflicted and spies on Ryuji and his mother making love. Lacking a father and fascinated by the sea and adventure he idolises the sailor, wants to ensure that he finds his purpose, a sense of fulfillment, something that proves that there is meaning and order on the world. His friends however are less impressed. Influenced by them Noboru comes to lose faith in the sailor, seeing his infatuation with his mother as a weakness, one that steers him away from his much more important 'pure' relationship with sea.

In some ways the psychology of the work is basic archetypes, a little bit Freudian, but there is definitely an ambiguity to the resulting shock outcome that Mishima and Henze perhaps have different outlooks on. For Mishima its an allegory for the Japanese nation's fall from glory whereas for Hans Werner Henze - without changing a single thing about the work - Das verratene Meer can be seen as something different. Not unlike his version of Der Prinz von Homburg, it undercuts the idealisation of a heroic death, and like Homburg,Henze is undoubtedly drawing on the same personal response to his own country, his father, his experience of the military and his homosexuality.

Henze's music is by no means purely illustrative accompaniment then but seeks to conjoin the drama with the inner forces and the nature of the world. Order is imposed by man and is not only contrary to nature - as the killing of a cat can be said to demonstrate - but it can lead to harmful and dangerous consequences. Inevitably it's tense, driven, dark music that inhabits the same sound world as Benjamin Britten's dark explorations of human conflict and lusts as The Turn of the Screw and Death in Venice, although coming a different musical tradition, that of Alban Berg with a little of the harsh dissonance of Aribert Reimann.

Henze uses a full range of orchestra resources at his disposal to achieve this, with full orchestral blasts as well as reduced instrumentation, punctuated with various percussion sounds. As with the Stuttgart Der Prinz Von Homburg, there is  terrific cast and orchestra here to do justice to the force of Henze's unsettling score, and a sympathetic conductor in Simone Young. The final cymbal claps of the execution of the sailor by the teenage boys coming across not just like killing blows, but like the crashing of waves from the vengeful sea.

Superbly directed by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito for maximum impact of the unsettling qualities of the work, the production sets the opera in the surroundings of a port of bare concrete. That and the presence of railings that signify the presence of the sea through, remain throughout the fourteen scenes that overlap and draw together the mental as well as physical locations of a bunker, a bedroom and the door of the shop. Brutalist ugliness and poetic reverie are in this way combined in the set design as they are in the music. Most impressive - as she was also in the cast for the 2018 Stuttgart Der Prinz von Homburg - is Vera-Lotte Böcker singing the challenging vocal range of Fusako, but there are excellent performances also from Josh Lovell as Noboru and Bo Skovhus as Ryuji.

Links: Wiener Staatsoper, Wiener Staatsoper Live

Gounod - Faust (Vienna, 2021)

Charles Gounod - Faust

Wiener Staatsoper, 2021

Bertrand de Billy, Frank Castorf, Juan Diego Flórez, Nicole Car, Adam Palka, Étienne Dupuis, Martin Häßler, Kate Lindsey, Monika Bohinec

Wiener Staatsoper Live - 29 April 2021

It doesn't surprise me that some opera lovers would not be too fond of the directorial style of Frank Castorf. He certainly has his own unique approach to opera that is not to everyone's taste. Even if you are open to new ways of presenting opera, there's an awful lot thrown into a Castorf production; some of it obviously related to the work, other elements rather less so. It can be hard work and while you might want to put the effort in for something like Der Ring des Nibelungen, From The House of the Dead or Die Vögel, you might be less inclined to see all the Castorf tricks employed on something as popular as Gounod's Faust.

Opera however is a multi-faceted artform and the best works prove to be adaptable to renovation and reconsideration. Through its very nature Faust should provide not only plenty of entertaining songs, beautiful arias and dramatic situations for singing and dancing, but it should also be able to address other deeper elements in Dr Faustus's search for love, youth and the meaning of life. Entering into a pact with Satan in exchange for such knowledge inevitably brings up questions of morality, religion and war, which means there is plenty for a director like Frank Castorf to get his teeth into.

Castorf's approach is seemingly haphazard and random, a bit of a mess frankly on first viewing, particularly if you are looking for all the familiar situations and signposts. I mean, there are signposts up there pointing to Paris locations, but not the kind that help you find a direction through the drama. Rather than view the opera as a continuous narrative or, in the case of Gounod's opera, a series of separate scenes that build up into an overall work, Castorf goes for the holistic approach and puts everything on the stage all at once. And it's not just the sets all on a revolving platform and even piled on top of one another, but characters and separate incidents, unrelated to the main scene, are all shown simultaneously backstage, projected in live camera shots on screens. It's an awful lot to take in all at once.

So there on Aleksandar Denić's revolving set, you can see a condensed Paris, past and future all piled on top of one another, front and behind, interiors opening onto exteriors, with a cafe, a church, a butcher shop, the Folies Bergère, and residential apartments. It's dressed in typical Castorf fashion, with obscure movie posters, a telephone booth, a Coke machine. There's even a metro station recreated, the Stalingrad station, where Kate Lindsey's Siébel comes out wearing a desert combat military uniform, his feet bloodied.

With police and foreign legion soldiers in kepis, one of Castorf's targets here is at least clear enough. Valentin emerges out of the metro and paints the words "Algeria is French" on the wall, while additional texts and commentary point to a less idealistic view of Valentin's military exploits, De Gaulle and France's colonialist history and atrocities. The devil is indeed in the detail and there's no doubting the nature of Mephistopheles here. He's not some smooth businessman or smart-dressed nobleman. He comes complete with demonic accoutrements; hairy goat legs, horse tail and hooves. He's a voodoo practitioner, using live snakes, he's menacing and seductive. 

Having thrown all that onto the stage with not a great deal of rationale provided, there's little evidence either of much character development or direction of the singers. Juan Diego Flórez is allowed to stand and sing arias out directly to the audience in an arm waving concert performance delivery. Nicole Car likewise delivers arias outward, but makes up for this by appearing to be much more emotionally attuned to Marguerite and her sad fate. Here Marguerite is not the naive waif we are accustomed to, but since this is the 21st century (or 20th maybe) she is more worldly wise. She puffs on opium and has a good time, but is not fool enough to trust Faust and takes responsibility for her own mistakes.

Frank Castorf appears to be more in his element when he can abandon the limitations of the libretto and "surreptitiously" film Faust and Marguerite behind the scenes with handheld cameras in manufactured situations. This can be a little bit 'random' particularly when filming and developing the other characters Marthe and Siébel. If there is anything that helps guide you through Castorf's production, something compelling that holds like an anchoring point in all the madness, it's Nicole Car's performance that places Marguerite at the heart of Gounod's opera. It's an outstanding performance which could prove to be her defining role.

Juan Diego Flórez can hit the notes all right but his voice is a little too lightweight for Faust, when it needs more of an Alagna or Kaufmann. He doesn't make the same kind of impression that Car does, but aside from the operatic gesturing to the non-existent audience (the production here filmed during lockdown in an empty theatre), it's not a bad performance. Adam Palka is an excellent Mephistopheles, fully entering into the demonic nature of this version of the character and proving to be menacing in tone and performance. Bertrand de Billy conducted the work with a fullness of melody and drama.

I'm not so sure that Castorf really connects with Gounod's Faust or has anything insightful to say about it, but he certainly gives you plenty of opportunity to reconsider the work and see it in a new light. You can question the validity of that approach since for the most part that has less to do with the actual work than the peripheral action, in the additional behind the scenes projections and twists of characterisation. Whether it works or not, whether it's convincing or not isn't the point. You don't have to agree with his choices, but even that allows you to firm up your own convictions about the work. That, as far as I'm concerned, is certainly better than having nothing to contribute.

Links: Vienna State Opera, Wiener Staatsoper Live